You may be feeling stuck, unmotivated, numb, or lack sex drive. It’s as though your battery is low and you need a jump to rev your engine again. Sometimes all you need in these circumstances is to get energy moving.

This practice from John's 2020 Embodied Men's Leadership Training begins with a round of Wim Hof Breath followed by the Vase Breath, which is a Tibetan Breath for circulating energy, and completes with an exercise for clearing tension in your body, so you can feel a refreshed flow of energy. This is a good practice to take on daily. It can be active and powerful or soft and nourishing, depending on what you need on any given day.

If you want to find a refreshed sense of energy flow to clear anything that may be blocking you, try this 18-minute practice.

For the Wim Hof Breath, move with a spinal flex, arching and rounding your spine with each inhale and exhale for 30 rounds of breath through the mouth. On the final exhale, holding the breath out, pull your navel in and plant your feet & sacrum. See if you can feel the energy moving up and down your spine. Feel it like a super highway of energy.

Then take a big inhale and hold it. Pack and root the Chi down into your perineum and genitals. Feel your spine, shoulders, and chest wide, strong and open. Lift your sternum. Take up as much space as you can. Then smooth out your breath after you complete your final exhale.

For the Vase Breath, think of your nostrils as the flute of a vase and the central column as the thin neck leading to the big, round base. Focus on breathing through your nose with your tongue pressed gently against the roof of your mouth. Hold your chin level with the ground and let the back of your throat open wide. Again, see if you can spread out through your chest, shoulders and spine, widening everything.

Inhale to a count of 7. Hold the breath in to a count of 7 while expanding your abdomen and packing the Chi down from your diaphragm into your genitals. Feel your genitals and perineum get wider. Then exhale to a count of 7. And begin again with an inhale to a count of 7, down into the base of your “vase.”

Continue this breath for 2 minutes at your own pace. You can make this practice active and powerful, or soft and nourishing. Feel the breath in the back of your abdomen—in your kidneys—as much as in the front. If you start to get lost in thought, return to the breath.

After about 2 minutes, you will continue this breath, but this time, you will hold the inhale longer—for closer to 15 seconds, packing the Chi into your genitals and imagining that there is a fire just below your navel and above your genitals. See if you can stoke that fire in your lower abdomen and genitals. Then on the exhale, you will squeeze your perineum and push that energy up your spine, letting it spread throughout your body. Continue at your own pace.

After about 5 more minutes of this new layer of the practice, allow your breath to normalize. Notice if you have more space and energy in your lower abdomen and genitals.

Complete the practice by pounding on your arms, ribs, front of the spine, back of the spine, and legs with light fists, clearing any tension in your body.

Disclaimer: Although anyone may find this practice to be useful, it is made available with the understanding that we are not engaged in presenting specific medical, psychological, emotional, sexual or spiritual advice. Nor is anything in this practice intended to be a diagnosis, prescription, recommendation or cure for any specific kind of medical, psychological, emotional, sexual or spiritual problem. Each individual has unique needs and this practice cannot take these individual differences into account. Each person should engage in a program of treatment, prevention, cure, or general health only in consultation with a licensed, qualified physician, therapist or other competent professional. Any person suffering from a sexually transmitted disease or any local illness of his or her sexual organs should consult a medical doctor and a qualified instructor of sexual yoga before practicing the sexual methods described in this practice.