Before a member touches a spring at LITHE they spend most of a private session learning to breathe into the sides and back of the ribcage. It sounds precious. It is the single most useful thing we teach.
Most adults breathe up: the shoulders lift, the neck works, the belly stays still or pulls in. It is a stress breath, and it teaches the body that every effort begins with tension in the places that should be quiet. The lateral breath does the opposite. The ribs widen like a bellows, the abdominals stay long and engaged, the shoulders do nothing at all.
Try it now. Sit tall, put your hands on the sides of your ribs, and breathe in through the nose so that the hands move apart. Breathe out through a soft mouth and feel the ribs knit back together from the bottom. Ten of those. Notice that your neck had nothing to do.
Every exercise in the method is timed to this breath. The exhale is where the work is: the carriage moves, the spine curls, the leg extends. The inhale is where the length is. Once the pattern is in the body, the exercises stop being exercises and become a way of moving. That is the whole idea.