Understanding Kapalabhati | Kapalabhati Pranayama | Skull Shining Breathing Technique| @VentunoYoga

Transcript

[Music] hi everyone i'm sanjina prasad welcome to yoga and you today we're going to talk about kapalabhati what are its benefits contraindications how to begin your practice and how to progress in the practice of kapalabhati means frontal lobe cleansing the literal meaning kapala skull bati shining skull so kapalabhati is a kriya or a cleansing technique which helps you to prepare or it is a warm up for a formal pranayama practice kapalabhati uses forceful exhalations and slightly longer and passive inhalations so when you begin your practice make sure you understand your breathing pattern first when you inhale your belly should expand chest should expand when you exhale your belly and your chest should relax so before we move into the practice if you're pregnant or on your period you have heart issues or high blood pressure please do not practice kapalabhati but kapalabhati can be beneficial because it is an energizing uh cleansing technique it helps to warm up the body it helps to clear your sinuses making way for a long and healthy pranayama practice so let's begin with today's practice we're going to start by placing your right palm on your belly let's understand the breath first so as you inhale you find that your lower belly expands as you exhale you find that your lower belly contracts make sure you're not doing the opposite right inhale belly expands exhale it contracts one more time inhale belly expands exhale belly contracts now kapalabhati uses short forceful exhalations so you're going to exhale forcefully through the nostrils and you're going to keep the mouth closed completely inhale start to exhale forcefully through the nostrils once you're comfortable with this exhalation i want you to combine it by with contracting your abdomen every time you exhale inhale exhale and draw the belly in [Music] you can use your palm to push the belly inwards make sure you're not doing the opposite here again inhale let's try one more time pushing the belly in forceful exhalation [Music] once you're comfortable with the forceful exhalation combined with drawing and sucking the belly in you're going to combine this with one more aspect when you suck the belly in you're also going to draw up your anal muscles so two things are going to be combined here drawing the belly in and drawing up your anal muscles and forceful exhalations through the nose when you begin your practice of kapalabhati keep the space between every exhalation a little longer try not to go too fast avoid this kind of a practice maintain a very moderate space inhale this would be a perfect pace to go at so we're going to try drawing the belly in and drawing up your anal muscles at the same time let's do eight forceful exhalations moderate bass inhale begin [Music] [Music] relax when you're very comfortable with this technique of drawing up your anal muscles and contracting the abdomen and the forceful exhalation you can start to speed it up a little bit and from eight exhalations we can push it to 15 or 20 or even 30 repetitions so let's try 20 exhalations at one stretch take a deep breath in let your palm continue to stay on your belly and begin 20. [Music] relax once you're comfortable with 20 or 30 exhalations this way you can also advance your practice by changing the arm position in which you do kapalabhati so instead of placing your palms on the knees or your palm on the belly you can lift your arms up from the sides interlock your fingers above the head and do the same practice [Music] [Music] exhale and bring your hands down if this is also very comfortable for you and you're also able to increase the speed of your practice and maintain the same 30 counts you can do an alternative arm position which is taking your palms on the opposite shoulder blades exhale and relax when you're able to do three or four rounds of 30 exhalations each then you can start to combine the rounds eventually doing about 108 exhalations at one stretch in one arm position or you can continue to change the arm positions as you do these 108 repetitions so this is how we start from a very basic kabala bhati and progress to an advanced level combining with the anal contraction and changing the arm position and also increased number of repetitions at one stretch i really hope this video was helpful in understanding kapalabhati kriya thank you and see you in another episode of yoga [Music]