Joe Henderson, editor of Runner's World, began his introduction to Yoga and the Athlete with the following words: "Ian Jackson is something of a philosopher. He's a deep thinker with a talent for seeing common things in uncommon ways, for cutting through the fluff to the heart of matters, for linking apparently separate ideas."

It started badly but ended well. John Howard had persuaded Eddie B, head coach of the US cycling team, to bring me to the Olympic Training Center. He believed that BreathPlay training was "an experiment with the future." On my very first day when Eddie introduced me t as a "breathing coach," a skeptic in the back of the room voiced his doubts loudly. "I already know how to breathe," he said. "You just suck air." A few weeks later, as I was leaving OTC, this air-sucking skeptic sought me out: "Don't tell anyone else about this!" he pleaded. He knew he had a winning edge with his BreathPlay skills and he didn't want to lose it.

What made the difference?

I want to talk about this in two stages. First stage, I'll give you the basic BreathPlay training I offered at OTC almost 20 years ago. In the second stage, I'll give you basic BreathPlay training as it's now available through the AcoustiCoaching CDs. I'll present this state-of-the-art approach through the learning process of Jon Billheimer, a Canadian cyclist who calls BreathPlay "nothing short of amazing."

Olympic BreathPlay Training
The central BreathPlay skill is upside-down breathing. It's all about pushing your air out and letting it in instead of sucking it in and letting it out. It's a simple but profound change, with far-reaching implications. Because air-sucking habits are so deeply ingrained, this change can be difficult.

The introductory exercise I offered at the Olympic Training Center is "Up Against the Wall" BreathPlay. It teaches you how to contract certain torso muscles to push your air out, and how to then relax those muscles so that gravity takes care of your inbreath for you. This exercise teaches you how to make your outbreath happen and let your inbreath happen.

"Up Against the Wall" BreathPlay
Stand about 12 inches away from a wall and lean back into it. Your buttocks and your mid- and upper back should be in contact with the wall. See if you can also get the back of your head comfortably in contact with the wall, or at least close to it.

First, settle into resting against the wall, and then explore pulling your belly back for a three-count outbreath and relaxing it for a two-count inbreath. Emphasize the three counts of your outbreath by creating an intense three-count hissing sound: "Sss-sss-sss." Mark the two counts of your passive inbreath with a contrasting relaxed sound: "Aaa-aah." Think of these sounds as cues that will fit with your footsteps andpedal strokes.

Make that pressurized hissing sound by positioning your tongue up against your teeth so that it partially blocks your outbreath. This partial blockage increases the exchange of oxygen and carbon dioxide by creating back pressure within your lungs. Let your inbreath happen all by itself. Simply relax your tongue and your jaw muscles so that your mouth feels easily open, and relax your pulled-back belly so that it rounds out.

Using your own comfortable rate of breathing, learn to pressurize your outbreath and relax your inbreath: "Sss-sss-sss / Aaa-aah. Sss-sss-sss / Aaa-aah." etc. Make these sounds clearly audible, anticipating how they'll help you coordinate your breathing with your walking and riding.

On the three counts of your outbreath, use the pullback of your belly to pull your pubic bone up, making your tailbone tuck under and your lower back flatten against the wall. Try to flatten your lower back fully against the wall by the final count of your outbreath. Note that this flattening stretches your lower back. As your BreathPlay skills develop, use each outbreath to stretch not only your lower back, but your entire spine.

On the two counts of your inbreath, as you let your abdominal contents drop down into your relaxing and rounding belly, notice that your lower back comes away from the wall and your pubic bone returns to its normal position.

By pulling your belly back, you're displacing your abdominal contents up against the underside of your diaphragm. This pushes your diaphragm high up into your chest cavity, creating an unusually high volume outbreath. Throughout the entirety of this high-volume outbreath, your tongue blocking maintains a high pressure within your lungs. When you've pushed all of your air out, simply relax your belly for an effortless inbreath. Gravity will pull your abdominal contents back down into your rounding belly, pulling your diaphragm down with them.

The 3/2 count is an easy way to start learning odd-count upside-down breathing patterns. Once you feel comfortable with the out/in 3/2 count, practice until you have the same level of comfort with a 5/2 count, a 2/1 count, a 4/1 count, a 4/3 count, and a 6/3 count. Whether you're out on the road or on a trainer, you'll need to be able to change breathing gears to accommodate changing work rates, and this repertoire of breathing patterns will give you a breathing gearbox.

Practice this exercise frequently, just as a dancer practices the basics daily in classical training. Every time you do "Up Against the Wall" BreathPlay, you'll increase your familiarity with the feeling of pushing your air out and letting it in. I call this technique the Pelvic Pump, since it uses the muscle work of the pelvic tilt to pump your air out of your body.

