This exercise is adapted from a yoga breathing practice.
Begin in a kneeling position with the knees wide. If this is uncomfortable for your knees, it’s fine to elevate your pelvis with a cushion, or practice seated in a chair with your knees wide.
Release the belly forward, allowing the spine to gently extend. Practice engaging the deep transverse abdominal muscle without crunching the front of the body with the superficial abdominals. The transverse action might feel like it supports or expands your rib space rather than squeezing it downward.
Lean forward onto the hands, continuing to allow the belly to release with each inhalation. Using a quick and vigorous version of the upward abdominal engagement you just practiced, send a series of puffs out through the nose. Practice keeping the throat soft and open as you rhythmically engage and release the body’s core. In this exercise, the transverse abdominal muscle engages for the out-breath and then simply releases to allow the in-breath. There’s no need to “take” a breath. With an open throat, the partial vacuum you’ve created in the lungs will refill passively and instantaneously when you release the belly.
This breath can feel very energizing, but you should pause before you start to feel too light-headed.
Take a few moments at the end of the exercise to reset your spine to neutral and feel your breath at rest, sensing any shift in your awareness of breath movement or throat space. Try to take this awareness with you into the next thing you do.