The PracticeExeter

A gathering for men seeking strength, stillness and discipline — through slow breathing, progressive silence, and sitting still.

A walk up a hill on Monday evenings, and an hour of paced breathing and quiet on Tuesday and Thursday mornings. For men, free, and you bring nothing.

Most men know they find it hard to slow down, or to sit still. This is the opportunity to practise both.

I'm Alexei Janssen, ex-Royal Marine performance coach, and I run it. The group is new. Come along, or message me first and ask me anything: wa.me/447424799151

The modern world stimulates, separates and sedates us. The Practice pushes back: settling an over-revved system, and building the capacity to be still over time.

Times and locations are on this site; the one-way WhatsApp channel carries changes and announcements, and nobody will message you.

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What this is

In a world constantly chasing recovery, escapism, optimisation or enlightenment, The Practice promises you nothing.

We are not here to overcome anything, talk about anything, or emotionally process anything; we are simply here to slow the breath, let the mind and body follow, and see what happens.

At its centre is Light Breathing: slow breathing guided by a light bar, in blocks of a few minutes at a time, with stretches of silence in between. The same principles carry into everything else — walking a hill, and, in time, perhaps clubs or more.

Slow, light breathing can be dull, and it takes consistency before any benefit shows; sitting in silence with no distraction can be uncomfortable too. The Practice is built to take the edge off that — with structure, encouragement, and the company of other men.

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Why you can't just sit still

A long stretch of stress, excitement or busyness is momentum, and momentum only has to be dealt with when you try to slow down. Decelerate at speed and heat appears: restlessness, a racing mind, impatience, a phone picked up thirty times an hour, sleep that will not come despite exhaustion. Telling someone to calm down is asking them to slam the handbrake on at a hundred miles an hour; it disrespects both the speed they are going and their minimum stopping distance.

That is why nobody stressed can simply sit alone in a room for half an hour, and why we do not start there. The Practice decelerates in intervals, breathing, walking, and short silences that lengthen, taking the heat out a little at a time, at the fastest speed you can tolerate. You are not encouraged to relax. You are given a framework in which to face the heat rather than run from it.

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Why breathing?

How we feel and think changes how we breathe: anxiety and overstimulation drive breathing that is fast, shallow, erratic or heavy; a steady, grounded body and mind settle into something slower, lower and lighter. Less obvious is that it runs the other way too: change the breath and you change the state underneath it. Breathing is the one automatic system we can also take by hand, which makes it a rare back door into a nervous system we otherwise can't reach directly.

This is not breathwork as it is usually sold. Most of what carries that name is more air — faster and harder, with dramatic expectations and experiences — the kind the algorithm rewards. There is a time and a place for that, but later, once the respiratory foundations are restored. The irony is that a great many of us are already breathing more than we need to, day to day; it is not always sensible to fight fire with fire.

The Practice is about restoring efficient, functional breathing — and learning to sit with the mind as it is, rather than outrun it, change it, or escape it.

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What we do

At its centre is Light Breathing at The Hall — slow breathing paced by a light bar, with lengthening silence — on Tuesday and Thursday mornings. The same principle goes outdoors on The Hill, a Monday-evening walk up from Ide, nose-breathing under load. Each stands on its own; come to either.

Mixed Evenings begin on Wednesdays from September — a looser session that might take in Indian clubs, longer sits, the odd talk, or yoga for men. It'll be announced on the channel.

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What this is not

We are not meeting to recover from trauma, to compete, to talk about our feelings, or to complain about other people. For some men talking is exactly what is needed, and there are good places for it; this is simply not one of them. If that is what you need or expect, you may not find it here. The Practice works the other way round: improve how we are, by slowing the nervous system down, and how we see things improves with it — because we do not see things as they are, we see them as we are.

That said, this is not a silent order. We might chat over tea; equally, you may not say a word and still get a great deal from it. Nobody will give you unsolicited advice, and nobody will ask you to speak. You can pause, sit out, or leave at any point — that is always yours to choose.

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Cost

It is free for now, and you bring nothing. If it becomes popular there'll be a card reader by the tea, and you pay what you want — which includes nothing.

Expect nothing. Practice anyway.