Deep Dive:
Breathing with Vitality
Our Deep Dives gather standalone Feldenkrais Project lessons into themed courses and content guides. Newcomers, we recommend exploring our primary collections first for a more generalized intro to Feldenkrais.
Breathing "properly" (whatever that is) – or even thinking about my breathing – makes me anxious. My pandemic project has been Feldenkrais, and I now have the playful courage to dive into breath.
– email from Sara
Sara's email hints at a fundamental Feldenkrais teaching: there is no one "right way" to breathe. Instead these lessons guide you toward fuller, more flexible breathing that adapts spontaneously to whatever you're doing. They're also wonderful for calming anxiety patterns – in body and mind.
Wake up your entire breathing apparatus and get free of compulsive breathing habits and limitations, so you can enjoy breathing with vitality in countless different ways every day!
Visiting these lessons periodically, in any order, will provide different benefits, ideas, and movement options you can explore almost any time, even in everyday seated activities.
The colored boxes highlight thematic links between lessons. This Deep Dive begins and ends with lessons harnessing the connection between better breathing and better posture. Building awareness of this essential relationship improves both, and thanks to our donors several of these lessons are free to all.
To access the lessons marked "Patrons" you’ll need to join the Feldenkrais Project (or sign in) as a Patron-level donor. Click to learn more about donation or our donor benefits.
Awaken and Integrate the Breath
Enjoy easier, more connected breathing with any of these paradoxical breathing lessons
Freeing Your Breath and Spine (16m or 37m)
37m
Our intro "seesaw" breath lesson. Discover or refresh this potent technique, and enjoy easier uprightness.
It’s fascinating to feel grounded and full in a new and different way. Thank you for the reminder of pleasure, and for your precise instruction!
Breathing from Head to Heels
60m
Dive deeper into the profound connections between breathing and posture
Wonderfully taught lesson! After 10 years of Feldenkrais I can still discover new things about my breathing. Thank you!
Breathing Tall (50m, Members & Patrons Video Lesson)
Bonus content for all donors. Another exploration of breath and posture.
...unknown regions coming into awareness, expanding the inner space of the body and becoming more and more alive (and calm at the same time).
Differentiation of Parts and Functions in Breathing (Patrons)
66m
In his book Awareness Through Movement Moshe Feldenkrais introduces this classic version simply: "Now you will learn to recognize the movements of the ribs, diaphragm, and abdomen that make up your breathing."
Anatomy and Adaptability
Discover fuller, more responsive breathing through other learning techniques
Thinking and Breathing (Patrons)
58m
An illustrated anatomy lesson introduces another classic from Feldenkrais's ATM book
I thought this was an inspired lesson. I have a copy of the Feldenkrais book but the detailed introduction with [the animations] made the lesson so much easier to feel aware of what was happening.
Holding Your Breath, in Awareness (15m or 39m, Patrons)
39m
Balance the breath, then learn about holding it – so you can hold it less often!
This was a beautiful exploration of breathing! I will return to this lesson, no question – I can feel the calming effect on my nervous system, which is welcome!
Breathing for Liftoff (35m + 25m, Patrons)
60m
Sense the anatomical details of holding your breath, then connect the breath with the ground, quite literally.
This lesson has done wonders for interrupting my anxiety pattern, which involves holding my breath.
Global Breathing with Floating Ribs and Sternum (Patrons)
49m
Enjoy the profound breathing efficiency of floating ribs and a more supple sternum
It’s exciting to discover and experience so many different ways of breathing (like becoming a breathing virtuoso). And every new slight modulation has a different surprising effect.
Integrating the Feet, Torso, Head, and Breath (Patrons)
44m
Explore fascinating, primitive relationships between the feet, heels, ankles, diaphragm, and torso
What I love most is the space I feel in my chest, my armits, room to breath and the pleasure of walking, imaging and sensing how it feels to dance....
Rest and Recharge
Rest is rest. Action is action. Clarifying the difference improves the vitality of the breath – and everything else.
The Liminal Lesson: Transitions Between Action and Rest (Patrons)
57m
Perfect after the lessons above – closely related to the breath but not focused on it
Many thanks, Nick, for this beautiful lesson! I love to learn to look a little differently at things… I found myself smiling often during the lesson, like a kid on a dreamy swing.
Making Peace: Smooth Breath, Skillful Bias, Supple Chest (Patrons)
60m
Practice balancing the breath again, then come home to your primary bias
What a delightful “best hits” lesson, thank you so much!
Vitality and Verticality
Harness your new skills in explorations designed to further improve breathing, posture, and more
Finding Sensations of Not Shortening (Patrons) 58m
Breathing with length ????
I feel so energized from this.
I had a dramatic awareness about how the breath affects my verticality, lifting up away form the floor, relaxing a little into the floor in the rhythm of the breath.
Fundamentals of a Healthy Back
63m
Explore paradoxical breathing while in a twist, creating an even suppler chest and more adaptable breath while improving posture.
Really interesting to observe the relationship between the breath and the 5 curves.
Breath, Belly, Back, and Hips: Connecting to the Earth
70m
I felt like I was floating, and my whole body felt light and free.
Where to next?
Try our Deep Dive called Shoulder Cloak, Rib Basket, Sliding Sternum
Our nervous system automatically fills a more supple chest with better breathing. This course is a great way to continue your studies!
How was this Deep Dive for you? What’s the effect of studying multiple lessons on a theme?
Hi Nick,
It was wonderful to experience your teaching live at the LGBTQA festival yesterday and also to hear your personal journey from a classical music background. I related to a lot of things that you touched on.
Thank you for the two lessons. Are they available on this website?
The second one I would like to spend more time with. The relationship of the sternum with our whole self is something I am particularly curious about and wish to explore.
I have just completed the supple feet, powerful legs deep dive, which has been so informative and transformational really. I did one a day each morning am thinking to follow either with the breathing with vitality or the awakening the spine dive.
Thank you so much for your sharing of knowledge and experience with such clarity.
Thanks for your kind words, and I’m thrilled you’re so engaged with this work! The Deep Dives are my favorite content on the site, and I love that you’re working your way all the way through them.
I call the first lesson I taught at the festival The Tongue and The Spine, and you can find it in a lovely learning context in our Jaw, Neck, and Shoulders Deep Dive.
I call the second one Breathing with Floating Ribs and Sternum. Click that link or find it above.
Sounds like you might also value a lesson in our Walking from Your Spine Deep Dive called Walking with Your Sternum.
A note for all readers: whether or not you’re a Patron-level donor you can click on Patron lessons to learn more, and track new content for Patrons by clicking the Patron news box on our email list signup form. Some folks watch for content they’re interested in, then join up.
Dear Nick,
worth diving into this one!!
I´d like to ask what you think about repeating a favorite lesson many times in relatively short intervals. Im asking mostly for the first one, “breath and spine” (because it helps me to relieve tension in my hips) but i think the question is relevant also in general, i believe. My experience repeating the “Legs as Free as a Baby’s” lesson showed me how hard it is to avoid some automatic patterns so I was wondering how much of a concern should that be + whether it might differ in single lessons + if you have any tips or ideas for how to repeat a single lesson frequently.
Million thanks and greetings from Prague,
Vojtech
As long as you still feel curious about your experience in the lesson, and the movements aren’t becoming rote, you can repeat a lesson as many times as you like! Feeling a little bored or like there’s nothing new may be a sign that it’s time for different lessons, but then you can come back to your favorites later and you’ll find you experience them differently. And of course you can use the Context or Related Lessons tabs to find similar study.