Reverse Breathing for Elastic Store: Basic Clapping Example


There are a lot of posts on reverse breathing in the archives, if you search for them, but I want to expand on the post I made a few days ago in order to give an example that generally applies to the whole "Store and Release" mechanism: https://www.facebook.com/groups/349208698527821/permalink/3407766482672012/

Let's use the example of a simple clap: open the arms out to the sides and then clap the hand together in front of the body, arms more or less straight.

Start with the arms straight, but mostly relaxed, in front of the body with the palms almost touching. In this position, the tissues across the back, down to the lower back, and the tissues along the outsides of the arms are under a light pre-tension.

Begin by inhaling and slightly pulling in the abdomen, and let the resulting increase in superficial tension go to the already slightly-tensioned back and outer arms area. Let that breath tension across the back, etc., pull your arms out to the sides, just far enough that you notice now that the superficial tension has disappeared from the back and is now on the front of the body from chest to fingertips. Yang has changed to Yin.

Since there is now a tension on the front of the chest and out along the insides of the arms to fingertips, notice that you can have increased or decreased the overall tension with either the amount of pull-in of the abdomen, the amount of willed tension accompanying your 'pull-in', or how far to the rear you have allowed your arms to go backward. Ultimately, you will just use position and inhale to adjust the amount of stored tension; as you become expert the adjustments become almost mental and automatic.

You are at full inhale and the tension is now on the front of your body and out along the insides of the arms. If you are standing straight, you'll notice that the sheet of tension on the front of the body goes all the way down to the stomach/dantian area. So, maintain the tension as you push the dantian/stomach down and forward, causing the tension on the front of the body to pull the tension out the fingers and thus swinging the arms forward (without muscle) until the arms clap.

As you practice this example and understand it, you'll find that the principles of pre-tension, willing the proper area, and reverse breath apply to all manner of store-and-release. Work until you understand the basic idea and then begin to apply it to your everyday exercises, martial forms, qigongs, and etc. Don't forget that you will need to use jin and dantian movement, at some time, to complete your movements.

[Note that as you become comfortable with the clap that you try to hold the arms in position with the tensile connections that go from the tops of the arms, across the shoulders, and then up the sides of the neck to the head.]



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