What is Breathplay?

Sometimes a nobody has something to say.

In the early 1970s, I needed a safety valve for the pressure cooker of graduate studies at UC Berkeley, so I took up running. It was more about reducing stress than racing. That’s why I was surprised to find myself running marathons at under six minutes per mile. In 1972, my best was 2:33, just three minutes shy of that year’s qualifying time for the US Olympic trials. If I push a little harder, I told myself, I’ll be able to run in that marathon.

In terms of Olympic Marathon talent, I really was a nobody. Had I qualified, I might well have finished last. In short, I had no illusions about running through the streets of Munich as part of the US team.

That’s just speculation, though. I pushed too hard in training, so instead of a breakthrough marathon, I got marathon breakdown.

Taking up yoga to undo the damage, I studied with the best teachers I could find, including BKS Iyengar, Joel Kramer, and JB Rishi. These yoga years are distilled in my books Exercises for Runners (World Publications, 1974) and Yoga and the Athlete (World Publications, 1975) Ironically, it was within days of the publication of Yoga and the Athlete that I found myself drawn into the dance world. I told this story in my January 1981 Runner’s World article, “Fine Tune Your Running,” and in my BreathPlay book (Doubleday, 1986).

Of the three major BreathPlay epiphanies, two were dance related. In 1964, riding big waves at Waimea Bay gave me the first. In 1975, a certain jazz dance class gave me the second. In 1980, ballet master Richard Gibson gave me the third and most powerful epiphany.

What is BreathPlay? To what discoveries did the BreathPlay epiphanies lead?

BreathPlay couldn’t be more improbable, nor could the performance boost it generates be more astonishing. In a nutshell, BreathPlay is a systematic learning process based on swimming against the respiratory tide of billions. Instead of breathing in and out, as the entire world population breathes, the skilled BreathPlayer breathes out and in.

In addition to breathing actively out and passively in, the BreathPlayer also organizes each breath cycle in rhythmic patterns, or breathing gears, so that breathing is always harmoniously integrated with movement, no matter what the work rate.

What’s so astonishing about the results? It’s the combination of significant increases in power output with significant decreases in heart rate. You end up performing at substantially higher levels, and yet it feels easier. You turn training from stressful work into deeply satisfying play. Your performance breakthroughs come not from greater force but from greater finesse

Sometimes it’s precisely a nobody who has something to say. My modest physical talents placed me several levels lower than world class, and yet BreathPlay technique and training rocketed me into that realm. I believe that many weekend warriors would love to hear what I have to say about how it’s done.

By developing this very rare set of breath-based skills, I found myself riding with world class athletes, training them shoulder-to-shoulder on runs and rides, and routinely outclimbing them to demonstrate certain facets of BreathPlay cycling technique. My BreathPlay coaching has played a central part in Olympic gold medals, world speed and endurance records, and world championships.

When a no-talent nobody is able to perform at world-class levels, and when he has distilled his power secrets into a sophisticated, coherent, learnable system, he definitely has something to say.

Ian Jackson
817-988-8250
Breathplay.com