OK not to do reverse breathing in Spring Forest Qigong?

[CrunchyChocolate555]

I was just wondering if it's possible to do the Level 1 active exercises in Spring Forest Qigong using regular abdominal breathing instead of reverse breathing? Will it have any major or detrimental effect on the practice?

 

Thanks

[Astral Monk]

No detrimental effects. Just do it. Reverse breathing is mainly to kick start the dantien. In SFQ the most important thing is your intent anyway, your visualization. I suggest trying the set both ways--using both types of breathing, and see if you notice any difference. Reverse breathing shouldn't be stressed or strained at all. But either way you breath, keep that tongue connected to the roof of your mouth.

 

In fact, when I went to a seminar for Level One, Chun yi didn't say anything about reverse breathing, even though it is causually mentioned in the Level One dvd. Practice and intent are the keys, deep breathing will come in time.

 

8)

[CrunchyChocolate555]

Thanks for the very thorough answer!

 

The reason I ask is that I have trouble with regular breathing in the first place (I have a very tense diaphragm), and reverse breathing just tends to make everything worse and energy starts stagnating in my solar plexus.

 

No detrimental effects. Just do it. Reverse breathing is mainly to kick start the dantien. In SFQ the most important thing is your intent anyway, your visualization. I suggest trying the set both ways--using both types of breathing, and see if you notice any difference. Reverse breathing shouldn't be stressed or strained at all. But either way you breath, keep that tongue connected to the roof of your mouth.

 

In fact, when I went to a seminar for Level One, Chun yi didn't say anything about reverse breathing, even though it is causually mentioned in the Level One dvd. Practice and intent are the keys, deep breathing will come in time.

 

8)

[joeblast]

sounds like you definitely need to work on some breath mechanics - for a tense diaphragm you're better off with natural ab breath to help smooth it out. try lying down on your back and imagine the spine as a train track, "drive the train down" from solar plexus to bottom of the spine on the inhale, back it up the tracks on exhale and dont go as high as the heart. that will help teach you the deep motions, and do some stretches that hit the diaphragm also.

[Marks of Glory]

hmmm...

 

adding some info on breathing exercices, to develop sensibility on that area, while laying down, you can try and isolate your breathing pattern into: Abdominal, Intercostal (rib cage) and clavicular breathing. try practicing at least 5 minutes of each of them seperately, and at the end, at least 5 minutes of all of them together.

 

Abdominal breathing: place a book on top of your lower abdomen and try and lift and lower that area whilst breathing, without moving your ribcage. Note that your lower abdomen must rise as a secondary effect of the diafragm movement, try to use the mininum your actual abdominal muscles, letting the job to the diafragm.

 

Lateral Breathing: ribcage bereathing, now spend some time breathing only with your ribcage, without moving your abdomen.

 

Clavicular breathing: (optional, try and breathe only with the upper lungs, by raising your shoulders and trying to touch your ears with it, and then lowering them... it is very difficult the the less effective way to breathe.

 

Complete breathing: will in the lower abdomen, then fill in the intercostal (middle lungs), and then fill in the clavicular aarea (upper luings - optional). on exalation empty the upper lungs (clavicular area), then the intercostal area, then finally the lower abdomen. The motion reminds of the tides or waves of the sea.

 

 

 

*Edit.: oh... after finishind the exercise, ajust lay down relaxed and try and mentally relax your diagragm to the point that your whole abdominal area and stomach sinks towards the ground (especially in the exhalations) this can stretch quite alot our diafragm... I believe that the snake pose (bhujangasana) is good for stretching that area also... give a look and practice carefully*

 

About the inverted breathing... I totally agree that it is good to pack up the lower Dantien, but I believe it also is important in transmuting some sexual energy and circulating it (when pulling the stomach in while inhaling you kind of naturally bring it up into your Du channel).

 

correct me if I am wrong.

