In traditional yoga, breath and pranayama are considered central practices, more important than physical asana. This has not translated well into our contemporary value system: breath is undervalued in most yoga styles here. Why? Maybe it has to do with our emphasis on voluntary action, on our ability to consciously control the voluntary muscles of asana, whereas breath, while it can be consciously controlled to some extent, is ultimately not under our control. What do you think?
1 thought on “Why are breath and breath work undervalued?”
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Breath is always truthful and at certain times this honesty shows us our fears. I do agree with your premise that breath is undervalued in many of our contemporary yoga asana styles. Perhaps this is because loving and embracing our fullness, including our darkness is anathema to the dualistic and often candy coated notions of our definitions of “positive and negative.” Sitting compassionately with sadness and riding waves of fear as part of an integrated communion with ourselves requires trust in the process of yoga/life. Some of the stuff going on in the pop yoga streams just does not want to reckon with depth.
Here’s a quote I stumbled on last week from someone named Clarice Lespector:
“The world’s continual breathing is what we hear and call silence.”