When learning to perform an exercise or to hold a position for an extended time, many people are taught to count through them or to count for a period of holding time.  When you are counting seconds, your attention is drawn to the time remaining and you tend to focus on the pain you feel as your muscles ache and start to shake, instead of the performance of the exercise itself.  This causes you to 'suffer'.  When you learn how to relax in and through the positions, you will reap the far reaching benefits of which the exercise is meant to create.

In order to relax, one must breathe deeply.  It is best to practice through a demonstration in order for you to realize the experience of this deep breathing technique.

Sitting at rest, with your back straight in a chair.

Breathing through solely the nostrils, inhale completely, hold for a count, then exhale and hold for a count.  Take the air into the bottom of the lungs first, allowing it to travel upwards, expanding the ribcage and lastly your chest.  If doing it correctly, you will notice your belly expanding first, then you'll feel the air pushing out the ribcage and your back.  You may likely yawn sometimes.  That's a good sign.  It means that you are expanding your lung capacity. Continue to breath this way and as you start to get your rhythm, each time you take another breath, you will naturally start to breath a little slower.  With this relaxed mindset, you will be able to go a little further or hold a little longer with ease.

Please apply this deep breathing technique to one or more of the following exercises and stretches and notice how your body responds. You will feel it relax 'through' the discomfort and pain your muscles may be experiencing.

1. Hamstring stretch: Simply sit on the floor with feet open in a V.  Inhale reach up, exhale bend forward reaching toward the toes.  Stay low and ease up just a bit as you inhale, then on the exhalations allow yourself to move forward.
2. Chair: Stand, Bend the knees into sitting position, stay in this imaginary chair and extend your hands above your head, straighten out the arms and reach for the sky, look up. HOLD, the position and KEEP BREATHING.
3. Floor Bridge: Lying on the floor with knees bent, slowly lift your hips and torso off the ground and get as much height as you can by inching your shoulders underneath you and slightly squeezing the glutes. HOLD, the position and KEEP BREATHING.
4. Plié: Stand with the legs widened about 4 feet apart. Inhale as you lower, Exhale as you rise.

Please apply this technique to all your exercises always.  You will notice that your muscle memory and strength and mind clarity will improve.  If you simply apply this deep breathing technique anytime, anyplace you feel stress, it will dissipate.