The Charger Breath

Here are your first instructions, your key Lesson in the Power Breathing technique. This first exercise is called the Charger Breath. Become very familiar with it, use it often every day, for it is the foundation of the system.

1. Do all breathing exercises sitting down, the first few days of practice. Use a comfortable chair, preferably straight-back so that your spine is nice and straight at all times during the exercise. Your feet should be flat on the floor, hands resting in lap or on knees. Head straight, facing frontally. Clothes should be loose (or none) and all belts, buttons or zippers about the abdomen should be loosened for maximum comfort and abdominal expansion.

2. Fix your gaze on a point straight ahead. This is an important step to begin with because it helps you concentrate on the breath without distraction. Later when you do the breathing randomly throughout your day while walking etc, this step may of course be eliminated.

3.The Charger Breath. Inhale deeply, strongly, even fiercely through the nostrils. Inhale just as deeply and powerfully as you possibly can. Inhale all the way, 'til you've gotten every last possible drop of air. Without holding or pausing, immediately exhale, strongly, evenly and thoroughly. This is a very strong, powerful breath; there's nothing timid or half-way about it. This is not the slow, quiet and gentle breath you may be used to or come to expect in association with the ordinary yogic techniques. This is more like a Tibetan Bomber, a full-throttle Samurai Snort. In order to perform it properly, you should go so far as to scrunch up your face, actually wrinkle your nose into a kind of ferocious expression similar to those stylized masks of Japanese Noh. With your Noh nose properly crinkled and pumping, you ought to look very much like a cartoon bull, snorting and blowing the bellows of those nasal wings as if you could lift full sail by tacking into the wind.

4. Now in your best, cartoon bull fashion, take three successive Charger Breaths. Remember as you concentrate on the point in front of you, to make each breath as strong and even and thorough as possible, both in and out. The expiration of each breath should be done as thoroughly as the inspiration, so that you are forcefully expelling the very last drop of air. As you do these breaths in succession, you should—if you're doing it properlysound like a freight train bearing down the track. Don't forget, this is a very powerful breath, not at all a timid or faint-hearted breath. It is accomplished crisply, with incisiveness. It should produce a loud rushing sound as it surges through your nostrils, like the suction of a powerful vacuum. As you become more accomplished, you should be able to whisk gnats out of the air and produce eddies of loose papers on your desk (anyway, you get the general idea).

5. At this stage you may do several complete rounds of the three Charger Breaths. Take three deep, powerful, decisive and thorough Charger Breaths. On the exhalation of that third breath, pause for a few moments (the third breath should be done with particular strength and emphasis; there is a tendency for some students to let the last breath tail off, as if they're in a hurry to go through the repetitions. The opposite should be the case; the last breath of the series should be particularly strong, thorough and emphasized). During the few-moments pause, you should make sure that your facial muscles, shoulders, neck, arms and legs are completely returned to a state of relaxation. The spine should always remain straight. Don't ever slouch or slump forward. Do another series of three breaths, pause a few moments, relax; then do the third series of three Charger Breaths. After the last series, sit still and feel. What do you feel like? What is the difference?

6. Increase the number of series-repetitions of the three Charger Breaths (for example, increase the count to seven by performing three Charger Breaths, pausing and relaxing, another three and so on until you've gone through seven whole rounds). Again, after completion of the seventh round, sit still and feel.

7. After some practice with the increased series-repetition, you should practice a shorter three-round series again only with a larger group of Charger Breaths, i.e. you should practice in clusters of five or seven Charger Breaths, repeating each cluster three times with pause and relaxation etc., as per previous instruction. Next, using the larger group of Charger Breaths (clusters of five or seven etc.), you should increase the overall series-repetition again to a five or seven round series, i.e. take seven deep, strong Charger Breaths, pause and relax, take seven more etc. until you've completed five (or seven) repetitions. Always sit still afterwards, relax and feel the effect.

Remember that the Charger Breath should be practiced sitting down at least the first couple days; one of the effects you may feel when first practicing the Breath is a kind of light-headed or giddy feeling. This is an effect of possible hyperventilation, and is the reason we recommend doing the Breath at first only while sitting down. Consistent practice of the Charger Breath will acclimate your system to a more positive and invigorating ratio of oxygen to carbon dioxide in the bloodstream and tissues, and the threshold of hyperventilation will quickly be pushed back. After a few weeks of regular practice you may well be able to do high numbers of series-repetitions using a big seven-group of breaths without experiencing any effects of hyperventilation at all.

Breathing Tips: the proper way to breathe is by abdominal expansion and contraction, not chest expansion and contraction. When you inhale, the Breath should cause the abdomen to be expressed or pushed out; it should not inflate the chest exaggeratedly as we are sometimes taught (improperly) in gym class, and it should not cause the shoulders to heave up and down unduly. On the exhalation the abdomen should automatically deflate and relax. Practice this abdominal breathing, even watch yourself in the mirror to see that the chest is not acting more than the abdomen, until it becomes second nature. This is in fact the body's natural breath, so that anything which emphasizes chest expansion over abdomen is artificial, learned and inappropriate.

Note: You may practice Charger Breathing every bit as much in a relatively polluted atmosphere like Los Angeles, as you can in relatively pollution-free environment like the country (if you can find a pollution-free country). It may seem that you'd be taking toxins and pollutants more deeply into the lungs than would ordinarily be the case; but chronic, superficial or shallow breathing takes all those pollutants in as well, and because it doesn't respire so deeply and thoroughly it fails to flush the alveoli of the bronchi, leaving harmful and carcinogenic pollutants to stagnate in the deeper strata of the lung-tissue. Charger Breathing cleanses and purifies those tissues by bringing necessary quantities of oxygen to their cells which otherwise would not penetrate, and by flushing old impacted pockets of carcinogenic matter sedimenting the deeper layers of the system.

Note: Do not practice Charger Breathing in the car with the windows rolled up, or on the highway. You may feel after weeks of practice that you are past the point of hyperventilation, so that it would be safe to Breathe while driving. However, the automobile (and especially in conjunction with the freeway system) circulates exhaust fumes through the cab of the car; exhaust fumes are tricky, for you may do a long series of Charger Breaths in the car feeling no ill effects, no giddiness or blurring of perception, then stop for a few moments and suddenly feel the onrush of a fainting spell produced by the accumulated intake of fumes. In the following months we will add to the technique and application of Power Breathing, with special reference to the cornerstone method of the Charger Breath. Look for us, and follow the special instruction we give to all, freely, in these pages month to month; follow the instruction as it's given, and you can't help but feel the resultant Change. In order to know what the great Change is that we're talking about, you must follow and do the practice.

Don't forget: Do your Charger Breathing daily. It is very important. Make the Power Breath more popular than jogging.

[First published in TNTC Vol. 1, No. 2 Aug.-Sept. '89]