Quick Breathing Meditation?

[taolpha]

Does this work for any one? I borrowed a friends book called: T'ai Chi Ch'uan and Meditation by Da Liu and there is a chapter on this. My friends Sifu does some thing similar called fire breathing but I've been doing this for four days now and have not experienced any thing more than shortness of breath.

 

/taolpha

[sean]

I do a version called "spinal bastrika" that includes rapidly moving my attention up and down the spine along with the bellows breathing. I like the practice, although I don't think I would get much out of it if it weren't for the slower, meditative spinal breathing I do beforehand.

 

Via AYP Lesson 171

 

Now we will introduce a powerful new pranayama practice called spinal

bastrika. "Bastrika" means "bellows." It is rapid breathing, like a

dog panting, done with the diaphragm only (abdominal breathing),

preferably through the nose. If it is too difficult through the nose,

it can be done through the mouth, as necessary.

 

Bastrika in these lessons is done tracing the spinal nerve quickly

between the perineum (root) and the point between the eyebrows (third

eye), just the same as during normal spinal breathing, only much

faster. The spinal aspect brings greatly increased power to bastrika

pranayama, and at the same time provides balance between the divine

inner polarities in the body. Spinal bastrika charges the entire

nervous system with huge amounts of cleansing prana in a balanced

way.

[taolpha]

sean,

 

Thank you. I'll shall give that one a try.

 

/taolpha

[...]

" I've been doing this for four days now and have not experienced any thing more than shortness of breath. "

 

 

LOL yeah me too man! If you ever get any crazy cool sensations from breath of fire it is probably just hypoxia LOL!

I never had any success with this one myself.. not to say I don't think it would probably work great-- if only because it is such a well-known, mass marketed technique =)

 

M. Winn got his start doing breath of fire, right? It got him nowhere special though, if I remember right.

[Spectrum]

Da Liu decsribes it as a solo exercise. I learned it in a series once we had already gone through about 25 moving forms of chi gung. If it's done right your lungs will tell you. You should not get "out of breath" if your coordinate your cycle correctly. I think this is similar to fatigue while practicing martial art, when your movement gets ahead of your breath, your demand exceeds your supply.

 

I believe Da Liu also describes Quick Breathing (similar to what I learned as Fire Breathing) as a method burning off excess jing as it manifests in it's associated lower tan tien. This would assume a period of abstinence for the associated charge to build. Heat can generally be generated in the lower abdomen with a period of abdominal breathing and meditation, fire breathing performed by itself seems to do the same thing but faster. Fire breathing performed during a chi gung set w/ whole body movement feels different then when done laying down quietly, or sitting still gazing at a light bulp as Da Liu describes his practice.

 

The particular form in question does differ slightly from the technical details I have learned; Sifu included a method of "regulation" for creating the proper vacuum / pressure balance similar to the way a tubro charger sucks o2 through an engine faster. In what I learned as Fire Breathing our regular chi gung breath is double or tripple timed and the lower tan tien expands and contracts w/ each breath. Expansion is simply relaxing the contracted tan tien. This is performed in nose-out mouth w/ a couple of details on regulating the vacuum and pressure using tongue mouth throat combinations so no tension is held in the torso during the regular cycle and only a contraction of the tan tien is needed w/ the Fire Breath cycle. This is kinda like sloshing in behind the wave in the bathtub to get the wave bigger. Metabolism transitions become another frequency of rhythm to adapt to and change with. Again I'll emphasize the importance of breath coordination and equal lengths of inhalation and exhalation while completely relaxing.

 

Generally speaking it's probably best to spend some jing using the mind to direct the chi into a specific whole body task before success or failure is judged by unspoken phenomenon having been put into words. These are arts of feeling based, in and of spontaneous motion, both seen and unseen motion. Music is felt as much as it is heard. Seeking phenomenon outside of what naturally occurs along the way defeats the purpose of the trip. Shared phenomenon may offer roadsigns on the internal map of psycho-kinesthetic experience, but by no means is the heros journey the same for everyone everytime.

 

Chi is to often disconnected from the physical body in which it manifests in my opinion. In my personal experiences I've found a high percentage of success attending and observing the natural rhythms of work and rest, both spontaneous and regimented. For instance if "no effects" are felt form a specific "form" of breath, you might try first adjusting your mind to stop looking for effects, and second explore the breath in a variety of positions and situations; sitting against the wall, while laying down, sitting up, standing on one leg, while holding a 2lb weight 45 degrees above your head, that is the point, to kick your bodies metabolism in while relaxing and regulating your breath, riding the proportional wave of movement & stillness that is naturally created when we place even the slighest load on our synergetically balanced system.

 

I admit that I am completely biased, because the fire breath I use makes me sweat or signifantly raise in tempurature after a short period. If I run out of breath prior to an increase in body temp, then most likely I'm not regulating my breath correctly. On a purely physical level this is kinda like getting winded jogging before breaking a sweat.

 

I have more thoughts on this but I better post this before I time out.

 

_Spectrum

 

" I've been doing this for four days now and have not experienced any thing more than shortness of breath. "

LOL yeah me too man! If you ever get any crazy cool sensations from breath of fire it is probably just hypoxia LOL!

I never had any success with this one myself.. not to say I don't think it would probably work great-- if only because it is such a well-known, mass marketed technique =)

 

M. Winn got his start doing breath of fire, right? It got him nowhere special though, if I remember right.

 

 

It got him nowhere special though, if I remember right.

 

Where was he trying to "go" with a fire breath technique? It sure does clean the lungs out! I wonder where that gunk "went". It wasn't there to begin with.