Breathing in Taiji

[Fu-Pow]

Is there a particular way to breath in Taiji. My teacher says the breath is secondary to the form so we should focus more on the form and not worry about the breathing....Dr. Yang-Ywing Ming outlines two kinds of breathing in his books:Taoist and Buddhist. He associates Taoist breathing with Taiji. For people familiar with his writings is there any basis for this? Is breathing "that" important to Taiji?

Fu-Pow
http://www.makskungfu.com/images/Graphics/logo.gif
"If you are talking about sport that is one thing. But when you are talking about combat-as it is-well then, baby, you'd better train every part of your body" - Bruce Le

[Internal Flow]

I am not familiar with his writtings, but breathing is important for controlling the chi, controlling the chi is really important in Tai Chi, so breathing must be really important too.

All things return to it as to their home, but it does not lord it over them.
Thus it may be called "The Great"

[Ky-Fi]

As I've been taught at YMAA, taoist, or reverse breathing, is necessary to practice Taiji as a martial art. When your body breathes normally(Buddhist), your dantien expands on the inhale, and contracts on the exhale. When your body wants to emit energy, it reverses this process. When you laugh, cry, sigh, yell, push a car, throw a baseball, or throw a punch, your breathing reverses so that your dantien contracts on the inhale, and pushes out (or compresses) on the exhale. In the CMA paradigm, this is the forcful circulation of qi from the dantien. Thus, as I've been taught to do the Yang form, when you're doing a move that's a yang jin, that is, where you would be offensively emitting energy, you want to be exhaling, pushing the dantien and huiyin out. You would reverse that in the transitions. It's just kind of a slo-mo version of what your body naturally does if you were doing these at combat speeds. And this also has to be coordinated with other body movements, like opening and closing the chest, etc.

Again, not everybody subsribes to this view, but it makes sense to me and feels very natural when I practice.

[Fu-Pow2]

This gets back to the debate of whether or not the "Chi" in Tai Chi is the same "Chi" as in TCM. From what I've read on this forum I don't think they are the same. In which case breathing becomes less important in Taiji as long as you are doing the form correctly. Chi Gung however, is based on TCM and would be more dependent on breathing. It seems that it depends also on how you view Taiji: is it a martial art or is it a type of Chi Gung. The tradional view is that Taiji is a martial art, not any less martial than any other type of kung fu. The new view is that it is a "health" excercise and so should follow the principles of TCM.

[This message was edited by Fu-Pow2 on 06-18-01 at 09:58 AM.]

[Fu-Pow2]

I would agree with you except for one thing. In Taiji we talk about storing and emitting. As in storing energy (like a spring) in the tendons. However, when you store and when you emit is totally up to you. You can essentially emit when storing (ie you can use contraction of the spring to force your opponent downward.) So it seems like their would not be a set breathing pattern that would follow the form. Just curious...did you get your idea on breathing from a YMAA book? If not, where? Are there any other books out there on the subject of breathing and Taiji? It seems like Dr. Yang has cornered the market.....

[Ky-Fi]

Fu Pow,
Yes, I study at YMAA. As far as breathing in Taiji, I would boil it down to this: to my understanding, you're GREATLY going to lessen the power of your fa-jing if you're inhaling while doing it.

[Ky-Fi]

Also, I don't have it in front of me, but I believe Yang Zhen Duo says something similar in his Yang Taijiquan book.

[Internal Flow]

Fu pow.
Doing the form right is nessesary, but to do it right , you must use your energy properly in each move.
Taiji is a martial art wich makes use of the internal energy and not an external art and the MOST important is to develop your internal energy and strength and learn how to use it.
There is no new view of taiji. What you call new view can be described really easily: "rubbish"
It has nothing to do with Taiji Quan

All things return to it as to their home, but it does not lord it over them.
Thus it may be called "The Great"

[Fu-Pow]

I think that we can agree that you definitely should be breathing out when emitting. However, having studied a couple kinds of kung fu, we usually restrict the abdomen (ie the dan tien) when "emitting". This is accompanied by a yell of "ha" for backfists, "yeet" for leopard fists, "deek" for kicks and "seet" for roundhouse punches. I don't quite get this breathing out and expanding the dan tien. Any thoughts on why this is better? Could I apply this "Taoist" breathing to kung fu, a shaolin "buddhist" derived martial art? :confused:

Fu-Pow
http://www.makskungfu.com/images/Graphics/logo.gif
"If you are talking about sport that is one thing. But when you are talking about combat-as it is-well then, baby, you'd better train every part of your body" - Bruce Lee

[origenx]

Ky-Fi - So, r us saying that on power emission, u would exhale, pushing the dantien and huiyin out, but also contracting the abdomen in then? And on the inhale, suck in dantien and huiyin but expand the abdomen? I'm not entirely clear as to if dantien, abdomen, huiyin are all separate, or if the dantien=abdomen (or at least work synonymously). Care to clarify please?

