Exploring Breath

Hi there. Sarah Burticelli here. Let's talk about breath. I'm super passionate about breath and really reexploring breath with my clients and myself, and I'd like to share a little bit of what I know with you. The most important thing to remember is that breath is life.

Oh, wow. That's kind of powerful. Breath is actually the foundation of our core system, and we really need to continuously work on our breath in order to stay strong from the inside out. Oftentimes I feel like in the Pilates journey, we we teach breath at the very beginning to teachers, right? My students who are wanting to become teachers. And then oftentimes the breath is not reexplored over and over. And it should be something that we're practicing daily. Now I'm going to tell you that what I'm sharing with you right now would be and could be a a full day workshop.

So I'm trying to create a path to just a handful of nuggets that you can use in your teaching journey right here right now and hopefully inspire you to continue to work on the breath and how to shape the breath and how to relax the breath. So A piece of the puzzle that is important to pay attention to is, when when I'm asking people to really step back, because I want them to use their bodies a little bit better, or I want them to to try to feel their body a little differently. Sometimes it feels like we're slowing down too much. And that's not really my intent with the work. The intent would be that we're using the breath to calm the nervous system to nourish the cells.

To help identify where there might be a roadblock in the body where trauma could be sitting and to teach the body to calm and soften that roadblock and allow the body to then work better. That's the idea. So a couple things that I see a lot with breathing is, over breathing and stuck breath. So I'm going to help a little bit later show you what that means. Over breathing, I'm seeing a lot of exhaling inhaling real quick breaths where, usually it's shaped with or shaped for a, certain move. So we're doing a quick single leg stretch with a quick inhale and exhale. And we're not really using the whole of the breath.

And in certain circumstances, I think it's really beautiful to to change up the rhythm and the pattern of the breath, but what's also important is that we can, in fact, breathe fully in the diaphragm. And I feel Also, what people think is diaphragmatic breathing is oftentimes a bearing down and a pushing out of the belly. In fact, what we're trying to create, when or what what should happen when the diaphragm is working is we should have The cylinder that is the core is going to stay where it is. And the breath is going to expand to the lungs, which will expand the ribs lateral and posterior. The ribs themselves will expand when you inhale, and then they'll exhale. And it'll kind of unexpand if you will or it'll deflate a little bit.

Now the diaphragm is actually doing the opposite of what we think if you're not completely clear as to when it's contracting and relaxing. This is what's happening. When you inhale, your diaphragm contracts, your pelvic diaphragm, your pelvic bowl softens. And when you exhale, if you pull a little bit of energy from that pelvic floor, it contracts a smidge and your breathing diaphragm floats up. So as you inhale, they both go down.

And as you exhale, they both go up. And that's how we get that beautiful massage in your organs from the inside out. Being able to breathe like that, whether you have a relaxed core or an active core is the challenge. So I really wanna help you understand that there's not a lot of difference between yoga breathing and pilates breathing. And what I'd like to also help you understand what relaxed breath really looks like.

Cause often times, when we think we're breathing in our belly, we think we're doing what we were taught, we're actually bearing down and creating pressure and we're creating a system that's not as ideal as it could be. Okay. Now let's experience and witness how to learn to breathe a little differently. I have Jackie here as my student. Let's get started. Jack, you go ahead and lie down on the mat here and settle in. Okay. Beautiful. You're in perfect placement here.

So the first thing I will do with my clients in the studio is just ask them to be for a moment. Sometimes close your eyes, sometimes open your eyes, whatever makes the most sense. But will you just breathe in and breathe out? I'm gonna tell you too often I witness people hurrying up and moving. And most of our clients need a little bit of time to ground themselves in order to move better and stronger. So oftentimes you'll hear me say the calm before the storm. So let's take this beautiful calm breathing pattern and learn how to shape the breath a little better.

