By Sym Posey | The Birmingham Times
What happens when you combine mental health techniques with anime cosplay? You get “The Demon Slayer: Breathwork Experience” which aims to improve physical, mental, and emotional well-being by altering breathing patterns.
Held in early September at Innovation Depot by Healthy Coping Club, Breathwork Experience, is a Birmingham-based brand built with a team of professionals dedicated to promoting mental wellness with resources and support.
Attendees were invited to step into the world of Demon Slayer and discover the real-life power behind the anime’s legendary breathing styles.
Demon Slayer is a popular Japanese anime series and film franchise with total concentration breathing is used to achieve superhuman abilities.
“A Natural Fit”
Jermaine Wall, a licensed clinical social worker and owner of Crescent Counseling Services, based in Trussville and Birmingham said it was “a natural fit” for him to connect to evidence-based breathwork techniques in his clinical work.
“It’s a fun way to bring anime and wellness together, providing people with tools they can use daily to manage stress and take care of themselves,” he said.
Wall is a part of a multidisciplinary team at Health Coping Club with a goal to promote mental wellness and provide resources and support for all.
Crescent Counseling Services focuses on youth and adolescent wellness, men’s mental health, and creating products and programs that help with coping skills through workbooks, card games, and workshops that make dealing with stress easier.
Wall said he always wanted to be in a helping profession and volunteered a lot in college and enjoyed helping people. “A natural extension of that was social work for me,” said Wall.
Anime originated as a Japanese animation subculture and has since become a genre and art form that reflects everyday life, traditions, and modern social issues in Japan.
This is not Wall’s first time at hosting anime-centered influences at one of his events. “I work with clients every week using anime and geek culture as part of therapy,” he said. “I also host groups and presentations monthly, and our Anime Club meets every second Thursday at (The Flourish), 602 19th St Ensley, Birmingham, AL 35218.
He connects the lessons and stories found in anime to real-life wellness with his Anime Awakening program. “I’ve had the opportunity to share this with schools, conventions, and professional conferences,” Wall told the Times.
He’s also done “create your own superpower type of events” at camps, he said. “It’s a strength-based therapy, where we help young people look for their superpowers within themselves … and use that as an opportunity for them to create your own superhero with their own backstory.”
Wall said his appreciation for anime came while he was in graduate school at the University of South Florida.
“I was stressed out from graduate school, so I got caught up in Bleach (an action-adventure anime series). It was the first anime I really started binge watching and then, you know how it goes. You just fall into the rabbit hole,” said Wall.
“Calming The Nervous System”
Lemar Storey, the founder of Life Touch Massage LLC, led the breathwork class in several breathing techniques and said [Wall] reached out to him about the event at Innovation Depot. “I don’t really watch anime, but he (Wall) sent me a link to Demon Slayer, so I checked it out and saw some of the breathing techniques,” said Storey.
In addition to massage services through Life Touch, Storey also conducts yoga classes, and floating sound therapy experiences.
There are 15 different types of pranayama (ancient yogic practice for controlling the breath) but only three were chosen for the class.
“Giving people some techniques that they can use to help with calming the nervous system, lowering their heart rate, calming themselves down in case of anger or not being able to sleep, or anxiety, or depression, are the main,” Storey said.
At the end of the breath-work session, he conducted “a sound bath” a form of therapeutic experience where a practitioner uses different instruments, like gongs, singing bowls, and chimes, to create soothing vibrations and frequencies … to just let the body settle after we do those breathing techniques,” he said.
Working with Story makes for a healthy partnership, Wall said.
“Lamar and I have known each other for years. I do not think we partnered and worked on anything, but this was the perfect opportunity for me to find somebody I respect and somebody that is doing great work in the community,” Wall said, “and for us to partner in a way that is going to help the people. Similar to the two favorite characters linking up to save the day.”