Edited April 5, 2013 by Marks of Glory

[voidisyinyang]

I was just wondering if it's possible to do the Level 1 active exercises in Spring Forest Qigong using regular abdominal breathing instead of reverse breathing? Will it have any major or detrimental effect on the practice?

 

Thanks

 

 

The breath follows the mind.

 

quiet the mind and the breath will quiet on its own.

 

As the chi builds up then physical breath lessens as electromagnetic breathing increases.

[joeblast]

and if the mind doesnt want to quiet enough to have the result of quieting the breath, approach it from the other side: purposefully calm and harmonize the breath mechanics and that WILL lead towards an arresting of the cranial nerves' energy potential and ultimately thought-stream-energy - there's no wrong way to do it

 

About the inverted breathing... I totally agree that it is good to pack up the lower Dantien, but I believe it also is important in transmuting some sexual energy and circulating it (when pulling the stomach in while inhaling you kind of naturally bring it up into your Du channel).

 

correct me if I am wrong.

its not the stomach's withdrawing that does it - the deep longevity breathing taught me that the front of the abdomen isnt a fundamental process. so dr yang says that since the qihai point lies along the Ren that means 'qi generated there' readily flows into the MCO and a simple misunderstanding led the outer point being conflated with the inner, hence the euphemism false dantien for the qihai point. the real mechanism of upward flowing is because of the energetic effect on the dantien, compression like pushing a ball underwater in a way.

 

in that vein the things that train the front of the abdomen wont truly isolate the fundamental mechanisms, diaphragm-psoas-perineum.

 

truly isolating them requires one to learn to let go of the air passageways and forget about using them to facilitate breath - your nerves pick up on all of that movement - and so deeper into isolating the functions, it is the descent of the diaphragm that we want to streamline. relying too much on the front of the abdomen can have the unintended consequence of not "rooting" or anchoring well the diaphragm's motion. so if you can forget the air and move your diaphragm without anchoring it, eventually you get down slow enough to the point where the front vs back competing musculotendonal tension produces a hiccup! but not a repeating one. even at that it is enough to disrupt the somewhat deep state there though.

 

the bottom rear of the diaphragm's leaflets culminate into two crura that then merge into the anterior spine musculature and connect with the anterior longitudinal ligament - so by recognizing this anchor-point and beginning the motion of the diaphragm from there, one can produce a gentle harmonious wave-motion that passes by the openings (foramina) in the diaphragm, continue that downward motion for the duration of the inhale, then let it relax on the exhale (and since we're on natural abdominal breathing, this is coincident with the lift of the huiyin, a yang part of the yin-yang balance of NAB - the lift is gentle and does to qi flow what trimming the motor on a boat does as it gets up to speed, for those of you familiar with that can o' prop wash )

 

this smoothed out diaphragmatic motion has the added benefit of significantly lowered vagus nerve stimulation, feedbacks of which trigger increased heartrate and urge to breathe, more coherent organ-priming motion, letting go of the air passageways tamps down the 40cps olfactory nerve resonance - so all of these cranial nerve resonances that are produced by things not being harmonious eventually wind up producing higher neural resonances in the brain and that manifests as....an unquiet mind.

[Helena]

It is definitely ok to breathe naturally, with tongue gently resting on the roof of the mouth. It's more important that one is calm and relaxed while performing the exercises.

[thelerner]

There are some forms of gentle 'reverse' breathing. In one you slightly clench your buttocks and think in terms of the universe/chi moving into your hara as you breath in. Thus no tightening the stomach as you breath in, but you end up with some of the internal benefits. Your mileage may vary. Its a technique used in the Wudangtao audio tapes by Master Chen.

Edited April 5, 2013 by thelerner

[joeblast]

that's what led me to declare the front of the abdomen a sort of "martial modifier" since the extent of outward manifestation is highly correlated to how you treat the front of the abdomen - and another reason why when the breath externally disappears, there is very little outward manifestation.