Breath Coaching for dummies

Since I was asked to relay a form of breath matching or breath coaching as a non-sexual bonding behavior, I’ll try to relay how it was done, and how it worked. There’s a basic, and a more physical/intimate form of it, both tried and worked well in the time period/atmosphere involved.
I’m going to give a heads up/word of warning – both of these behaviors were tried, tested, and worked well during a period of total celibacy for us as a couple, there were two forms of it. The first came about as a result of using a couple/lover’s yoga book that I got to give us a form of gentle bonding behavior that was simple, bonding, and low risk of getting overheated. I think I’m allowed to make a recommendation at the risk of sounding like I’m plugging someone’s book. Written by someone named Darrin Zeer, with illustrations by someone else named Thorina Rose, the book – “Lovers’ Yoga/Soothing Stretches for Two” – easily available thru Amazon – it’s worth the paltry investment. Multiple series of low impact to considerable effort, it’s a series of combinations that work from the simplest form of a shared good morning while the coffee’s brewing, to more involved and higher contact series. Nothing overtly explicit or erotic in any of it, but it combines exchanged trust/support and mirror images stretching, many of which also suggest synchronized breathing or exchange in coach versus coached roles – I’d highly recommend it if both members of a couple are on an even keel in terms of trusting the alternating coach/coached, or the relative levels of trust in the partner for support/balance in the ones that alternate versus the ones that are mirror image/synchronized.

The other form was something I sort of came up with/invented on the fly during a period of mutual zero orgasm (solo or individual) celibacy that my spouse and I went thru during late 2009-early 2010. Specific to us, a daily form of bonding behaviors was tested and tried, worked pretty well, until we managed to get overheated one day and totally fuck up a 40 plus day period of bonding behaviors that worked fine without foreplay, sex, or orgasm. The good part of what I’m describing here – the breath coaching as a bonding behavior was not at all involved in the spontaneous overheat.

The daily bonding behavior ritual consisted of her cooperation in dealing with post-prostatectomy (cancer) ED therapy, while the other half of it consisted of me giving full body massages as part of massage specific to her joint pain from years of knee problems compounded by mildly arthritic knees. I’ll jump past the knee/hip specific massage and go straight to the more whole-body approach. Couple things to keep in mind, since I realize that everyone’s personal level of triggers – or “tolerance”, I guess - in doing something like this is variable. Plus, doing the self-invented breath coaching can range from shoulders/neck to full torso to full body length. The basic reality is that a full body massage, or the buildup to full body breath coaching, can get a little awkward or interrupted if clothing, even basics like bra/panties, stay on. It’s relative easy for me to manage control/keep from getting overheated given our couple specifics (my impotence, her general non-sexual connotations with partial or full state of undress/nudity). Like anything done as a bonding behavior, it’s got to be tailored to a couple’s individual arousal/overheating control/management. Parts of this will work with a partial state of dress/clothing, the full bore works smoothest with nothing but skin. Buyer beware.

First suggestion – this works well as a wind down from something like full body massage. Do yourselves a favor, and do an even massage of the front of the body first, it avoids triggers firing up while the fun bits are more accessible. That being said, move on to even paced massage of your partner’s backside – personal more relaxing preference, start at the feet and move up finishing at the neck/shoulders, it also puts you as the coach into position to make this work.

There’s no rocket science to it – with a relaxed recipient/coached partner, use your voice, tell them when to breath in or out – it’s your call whether you do counts, or let your hands do the counting on the breath duration/pace/depth. I found that silence with minimal talking worked best, but some may find the sound of their partner’s voice better to focus and zone out so that the only thing going on is the shared breathing. The point is to gradually increase the breath depth and duration. Starting at the neck or shoulders, sort of visualize being responsible for moving the air in and out of your partner – hands move down the back or shoulders on the inhale, back up towards the head on the exhale. We’d do a verbal “In” cue when hands moved down, hold for a few seconds, and a verbal “Out” cue as the hands moved back up to gently push the exhale out. It’s as simple as that. Don’t push partner too far with too-deep breaths too fast, and don’t push them too long on the few seconds’ pause between hands stopping low on the ribs or back at the end of the inhale cycle before the hands move back up for the sort of “forced” exhale. Start light, let the contact on shoulders/back be fairly light, when they’ve hit the comfort zone where they trust you to sort of regulate/be in charge of something as simple yet important as their breathing. Once you’ve done a few ins and outs, and gotten the synchronization down, slowly gradually make the breaths longer, and deeper. Give your partner slower, deeper breath coaching by gradually increasing how slowly your hands move down, how far down your hands go to let them feel the breathing full body.

