IAP : The evolution of breath, healing, The revolution of movement medicine
Three weeks ago I entered a beautiful yoga ceremony process through assisting my teacher Ana Forrest at her and her partner’s Foundation Teacher Training in Fort Worth Texas. I know by fact that when someone enters this experience with a certain readiness She/He may receive many learning to evolve both as a Forrest Yoga teacher, and practitioner.
Turning the wheel of time back to two years ago, Brian and I took a weekend workshop with Ana. She came up to me coaching me on pressing the right side of my mid/low back into the floor during abdominal exercises. My body had no visceral clue on how to do that but I figured throughout next year’s self practice that it was something I needed to put my attention to I just did not know how to. (As a side note -due to post-partum disconnect from that area- Ana also coached me to get my lady muscles involved while turning on the abs and getting my lower belly pull down as I complete exhalation - another cue that my body had no clue on how to carry out).
Back to Texas Training just couple weeks ago I received more puzzle pieces from Ana. She -amongst many teaching cues such as how to project my voice across a full size gym- coached me through engaging my lower abs, completing the movement with pubic bone curl. (If you are like me and have a history of disconnecting from your lower abs, lowering your head in elbow to knees will help activating your lower abs, adding that second move of tilting pubic bone to navel). At this point I was already playing with our evolved IAP breath work (note this is not the forceful IAP but the type that encourages your breath to go to where it is normally not accessible). Brian (my hubby and Forrest Yoga guardian) says that breath naturally and habitually goes to where we are already open and created a pathway of access. What we do with IAP is next level! Turning on our intelligence, we guide our breath to the ‘uncharted’ territories where we hold most of our structural tension and pain (physical and emotional) patterns. According to Jambo (Forrest Yoga guardian and my dear brother) IAP is the hardest to access in the low back, and according to my opinion is the most therapeutic place to bring breath to! Getting my breath into my low back has been the key for me to access my sleepy mid back and some ribs that had been out of place for a long time (turned out - thanks to Ana demoing on me during the Texas training that my sensitive right shoulder was caused by some ribs that were out of place and not the shoulder itself! ).
Coming home from Texas, we dived right into the 5 day Yoga Bodyworkers Training hosted at our LA studio. Just the evening before day1 Jambo and I had a personal practice where we took turns calling out poses. During this practice, for the first time I experienced something like a ‘second’ breath down in my lower belly. And my inversion work is changing too! Throughout the last few days of training focused on IAP my breath started to access mid back /rib cage too. I am now accessing my breath all the way down to my lower abs up into my mid back and rib cage in brand new ways! The learning does not stop here, can’t wait to explore more !
