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, said at their ordinary pace, both slow the breath to almost exactly six a minute. That is the frequency the cardiovascular system resonates at.

About a hundred and seventy-five neurons a side wire the pattern of the breath to the state of the mind. Take them out and the breathing is unchanged. The animal just stops being alarmed.

Sixty-six students, a panel of judges, and two breathing techniques. The ones who breathed did not spike. Neither pattern is in the old texts.

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

Nasal airflow drives a rhythm in the amygdala and hippocampus that mouth breathing does not. The nostrils do alternate. The hemisphere story built on top of that has not replicated.

Bhastrikā is named for a blacksmith's bellows and promises heat. Twelve men trained in a modern forced-breathing method were injected with bacterial toxin and mounted a measurably quieter immune response.

Twelve weeks of yoga and slow breathing raised thalamic GABA in people with major depression. The rise may be short-lived — a trend, not a finding, and an argument for practicing weekly.

Pratyāhāra says the senses draw in. In 1961 two yogis in samādhi were shown a strong light, touched with a hot glass tube, and given the vibration of a tuning fork, 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.