Coach's Pre-reqs as Yoga :)

I did a little bit of Ashtanga Yoga before finding Coach's book on gymnastics. One thing i like about Yoga was the deep breathing while holding and uncomfortable position.

I don't know if anyone else does this but i have taken to putting some Yoga 'chill out' type music in my ipod and working through the parts of the pre-reqs series in breaths rather than time. It basically feels like doing yoga.

5 'yoga' breaths for me is a bit over 60 seconds in positions where i can breath easily - i.e planks. And is exactly 60seconds on movements that are harder to breath normally, i.e Hollow Hold, L Sits.

I put them together in a series where one flows to the other pretty naturally.

i.e - Plank into Arch hold. Roll over into Hollow Hold bring the hands down and up into Reverse Plank. (you get the idea).

For hollow and arch rocks i just worked out how many breaths roughly equalled reps and did the same thing and integrated it in.

I was doing this down the park right on the beach the other day and someone asked me what style of Yoga i practised! i should have said Coach Sommer Yoga!

Anyway i find it really fun doing it like this. I do some actual Yoga a couple of times a week as well to help with my terrible flexability.

ANyway just thought i'd share. See if anyone else had done something similar.

There is a good chance that many of yoga poses have a gymnastic origin, so there it's no wonder you find there are similarities.

The man who first taught Ashtanga yoga was charged with the task of helping to develop a uniquely Indian system of physical culture. But it was at time when there were already numerous outside influences in India.

That aside, the FSP's all have a counterpart that can be found in yoga.

Regarding the breathing, i also did Ashtanga for many years, and know the style of breathing well. I works fine for the easier FSPs as you say. Just keep in mind that as the difficulty grows you will have to shift to a sharper shorter type of breathing and this isn't wrong.

Just last week i had a student doing long Ujayi breathing while we were doing the FSPs and i actually tried to get him to stop so he could learn to take shorter breaths and keep a solid midsection. I was telling him neither is right or wrong but to build a breathing repertoire.

Cole (or anyone else with Yoga breathing experience)

When working on handstands, as I try to pull down my ribs while tightening my abs I find it hard not to hold my breath. Whats the right breathing technique?

Cole Dano said:

There is a good chance that many of yoga poses have a gymnastic origin, so there it's no wonder you find there are similarities.

The man who first taught Ashtanga yoga was charged with the task of helping to develop a uniquely Indian system of physical culture. But it was at time when there were already numerous outside influences in India.

That aside, the FSP's all have a counterpart that can be found in yoga.

Regarding the breathing, i also did Ashtanga for many years, and know the style of breathing well. I works fine for the easier FSPs as you say. Just keep in mind that as the difficulty grows you will have to shift to a sharper shorter type of breathing and this isn't wrong.

Just last week i had a student doing long Ujayi breathing while we were doing the FSPs and i actually tried to get him to stop so he could learn to take shorter breaths and keep a solid midsection. I was telling him neither is right or wrong but to build a breathing repertoire.

This is really interesting. I will keep that in mind and thanks for the advice. In terms of short sharper breathing for the more difficult static positions do you breath in the nose and exhale sharply through the mouth? that's how I have been doing it - but i'm not at anything really too hard yet.

cdx said:

Cole (or anyone else with Yoga breathing experience)

When working on handstands, as I try to pull down my ribs while tightening my abs I find it hard not to hold my breath. Whats the right breathing technique?

How do you breathe doing a hollow hold? I haven't heard any handbalancers talk about this. I notice in pressing i have to concentrate on balance so much i can't think to breathe, which is i guess a different thing. In both cases, I believe it's an issue of more practice time to get it to be more natural and the breathing will come.

I'll try to remember to ask Mikael about this next time we're in contact.