yoga/pranayama

[Peter14]

Since a while I am trying to figure out where would be the most ideal yoga school in India or anywhere else in the world to dedicate a few months on yoga and breathing techniques.

My experience so far when it comes to yoga/pranayama in the freedive community was that everybody does a little bit of something but most of the freedivers practicing it, do it not really specific and lacking a bit the the whole background knowledge.

But when it comes to yoga schools its not easy to actually find the right place as there seems to be a massive oversupply on yoga schools.
So my question is does anybody has advice or can recommend a place to learn yoga/pranayama?

Also does anybody has experience on which yoga style is the most ideal one for freediving?

Happy to learn from your experiences!

 

[BristolMermaid]

Hi Peter

I stayed at the Sivananda ashram in Kerala for two weeks last year and really enjoyed it - good on teaching the basic pranayama although the yoga did get a little bit repetitive by the end of my stay. I'm afraid I don't personally know of any other ashrams to recommend.

I recently trained with Brittany Trubridge, who can tailor yoga to freediving. She also does skype sessions. I write about yoga & diving on here (Omdiver) and if you are UK based I have a retreat coming up in Nov (www.omdiver.co.uk).

There isn't one type of yoga that is good for freediving in my view. If you're looking for joint/muscle strength & flexibility then both power/hot/ashtanga and yin forms of yoga can help. Meditation & visualisations can help with static training. Kundalini yoga for spinal flexibility, energy & mantra. There are also exercises that come from yoga used by divers such as lung stretches and uddiyana bandha (diaphragm pull-up)

My advice would be to try different teachers and styles until you find a style or approach you can work with daily. The benefits will come with small amounts of daily (or at least several times a week) practice.

Sara Campbell teaches yoga & freediving in Dahab I think and there are several freedive & yoga schools in lovely hot places like Bali and Thailand that look good

Thanks
Rebecca