Once the comfort/synch is solid, contribute more to the actual physiology of your partner’s breathing. With a firmer touch, slide the hands down the ribcage – you’re sort of giving them a physical cue of trying to feel/fill not just the lungs, with the breath – you’re sort of helping them Zen in on breathing being a full body exercise, not just lungs. On the exhale, experiment with firm pressure on the back of the lower torso and back of the ribcage. There’s only so much you can do to actually contribute to their inhale, but with the right balance of hand pressure (and eventually, you find yourself as the coach/pace provider putting more of your shoulder strength or actually physical body weight), you are putting considerable but gentle pressure into their exhale cycle – physically, you’re actually forcing them to exhale harder, more deeply, while they get the benefit of your hands sort of extending the experience beyond just their lung capacity. It won’t all come together the first time, especially if either or both partners have some level of discomfort with you taking control of something as fundamental/critical as their breathing.

By putting gently increasing pressure from the lower point of the exhale upward – the lower point of the exhale being where your hands stopped moving down for the inhale – you actually sort of find yourself contributing to the depth/duration of their inhale, if that makes sense. You’re to a degree literally physically pushing the air out of them on the exhale, so by default they inhale more deeply (and it’s not like you can physically grab their ribs and pull to physically contribute to the inhale).

Now – personally, I found the easiest position to coach from was to end the basic massage at the neck/shoulders, or biceps, while I was straddling her pelvis, but with my own weight kept on my knees/shins rather than add my body weight by literally sitting on her derriere – even if the individual breath coaching session didn’t go down to her knees or feet, literally sitting on her almost formed an intangible barrier or resisting force that she had to fight against on the inhales, it fought against deeper relaxation and sort of killed the concept of “feeling” her breathing all the way down to her toes – which by the last couple of weeks of the celibacy period, we put her thru inhale cycles that lasted for slow hand movement from base of neck all the way down back of legs to feet. And it always made something as basic and boring as breathing into something that felt cleansing/full body. Sort of a breathing version of an orgasm being genital-specific versus whole body. Granted, thanks to the specific dynamics of our relationship, I was always coach, never the coached – you don’t ask me about my dynamics, and I won’t ask about yours. Some things simply only work on a one way street basis . You know the old saying, those who can’t, teach? It’s ironic to in one breath have no clue what this means/how it feels to the one being coached, but to know what a whole body orgasm experience feels like.

And yes, sometimes you’re going to have to push them – it’s too easy for the coached partner to inhale too fast, to tap out on inhale effort before your hands stop moving down. But make it gentle encouragement, sort of a c’mon, don’t give up on me,you can do this sort of thing. Unlike baseball coaching – which I’ve done – you don’t get to yell at your partner for pulling up short at second base when they should have pushed for third.

After this, it’s a matter of finding the best depth and frequency that works for them, and using the episode to start easy and take them to the deepest/hardest inhale/exhale cycles. By the time we managed to screw up our literally idyllic celibacy cycle in a totally unrelated way, it was actually normal to take her inhales all the way to her feet without rushing the hands down the body on the inhale, or rush back up for the exhale.
Two key words – patience, and trust – and yes, it will feel utterly silly and awkward at first, or if the comfort/trust isn’t there. If someone tries it, and it works well, I’d appreciate hearing from someone who was on the coached side of this – from the position of coach, it seemed a very relaxing thing for my spouse, but I’d appreciate hearing if it seems to synch two individuals and turns something as basic as breathing into a whole body experience.

Hope it works - and if it doesn't, or this was incoherent - what do you want for free?