What do you enjoy about breathwork and how has it helped you?

Breathing is our most primeval instinct, without it we would not exist. I reference many times the energy created by our breath, how this relates to the Universe, planet earth, the tides, the waves, the cycle of day night day, these are all elements of breathing. I really enjoy the fact conscious breathing helps me to connect to the planet and keeps me rooted.
When I teach tai chi, the first thing we do is to gauge our respiratory rate, to gain a sense of how the day is treating us, whether any stress or agitation has crept into our bodies. If it has, that person can reference this during the class and allow them to focus on their breathing before each exercise.
Gaining the knowledge of breath work has enabled not just me, but the people I work with to gain an insight as to how our breathing can change how we feel, how it can empower us and balance us.

Where did you complete your training (or where are you still in training)?

I am a Buteyko & Oxygen Advantage breathing instructor having studied with Patrick McKeown

Breathing Space – Mentor – I already run my business as a breath work facilitator, I am on the second year of the course, however, as we say in tai chi, I am a fool who knows nothing and will approach the Breathing Space course with the wide open eyes of the child.

Are you trained in any other modalities?

From a breath work perspective, only Buteyko & Oxygen Advantage, I am also a wellbeing coach with Dr Claire McGuire at Raw Horizons Academy and have been studying and teaching tai chi & qigong for the past 20 years.

How do they integrate with breathwork?

This is the holistic approach which runs through everything and everybody I work with. It goes back to the values of simplicity, compassion and balance. How do we achieve those and how does that make us feel. The key to life is breathing, it is where everything begins and how we build a foundation strong enough to withstand the travails of our lives. I find it impossible to envisage teaching wellbeing or tai chi without involving breath work. It would be like teaching tai chi or wellbeing without the why. It can be done, however, it leaves an emptiness.

What is your personal journey?

For many years, I created an artifice, well several actually, creating a mask to be liked, to be seen to do what’s right, to be able to fit in, when I didn’t feel that I did.
This began to change when I began to study tai chi.
After a couple of months I found myself getting to the bottom of the steps to enter where we were holding the class and not being able to go in. This lasted several weeks and initially I could not understand as to why this was happening.
After considerable thought, which of it itself was hard work, as I tended to gloss over introspection, I came to the conclusion that the tai chi classes and the philosophy of Taoism was forcing me to look at myself. I did not like what I saw and realised I had to make a decision. If I carried on, I would have to embrace everything, or I could stop and carry on with how I was and more importantly how I was feeling. As I was a fairly new Dad, I did not want to pass on those neuroses to my son and in a very flippant way, the tai chi was less expensive than seeking therapeutic help. So I decided tai chi was the moonlit pathway to follow. This led me to wellbeing and to the fundamentals of breathing. Whilst I still felt out of step with the role I had in the corporate world I found myself in, I was able to work releasing my real personality and thoughts, very slowly and found myself helping more and more my clients within the company with their mindset and more particularly their breathing.
This eventually gave me the strength to leave that world and stride out into the living breathing world of which I now feel so much part of, along, of course, with the residual ephemeral imposter syndrome trails still saying hello every now and again.

What do you stand for, and what do you stand against?

The values of my company are the values of myself, which are, simplicity, compassion and balance. I have only ever so slightly pinched and adapted these from the Tao the Ching by Lao Tzu. The change being patience from Mr Tzu to compassion from me. They help to remind me everyday how I should be and how I wish the world could be. I feel they create a solid foundation from which to live, work and be.

As for what I stand against? Ultimately authoritarianism in all its forms, whether politically or religious. I fail to see how people and societies are able to grow and flourish when the ego’s of man are constantly behind motives.

What is your greatest wish for your clients

To see them progress and to empower them to see what they are capable of. I work with some very vulnerable people, who have been very severely reduced in their sense of capability. Working with them to slowly unpick these strictures is profoundly gratifying, as you can physically see the difference they are able to make within themselves. There are sometimes bouts of giddy delight from them and me when barriers have been knocked over. Ultimately if I can leave a client in a better state than when we started, then that is a wish fulfilled.

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