Begin with the breath.
The body follows.
Breath-led practice for people who are tired of being told to relax and never told how.
About
Breath first,
shape second
Vayusoma teaches breath first and shape second. Most of what people want from yoga — steadier attention, easier sleep — lives in the exhale.
For most of my twenties I taught vinyasa the way I had been taught it: fast, hot, and set to music. People loved the classes and left them exhausted, which I mistook for a job well done.
Vayusoma is what came out of that. The breath sets the pace and the movement fits around it. Classes are quiet. Nobody counts repetitions.
More about the teacher
▶How we workThe practice
Four ways in
Each one starts with a single, unhurried breath.
The four patterns worth knowing, taught properly and in order.
Read more →Movement paced by your breath instead of a playlist.
Read more →Floor work and long exhales for the hour before sleep.
Read more →Short resets for the middle of a working day.
Read more →Why the breath
The exhale is where the change happens
What changed things was a shoulder injury that stopped me practising for eight months. All I could do was breathe, so I learned to do it properly — first from books, then badly, then from two teachers who corrected almost everything I thought I knew.
Read the physiology →
The journal
Practices written out, so you can run them without a teacher in the room.
The exhale does the work
Why lengthening the out-breath calms you, in plain physiology.
The four patterns worth learning
Everything else is a variation on these.
Nose or mouth, and does it matter
Mostly the nose, and here is the honest reason why.
Breathing yourself to sleep
A pattern to run in bed, not on a mat.
When breathwork backfires
Light-headedness is a signal, not a milestone.
Ten minutes is the whole practice
The case against the ambitious hour you will abandon.
