Let Every Breath... Secrets of the Russian Breath Masters Paperback – April 17, 2006

If you can master these breathing techniques, it will greatly enhance your workouts, and life in general. Highly recommend. These Systema masters are off the charts!

"Let Every Breath" is an excellent book for the martial artist, or someone with an anxiety disorder. I bought my first copy many years ago, along with a DVD on the subject. The book was loaned out, and never returned, so I wanted it back in my library. Reading and applying it's principles and exercises will give you a significant increase in stamina, and increase your awareness of increases in tension. With practice you can quickly return to a calm state. As a martial artist, you learn early in training that tension robs you of power, focus and reaction time. I gained a dramatic increase in stamina, by breathing properly; and learning to relax all muscles not needed to perform a specific task. The same principles, allowed me to focus energy that I was wasting, into my strikes. Great book!

It's funny the number of things I thought I knew how to do before I started studying martial arts. Sit, stand, walk, sleep, breathe....Let Every Breath gave me a lot to think about and at least eight years' worth of things to work on. Well worth reading.It's a good book. I found the worshipful admiration and gratitude for his teachers a little off-putting … but I do appreciate the humility and gratitude that makes someone want to share how amazing someone else is. However, when I recommend it to others – and I will – I will probably suggest they begin in chapter 3, where the breath teaching starts.The Russian Orthodox flavor was great. Many martial arts texts (particularly the older ones, but also a number of the new) are tinged with religion. After so many Buddhist, Daoist, Shinto, etc, it was nice to see an Eastern Christianity view.You can tell that the creators of this method were special forces and that a lot of the early training was military. You can tell that the author practices about a dozen martial arts very intensely. How? The really rather sweet, innocent assumption that everyone who reads this book is an athletic male in his prime.I have had to completely adjust every single exercise shown in this book to something I could do.First they have you doing lots and lots of push-ups while doing interesting breath patterns...with no tension anywhere in your body. Just as I was trying to figure out if I (with my pathetic upper body strength) could possibly work up to doing a push-up that slowly if I did it from my knees, the author has a helpful suggestion. Guess what? If doing endless slow push-ups is so easy that not only do you not have any muscular tension but you're actually bored, you can hook one ankle behind the other to make it more interesting!I had to put the book down to laugh.I remember my first day of kindergarten. I was four years old. I remember my mounting panic as I struggled to sit up as the teacher instructed, with my legs out straight ahead of me on the floor and my torso perpendicular to the floor. I couldn't do it. My legs simply aren't flexible like that. So I particularly enjoyed it as the writer explained that the double leg lift was easy for breath work because hey! Who can't just slowly lift both legs to a 90 degree angle without any tension? The trick, he says, is knowing when to stop so you don't overfill those lungs. Oh, and stop a lot along the way, not letting your back arch.My Army friends would probably have a blast with this. But I am modifying every exercise for myself, based on the thought that breathing in these patterns under physical stress will probably bring me most of the same benefits: it just takes a lot less to stress my body that it does for, say, a Navy Seal.Yes, as other reviewers have said, the actual content is more of a fat pamphlet than a book. But it is a very valuable fat pamphlet. It will take me several years to work through this, and more to make it a natural part of my everyday life. I am grateful that the author boiled down this game-changing teaching into so few words, so that we can grasp the important things and start working on them immediately. It is simply and purely the fundamentals, without frills to obscure the important parts. It is well explained and simple. And every coach, every sensei, every trainer will tell you that it's the correct practice of the fundamentals that matters.

I am eternally grateful to my younger self of 45 years ago for beginning internal somatic studies and practices involving breathing and movement. With what I learned early on I freed myself from chronic asthma and anxiety but now, learning about Systema I see ways in which traditional methods can even be extended and expanded. At 72 years of age, I am inspired to deepen my knowledge and to take resilience and self-responsibility to new levels.

One of the best books I have ever read. It will always be on my shelf for review, but more importantly the exercises within are practiced daily and have changed my life.This is the best way to train your brain and psyche using action rather than just words and mental exercises. This books teaches you to control your breath. You learn to control the chimp (lymbic system, i.e amygdala) that is within us all so that our rational human or default computer brains can act.The freedom to act and strength of character you gain from mastery of these techniques is pricelss

This is a great book, being a current Systema student i feel that this book has greatly expanded on my knowledge of breathing.That being said I wouldn't recommend this to someone who hasn't trained systema with an instructor, you will not really be able to fully understand what is being explained. (I recommend an instructor because if you are training from a video it is easy to be lead a stray when doing an exercise and it can become confusing with no instructor to discuss certain problems and challenges).If you are a current Systema student you will find this book a valuable resource, the way of efficient and functional breathing is explained here in ample detail to give you a holistic understanding of you breathing and circulatory system.I really liked how there were no funny tricks, but rather a foundational approach to breath.

"Let Every Breath" is truly a life changing book. After reading it, I began taking classes in Ft. Mill, SC. Systema's philosophy is totally different than anything I have been involved with before. I must give Scott Meredith an unqualified 5 stars on explaining Systema breathing.Will reading this book make you a Systema master? No. But after reading it, you will have a very good idea of how fundamental breathing is to this very different martial art, and to life itself.Systema is much more than a martial art. It is a way to get more mileage out of your body, and more quality out of life. Some martial arts help you to win fights. Systema helps you when you're fighting, walking, running, lifting heavy objects, driving, mountain climbing, reading, or just feeling stressed. And the solution is always the same: Don't panic, just breathe, and relax.Many thanks to Scott, Vladimir, and Mikhail for a new way of looking at life.