Christelle Garnier

What techniques do you use to connect your mind and body during your yoga practice?

As I discovered the practice of yoga at its roots in India, I first met with the philosophy of yoga through the mantras, the voice and the pranayamas, the breathing exercises. Then I explored the asanas, the postures, to take my body into some new shapes. More I practiced, the more I realized that without the breath at the core of the practice of yoga, the physical practice is pointless in the sense that it is only another workout. It is like eating without flavor… it works but it doesn’t give the full benefits of it. To unite the mind with the body, to get into this moving meditation while practicing, it is essential to learn how to breathe. To breathe is to connect. To breathe is to feel. To breathe is to turn inwards. To breathe is to be alive and to feel alive. To breathe is to be, simply. Prana is the first intake of life we receive and as we go the last we give. It is a powerful relation between life, death and presence. For me, yoga is prana. prana is life. And this is what I hope to pass to others : connect with your breath, learn to breathe and then everything will flow. Movement is medicine. Breathing is the cure.