Notes on breathing

A note on breath: conscious breathing is a key part of this exercise. If you are not familiar with breath-based meditation, it might be helpful before commencing the extreme slow walking exercise to spend a few minutes attending to your breath. Stand in place, feet about hip width apart, knees slightly bent, feeling the ground beneath all the parts of your feet (rock forward and back slightly, shifting your weight from heel to ball of the foot and from side to side before settling your weight evenly across the foot). Tilt your tailbone slightly forward, shoulders relaxed and dropped, spine and head upright (imagine your head is strung to a star far above you so that it takes the weight off your spine, the whole posture relaxed but aware), and breathe in slowly through your nostrils, allowing your breath to sink into your belly first before it fills your chest, then exhaling (again slowly through your nostrils) in reverse fashion, emptying your chest first then your belly. Repeat and continue. See if you can make your exhalations as long as, or even longer than, the inhalations. Do this for three to five minutes (again, it can be helpful to set a timer) until you feel clear and grounded.

To use your breathing in the extreme slow walk, pay attention to the relationship between breaths and steps: how many breaths per step? Can you slow down enough to fill one step with several breaths? Later, as you are walking, not extremely slowly, just slowly, you can tune in to this relationship in a slightly different way: how many steps per breath (2, 3, 4)? Can you reduce the number of steps per breath (from 4 to 3 or from 3 to 2) to expand your awareness? Once you connect with the relationship between breathing and walking, you can focus your attention on hearing, listening, noticing what comes to the senses. After a minute or so of slow walking, stop to make some notes about what you've noticed.