Why breath out through the mouth?

Hi,

In Mas Oyama's book, COMPLETE KARATE COURSE, it describes an ibuki breathing exercise which the practitioner breath in through his nose to the maximum capacity and then use the lower abs to force the air out through the mouth. I recently read about a similar breathing exercise practiced by the systema people.

My question is why breath out through the mouth? Wouldn't using lower abs to force air out through the nose achieve the same goal? What's the advantage of breathing out through the mouth? Several science studies showed that the turbinals bone in the nose acts like a heat exchanger which minimize the mositure loss as each breath leaves the nose. This protects the practitioner from dehydration, so breathing out through the mouth is a disadvantage.

Anyways, I am hoping someone here had done similar practice or know the rationale behind this. I don't want to sign up at a karate forum just to ask one question.

Thanks

wm

May I give my two cents. For any deep breathing exercise/routine I believe, in the beginning, normal breathing is the right way to go for a good foundation. As the practitioner advances he/she may choose to inhale/exhale thru the nose or do reverse abdominal breathing. Hope this helps. Have a good day.



"The movement of the breathe determines the movement of the body". Ken Cohen

Thanks for the help, but I still want to know the rationale/advantage for forcing the air thru the mouth. This goes against everything that I had studied. There must some motivation behind doing it this way.

Strange, your handle seem to trigger some bizzard error from this board, everything I try to post dfe****, it get deformed. Hmm... bizzard.
wm

Greetings..

In through the nose, out through the nose.. the mucus membranes in the nasal and sinus passages need to be kept moist, the water-vapour lost by exhaling through the mouth tends to dry-out the mucus membranes, reducing their effectiveness at trapping pollutants.. exhaling through the nose re-hydrates these membranes.. The disadvantage? can be messy if too much mucus is present.. most people disconnect their tongue from the roof of the mouth while exhaling through the mouth, breaking the circuit of chi flow..

just another perspective, Be well...

Good observations.

Yaichibob has it the nail on the head. The filters in the nose filter out polluants in the inhalation but the open mouth allows a greater exhalation capacity and does not prohibit the excretion of gaseous impurities, whereas the nose hairs would trap and retain them causing possible infection to the nasal membranes.

Thanks for the replies.

wm

I don't do karate, and I don't read about karate. But I can give a simple answer to a simple question. Sending air forcefully through the nose is difficult and painful. Try it yourself.

That's right, breathing out through the nose slowly can be fine, but try doing it fast.

In any event, why restrict yourself to just one method of breathing? One size does not fit all....

"most people disconnect their tongue from the roof of the mouth while exhaling through the mouth,breaking the circuit of chi flow.."

My instructor does a chi gong exercise where he disconnects his tongue from the roof of his mouth on the exhale. He says this drops your energy. Don't know the details though.

Exhaling through the mouth moves the chi in a way that exhaling through the nose doesn't.