Breathe With the Heels

[Sloppy Zhang]

So I've heard the saying that to breathe well, breathe through the heels. I'm interested in what these means.

 

I do the longevity breathing that B.K. Frantzis talks about in "Opening the Energy Gates of Your Body", so it's like you breathe in through the nose, focus on the dantien, but when you breathe you expand the front and sides of your belly and the upper back (pretty standard deep breathing/taoist breathing, from what I understand).

 

But I also do some of what Franz Bardon teaches in his book, Initiation Into Hermetics, and one of the things he taught was pore breathing. In that you visualize breathing from every pore in your body, which would also include the heels.

 

Me being the person that I am, I like to combine the two, so the deep breathing from Taoism and the pore breathing from Hermetics, and it works really great for me. I was just wondering what "breathing from the heels" is supposed to mean, and if it could have any connection to pore breathing.

Edited September 20, 2009 by Sloppy Zhang

[Marblehead]

Hi Sloppy Zhang

 

From Chuang Tzu (translator unknown):

 

The pure men of old slept without dreams, and woke without worries. They ate with indifference to flavor, and drew deep breaths. True men draw breath from their heels; the vulgar only from their throats.

 

I had always thought that this was referring to 'whole-body breathing'. I started researching the technique a while back but somehow got distracted and never followed through with it. I have been told that the goal is to increase the amount of oxygen going to all parts of the body.

 

Happy Trails!

[NeiChuan]

Right also in the book Root of chinese Qi gong it mentions Immortals breath with the heels.

[Zhuo Ming-Dao]

My interpretation has always been that we should sweep with the yi mind from the bubbling spring up into the microcosmic orbit with every breath. After I did this diligently for a for a number of months it would only take one sweep and the chi would automatically start flowing up and in and circulating with each inhalation.

This was after I had already spent a few years clearing out my feet, legs, and opening up my microcosmic orbit with deliberate neigong.

 

Also, if you become too mentally or emotionally distracted, the process will continue for a few more breaths before winding down. The longer that you allow it to continue, though, the longer that it will linger after you return to normal activity levels.

[Sloppy Zhang]

Hi Sloppy Zhang

 

From Chuang Tzu (translator unknown):

 

The pure men of old slept without dreams, and woke without worries. They ate with indifference to flavor, and drew deep breaths. True men draw breath from their heels; the vulgar only from their throats.

 

I had always thought that this was referring to 'whole-body breathing'. I started researching the technique a while back but somehow got distracted and never followed through with it. I have been told that the goal is to increase the amount of oxygen going to all parts of the body.

 

Happy Trails!

 

Interesting. Do you still have some of the stuff you've found since then? I tried just googling "whole-body breathing" and found some moderately interesting links, but nothing too specific, or too new sounding.

 

My interpretation has always been that we should sweep with the yi mind from the bubbling spring up into the microcosmic orbit with every breath. After I did this diligently for a for a number of months it would only take one sweep and the chi would automatically start flowing up and in and circulating with each inhalation.

This was after I had already spent a few years clearing out my feet, legs, and opening up my microcosmic orbit with deliberate neigong.

 

Also, if you become too mentally or emotionally distracted, the process will continue for a few more breaths before winding down. The longer that you allow it to continue, though, the longer that it will linger after you return to normal activity levels.

 

This is one of the things I found by searching for "whole-body breathing". Definitely an interesting sounding technique.

[Marblehead]

Interesting. Do you still have some of the stuff you've found since then? I tried just googling "whole-body breathing" and found some moderately interesting links, but nothing too specific, or too new sounding.

 

This is one of the things I found by searching for "whole-body breathing". Definitely an interesting sounding technique.

 

I have eight MS Word documents on 'breathing'. Some are short one-page docs but others are too large to post on the forum. I can try to attach them to a PM and send to you or anyone else who might be interested or if that doesn't work we could do it by e-mail if you send me your e-mail address in a PM.

 

Happy Trails!

[Aetherous]

Breathing with the heels refers to embryonic breathing. My view is that it's not something you should try to do, unless you're already able to do it...in that case you just allow it.

[NeiChuan]

hm.. thanks alot scotty.