mindfulness practice

If you’d like to try another form of walking meditation, try this technique, recommended in the book Breathwalk: Breathing Your Way to a Revitalized Body by Yogi Bhajan and Gurucharan Singh Khalsa.

Step 1. Begin walking at a normal pace, tuning into your body and breath. If you’re not already, begin breathing smoothly and diaphragmatically through your nostrils.

Step 2. Coordinate your breath with your stride, inhaling for four steps and exhaling for four steps. Continue for at least one minute.

Step 3. Begin to practice a variation of anguli pranayama. Take four short, staccato puffs of air through the nostrils—one puff for each step. (This means you are dividing your inhalation into four segments that are synchronized with four consecutive steps.) After the first puff, your lungs should be about one-quarter full; after the second: two-quarters full; after the third: three-quarters full; and after the fourth: four-quarters full.

Without pausing, exhale in the same fashion, contracting the abdominal muscles and pushing the navel to the spine for four steps (and four segments of the out-breath), so that the final puff pushes the last quarter of air out of your lungs. Continue this pattern for five minutes, then walk and breathe normally for three minutes.

Step 4. Now, repeat the eight-minute practice. This time, as you synchronize your segmented breath with your stride, mentally say the mantra “Sa Ta Na Ma” on each inhale and audibly whisper the mantra “Wah Hay Gu Roo” on each exhalation. (One sound for each step and each segmented breath.) Repeat these mantras in coordination with anguli pranayama for five minutes, then walk and breathe normally for another three.

adapted form Yoga International, Former Yoga+ editor Shannon Sexton writes about food, travel, yoga, and natural health, Summer 2010