So you're on your back, you're breathing in, and you're breathing out. First, I'm going to use this as a little bit of an assessment for the body in front of me and better understand how to teach this body throughout the rest of the session. What I can see right here is there is a little bit of a rib flare And there's a little bit of a stuck breathing right here. So we're breathing up and down right here in the tummy. And when I see this breath right here, I know we're stuck in a state of inhalation, and we're breathing only in this one little area oftentimes people think this is belly breathing, but this is actually restricted breathing.

So we're gonna see a little bit of a different breath pattern in just a moment here. First, feel your head heavy. Try to feel as best as possible your ribs heavying up a little bit. And we have a nice neutral pelvis here. Now, Jackie, I'd like you to take a nice inhale when the time comes, and then I'd like you to spend a little bit of time exhaling completely for me and get every last bit of air. Keep breathing. Keep breathing.

Keep breathing. You see how she's exhaling. These ribs are starting to go down a little bit. I'm gonna encourage them to go down a little bit more. My fingers right here on her sternum. Now you're gonna breathe in and you're gonna try to keep those ribs where they are.

And you're gonna exhale and you're gonna ground your ribs a little more. Now what I can see, will you lift this arm up and just place it behind your head and just lift your elbow a little bit and your head can rest. What I do here is also stick my hands right underneath the ribs, and I'll do it sometimes on both sides, sometimes just on one side. And I shouldn't be able to get my hand here. Yeah. So, Jackie, I want you to squish my hand like a bug.

And now with your next inhale, I'm gonna use my thumb very gently just to ask her to feel that this sternum stays grounded through the back body when she inhales and exhale completely is your goal. Now she's starting to wait on me. Now if somebody can't move their ribs down, we could put a little towel under there and give them something to work on work with. But right now, I'm feeling her lateral posterior breathing starting to happen. I actually felt her ribs expand into my hand.

With her beautiful with her inhale. Her now and I'm just following her breath. What I've discovered over the years is if I ask people to breathe at a certain pace, they get confused and stressed. So she's inhaling into my hand. Beautiful squishing my hand.

It's wonderful. And then exhaling completely. And what's happened here if you could see the top of her rib cage, the angle of her rib was very tight because she was gripped. And now the angle of her rib at her xiphoid process is a little bit open. And she is definitely executing a beautiful lateral posterior breath here. I did not talk about the abdominals at all. I have a question.

Do you feel your abs? Yes. That's a yes. Okay? So she feels that she's currently working her abs to stabilize this position because of the way she breathed. Simistically, we have got to get those low ribs to ground down. If you tell people will you relax for a second and go back to where you wanna be, If I said use your abs to ground your ribs, do what you might do. Good. So she's gonna squeeze right here is what I saw her wanna do. Okay? So I'm gonna go back to use your breath to stand on my hand with your exhale completely push on me.

Now continue to breathe, Jackie. You're doing an excellent job. If somebody has a little bit of extra tightness in the neck and they're straining in the neck, we could put a towel underneath their head. Right now, Jackie's hand is acting as the towel. And the reason for that is just so you can see what I'm doing. So it's working out really beautifully.

I'm encouraging her to keep that ribcage grounded when she exhales or get it grounded when she exhales. And keep it grounded as she inhales into my hand. Beautiful. Now go ahead and release your hand. Put your arm by your side and just settle for movement. Now Couple minutes of that in a session is probably enough.

Maybe five minutes. I might have spent a little more time in teaching it, but we wanna spend a few minutes really asking people to breathe. And what I can tell from that is that I've got a little bit of coaching to do with both breath and how to use the abdominals more holistically. Here we're gonna take this into movement, though. The cue I like to use a lot is root to rise.

So I'm not gonna say engage your abs. I'm not even gonna really say tuck your pelvis. I'm gonna say this. Inhale through your nose. When you're ready, use an exhale to get your rib cage grounded like we've been practicing, float your pelvis up.

You are articulating ideally. At the top, what I see is this flared rib position. So we're gonna keep the pelvis where it is. You're gonna soften your rib cage down a little more, a little more, a little more, a little more, a little more, a little more stay there. Okay. Why don't you lift your arm up and put it where it was before? Just so people can see, can you pull this rib down to me a little more beautiful.

