Breathing is an unimaginably ancient and primordial part of life. It has always been a key to integrating the functions and capabilities of living organisms. For us too, breath retains its connection to the roots of life. But while breathing is partly involuntary and often unnoticed, it plays an essential role in the life of the mind. Breath expressively carries language, song, and feeling, and receptively it grants a sense of openness to the world - and to those around us - that is likewise fundamental for conscious experience.

Experience has taught me the power of the natural breath to augment and support learning. When a person's activities and thinking gain integration with their own open and natural breath, they discover new resources for learning. Because this approach is playful, it invites a student to enjoy exploring how he or she learns. Enjoyment awakens the core neurological processes that mediate motivation and make possible new kinds of learning. Each child's natural disposition to have fun is an endowment by nature to enable the awesome dimensions of learning, and of learning how to learn, that being human requires. As the breath comes to flow more evenly, it becomes deeper and more balanced: sustaining and reinforcing receptivity, and the neurological integration that children depend on for conjoining feeling, willing, and thinking.

In my work, carefully chosen activities support each phase of the breath to bring balance and integration. The inhale, as the breath and body grow wider, guides how information is taken in. The exhale, as the body walls swing back, leads the way in assimilating information and in bringing a physical sense of connection and boundary. Each full natural cycle finds a resting place - the pause between the exhale and the next inhale. Here increased depth of integration is possible, before the next breath cycle begins.

Perceiving a student's rhythm enables me to approach and support balance and coordination between the individual and his or her breath rhythm, and in turn, the connection to the larger social whole. I introduce activities that can flow with the student's natural breath rhythm and receptivity. But even in resistance we can discern strengths; in saying 'no,' and in the positive aspects of resistance that are necessary for self- development as the student comes to understand his or her own learning style.

Individually tailored movements and activities that come out of the natural breath work to orient and ground vestibular, kinesthetic, auditory, and visual processing. This can address many different learning needs and imbalances, as well as encouraging, through playful activities, more effective interhemispheric cooperation.