Sat nam! As you may be aware, I am in the middle of launching the fifth of my six online Yoga for Freediving programmes, Success and Failure, and today is the day of the BIG GIVE-AWAY! A full 45-minute yoga flow sequence to start your day, prepare you for your dives, and just make you feel fully alive and happy!
This sequence, or the exercises in it, are often used as warm-ups before a Kundalini yoga class. However, they also stand alone as incredible exercises in their own right. They are all done in sitting postures, meaning that they can also be done by people who are incapacitated or don't have the physical strength for standing postures. They focus on flexibility and energising the spine. The reason for this is that in yogic anatomy the spine is the primary channel that carries the life force energy within us. If your spine is stiff and blocked, then so is your life force!
The powerful breathing completely cleanses your blood, flushing out toxins and the waste products of metabolism. You may feel like you're hyperventilating, and that's absolutely fine! In fact, it's great and - AS LONG AS YOU DON'T DO IT DIRECTLY BEFORE A DIVE - hyperventilation is a powerful way to increase your lung capacity and strengthen your lung tissue. Not to mention it gives you a completely natural and free high! So enjoy it!
I always use a few of these simple exercises to warm-up before I get in the water. I was once diving with a friend, who had never had a dry pre-dive preparation sequence - he would get suited up, jump in the water, and then struggle through a series of hangs and FRCs, before his dive response and relaxation kicked in to make him feel like he was finally enjoying the session, hopefully before he started getting cold. On our fourth or fifth training day together, I suggested he join me for some of my warm-ups and the difference was incredible - his first hang was longer, more relaxed, and way more enjoyable than his fourth or fifth would previously have been. He had found a way to prepare his body and mind for diving, to leap-frog all of those unpleasant dives, which felt like an evil necessity before, and get straight to the fun and bliss of being in the ocean and really 'feeling' the water and his body.
His story is not unique in my experience of sharing these exercises over the years. I sincerely hope that you enjoy them too.
To really explore how yoga and meditation might benefit your freediving and your life, get yourself a copy of any of my Yoga for Freediving programmes - just $50 per course and over five hours of amazing videos in each one to help you with your freediving, mind, body and spirit.
Much love and happiness above and below the waves...