Everything written here

The complete Ashtanga Primary Series — opening and closing mantras, every pose in sequence with Devanāgarī and English names, and notes on breath, bandha, and dṛṣṭi.

The Primary Series in full detail — vinyāsa counts, which count you stay in, the gaze point for every pose, and where the hands go.

Sūrya Namaskāra A, step by step — with the practice attitude that makes it a complete practice on its own.

Puraka, rechaka, kumbhaka — filling, emptying, holding. The two retentions as taught in the Ashtanga prāṇāyāma sequence, with their ratios and transitions.

Mūla Bandha beyond the muscle — the energetic dimension, how to refine it, and how to carry it off the mat.

Haṭha Yoga Pradīpikā's warning on the pace of prāṇāyāma: the breath is tamed the way a wild animal is tamed — gradually.

A Latin rosary and a Sanskrit mantra, recited at their natural pace, both slow the breath to almost exactly six a minute — the frequency at which the cardiovascular system resonates.

A cluster of about 175 neurons wires breathing to arousal. Take them out and the breath is unchanged — the mouse just stops being agitated.

Sixty-six students, a hostile panel, and two breathing techniques. The ones who breathed did not spike — and the classical texts would have prescribed neither pattern.

Bhrāmarī is a bee. Humming on the exhale raises nasal nitric oxide fifteen-fold — and the effect washes out if you keep going.

Breathing through the nose entrains the amygdala and hippocampus; divert it to the mouth and the rhythm goes. The texts specified the nostril every time — and one popular claim built on that does not survive replication.

Bhastrikā is named for a blacksmith's bellows and promises heat. Twelve men trained in a version of it were injected with bacterial toxin and had a measurably quieter immune response.

Twelve weeks of yoga and coherent breathing raised thalamic GABA in people with major depression — and the rise appears to be short-lived, which is an argument for regularity.

Pratyāhāra says the senses withdraw from their objects. In 1961 four yogis in samādhi had a light shone at them, a hot glass tube laid on them, and a tuning fork struck — and their alpha rhythm did not break.

Notes on Ashtanga yoga and related practices — the sequences, the breath work, and the texts they come from.

A working bibliography for prāṇāyāma study — primary texts and modern scholarship.

A working glossary of prāṇāyāma in Sanskrit — prāṇa, apāna, samāna, udāna, vyāna; pūraka, rechaka, kumbhaka; the nāḍīs, bandhas, mudrās, and the philosophical terms around them, each with its Devanāgarī.