The movement of our breath is fundamental to how we experience the movement of life itself. Middendorf Breathwork develops a sense of the conscious breath and how it supports the unique rhythm belonging to each individual.

Learning how to focus and be present with this breath builds a strong sense of the physical body. In being moved by the breath itself, I find a more integrated and clearer interrelationship between the other parts of myself

Through growing awareness, experience of the body becomes more permeable, connected and dynamic. By learning to receive my breath rather than taking or controlling my breath, a new ground of trust and balance is created. How I stand in the world profoundly affects my posture and my perceptions, my well being, the source of my creativity and how that expresses itself in the world. I can find a more original vitality and balance in the physical, emotional and spiritual aspects of myself. The experience of the natural breath moves through restrictions and blocks which may be causing illness or discomfort and brings a growing clarity and healing rejuvenation to every cell of my being.

The Experience of Breath is a non-manipulative approach to the breath which offers a profound and gently supportive approach to understanding the potential and signature of each individual’s breath. What breath can show us is our relationship between inner and outer worlds. There are two fundamental approaches for understanding how the breath can be perceived as a natural integrating force.

In Breath and Movement classes, simple stretches, movements and sounds are taught. Students develop the perception of how the breath can expand and deepen a sense of interconnectedness in the structure and life of our body, wherever we are. Movements are offered in a relaxed environment to help discover the breath and its capacity to transform and revitalize.

The movements and capacity for sensing the breath can be practiced individually outside of the class. This offers an ongoing way of being with my breath, alone or with others, in silence or in expression, while I am working or relaxing.

In the individual treatments, the practitioner offers a gentle non-invasive touch to support the client’s unfolding breath. The breath is supported and explored through a breath dialogue between practitioner and client. The intensely personal, as well as the universal, aspect of the conscious breath enables a growing sense of expansion and potential. This can bring to light restrictions and conflicts, enable the body structure and alignments to change, and harmonize mood, as the breath penetrates to the deepest level. This offers therapeutic interpretations and meanings specific to each individual and supports the process of healing integration.

Attention creates breath awareness. Stretching creates space.
Space allows for breath movement.

Attention to breath movement builds density. Density of substance leads to direction, creative tension, expression, and integration.

As we learn to free the flow of breath, different effects and their principles can be directly observed. Each phase of the cycle of our breath movement comes to show different aspects of the basic principles of breath. From these grounding principles balance, discernment, and attunement can flow. Middendorf breathwork emphasizes receiving the inhalation rather than taking it. As this becomes more and more possible, there comes an increased sense of space, both inner and outer, and a quality of porosity or permeability throughout the body. By following the movement of exhalation there can also arrive, over time, a greater sense of resolve, clarity and settling down. When we find ourselves experiencing the pause in the cycle before the next breath arrives, a profound sense of trust and of being carried and supported can become available. The more deeply the repose which belongs to the pause in the breath cycle is experienced, the more freedom and spontaneity seeds the impulse which sparks the next inhalation. By opening to the entire cycle, we can feel supported and find the dynamic between repose and effective, creative action while enjoying presence in each moment. By learning to give attention to the sense of breath movement, artificial control can be released and a deeper level of flow and vitality arise.

Before we can learn from our breath, we must first become awake to it. Breath stimulations use gentle touch and movement to enliven the breath and bring our relation to our breath towards the foreground. Once awareness and breath are engaged to move together, we can begin to notice how different movements bring about connectedness, opening, and a renewed sense of vitality.

Breath stimulations, by enlivening the breath, illuminate body and movement as a canvas for the breath. As we work further with the breath, the dimensions of that canvas start to be sensed more strongly and vitally. Soft gentle stretches and circlings create space in the body and so make it receptive to a more free flowing and deeper quality of breath. At a physical level this oxygenates the entire body which naturally heightens the sense of well being and affects our perception.

Midddendorf breathwork explores how we hold ourselves when we sit and stand. The natural flow of our own breath rhythm when it is sensed, grounds and connects us through our feet and legs. The quality of breath supports the freedom we sense in movement as it is found in each axis of extension and rotation. Fundamental changes occur as the body becomes more porous to the breath; the breath drops and settles, making us more aware of being carried by the strength of the lower body. In this way, breathwork characteristically liberates the upper body from unnecessary postural efforts and tensions. The dynamics of Middendorf breathwork disclose new possibilities of equilibrium and tonus as the breath's uprising power counterbalances the draw of gravity. Sensing breath and body together guides posture toward new and truer alignments.

In the course of Middendorf breathwork, different densities of breath become apparent as belonging to centers such as the solar plexus, the lower belly and the heart space. We experience the differences of the directions of breath; including uprising, down flowing and horizontal. The quality of movement becomes more personal and individualized. As we become more tuned to the breath, a serenity and acceptance can arise, along with understanding and appreciation of the breath and vitality found in different spaces of the body.

As the substance of our breath grows, we experience a fuller and freer relationship between our inner being and the outer world. The connection to our individual breath supports the expression of individual movement, individual voice, and the quality of how we express ourselves.