The breathwork market is flooding.
Breathwork can benifit anyone who breaths…so it is no wonder every coach and their grandma wants to integrate and/or facilitate this practice.
With breathwork trainings being anywhere from a 1 day online course to 1000+ hour programs, there is a radically difference in quality of facilitators…and the public does not know the difference.
And there are drastically different breathwork practices that range from short and gentle breathing to 1-3 hour long continuous breathing sessions that can be psychedelic in nature.
When I entered this field I knew it was important to distinguish myself …but, more importantly it is because I see breathwork like being a mix between a doctor and a shaman. Both take 10-25 years of intensive study and practice to read a high level.
So beyond training with multiple teachers in dozens of styles of breathwork, I put myself on the path to becoming a traditional and shamanic Chinese medicine doctor (TMCM)- yeah, it’s a thing…and I start my masters this year.
I specialize in medical qigong, which is the oldest branch of TMCM created by shaman, mostly woman shaman named the Wu. So if your wondering why I’m so woo-woo, it’s because I’m in the lineage of the Wu!
Medical qigong includes the tai chi-like flowing movements, but that’s not its primary focus. Its primary offering is energetic treatments that combine breath, meditation, movement, massage, among other holistic practices.
It’s a multi-thousand year old art and science that is the foundation for my holistic medicine clinic. It is both coherent with western science, and adds a whole other energetic and esoteric understanding of energy.
Because breathwork is energy work…to just speak about breathwork in the language of western science is limiting and insufficient to explain the experiences individuals will have. It is neccesary to have a verbage for the transpersonal domains breathers will experience.
So I study TMCM …AND the yogic sciences, and I apprentice with several indigenous cultures, among other esoteric meditation schools like Light Body. Because shamanic traditions have an understanding of the energy body in an intricate and sophisticated way that our western science has yet to explore in great detail.
A peripheral understanding of breathwork and basic training can give a facilitator tools to take people into deep experiences. This speaks to the power of breathwork…and, if a facilitator is not well-versed in trauma, psychotherapeutic models, transpersonal awareness, and other domains they risk re-traumitizing a client, or giving individuals a bad experience which may turn them away from a good practice.
You can’t be a quality breathwork practioner unless you practice. I’ve never seen it. I won’t see it. This is not childs-play. There is a responsibility of a practitioner to do there work. This is why I say it must be treated with the seriousness of a doctor or shaman.
Breathworkers hold the space for individuals to move through vulnerable and powerful experiences, they have to be rooted in embodied wisdom that only comes from direct experience.
Further, if a breathworker doesn’t have a sophisticated knowledge of breathing patterns, they can actually encourage dysfunctional breathing…and how we breath is how we live, so they can increase negative tendencies in those individuals. The breath can retrain your mind, so you want to be assured your coding in a functional pattern.
I hope that makes sense.
Breathwork is on the rise, it is beautiful because more people are learning inner tools to self-heal, self-regulate, and self-realize… but, it’s important to find someone who understands the breath and mind to get the most benifit.
After 10,000 hours in breathwork, yoga, and soon to be Qigong … I know the power of these practices and I do my best to share them to their highest
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