Mantra

I am regurlarly using mantra sound in the practices I give. That's the bhāvana, भावन I often used in my yoga classes.
Several reasons for me to make āsana practices with a mantra, one of them is that I am a vedic chant teacher and it's a need for me to practice vedic chant everyday, it is a yoga practice for me the same way as āsana practice, it demands a lot of discipline especially by learning sanskrit and it's very interesting for the students to discover a part of it through an āsana practice.
Another reason is that it brings joy, so much joy, joy is pervading all the spaces of your body, when I am chanting I feel so happy, I have the will to laugh for anything, and I always say to my students that it's not an obligation to use the sounds I give, but if they do, they have to chant them with a lot of pleasure and they do.
A physiological reason, it increases naturally the exhale since you chant loudly on exhale, so the diaphragm relaxes by itself without effort, and in the same time the result is to increase slowly the inhale without doing it intentionally.
It allows also to explore āsana in a different way, sanskrit vibrations are really powerful, you can go deeper in each āsana feeling them more accurately.
So I chose the mantra ओँ नमः (om namah), students have to chant it in some āsana of the practice such as uttānāsana, parśvottānāsana, adhomukha śvānāsana and jānuśīrşāsana, saluting respectfully each part of the body, it was interesting to note the progression of their breathing, the way by the repetition they could lengthen their breath in order to be able to make the pose after ओँ.