Buteyko Breathing Exercises

Horse rider exercise
Exercise No 1. The Right Hand Rule. (postural position, known as the Horse rider exercise).

Description of the Horse rider exercise itself:
Why is the Horse rider exercise called "The Right Hand Rule"? Because Dr Buteyko drew round his right hand, then wrote along each of his fingers, as a sort of visual aid. The first finger represents a comfortable position, and the second finger – a correct posture. Drawings are easier to remember. Here we will just use plain English.

Buteyko Breathing Exercise No 1 the Horse rider exercise

1) Place a normal comfortable dining chair in the middle of the room, with one corner turned forward.

2) Stand with your back to the edge of the chair, so that you are astride the corner.

3) Correct your posture, ie straighten your shoulders and let your hands drop down by the side of your legs. Hold your head straight, looking ahead, with your mouth closed, and breathe through your nose, not your mouth.

4) Put your left palm on your naval and cover it with your right one. Apply faint pressure to the inner abdomen.

5) Maintaining that slight pressure to your abdomen, slowly lower yourself to the corner of the chair. When you have sat down, let go of your abdomen and freely toss your hands onto your knees, palms down.

6) Your feet should be placed slightly under your legs. Slightly straighten your shoulders again. Your head should be facing straight in front. Your mouth should be closed, and your gaze should turn slightly upwards.

7) You should sit in this pose for between 8 and 10 minutes, breathing quietly through your nose, so that neither your diaphragm nor your chest heaves.

That’s it! It is all brilliantly simple, but with a simplicity in the positioning of the hands and eyes that Doctor Konstantin Buteyko took 40 long and difficult years to achieve. So, believe me. This simplicity came at a high price.

Commentary comments, program and explanations for Buteyko Exercise No 1 are given in the Buteyko Course by Sergey Altukhov

© Copyright 2009

Reduced breathing exercise
Exercise No 2. The Left Hand Rule (Reduced breathing exercise)

Description of the Actual Exercise:
Why is "Reduced breathing exercise" called The Left Hand Rule? Because Doctor Konstantin Buteyko was a lover of graphic depiction.
Put your left palm on a blank piece of paper, and draw round the fingers with a pencil.
On the thumb write ‘gradual’;
on the index finger write ‘reduction’;
on the middle finger, write ‘of the depth of breathing’;
on the ring finger write ‘by means of relaxing the diaphragm;
and on the pinkie write ‘until you are aware of a slight shortage of air’.
There you have the Left Hand Rule: gradual reduction of the depth of breathing, by means of relaxing the diaphragm , until you are aware of a slight shortage of air. But how do we achieve this in reality?

A) To start with, we repeat all seven elements of Exercise No 1. All seven. That is to say, we set up a chair with one of its corners turned forward.

B) We sit down and relax our diaphragm. We turn our gaze upwards, and by now we are 50 seconds into Exercise No 1.

1b Next, after an ordinary out-breath, we squeeze the tip of our nose with our left hand, and hold it closed for approximately 2-4 seconds, until we start to feel a slight shortage of air.

2b When we are aware of a very slight shortage of air, we let go

3b The first breath we take afterwards is a partial one ie we slightly restrict our intake of air. Only slightly. This is why we previously captured that sense of being short of air.

4b And now we sit still for 10-15 minutes, breathing quietly through our noses, so that neither our abdomen nor our chest, heaves.

5b We carry on under-breathing and slightly abbreviating our in-breath. We do this so that we can maintain right through to the end of the exercise, the sense of a slight shortage of air that we attained by holding our nose!

That’s all! That is the absolutely classic version of the standard exercise in the Buteyko breathing technique of Volitional Elimination of Deep Breathing. It is the Buteyko breathing exercise Doctor Konstantin Buteyko always officially described as the bedrock of his technique.

Commentary comments, program and explanations for Buteyko Exercise No 2 are given in the Buteyko Course by Sergey Altukhov
© Copyright 2009

Disclaimer: The Buteyko Method should only be practiced under the guidance of a trained practitioner, medication should not be altered without consuling your doctor. Excessive DIY (Do it yourself) use of the above Buteyko breathing exercises could result in unpleasant symptoms known as cleansing reactions, this is the body ridding it's self of accumulated ‘pathogenic grime'.

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