The Dance of Breath -- Exploring Cardiorespiratory Fitness

DanielleEastman
Feb 8
6 min read

Welcome to Part 4 of our Cultivating Organic Fitness series!

Ahhhh, last week’s focus on ease was just what my heart & soul (and brain—lol) were needing. I always love coming back “home” to ease.

That said—-afterward, I also lovvvvvvve diving into our next challenge/exploration. This week, we’re gonna continue our series on Cultivating Organic Fitness with an exploration into: Cardiorespiratory Fitness.

What do I mean by cardiorespiratory fitness (sometimes referred to as 'cardiovascular' or 'cardio' fitness)? We can break this term down into two major parts:

The “cardio” aspect refers to our heart (a muscular pump) and its ability to transport blood throughout our body.

And the “respiratory” aspect refers to our lungs and their important role of bringing nourishing oxygen into our body, and exhaling carbon dioxide (and other gases) out of our body.

Together with our beautiful vascular system of arteries and veins, our heart and lungs work as a wonderful team to supply our body with oxygen (and remove waste gases) which is needed for doing whatever we are wanting to do (such as dance).

To explore this somatically over the next few weeks, we’ll be focusing on tuning into and sensing two glorious inner rhythms of our body as dance: 1) our breath, and 2) our heartbeat.

This week, let’s start by focusing on our breath.

We can even begin right now. Wherever you are, whatever you are doing, simply pause for a bit and notice your breath.

Sense your inhale….

Sense your exhale….

No need to change anything…

Simply notice how it feels…

Notice the depth…

Notice the speed…

Notice the sensations you feel in:

your nose…

your throat…

your ribcage…

your belly….

If your thoughts start to wander, simply gently invite them back to the sensations. Like any meditation, no judgement needed, just curiosity and kindness will do.

If you were to count how many breaths you take in a minute, this is known as your “respiratory rate.” This rate is a beautiful signal of how much oxygen your body needs right now to do whatever it’s doing. If you are resting for a few minutes before counting, it’s known as your “resting respiratory rate.”

Now, as you continue sensing your breath, notice what happens as you begin to move. As you shift from resting to moving, your muscles will need more oxygen (they use O2 to produce the energy they need). As the demands of your body increase, you will naturally begin to both: 1) take deeper breaths (increase your respiratory volume), and 2) speed up your breathing (increase your respiratory rate), in order to meet the demands of your muscles.

This beautiful responsiveness happens all day and night long, including when we dance in class.

We begin standing still in our circle, talking about the focus. Then, as the music begins to play, our muscles begin to move our bones around in space. We start out slowly. Gently. Gradually. To move our bones, our muscles need energy, and to make that energy they need oxygen. So, as our movements increase in intensity, we will naturally begin to breathe more deeply and more quickly to feed our body the oxygen it needs (and to clear out the carbon dioxide) — so we can keep dancing in joy. Once nicely warmed up, we can move even more vigorously, with larger movements, more body parts involved, and faster rhythms. We continue to move and explore delicious levels of excitement and joyful effort throughout the middle of class, requiring deeper, fuller, and faster breaths. And then, as we get closer to the end of class, we slow our movements down again, until we find ourselves gently stretching or resting in a peaceful stillness. Our breath intuitively follows that same arc of intensity, eventually returning to a softer, gentler, slower pace again as well.

And—something so cool? You don’t even have to think about it! Our breathing intuitively responds so we can simply enjoy our blissful flow. Our lungs respond to the intensity required, so we can just have fun dancing! Isn’t your body amazing?

That said, this week we ARE going to purposefully think about our breathing. Well, not so much “think” about it, as…. sense it.

Why sense our breathing? Here are a few great reasons…

It’s a beautiful meditation. Our breath happens only in this moment. So by focusing on sensing it, we can practice being present in this beautiful moment, right here, right now. This is one of the reasons focusing on breath is such a popular form of meditation.

It’s something to focus our focus on. By practicing controlling our focus, we can have more agency over where our mind spends its time.

It’s a chance to get to know our body (in this case, our lungs) more intimately. Our body is always communicating with us. By spending time with our lungs, we can get to know them and this beautiful balance of inhaling oxygen and exhaling carbon dioxide better. This helps us to respect, befriend, and be in awe of our body even more (which, in my opinion, is always a really good thing).

Our breath can also communicate how we are doing emotionally. What is your breathing like right now? What is your breathing like when you are excited? Anxious? Calm? Angry? Aroused? Or at peace?

It’s also a tool that can alter our feelings. Our breathing can respond to our emotional state, yes…. BUT— and this is super cool— it can work the other way too: our breathing can alter our emotional state. By consciously altering our breathing (for example, purposefully taking slower, deeper breaths), we can communicate to our body that we are safe and it is ok to relax, calm down, and feel at peace.

It empowers us to take charge of our health and fitness. In Aya, you’re totally free to move at any intensity you desire all class long. This allows us each to honor our unique needs and desires day-to-day, moment to moment. Some days you may want to move less intensely. Some days more intensely. It’s allllll welcome here. By becoming aware of our breath (and with it, our intensity level), we can then choose moment to moment if we want to keep working that hard, work harder, or perhaps ease up, in order to create both: A) an enjoyable experience in this moment, and B) the long-term health benefits we desire.

It’s a way to condition our cardiorespiratory fitness organically, from the inside out. By connecting with the sensations of our breath as we move, we can tune into how hard we are working. We can then be empowered to choose to work harder if we wish, at any time. We can listen to our breath as a way to both: A) find a pleasurable sustainable intensity that nourishes our cardiorespiratory endurance, and B) experiment with that exhilarating edge of what is sustainable, in order to further expand our capacity. As we gently challenge our lungs by moving more vigorously, our body responds with beautiful adaptations: greater lung capacity, more efficient oxygen transport through our blood vessels, and muscles that utilize that glorious oxygen with growing ease. All we have to do? Make sure that we move in ways that cause us to breathe heavily. Isn’t that so neat? Our breath can be our gentle internal guide—showing us exactly how to challenge ourselves, all while having a blast with our dance friends.

Ahhhh…. just thinking about it makes me want to get up and start dancing!

Ok. So. Sensing our breathing. Celebrating (and challenging) our lungs. That’s what we’re playing with this week, friend.

And, of course, we can also explore this all week long. We can notice our breath in quiet moments, in stillness, or throughout our ordinary day-to-day activities. What do you sense? Does anything surprise you? You know me, I always love to hear. Message me or comment anytime.

As always, can’t wait to see what we discover together this week. See you soon!

Much love,

💛 Dani