So I want this to stay engaged. So there's this opposition of the ribs related to the pelvis position. I'm gonna tell you this girl is using her abs now before she was fueling it more with her back. Sometimes people tell me they feel they're back in the pelvic curl, and we shouldn't feel the back. The ribs have to stay down right through here with the pelvis up. Now when you articulate through those back ribs first, really press those back ribs into my hand, more from here, more from here. Yes, my friend.

Until your pelvis comes all the way home. Now it's a little hard to keep the ribs down when the shoulders overhead if we have a little tightness, and she's working through some new things with me. So that's a little hard for her to do, but she's doing a good job. Thank you, Jackie. One more time. Take a breath.

So come all the way home, tailbone down. Thank you. Now I'm just gonna help her with the ribs. I tend to not put my hands on top because people get grippy here. I like to put my hand down here because it helps them feel where they need to go, and then you use the abs a little bit better. Go ahead and root the ribs to float the pelvis up. That was excellent.

You're squishing me squishing me squishing me. Now as you continue lifting, this does begin to lift up, but you wanna feel that opposition. You can go a little higher. Keep going. Keep going. Keep going. That was excellent right there. Good.

Take a breath. Now lead from here. So feel that upper thoracic spine, middle thoracic spine, low spine. And then finally, the pelvis comes home. Beautiful. Go ahead and put your arm down by your side and relax for a second. So that is an absolute lovely way to get started and to begin the process of really teaching breath related to movement. Already, what I see is Jackie. Now you're relaxed kind of.

And your rib cage is just settled more, which is really nice. We did two pelvic curls and a few minutes of breathing. So imagine how good this would get if we kept moving. Right? Now I wouldn't go into all these different ideas of reeducating breath on the first session. I'm gonna say, over time, I'm going to infuse more of these ideas into the body because what is important is that you give your student your client time to move.

Movement heals. So if I get so caught up in the details that in one hour, I do two pelvic curls, I'm not actually moving. So you wanna figure out how to use these nuggets, create the path that you're hoping to move along see a little bit of an adjustment. Use that to your advantage to the student's advantage and then continue on. So another tool that I like to use at some point in the journey. This is a little nugget that you'll choose to infuse when it makes sense to you is teaching my clients, my students how to, find that relaxed breath feeling. So we're gonna use our fingers, and we wanna just, like, pull up the shirt a little bit here, Jackie, so I can see your rib cage. Okay?

So So she tends to have a narrow angle at her ribs, which shows me there's some sticky tightness in here. Okay? And we're gonna try to learn how to see what it feels like to soften that a little bit by using our own hands. Now I do do some manual therapies with other things I do. So I sometimes use my hands right here on the ribs. I wouldn't recommend necessarily going into somebody and using your fingers the way I'm going to. I'm gonna recommend you asking them to use their fingers, and I'll show you how to do that in a moment, but But what I'm doing here is just kind of palpating right at the top very gently so I can feel where the ribs are and I can see that there is a narrow rib angle.

So now I'm just going to have you softly relax. You're not trying to do anything. You're gonna take a breath for me. And then with your exhale, just get all the air out. And when she exhales all the air out, that's when try not to use your abs.

There you go. That's when my hands can sink in a little. Good. So now inhale, and I'm sort of displaying, spreading, helping her create a wider angle. And she's just so malleable. It's really beautiful. And you're just breathing when it makes sense with the inhale.

Good. And then hail, and you're gonna try not to squeeze me. I'm just gonna help you. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Beautiful. And you feel that. Right? Good. As we inhale, I'm sort of helping her splay. And what you can see here is this real kind of soft belly area. I'm looking for no engagement in the abdominals.

Now if it's tricky to get the ribs to soften down without engagement, you might wanna put a little towel underneath there so people feel restful, but you're doing a great job with this. So just keep breathing in And as you exhale, that's when my fingers can kinda sink in. And what I ultimately wanna do is be able to get all the way up into that rib right there. Yeah? And help spread that. Do you feel that that's tender a little bit. Right? Yeah. She says yes.

