Ari Barkan enjoys a good, deep breath before starting his day.
The South Philly resident has been running Center City Breathe at 1425 Federal St. for the last five years. It gives guests a chance to unwind with a community of teachers who are trained to focus on mental, spiritual and physical health.
Barkan has been participating and teaching what is called “breathwork” for nearly 20 years.
“I was on my own journey of healing through different modalities through improv movement and dance classes and bioenergetics,” Barkan said. “One thing led to another. Someone suggested a bodywork class. And he was friends with the breathwork community and that’s how I stepped into it.”
Barkan bought the current building on Federal Street in 2015 and started building out a studio there.
“It was already commercially zoned and I made the connections and said, ‘Hey, I want to bring breathwork to the city of Philadelphia,’ ” Barkan said. “We don’t have any studios that are dedicated solely to breath work.”
Breathwork is seen as a form of therapeutic healing for trauma, anxiety and depression. Classes are Tuesday mornings and Thursday nights and each class carries a flat fee of $20. Barkan and other instructors teach guests different forms of breathing that usually go otherwise unnoticed throughout a normal day.
“Our nervous system is jacked up pretty bad from all the things that are coming at us,” Barkan said. “We don’t realize how much we are absorbing. This is like a diffuser. Its immediate results help bring your nervous system down.”
No prior knowledge is needed and walk-ins are welcome.
“Everyone has an experience,” Barkan said. “When you start to get caught in your breath, you have an experience. You move from the thinking analytical state of being or of doing to the body feeling energetic state of being. That’s the switch. You’re not thinking, you’re just feeling the sensations. And it’s new for a lot of people.”
Thursday night classes (7 p.m.) are two hours long and involve 30 minutes or warmup, sharing and setting intentions. Then there’s an hour of conscious connected breathing, followed by a 30 minute wind-down and more sharing about the experience.
“Really, that’s where some of the magic of the night happens, when people are opened up and feel so much better in their bodies,” Barkan said.
The Tuesday morning classes are just 75 minutes and begin at 9:45 a.m. It offers an the hour of conscious connected breathing while compacting all the other elements.
“Tuesday morning is just an hour and 15 minutes,” Barkan said. “Only 15 minutes to jump in and jump out. You come in, get your dose of breathwork, your maintenance, your fix and then off you go running for the day.”
The facility has a large studio space with sprawling hardwood floors and additional features like a room dedicated to water breathes, which is used more for private sessions.
Barkan has been running his business without advertising over the last five years but decided he wants more people to know about Center City Breathe.
“For five years, it’s been word of mouth kind of incognito,” Barkan said. “I like to operate organically but I’m at the point where this is so important that more people need to experience it.”
Barkan speaks first-hand about the experience.
“It lit me up,” he said. “It opened me up and moved things in ways I had never experienced before. And sensations I had never hit before. It was rapid and intense and it was very grounding. I said, ‘Hey, I need some more of that.’ ”
Interested participants can visit https://www.centercitybreathe.com/ to schedule an appointment or visit the facility. There’s no long-term commitment for anyone willing to give it a try.
“Come as yourself with some comfortable clothes and an open mind,” Barkan said.
