Waking Energy 7 Timeless Practices Designed to Reboot Your Body and Unleash Your Potential

constrict the throat area, clamping down on the glottis at the back of the throat, blood is diverted and
distributed to the lower body, facilitating more balanced circulation. The Throat Lock seals the breath
down inside the lungs after you have inhaled so that it doesn’t rise up, causing uncomfortable pressure
in the throat, nostrils, and the eustachian tubes during compression. Finally, the action of dropping the
chin slightly forward toward the chest creates a gentle traction for the spinal column, stretching the
dura mater, the fascial sheath from the skull to the sacrum, stimulating all the muscles and nerves that
run along the spine.
1. Before you begin, note that this one is harder to “find” than the other two, the Abdominal and
Root Locks. In easy pose, with the hands face down on the knees, inhale through the nose to
three-quarters full and contract the throat muscles by clamping down the glottis over the trachea,
at the back of the throat.
2. At the top of your inhalation, with the Throat Lock applied, tuck the chin in slightly toward the
chest, stretching the back of the neck, without sacrificing the length or integrity in your upper
spine; don’t allow the shoulders to roll forward at all. Your shoulders are relaxed and dropped
down and back, open, your chest is expanded, and your neck is long and relaxed even as it’s
tilting forward.
3. Hold the breath here as long as you comfortably can, focusing on the breath and energy
circulating, locked safely inside you.
4. When you are ready to exhale, raise the chin, leveling your gaze, so that your eyes are focused
straight ahead, and let the air flow gently out of your nose. Then, return to your natural breathing
and rest, taking stock, tuning into how you feel and sensing into the subtle energy flowing inside
you as a result of your conscious breathing, your retention with the Throat Lock applied.
Great Lock
Now we will take everything we have just learned and apply maha bandha, the Great Lock, the
mother of all bandhas. We will combine the three locks, activating and sealing the mula, uddiyana,
and jalandhara bandhas to facilitate the flow of prana through the nadis and your central channel, the
sushumna nadi. We will balance the left channel (ida nadi) and the right channel (pingala nadi), and
this in turn will balance your overall subtle energy, emotion and logic, the left and right hemispheres
of the brain, nourishing the energy in your kidneys and calming your mind to enhance mental focus in
preparation for meditation.
We will apply Great Lock at certain strategic times throughout the kundalini practice. But for the
most part, we will simply apply the Root Lock after most of the exercises.
Note: The Great Lock can be performed both with the arms down and hands on your knees, or with the arms sweeping up to the ceiling.
We are going to learn the arms-up variation for our kundalini practice.