So what if I were to hold this and you breathe in your mind into this left lung, into this left rib, and just take your time going nice and slow inhale, and exhale completely? And what if you were to put your tailbone down a little more? Tell me if you feel something. Oh, I felt release and more tenderness. Right? Yeah. What if you were to rotate your pelvis a little toward me? You feel how that changes it a little? Maybe a little more tension. Yep. I'm not pushing that hard with my fingers, and I'm not gonna break her rib.

I'm just kind of like creating a little path for the tissue. K? Now because it feels really good when somebody does it to you, I'm gonna do the other side to Jackie. You can do both sides at the same time, and then I'll show you how she could do it to herself. Okay? So here, I've got this. She's nice and relaxed now. It's very different.

We're not trying to use the abs. It took a minute for you to relax. Isn't it? Yeah. Like, to not try to hold this. So I've just got my fingers gently, and I'm not digging with my fingernails. I've just got my feel the edge here, and the tissues just soft. Right? Now, ideally, if we have enough looseness here, softness in the belly, my fingers should be able to get pretty much underneath those ribs.

And I'm just kind of, like, gonna that's where the diaphragm actually is. So now when you inhale, you're gonna feel your diaphragm in my finger. And then when you exhale completely, everything goes soft because that's when your diaphragm is relaxed. Yeah. And then when you inhale, if you push me out or you push yourself out, that's you using your abdominal muscles for the breathing rather than your actual diaphragm.

Yeah. And look at how soft she is. I'm doing this little wiggling, and she's just kind of And, Jackie, will you confirm that my pressure is not that hard? It doesn't feel uncomfortable. Right? Yeah. It's like I'm not doing much here. I'm doing a lot, but I'm not doing much. Now, like I mentioned, I just wanted you to see what it looked like when I'm helping her. Now I'm qualified to do this.

This is something I do, but guess what? You can do it to yourself. You can guide people to do it to themselves. So when you take your fingers, and will you find like your xiphoid process to find the upper angle, and then just kinda like figure out where you can get your fingers in a little. And then hang out there for a little while. And then we're gonna do the exact same thing here. Look at this beautiful, like, hollow belly right here. It's nice and relaxed.

I'm not looking for it to be hollow. It's just relaxed. What I can see here So her her hands at her ribs makes her wanna tuck her pelvis more. So what we're gonna try to do to restore that synergy between the breathing diaphragm and the pelvic diaphragm is we're gonna try to feel that we're stretching first here When you exhale completely, you'll feel you can dig your fingers in a little bit more maybe. If you find a tender spot, your hands are on that tender spot gently. And when you inhale, you wanna keep that open angle.

Open here, and you wanna be able to feel that energetically you're trying to get your ribs to ground soften more into the table without effort. Yeah. Okay. Now with that, just play a little bit with tailbone down a smidge more. And does that make you feel something different? It does. I can see the nodding.

It's excellent. And then breathe. And then again, go down a little bit. And beautiful. This is really cool.

She's really getting that. Now release your hands. Put your arms by your side. And then this happens where your fingernails get stuck and get little red marks. But can you just without using your abs feel that your rib cage is more grounded heavier?

I'm gonna just put my hand right here, and I don't want you to think of it as an abdominal exercise. I just want you to settle and breathe and try to put your tail down a smidge more. Now can you sense that central tendon? Can you sense inhaling? The pelvic diaphragm and the breathing diaphragm go down? And when you exhale, they float up.

Good. And what I see right here is a slightly different look naturally without effort. And that to me is success today. So what I see is this, like, calmer, beautiful breath, and, naturally, the rib cage is just a little bit more settled without efforting through the abdominals. So as far as I'm concerned, this is a beautiful we're moving in the right direction. I'm interested to see how Jackie feels.

Will you come to a seat for me? And do you how do you feel different? I feel a lot more relaxed. She feels a lot more relaxed, and I feel that that is a huge success. Baby steps. That's all we can ask for. Thank you for playing.