Breathing Into The Back With An Opera Singer: From Mystical To Method

Welcome to Breathing Into the Back Body—a first-of-its-kind course on Insight Timer that reconnects you to the quiet power behind you.

Most of us breathe forward—into the chest, the belly, the places we’ve been taught to watch. But your breath is a three-dimensional experience, at minimum. And the back body—your ribs, spine, kidneys, and lungs—is the part most of us forget to feel. This course brings it back online, pun intended.

Rooted in classical voice training, somatic education, yoga, and contemplative practice, this experience is for anyone with at least one working lung. Whether you're a singer, meditator, martial artist, teacher, or simply someone seeking to feel more grounded in your own body, these lessons offer a gentle, detailed, and surprisingly moving return to the breath you didn’t know you were missing.

We’ll unpack the real anatomy of breath, explore back-body awareness through guided audio, and build tools for emotional regulation, presence, and vocal strength. No opera degree required. Just curiosity.

You’ll learn how to:
• Feel your breath in your back, spine, and side ribs
• Understand the real role of the diaphragm and what supports your inhale
• Tap into calm, grounding breath awareness without forcing or “fixing” anything
• Integrate breath into posture, voice, movement, and stillness
• Build a somatic foundation for speaking, singing, meditating, or just living

By the end of this journey, you won’t just breathe differently. You’ll feel your whole body differently. And that changes everything.

Are you ready to feel what’s been behind you all along?

Lección 1: What Does “Breathe From Your Diaphragm” Even Mean?

This lesson introduces the real mechanics of breathing—what your diaphragm does, why “breathing from it” is misleading advice, and how true breath support involves your entire torso, especially the often-forgotten back body. Through anatomy, humor, and guided awareness, you’ll begin to understand and feel how breath moves through your bones, muscles, and organs, setting the stage for deeper, fuller, and more embodied breathing.

Music: Nirvana Stream 2022 Music by Benjamin James from Pixabay

Lección 2: Breathing Like A Singer (Even If You’re Not One)

This lesson introduces students to five major schools of vocal breath training—Italian, German, French, American, and anatomical—and highlights how each tradition shapes the breath differently. Through a mix of stories, practical science, and simple somatic exercises, students explore how singers breathe across traditions and why back-body awareness is essential for powerful, sustainable breath support—whether or not you're a singer.

Music: Path to harmony by Grand_Project from Pixabay

Lección 3: “Breathe Into Your Ming Men” Sounds Fake, But Okay

This chapter explores what happens when you stop trying to breathe like a hero in a disaster movie and start breathing like a deeply chill tree. We’ll meet the ming men (spoiler: it’s not a secret dojo), and learn how back-body breath transforms your Tai Chi or Qi Gong practice from “arm choreography” to “moving meditation that lowkey fixes your posture.”

Music: 417hz Music by Ribhav Agrawal from Pixabay

Lección 4: Your Back Knows What It’s Doing... Stop Helping

This lesson explores how back breathing emerges naturally when we stop over-controlling the breath. Through the lens of the Alexander Technique and Feldenkrais Method, students are invited to notice rather than manage, using rest, awareness, and small movements to rediscover the body’s built-in coordination. It's not about effort—it’s about permission.

Music: Breath Of Life 15 minutes Music by Grand_Project from Pixabay

Lección 5: Lie Down, Don’t Try, I Mean It: Yogic Breathing For Overachievers

This lesson explores Dirgha Pranayama—aka the “three-part breath”—through the often-overlooked lens of the back body. You'll shift from front-loaded, chesty breathing to a fuller, more balanced experience that includes the ribs, spine, and kidneys. With gentle posture, quiet awareness, and a lot less effort than you’re used to, this practice invites your breath to finally show up where it’s been trying to go all along: behind you.

Music: Muzyka Medytacyjna Music by Piotr Witowski from Pixabay

Reviews

This was fantastic. I wish I'd learned it as a child. I feel like my deep breaths are Fuller now. Thanks you. 💙 ~*~

Thank You Kathryn. Who would of thunk, I keep learning about the breath, even at 72! This was a wonderful, effective and engaging course on breathing. Back breathing is now a part of my practice. As a beginning singer (it’s the fault of the vocalist I accompany on jazz piano) back breathing is very helpful. Now if I could actually sing!

Excellent experience for me! I felt like I’ve learned about techniques to help maximize my breathing. Back breathing (and visualizing breathing in ‘all directions’) has made me feel more calm and centred overall, and it is starting to feel more natural. Thank you for this course 🌞

I'm not a singer, I have a serious lung disease. Breathing is serious business for me. Thanks to the fun way you presented the course I lightened up. Diaphramic breathing with pursed lips on the out breath is no longer the only option for rescue when breathless.
Every one of the lessons have helped me, body mind and spirit, I believe, and I'm grateful.

Thank you so much for this course Kathryn🙏

Thank you for an excellent, fun and yet very “important” course everyone benefits from - yogis, singers and those who want to feel more energized and connected by breathing more counciously but with less effort. For me this course was the missing piece of the breathing into the back puzzle 🤩🙏🥳🤸‍♂️

Splendid course! Lots of good information, very nice practice, and a delicious sense of humor 😀 I will listen to this course again, after i practice the exercises for a while 🥰