Lion’s Breath At yoga yesterday, while downward dogging, our instructor asked us for five rounds of lion’s breath. It’s easy— when you exhale, stick your tongue out as far as it will go and with the gruesome face that pose ensures make the most godawful rasping noises. After two repetitions I began to laugh. I thought how wonderful my father would have found the practice. I imagined him lion-breathing on the checkout line at Walmart, during a sappy love scene at the local twelve screen, and at the insomniac’s gin game under the lights at Century Village. He’d teach technique to every child that crossed his path and one hundred years from today, his descendants would still be disrupting kindergarten nap time— picture the peals of pure joy, as a room of five-year-olds discovers lion’s breath.