Once you feel comfortable with "Up Against the Wall" BreathPlay, you're ready to play with the Pelvic Pump in walking. Many of us have played with breathing patterns while walking, running, or riding, so you may already be familiar with this process. Think of the "Hup, two, three, four," cadence of the military march, which tends to set up four-step 2/2 out/in breath cycles.

Notice that when you take five steps per breathe cycle rather than four (using an odd count rather than an even count), each breath cycle ends on the opposite foot. Counting with a variation on the military cadence, your breath cycles would play out like this: "Hup-two-three-four-left. Hup-two-three-four-right. Hup-two-three-four-left." etc. Or "Sss-sss-right / Aaa-aah. Sss-sss-left / Aaa-aah. Sss-sss-right / Aaa-aah." etc.

As you walk with a 3/2 pattern, measuring each breath cycle with five steps, make your breathing sounds audible, just as you did when you were practicing against the wall. Try out all the breathing patterns you've practiced against the wall: 2/1, 4/1, 3/2, 5/2, 4/3, and 6/3.

It doesn't really matter which one drives the other. As a VoiceWeave pair on the 5/2 Serendipity Brisk Walk CD says, "Step-ping-drives-your-breaths / Re-lax. Breath-ing-drives-your-steps / Air-in."

I urged all the Olympic cyclists to practice BreathPlay patterns while walking around throughout the day. "Walk before you ride," I suggested. "Build familiarity with organizing your active outbreaths and passive inbreaths in odd-count patterns that automatically balance the work of right and left sides of the body."

It's no accident that the cyclists who achieved the deepest BreathPlay skills did the most walking practice at the beginning. Alexi Grewal, who won a BreathPlay-powered gold medal in the 1984 Olympic Road race, is a perfect example. He was out walking in all kinds of weather, practicing the patterns with a look of intense concentration on his face.

Once your walking BreathPlay has given you a familiarity with the patterns, it's time to take them to the bike, out on the road or on a trainer. In the early learning process, ride for prolonged steady-state efforts at a variety of work rates, so that you can penetrate deeply into the feelings of your patterns. A steady breathing pattern at a constant work rate will accelerate your learning process. Later, you'll play with switching breathing patterns to accommodate changing work rates.

Research tells us that elite athletes have highly developed associative strategies; that is, they're skilled at tuning in to body feedback. The ability to tune in is an important component of athletic performance, and it functions like a Darwinian "survival of the fittest" selection process. If you're not skilled at tuning in, you're unlikely to develop the efficiency needed for high-level performance.

Think of the BreathPlay patterns as a simple way of developing associative skills. They help build habits of paying deep attention, breath cycle by breath cycle. As you play with them, you'll be retracing the learning curve of the US Olympic cyclists, and you'll be making the same discoveries that they did.

The AcoustiCoaching Difference
With the BreathPlay CDs, this once-difficult learning process is now easy and fast. Of all the athletes who have played with the CDs, the most enthusiastic, insightful, and articulate has been Jon Billheimer, a 57-year-old Canadian cyclist. His story reveals the power of BreathPlay training.

Jon was drawn to my website by John Howard's UltraCycling article, UltraZoom. When he called, he spoke of respiratory traumas including severe smoking-induced emphysema and a collapsed lung. He said he was fascinated with high performance cycling training, and frustrated by his lack of progress. In spite of voracious reading in the literature, he had never come across anything like BreathPlay.

I sent Jon the Serendipity/Zooming CD combo, and recommended that he start BreathPlaying while he was waiting for the CDs to arrive. To help him get started, I sent him a collection of emails, including "Up Against the Wall" BreathPlay. I wanted him to follow the same exploratory process that the US Olympic cyclists had used. As Jon and I exchanged daily emails, I found his perspective both fascinating and enlightening.

Jon's first feedback email, came just a few hours after he had placed his order:

Jon Billheimer Walking BreathPlay, without the Serendipity CD (1/25/02):
Amazing! The first thing I noticed was the effect on one's entire kinetic chain. The result was dramatic! It becomes an undulating movement, which, in 20 repetitions or so began to have a relaxing and energizing effect. Interestingly - as you said - the inbreath becomes automatic, reflexive.

When I tried a short walking exercise on the treadmill, I found at a moderate 3 MPH pace the 5/2 worked best, but at 4 to 5 MPH the 3/2 was better. Interesting feedback with the eyes closed! You're right that the trick is relaxing for the in-breath.

I kept trying to lift my chest for the in-breath, and I had to remind myself to just let my belly go! Playing with the Pelvic Pump, I noticed how stretching up through the neck aligns and centers one over the feet. It's a very cool feeling!

