Spring Forest Qigong

[joeblast]

I don't know -- Master Nan, Huai-chin says holding the breath is the wrong approach because actually it's the long exhale that builds up the energy.

Very good key there In Zen and the Brain (p93-95,) Austin makes some good notation about neural firings and exhalation. The monitors for blood o2 and co2 are in the medulla - since the process of exhalation is largely passive, relying on the greater tension and pressure resultant of the inhale to fuel the exhale, studies have noted a correlating waxing and waning of neural firings that coincide with the process. We also have the olfactory bulb in the sinuses monitoring air flow - all of the mechanisms are providing feedback which generally gets reduced to neural firing, or not neural firing.

 

Then, as the lungs expand, their stretch receptors become increasingly taut. This sends signals up the vagus nerves to inform the brain stem. There they generate a flurry of inhibition, which turn inhalation off. Finally, as we start to breathe out, much of our exhalation proceeds passively driven by the elastic recoil from the chest and abdomen.

 

He goes on to note the prolonged exhalation that results from chanting...

 

In this manner such practices may further increase the inhibitory tone of the vagus nerves, and do so in subtle ways that further reduce respiratory drive within the brain stem.

 

He also makes correlations with neural firings higher in the brain in the limbic system that wound up correlating to firings lower in the brain stem - that rose and fell along with inhalation and exhalation.

 

So it was interesting when I was reading Wang Li PIng's book and noted his correlation of longer exhales in the evening practice - balanced by longer inhales in the morning practice.

[Mark Foote]

Like this:

 

"Even in mildly complex systems, any outcome is the wrong thing to target, with the process being where the focus should be"

 

Raymond Richard in "Lesions of the Sacrum" talks about the rotation of the temporal bones inward on exhalation, and at death.

 

I think Kobun Chino Otogawa talked about a feeling in exhalation like giving birth. I think the ilio-sacral joints open somewhat in giving birth, there's a rotation in the sacrum and pelvis so the baby can pass through, right?

 

When I watch John Chang I realize that I don't know much about chi. I know about an energy out of the position and orientation of parts of the body connected with the sense of location, an energy of proprioception but only present as a necessity in the movement of breath- this energy behaves like chi, accumulates and circulates as chi is described to do, but it doesn't light light bulbs. No shocks, no current between the tan-t'ien and the perineum- at least not yet.

[JustARandomPanda]

Count me in as another happy Spring Forest Qigong camper.