Beneath the visible body is a subtler field of movement, sensation and intelligence. PRĀNA inspires that territory through breath, bandha, mudrā, marma, mantra, and the currents of vāyu.
This study is an invitation to feel what is already moving beneath the surface—and to cultivate a more intimate relationship with the energetic architecture of practice.
Yoga is often approached through what can be seen: posture, alignment, strength, flexibility. PRĀNA turns attention toward what animates those shapes. The subtle body offers another way of understanding practice—as a living field of breath, sensation, rhythm and response. Through prāṇāyāma, mudrā, bandha, marma and the movements of vāyu, this Study explores how energy gathers, circulates and changes.
The invitation is to become more perceptive: to notice where energy expands, contracts, rises, settles or becomes held. The body becomes an instrument of attention and the breath becomes one of our video immediate ways of entering the undercurrent.
Over the course of this Study, you will learn both to experience these practices for yourself and to understand them well enough to bring them responsibly into your work with others.
Prāṇa is often translated simply as “breath,” but breath is better understood as one of the primary ways we encounter prāṇa.
Prāṇa is the vital current that animates embodied life. It is present in respiration, circulation, movement, sensation, digestion, thought, creative expression and the continual exchange between the body and its environment.
Your body is always receiving, processing and releasing. You receive nourishment through food, air through breath, information through the senses and experience through the psyche. The yogic subtle-body traditions offer prāṇa as a language for recognizing the vitality moving through all of these exchanges.
This means our first task is not to manipulate energy. It is to notice.
Throughout PRĀNA, we will return to one foundational principle: subtle practice begins with relationship. Before directing the current, we learn to listen for it.
You may begin to notice prāṇa through pulse, expansion, contraction, vibration or rhythm. Tantrik traditions use the word spanda for this subtle pulsation—the creative movement of life itself. For now, simply notice that stillness is never entirely static. Beneath it, something is always moving.
We begin with Dīrgha Prāṇāyāma because the first relationship to prāṇa is not force—it is invitation.
Dīrgha invites the breath through the full breathing body, allowing you to experience inhalation and exhalation as continuous waves of movement. Rather than trying to produce a special energetic state, the practice develops sensitivity to expansion, release and the natural rhythm of respiration.
Let this first practice be an exercise in deeply feeling and listening
Sit comfortably with an upright spine or lie on your back.
Take several natural breaths before changing anything. Notice where your breath already moves easily.
1. Begin low.
Inhale gently into your lower belly and diaphragm. Allow your abdomen to expand without forcing it.
2. Continue through your ribs.
Let your inhalation widen through your rib cage—the sides and back of your body as well as the front.
3. Complete the inhale through your upper chest.
Allow your breath to rise naturally toward your upper lungs and collarbones without lifting or tightening your shoulders.
Experience the inhalation as one continuous wave rather than three separate breaths.
4. Exhale gradually.
Release from your upper chest first, allow your ribs to soften and finally let the abdomen return inward as the diaphragm releases.
Continue for 5–10 rounds, keeping your breath smooth, comfortable and unforced.
Then release the technique entirely and return to natural breathing.
Notice what has changed.
Breath practice should remain comfortable and free from strain.
Do not force the depth or duration of the breath. If you experience dizziness, agitation, shortness of breath or discomfort, return immediately to natural breathing.
PRĀNA practices are invitations to increased awareness, not tests of capacity.
Where do you most easily feel the movement of breath in your body?
What changes when you observe the breath without immediately trying to improve it?
Beyond respiration itself, where do you recognize a sense of vitality, pulse or movement that you might begin to call prāṇa?
Practice Dīrgha Prāṇāyāma every day before our next session. Even five minutes is enough when the practice is consistent.
Notice how your breath moves on different days and in different states of mind. Pay attention to where your breath feels spacious, where you tend to hold and what changes in your energy or attention after you practice.
As you become familiar with the technique, begin sharing Dīrgha with one close friend or family member. Keep the instruction simple. Guide them through the practice and notice what changes when you move from experiencing the technique yourself to communicating it clearly to someone else.
Bring one personal observation and one teaching observation into our next session.