Your comment "breathing becomes an activation process that transforms your spine into a neuromuscular reference center for organizing movement" threw all kinds of switches for me.

Jon Billheimer Swimming in Air (1/28/02)
Although I began the Serendipity walking session feeling that I wasn't getting quite enough air, at the end I experienced an abundance. When I got the two-count in-breath right, my abdomen felt like a watermelon and I felt like I was swimming in air. Very cool - and relaxing - sensation.

Jon Billheimer BreathPlay on the Bike, Without Zooming (1/26/02)
Following this morning's session on the treadmill, I did my two hour session on the rollers at a heart rate of 130 to 132 bpm. I decided to fool around a little with the upside-down breathing, as it was quite easy on the treadmill. For half an hour I worked with the out-breaths, trying different cadences. However, it all seemed a little tiring and mechanical. So, consistent with my previous practice with Feldenkrais exercises, I decided to dispense with trying to count cadence, and simply do what felt easiest and right. I tried to make my out-breathing as subtle and gentle as possible. Within a couple of minutes my attention shifted down into my pelvic floor and I started very gently contracting my lower abdominals, right from the pubis. The easiest way to do this seemed to be to initiate an upward, rolling internal action, which had the sensation of massaging my lumbar spine. This worked quite well and I lost all sensation of breathing in my chest.

After a few minutes of this "non-breathing," the tightness in my hamstrings released. My legs seemed disconnected from my body, and the pedaling was virtually effortless, seeming to arise from the internal massaging action. Rather than try to "do" the Pelvic Pump, I thought of your ballet master's instructions, and merely imagined it. For the rest of the hour and a half, my legs did not drive the bike. Everything was driven by what was happening inside my torso. At the end of the first hour I took a break and looked at my rear cassette. I was riding one gear bigger than I normally do at that effort level! At the end of the two hours I checked my average speed and it was about 1/3 mph faster than I'd ever done that workout. And yet my legs felt totally relaxed! Interestingly, although I was watching the World Speed Skating Championships on TV at the time, whole blocks of time would go by when I was unaware of the TV at all. This internal process was literally hypnotic!

Jon Billheimer Christmas in January! The BreathPlay Cds. (1/31/02)
The BreathPlay CDs arrived! I fired up the boom box, turned on the treadmill and.....WOW! What a "trippy" experience. I'm really glad you've been working with me the past week, because I simply fell into Serendipity!

This is a core proprioceptive awakening of the first magnitude. That CD would energize a stone! I love the effects of push your navel down...make your buttocks small, or whatever it was. Those VoiceWeaves literally power your spine. Interestingly, the farther into the experience I got the easier the breathing became. At the end I felt as if I'd been in a massive oxygen chamber, coming out with an O2 high.

Jon Billheimer First Session with the Zooming CD. 1/31/02
The CD's first Zoom sound is like the entrance into a vortex. It's the first step into the kinesthetic warp zone of BreathPlay. The timing of its return toward the end is perfect...almost hallucinogenic. This is the easiest, most relaxed way of riding a bike imaginable.

Although the kinesthetic feedback on the bike is not yet as defined or as subtle as on the treadmill, it gave me insights which completely reorganized my riding. The VoiceWeaves helped create a more powerful engagement of my back muscles. They also helped me focus on the outbreath and got me into a much, much bigger gear. The net effect was a feeling of great confidence in my own aerobic power, just the opposite of the fear and hesitation engendered by air-sucking.

The question was no longer "Can I get enough air?" but "How can I get more speed from this power?" I found myself having to hold back because my power output was so far beyond my training schedule for this time of year.

The power for my breathing and pedaling came from my spine and my core musculature. The feelings of power and confidence are perfect for race and time trial situations. The switch-side breathing offers rhythmic relaxation for working muscles, and I found that during the in-breath one can let the legs and feet "float" with no loss in cadence or power. The Zooming CD is going to turn this season's training and racing into a real treat. This is an adventure beyond all adventures!

Serendipity, on the other hand, is a veritable BodyMind banquet, unimaginably rich in kinesthetic textures and nuances.

As I write this, Jon's BreathPlay exploration has continued to engage him deeply for over six months. Throughout this period, there has been a steady decrease in his heart rate at any given workload, to the extent that he now describes it as "ridiculously low." His performance levels keep climbing. A comment from a recent e-mail sums it up:

"Your predictions keep coming true. I was surprised this week at how much faster I was than some of the others who were at my level or slightly ahead two weeks ago. That, of course, is always an ego boost! Some guys are coming up and treating me as if I'm a Yoda-type alpha dog, asking me how I train. I tell them it's BreathPlay, but no one believes that breathing could make this much difference."

It can. It does. Check it out.

More information:
Ian Jackson www.breathplay.com or e-mail breathplay@cs.com