Its commonly said that one should expand the stomach when inhaling during any chi kung excersise. Yet i heard that its good to contract the stomach whilst breathing to give yourself strong kidneys....i think i read it in an MA mag which quoted Paul Whitrod, a Chow Gar Southern Mantis master. Could anyone clarify this?
What they are refering to is breathing to Dan Tien or Sea of Elixir. It is a point below your belly button and towards the middle of your body, this point is often where chi will start in and come back to in many chi kungs. The idea is to breath abdominally, instead of the upper chest area as most people are used to, so think of expanding and contracting the adbomen area. This might be where you are thinking about contracting the muscles in the stomach area. This type of breathing has many benefits specially when you start taking into consideration how it ties in with the conception and governing channels.
Thanks, i know about breathing from the dan tien and using abdominal breathing instead of from the chest. But i wanted to know whether it was btter to keep the stomach contracted and tight during breathing to strengthen the kidneys and abdomen area as i saw something about this in an MA article. Does anyone know about this...maybe some IMA practitioners or southern mantis guys?
this advice is given to teach people about diapharm breathing... it's like posture corrective advice because people doesn't breath deep and not used to breathe from their diapharm as far as strong kidneys are concerned... I don't know how muchof that is true... -TkdWarrior-
i think your abs might streanghten from the breathing excerszies in qi gong by practice. maybe learn some simple ones like that put your arms over your head so they stretch your abdominals... it is hard to breath with your stomach if your squeezing it at the same time hehe. maybe do your ab workout after with a kettlebell or by situps the belly breathing to me is much more soothing then yoga breathing in the chest. in yoga we had to breath in our nose/out our nose and use our chests and empty the stomach completly. that is very good for fixxing your posture, however i always felt short breath and not meditating as mentally as qi'gong. breathing in your nose and out your mouth hehe, some excersizes are all nose though. wow my post is gibberishish
There are two types of qi gong breathing practiced : normal abdominla breathing and reverse abdominal breathing. Reverse is also called "martial breathing". In normal abdominal breathing you expand the belly and abdomen out wards and downwrds as you breathe in. Then as you breathe out you draw the abdomen inward and upward, staying very relaxed throughout. In reverse abdominal breathing, you contract the abdomen as you breathe in, and push it out as you breathe out. This will cause a great deal of tension in the abdomen and torso. They serve different purposes and are used for different types of meditation. I don't know enough to write any more than this with confidence. You should read up in Qi Gong, if you want to knw more, I can recomend Yang Jwin-Ming's books at ymaaschool.com.
I haven't read the Sifu Whitrod article referred to but I think it's possible he was talking about golden bell (iron shirt) cover. Doing abdominal breathing whilst maintaining zipped-up abs extends the resistive force around to the vulnerable kidney area. Or something like that. On a side note, I've heard that the standard reverse breathing is good for dealing with nausea. Rgds, David
Thank's David, i was waiting for your reply as i knew you'd have an answer. Do you train in this method of Chi Kung?
I wrote a little bit about this on Reverse Breathing thread.. let me add.. more.. it basically doesn't matter wat kind of breathing you do.. unless n untill there r no restrictions or no tension in ur body.. any jerk or hidden tension will be harmful for ur internal body... I've habbit of doing reverse breathing from 10 yrs(from the same time I started learning Yoga and Pranayama)... my Experience.. it's amazing but you need to learn from expert. -TkdWarrior-
It's part of it and I'm not sure where to begin. There's the principle of 'packing the chi' into the dan tien, the practice of which is the thing I alluded to previously. The body shield is created by opposing muscular force with air power (chi). On inhalation, this is like inhaling in regular abdominal breathing but with the abs resisting the forward ab expansion. On exhalation, it's a bit like exhaling in reverse abdominal breathing except the diaphragm is used to expel the air thus maintaining the rubber-tyre shield effect. We condition this tyre region (kidney, flanks, abs) by using our hands as if trying to strangle the stomach. Imagine hands on hips but higher in the non-bony flank area - then squeeze, digging fingers in the front and thumb at the back. Then do the breathing forcing your tyre out agaisnt the pressure. I'm not very happy with that explanation. By all means give yourself a headache or hernia . Rgds, David
I know what you mean , your explanation was clear to me! I've seen SPM practioners sqeeze their midsections before whilst practicing Chy Sau or "griding arm".
I think this depends on your emphasis. I.e. tensions for external styles, no tension for internal styles.
