Zhan zhuang breathing

[Manaus]

Hello,

Lam Kam Chuen, in his book The Way of Energy, chapter 2 Breathing and Relaxing, writes

 

Quietly and slowly breathe out through your nose. As you exhale, draw your belly in so that you feel you are squeezing the air out of your torso from the bottom up. Breathe out smoothly and soundlessly, until you feel you have emptied your lungs.

 

Emptying the lungs needs quite a lot of energy. How much do you squeeze?

 

[GreytoWhite]

Don't force the squeezing feeling, don't try to force the emptiness of your lungs. Rather the smooth and soundless part will bring you more gain if you work at this slowly.

[Manaus]

Thanks GreytoWhite,

my question, is it not a 'do', rather than a 'be'?

I mean, practice should lead to a effortless flow. if I work on my breathing, no matter how subtly, it is still a job-for-a-result.

[Miffymog]

In time the breath will be silent, smooth and gentle. Lam Kam does not put too much emphasis on what to do with the breath in that book as, in time, it will settle down by itself. From the questions you ask, I'd suggest worrying about it a little less. But, what should you focus your mind on? You want to get better and have good technique, and improving the breath is part of this, so what should you do? There are various suggestions, try to relax, imagine the balloons you are resting on, put your awareness on the LDT. Ultimately, just persevere with the practice and your breath will sort it self out, when it does, you'll know. 

[joeblast]

In time the breath will be silent, smooth and gentle. Lam Kam does not put too much emphasis on what to do with the breath in that book as, in time, it will settle down by itself. From the questions you ask, I'd suggest worrying about it a little less. But, what should you focus your mind on? You want to get better and have good technique, and improving the breath is part of this, so what should you do? There are various suggestions, try to relax, imagine the balloons you are resting on, put your awareness on the LDT. Ultimately, just persevere with the practice and your breath will sort it self out, when it does, you'll know. 

the breath should be focused on, and refined.

 

not doing that....

 

 

 otherwise one is simply not taking the process anywhere near as deeply as one could be.

 

beginning a reverse breath description with the front of the abdomen is ass backwards.

 

more important is what the perineum is doing - get that dynamic with the diaphragm down first before worrying about the piece of it that is the least important of the 3.  if the internal movements are not correct, then simply put it will not be as effective.  get the timing of the internal motions down correctly and then worry about adding in the front of the abdomen.   using the lungs, chest, throat, sinuses, or nose to breathe only takes emphasis off the diaphragm and makes the practice less effective.  air still uses the same nose-route to travel - you're just not locally changing the air pressure across the olfactory nerves and then having to deal with the resultant extra neural cascades. 

 

quiet breath = quiet mind.  the brain has many logical loopings about the midbrain area, and sensate input causes neural resonances into higher brain areas.  the biggest one you have control over is the breath and its the first one to tackle.

 

it seems like people just dont want to say "do it the rote way," because it seems longer, and people dont want to go the rote route.  but it is more thorough.   this is "doing something" and has the mind focused on something, instead of just standing there and waiting for the thought-stream-energy to perk up because the awareness is not focused on something.  drop the flow of air beneath the threshold of turbulence in the air passages, and keep working towards that while maintaining the stance-posture, repeat ad infinitum until you've trained your tendons properly to the extent that the breath pattern has been emblazoned onto the medulla.  (this happens.)

 

this especially applies in 90 degree horse stance, it is every bit the breathing exercise as it is a stance exercise.  breathing properly in horse stance  is what will allow you to hold it exponentially longer than one otherwise would.

[Jox]

Hello joblast ...  

Your posts ... very good and informative as always ... tnx for posting ...

 

Best, Jox ...     

[Sudhamma]

This is missing in the various contributions, that is, the Chinese phrase, han siong ba bei, meaning, stretch the back forward, hunching the back, empty the lungs, thus curving the chest inwards. What the quoted text of author master Lam is instructing is the beginning movement of the micro-cosmic-orbit with reverse abdominal breathing. Just the beginning stage of mco. Quite correct is the breathing is only through the nose, and done silently like what is commonly said, 'like that of a rabbit'. Trust this helps.

[Papayapple]

Never thought of it that way, my gosh Joeblast you're the Bum!

[YiYinYiYang]

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Edited August 13, 2017 by YiYinYiYang