9/21/09 -- combined (mainly) chest inhale with "closing a zipper" exhale. Over all a successful 6: 2: 12: 2 practice lasting about 12 minutes, with some disruption due to shaking.
9/22/09 -- Same as yesterday's routine, but with added pelvic floor contraction on the exhale. I found as this practice progressed that I was not paying as much attention to breathing technique as I had been. Much of my mental effort went into monitoring the level of relaxation in shoulders, arms, hips, and thighs, in order to minimize the shaking in the right hand.
This points the way to the emphases in my future pranayama method, and concludes the two-week personal practice assignment due 9/24.
9/23/09 -- Stayed with the same number of breath cycles adopted during the assigned practice (36), but with slightly altered duration of each cycle (6: 1: 12: 1 = 20). The techniques I'm using are the ones I've mostly used learning pranayama -- breathing mainly into the chest above the diaphragm by concentrating on filling the space between the large ribs, and "closing the zipper" on exhale, with a mild perineal-floor squeeze at the end. I've used these techniques long enough now that they seem almost natural, which enables me to devote sufficient attention to relaxing the large joints and appendages sufficiently to minimize the shaking due to Parkinson's, along with frequently shifting the position of the right hand.
This assignment and the journaling that went with it helped me determine my optimum approach to pranayama.
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