| First, thank you very much for taking my criticism so well. I did my
best not to be harsh but I know I could have done better. I'm sorry. Second, I'm gratified to learn that you're not teaching the more
potent forms of breathwork. That makes me walk back a lot of what I said
above. I apologize for jumping to that conclusion from a superficial
reading of your page and what you said above. > All of our teachers are trained by professionals, including trauma
informed training from professionals at UCSF. We always make sure the
customer is empowered to stay in a zone that feels comfortable to them.
Additionally, when we breathe in this way we are doing similar things to
the body as we do with cardio exercise, so it's generally totally safe
and the physical sensations of the breath subside when you stop the
pattern. Of course we are not doctors so we recommend, in the same way
that any gym or physical exercise solution does, that you should consult
your doctor before engaging in cardio vascular work. Ah, well, shut my mouth. :) As you say, that doesn't sound any worse
than e.g. those indoor climbing gyms, eh? (Why not put the grippy things
on a big cylinder suspended over a ball pit and slowly rotate the
cylinder? Much safer and more fun than climbing up and down, no?) Still, there's a little bit of the "blind leading the blind" if you're
teaching homemade techniques without a depth of experience (as in decades
of experience.) There are good reasons why Guru and Lineage figure large
in the structure of traditional methods of transmission, beyond just the
economic obligations. (One invisible problem in the West is that we have
almost no modern tradition to fit this sort of knowledge into our
society. I.e. Venkataraman Iyer would have died homeless on the street
somewhere if he had lived in the USA. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ramana_Maharshi ) To put it in concrete terms, are you going to know what to do if one of
your students has some sort of abreaction[1] with your methods, as mild as
they may be? I've seen a lot of weird stuff go down out there in the
wild, among the bush psychologists and street shamans, and while it
mostly turns out okay, I've had friends become shattered shambling
homeless madmen. Good luck and God bless. :) [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abreaction > a psychoanalytical term for reliving an experience to purge it of its emotional excesses—a type of catharsis. Sometimes it is a method of becoming conscious of repressed traumatic events. |