Do not compare your practice with others practice. Do within your limits or as your capacity allows. Begin with slow and comfortable steps and slowly improve the practice. The only thing you have to pay attention to is contract your abdomen to push air our of your body through nostrils. Don't bother about taking breath inside. The circle of the kapalbhati practice will automatically be formed, in the beginning with lesser number and will improve with regular practice. If you will compare with others and speed up your practice without regular practice, it shall harm instead of advantage. You may follow the following technique of Kapalabhati pranayama:
- First sit comfortably in any meditative posture - padmasana or vajrasana. Always keep your back straight.
- Take 2 or 3 deep breathings before starting kapalbhati.
- Forcefully exhale from the abdomen quickly and repeatedly. Just keep focus on forceful exhalations (this is called active exhalation). Inhalations will spontaneously occur after every exhalation (this is called passive inhalation).
- Gradually, increase the frequency of forceful exhalations to about 20-30 per minute initially. You can increase the frequency up to 60 strokes per minute. This is called one round.
- At end of a round, slowly and exhale the remaining breath if any inside the lungs . After this, normalize your breath and relax.
For 2nd round, again start from step 3 and continue to step 6.
The keypoint here in this practice is forceful exhalations using abdominal muscles (and not chest muscles). You should practice this only within your capacity and comfort level.
At end of this practice, there is temporary suspension of breath and then there is a feeling of tranquility and peaceful silence. This spontaneous pause of breath is kumbhaka.
I hope this helps. Feel free to write back for more query or concerns.
