Ujjayi Breath

Hi everyone, welcome to Yoga & You, I am Sanjana Prasad. In today's video we are going to be learning how to practice Ujjayi Pranayama, a beautiful technique also called victorious breathing. Ujjayi Pranayama helps you to lengthen the breath, both inhalation and exhalation. Unlike other Pranayama techniques where you need the help of the fingers to control the breath at the nostrils, here you are using the help of the throat. So it is a great technique to practice during your asana practice.

It gives you a point of focus because of the sound and the sensation at the throat, and it is also a very tranquilizing meditative practice. It helps you to calm down and puts you in a very introspective frame of mind. At the same time, Ujjayi is also a heating Pranayama, again why it is very good to practice during your asana practice, to bring in and build that warmth in the body. So, so many benefits for this beautiful practice, let's get started.

When you start practicing Ujjayi Pranayama, it can be a little bit tricky, might feel like your throat is getting a bit dry, you might feel like you want to cough. But I assure you, once you start practicing and you get used to the technique, the minute you step on your mat, you will automatically start using Ujjayi. So for Ujjayi, you are going to be inhaling and exhaling through the nose, but your point of focus will be at the throat. So you can place your palms on your knees, close your eyes, let's take a few normal breaths. Inhale, exhale, inhale, exhale, one more inhale and exhale.

Bring your awareness towards your throat, and I want you to visualize a ring at the throat. Now every inhale and exhale is going to pass through this ring, producing a gentle hissing sound. You're making a slight constriction at the back of the throat. Try one more breath, inhale, observe this sensation at the throat, listen to the sound of your breath, let's slowly open the eyes.

When you start off practicing again, you may not be too sure, am I doing it right or wrong? Two important things that you can focus on: one, sensation at the throat. What you're doing at the throat is you're imagining the throat to be a straw, you're making a slight constriction with this straw. So the time that the breath takes to go in and out will naturally increase, and also the breath, or your air, is brushing against the throat, which is what is producing that warmth and that gentle hissing sound. So with all these sensations, you will be able to gauge if you're practicing right or wrong, and naturally your breath will also start to lengthen.

These are clear cues that will tell you if you're practicing this pranayama technique in the right way or not. Now if the visualization of the ring and this practice is not accessible for you and you need a little bit more help, then the next method that we can try is you're going to think that you're blowing fog on a glass for your exhalation. So when you do this, you would breathe from the throat. That's how you get your fog on the glass. Similarly, when you're surprised, you take a deep inhalation into the throat this way. So you notice that the breath, even though you're inhaling and exhaling normally, is going directly in and out from the throat. So try to make the same sound with your mouth closed. So your inhalation is going through the nose but reaching your throat, exhalation is coming from the throat and out of the nose. Now using this technique, see if you can slow down your breath. Close your eyes, let's try this again. Inhale through the nose, bringing your focus to the throat.

So those are a few techniques and tips that you can try to practice Ujjayi. I always recommend to start practicing Ujjayi on exhalation first because it is more accessible and comes a little bit more naturally than inhale Ujjayi. Once you get comfortable with your Ujjayi exhalation, then you can focus on your Ujjayi inhalation. So these are a few techniques that you can practice to get comfortable with Ujjayi Pranayama. Ujjayi Pranayama can also be done with different ratios in terms of breath retention. It can also be combined with other Pranayama techniques like Bhramari and Sitkari, which I've already done videos on, and we will be providing the link for that. But these advanced pranayamas will only come after you get very very comfortable with Ujjayi. So I hope this video was a good initiation into the practice of Ujjayi. Thank you so much.