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Practicing Normal and Reverse Breathing in Your Tai Chi and QigongFrom The ChiFusion Tai Chi and Qigong Blog 
Greetings - I've always been fascinated by the wide variety of breathing techniques that can be used for Chi Development. Over the course of nearly twenty-five years, I've learned 13 different breathing techniques for Qigong and Tai Chi. Many of these breathing techniques focus on "abdominal" breathing - as opposed to the chest breathing that most untrained people use. Ask most people to take a deep breath, and they'll expand their chest and maybe even lift their shoulders into the air. However, that's not a "deep" breath - that's a "full, shallow" breath. A deep breath involves using the lower abdomen. In many of these abdominal breathing methods, the chest does not move - or moves very little - during the breath cycle.
Normal and Reverse Abdominal BreathingOf all of the abdominal breathing techniques, the two most common among instructors seem to be "normal abdominal breathing" and "reverse abdominal breathing". The difference between these two is in what the abdomen does during the breath cycle. "Normal abdominal breathing" involves expanding the abdomen on inhale and relaxing it on exhale. This type of breathing is sometimes called "natural breathing" because it is similar to the way babies breathe naturally. It is also called "Buddhist breathing" because of its use in Buddhist meditation methods, and "Tai Chi breathing" because of its use in a number of Tai Chi styles. "Reverse abdominal breathing" involves drawing in the abdomen on the inhale and either relaxing or pushing out slightly on the exhale. This is exactly the opposite of normal abdominal breathing. This breathing is also called "Taoist breathing" because of its use in Taoist meditation styles. Given these two styles of breathing, what are the relative benefits of each style? And more importantly, which should you use in your ChiFusion practice?
What are the Benefits?Note: The following section discusses Wai Dan and Nei Dan concepts. Please review the Introduction to Level 2 of your Complete Course for the precise meaning of these concepts in ChiFusion Tai Chi and Qigong. I would say that I usually associate normal abdominal breathing with health-oriented applications of Tai Chi and Qigong, including stress relief and chi development for health and well-being. I usually associate reverse breathing with more martial-oriented applications of these arts. Normal abdominal breathing has more of the benefits we associate with Nei Dan practice (see the intro to Level 2 for more about Nei Dan), such as enhancing chi storage in the torso, massaging the internal organs, and calming the mind and heart to focus ourselves more internally. Reverse breathing on the other hand has more of the benefits we associate with Wai Dan practice, including distributing chi to the limbs, projecting chi outside of our bodies with our hands, and enhancing focus on what's happening outside of us. Reverse breathing often creates greater feelings of "intent", but sometimes at the expense of using up chi from our "chi storage reservoirs". (See the intro to Level 2 for more about Wai Dan and "chi storage reservoirs".)
Practicing Abdominal BreathingI would suggest that students interested only in self-health, stress relief, and health-related chi development need only practice normal abdominal breathing. All the material in the ChiFusion course works well with normal breathing, even the practices that have Wai Dan benefits. Students interested in areas outside of self-health (martial arts, energy healing, becoming an instructor, etc.), may want to practice both methods. However, there are a few rules-of-thumb to make sure your practice is well balanced. First of all, make sure you can do all of the ChiFusion practices, including all of the ChiFusion details for the practices, with normal breathing. Normal breathing should become automatic in all of your practices. Do not attempt reverse breathing until your ChiFusion skills and exercises are in top-notch condition with normal breathing. Once your normal breathing skills are top-notch, you may then experiment with reverse breathing. But for Nei Dan Qigong styles (most of the ChiFusion practices), always use normal breathing - never reverse breathing. For the Wai Dan Qigong exercises in Level 1 or for WaiDan/NeiDan hybrid exercises (Level 3's Tai Chi Cloud Hands and Level 4's Four Elements Tai Chi set), practice both breathing styles. Once again, this is only for those who are interested in areas outside self-health. If you are interested just in self-health, including Chi Development and stress relief, practice all of the exercises - even the Wai Dan exercises - with normal breathing. If you do decide to include reverse breathing in your practice, focus on one style only during a given session, and practice the two breathing styles at a ratio of 2 to 1. In other words, out of every three practice sessions, practice normal breathing in two sessions and reverse breathing in one session. This will give you the greatest chi storage for your health, without depleting yourself during the reverse breathing sessions.
Developing Top-Notch Breathing SkillsI can't say this enough, reverse breathing in ChiFusion practice is only for those interested in areas outside of self-health. And even if you do decide to include reverse breathing, your primary focus in your ChiFusion practice should be on normal abdominal breathing. So make sure your skills in normal breathing are top-notch, before even attempting reverse breathing. To help create those top-notch normal breathing skills, please see the instructions in Lesson 3 of Level 2 of your ChiFusion Complete Course. To learn more about normal abdominal breathing, I also recommend the Tai Chi Breathing course (click here) by my friend and fellow instructor, C. Guan Soo. Guan's covers the basics of normal abdominal breathing practices in his Basic course. His Advance course has some interesting follow-up material on normal abdominal breathing, such as visualization exercises, how to incorporate Tai Chi breathing into daily activities such as driving, sports, work, etc., and tips on breathing for specific physical and emotional conditions. As always, you have my best wishes for Chi Development through ChiFusion Tai Chi and Qigong,
Your CommentsFrom: santanu, 15 March 2008, 08:59:
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