Now the way we're going to do centered breathing, I'm just going to have you stand up right where you are. What I'm going to have you do is just getting a good athletic stance, which means if you jump up and land you will probably end one. You will see that part of the shoulder lifts a part; adjust it a little bit, for personal preference one foot ahead of the other. We're a pretty good athletic stance.
All we're going to do when we center breathe, it's a slow, deep belly breathe. It was popularized by quite a well-known sports psychologist Bob Nideffer, who studied a lot of Eastern cultures. And what you do is you inhale through the nose, your stomach will expand so you inhale and not a big chest breath but your stomach expands and then you exhale through the mouth and take it easy.
The key is that it wants to be slow. What a lot of athletes do is this. Okay, I've sent. Well, that really doesn't slow us down enough if we are really stressed, versus I inhale through the nose, my stomach expands; I exhale and take it easy. I can usually, when I do it I feel my shoulders kind of drop a little and you'll feel like some tingle.
So we're all going to kind of do that together here and I'll kind of just talk us through it. Okay, inhale through the nose, stomach expands, think at the center of your body, exhale through your mouth. Take it easy, feel some tingle, and your shoulders drop. Once more, inhale through the nose, stomach expands, exhale, take it easy. Okay great!
Hold up a second, what did it feel like when you did that?
Audience Member: Relaxed.
Speaker: Okay, felt a little relaxing, not probably totally relaxed but a little relaxing. Okay, what did you think about when you did that? Not a trick question.
Audience Member: Probably didn't think of anything.
Speaker: You may not think of anything, I think about the center of my body, because that's what you told me to think about. Inhale, think of the center. If you're thinking about the center of your body, that means you're probably not worried about what's going on about it, it kind of focuses you. So it does then physically relaxes us and gives us something to think of.
So, just again, and I will go ahead you move a little here, just jump up, kind of land and I'm going to say okay center. Inhale center on your own. Okay good! Now, I don't want to make this too artificial but in sports, we don't go, can we have the livestock in the arena, turn around, inhale, stomach expands. You have to do it a little bit when you move. So what I'm going to have you do at home is work on this. Work a little bit, do it just easy, sitting in a chair whatever.
But then try it when you're doing sports. Not in the heat of a competition right away but like run a little, take a deep breathe, center. Kind of get focused, that type of thing. Okay, once more, center, good! Now we will do once more, I'm going to have your center, but I'm going to say focus. I kind of want to get you in that good athletic stance, so you learn how to switch it. Center, focus, okay, everybody got it down.
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