Reverse Breathing Overview
Matt Chandler Smith asked a question about reverse
breathing, so I'll make another run at it.
The problem I run into is that reverse-breathing as a supplement to the
body's strength is a fairly complex topic, yet it's always desirable to convey
an idea using simple terms and simple models.
No description is going to be perfect.
I use the idea of an elastic "suit" and the body
inflating/pressurizing to "store" energy, and then
deflating/contracting as it expends/releases energy. The "energy" being discussed is
stored (potential energy) and released mechanical energy (kinetic energy), not
to be confused with the somewhat loose usage of the term "energy" in
New Age discussions.
The general picture to bear in mind is that the human body
is a muscle-bone-tendon mechanism, as we usually think of it, but it is covered
with a sort of elastic "suit", if you will, that supplements our
normal strength with tissues that are tied to our respiration. Interestingly enough, the ancient terms for
this supplemental strength system are "qi" (breath) and
"prana" (breath).
Let's look at the picture of the running cheetah, below, and
notice that one position is when the animal is fully coiled for its next leap
as it runs, and the second position shows the animal elongated at its fullest
extension. Close and Open.
If we think of the pictures in terms of just muscles, bones,
and tendons, the Close in preparation for the Open is pretty
straightforward. To discuss
reverse-breathing, we need to picture another view of the two cheetah positions
in which they're just air-filled balloons.
Reverse-breathing is done to elastically
contract the surface of the balloon while at the same time pressurizing the interior
with an inhale. The balloon also can
be thought of as bouncing/impacting against the ground, at that point.
The elastic, breathing-related tissues are to some degree
under the control of the conscious/voluntary mind, so we can choose which parts
of our "balloon" that we draw in with an inhale. For example, if we want to strike behind us
with a horizontal elbow-strike, we can inhale and deliberately pull-in the
breathing-related tissues on the outside of the arm and our back, thus building
up an elastic store that will add to our strike toward the back. In the sense that we can choose which areas
to tension or pull-in with our inhale, we can learn to supplement all of our
movements via reverse-breathing related practice. Without reverse-breathing of the tissue
layers and channels, there is no need to use the dantian as a central control
for the body: in other words, the dantian, reverse-breathing, and the
qi-tissues are all part of a holistic system.
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