Taoist Breathing

  

The ultimate aim of breathing is to unbind and make everything loose and soft. This occurs through awakening and developing body consciousness. It will take some time to get all the parts together but once achieved, your breath will become longer, stronger, smooth and increasingly quieter, a result of releasing tension.    Once your mind has opened up sufficiently and you don’t get affected by micro-freezes due to emotional and mental states, you’ll eventually reach a point when you start moving chi and Qi Gung/Ba Gua practice begins.

 

   The booby prize with breathing is increasing your lung capacity and oxygen levels. Although this will aid the process of causing the body to operate at a higher efficiency level, the real aim is to:

 

•     Strengthen and lengthen your breath which allows you to access deeper into your body;
•     Calm and strengthen your nervous system;
•     Increase the flow of blood;
•     Massage the organs to increase their motility, mobility and amplitude;
•     Use your breath to build a bridge to connect with your chi.

 

There are three aspects to the breathing:

•     Regular breathing where you expand on the inhale into your 5 points- solar plexus (diaphragm) belly, sides, back, and top of the lungs. You always start from the diaphragm and add the remaining 4 points in sequence to unlock the body. Your breath becomes cylindrical and will penetrate the spine.

•     Reverse breathing where you expand on the exhale. This method builds more pressure into the body and thus penetrates blockages that lie deeper. It also engages the whole of the body.

•     From the feet whereby you get chi moving from your legs upwards, this starts to engage the up and down chi flows. You can also do centre to periphery to move the chi through your breath. Both methods connect with your etheric (chi) body. With these methods you can fill you’re body up with chi so that you can get more awareness of your blockages by energizing them.

 

Regular  Breathing: the beginners practise.

The process of learning to breath

   The first key to breathing is to engage with and develop the elasticity and spring of your diaphragm. The diaphragm is the only muscle that bisects the body. It has a central tendon that when engaged moves the diaphragm up and down, like bellows. There are anatomical connections from the diaphragm, which directly affects everything up to the head and indirectly affects everything to the feet when the diaphragm moves. Through the diaphragm you can create an internal pressure within the body and internally massage the body. So a frozen or flaccid diaphragm will affect the levels of this internal pressure and the direct and indirect connections associated with the diaphragm.

   The second key is to open and close your internal organs through moving your diaphragm. This massaging by the diaphragm sets up a regular pulsing pattern (opening and closing) which amplifies the organs by increasing their motility; the movement of chi and fluids through the organ. It also increases the mobility, the subtle movement the organ has which diminishes as the internal connections tighten and compress the organ. Through Qi Gong you develop correct posture – alignments. This means that when you increase the amplitude of pulsing, your body doesn’t internally rupture with the pressure.

 

   The initial stage of breathing is to engage and develop the diaphragm with a smooth circular breath. Next the foundation of the diaphragm creating pressure into the belly, midriff and lower back is lain. This starts the process of massaging the organs and alleviating any lower back pain. Once this foundation is lain it allows the breath to then pressurise the sides (rib cage up to the armpits), the upper back and the top of the lungs.

 

There will be a breathing class starting on the 24th April 2012 in Haywards Heath. For furthere details click the folowing internal link. New breathing class in Haywards Heath