Breathing--Exercises Included
The Faculty Handbook
The Faculty Handbook is the actual faculty handbook of The Piano Instructor.
About 30% of the book is on health—the health of the instructor.
All teaching begins with the teacher. A teacher who is happy, healthy and optimistic will have a different teaching experience from one who is sad, sick, and pessimistic.
As a studio leader, if you want to attract teachers who want to work for you and students who want to work with you, then start with taking care of yourself.
The very first topic in The Faculty Handbook is breathing—the respiratory system, mental health and healing and breathing exercises.
Please save this episode for the breathing exercises. I have included an exercise here, and anapana breathing exercise begins in the podcast at 15:13.
Anapana Breathing—Description and breathing technique: 15:13 in the podcast.
Breathing Exercise #1
- Sit (or lie down if you’re at home).
- Keep your eyes open or close them.
- Do a mental scan of your body and note where there is tension.
- When you notice it, relax by breathing “into” it.
- Drop your shoulders. Relax the space between your eyebrows.
- Mentally scan your body for a minute or two or five.
- Inhale slowly while counting 1...2....3...4...5. This is one complete inhalation.
- Hold your breath for a moment or two.
- Exhale slowly while counting 5...4...3...2...1. This is one complete exhalation.
- Repeat for five minutes or one minute or ten minutes.
- If you find that you lost count or your thoughts ran away, simply start again.
- When you’re finished, breathe in deeply, pause, then exhale fully, three times.
- Pause.
- Then move about your day.
I hope this really helps.
Keywords: Breathing, lungs, diaphragm, Vipassana meditation, anapana, mental health and breathing
Thank you to Substack for this platform and for the transcripts of the podcast for accessibility.