[Ky-Fi]

Hey,
My workplace has this crazy notion that we should only be on the internet during lunch hour----and they've got new software tracking our internet use---I'll be back this evening :).

[Ky-Fi]

"dantien=abdomen (or at least work synonymously)."

Origenx---well, the dantien is in the lower abdomen, so yes, for this discussion I'm kind of talking about them as the same thing---maybe somebody with more knowledge would differentiate, but I would have to think that they work synonymously. With huiyin cavity I mean the anus.

So, what I'm saying is that while we're sitting here typing on a computer, we're doing normal breathing---that is, our abdomen expands when we inhale, and draws in when we exhale. But if I want to emit energy---say my cat is clawing up the furniture and I want to yell at him---when I yell "get off that god****ed chair!", my body naturally reverses the normal breathing pattern(it goes to reverse breathing)-- when I inhale to yell, my abdomen draws in, and as I yell, I'm exhaling sharply and my abdomen pushes out and compresses. This is the same pattern that the body goes through in ANY circumstance that it has to emit energy.
The way I've been taught to do the slo-mo Taiji form is to keep this exact pattern---the same way you would use reverse breathing for the full power strikes, you breathe for the slo-mo form---you just slow everything down a lot and stretch it smoothly over the time it takes to do the posture. As far as the huiyin cavity---maybe that depends on the invidual as to whether the movement is synonymous with the abdomen on power emission. I just know that one time I was doing slow soft qigong, and the teacher reminded us to coordinate the huiyin with the breathing, and I hadn't been doing it.

"However, having studied a couple kinds of kung fu, we usually restrict the abdomen (ie the dan tien) when "emitting". This is accompanied by a yell of "ha" for backfists, "yeet" for leopard fists, "deek" for kicks and "seet" for roundhouse punches. I don't quite get this breathing out and expanding the dan tien. Any thoughts on why this is better? Could I apply this "Taoist" breathing to kung fu, a shaolin "buddhist" derived martial art? "

Fu Pow, to my understanding, as you described it you're already applying Taoist (reverse) breathing to your kung fu. I tend to call it "exhailng while expanding the dantien", because when you're doing the form in slo-mo, the exhalation and expansion is long and slow. But when you do an offensive Taiji jing fast, you yell "ha" during a sharp exhalation, and compress or restrict the dantien as you described.

I'm not going to deny that there's some major differences between Taiji and the limited experience i"ve had with external styles, but in my opinion the breathing pattern for application has to be largely the same, because that's just how the human body works.

[Sam Wiley]

Breathing is very important. Taiji is qigong, so if you are not breathing right, then you are not getting the full qigong benefits for your health.

When you begin learning Taiji, you should breathe with what is called a "natural" breath. It is natural because this is the way children breathe before tension and stress enter their lives. This breath has the abdomen expanding on the in breath and contracting on the out breath. You stick with this method for about 3 years.

After that time, you learn to breathe in other specific ways to acheive different things. But you must not be taught them too early or it will be a hindrance to your learning anything.

One of the other ways of breathing is with the abdomen contracting in on the in breath and expanding on the out breath. "Reverse" breath. If you try this and your shoulders raise or your chest expands, you are not ready for it. The shoulders never raise during your breathing, nor does your chest expand.

The next is pre-natal breath, where the top and bottom halves of the abdomen do opposite things. The top half expands on the in breath and the bottom contracts, and then they do the exact opposite for the out breath. This is to help center and store qi a little at a time, mixing pre and post natal.

The top level of breathing is called tortoise breath, which has the same movements of the abdomen as pre-natal, except the breath is held after the in breath for 7 seconds to store more qi. This breath is very difficult.

I don't advise you to try the last two types of breathing because if you are not ready for them, you could give yourself a hernia.

There are times in the forms when we must do these certain types of breathing. With the last two types of breath, this is pretty much a strictly qigong part of the form, though there will probably be applications. But the qigong is the focus of the section. These different breaths are only added after the practitioner has been practicing for the appropriate amount of time. Generally, each type of breathing is done for 3 years before going on to the next one.

*********
"I put forth my power and he was broken.
I withdrew my power and he was ground into fine dust."
-Aleister Crowley, The Vision and the Voice

[The Willow Sword]

JUST BREATHE!!! :eek:

Whatever you think i am or want me to be,,, i am.