Breathing is everything, but many of us don’t breathe properly. The reason why I started to become more conscious about my breathing is when my neck and shoulders always felt tensed. I learned proper breathing provides your body the proper amount of oxygen needed to burn fat and perform at optimal levels. In fact, every cell in your body needs oxygen to survive.
According to the University of Missouri-Kansas City, oxygen levels can drop 20 percent as we age, partially due to poor breathing habits.
All of these thoughts and articles based around breathing made me want to research more which is when I came across the Wim Hoff Method.
Here’s Wim Hoff sharing his methods with Joe Rogan.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A9zS94x2nd8
This led me to dive deeper into his breathing methods and then found out that Laird Hamilton, one of the best athletes in the world, is a practitioner of Wim Hoff Method and uses it on a daily basis and when he teaches others about the XPT Life.
When it comes to building a Kū body, I am always on a search of adding tools to my toolbox to help others. I am not totally comfortable with teaching these breathing methods because I am still a student but I think people can benefit from becoming more aware of their breath.
Lately, I’ve been playing with Mana Flows to improve performance and manage stress levels.
I’ve been adding in Kū Breathing while either sitting, in a static stretch position, or laying flat on the ground.
Hof:“By not breathing out entirely, you come to a point where a residual of air remains in the lungs. After doing this thirty times, you exhale again without any use of force. This time though, you don’t immediately inhale again, but wait with inhaling until you sense your body needs new oxygen. After this, the whole process starts again. While you start to sensations of lightness, laxity and tingling, these rounds are repeated a number of times”
Download his free ebook: http://www.wimhofmethod.com/ebook-whm/
After the breathing exercises there is a sensation of tingling and somewhat of an inner peace. My body feels lighter and if I’m holding a static stretch position, my muscles feel much less tense.
Again, I’m still learning about being more aware of your breath and how your breath can improve your overall health and performance which all sounds Ku to me. Maybe one day I’ll take Wim Hoff’s course or find myself training along side Laird Hamilton and the XPT Life Crew.
Until then, I’ll continue to be a student and share what I learn through my experiences and findings.
