Feedback re: Reverse Breathing vs Performance Breathing

[Mike Baldwin]

I have been watching for some 14 months (since considering and trialling Scott's material on Performance Breathing, amongst other things) hoping to hear from some of the old timers who may have pursued and trained aspects of Reverse Breathing into their fighting and specifically their Fajing training.

I trained Reverse Breathing (with faijing amongst other things) for several years and loved it at the time. It was great to hit and experience the "personalities" of being hit (with lots & lots of protection) with a variety of strikes.

However, something didn't always appear right within my own body.

Some 10 yrs ago, I penned a stimulus piece along the lines of " Chi Belly: Something to Aspire To." , or " Danger: Something Wrong with Training Balance & Sign of Diabetes."

I pulled the piece back in deference to a man that I no longer trained with, but who had played a very significant part of my " journey ".

Since then, I had been actively striving to "repack my organs" for much of these years because I felt something was not right. Why ????

Many of the people I know, who had trained Reverse Breathing, had developed a distended belly and were having trouble with adipose tissue throughout the mid-section, with varying degrees of early onset of Type II Diabeties.

These people could hit you like an express train yet seemed to have lost something in their health in general. Those people, who had been open to it, very often tested well in excess of 25 % body fat whilst often being perceivably very fit in many other areas.

I have recognized quite a few people out there in this forum who have trained in systems that may have promoted aspects of Reverse Breathing.

Could I encourage you to highlight your experiences with both Reverse Breathing, and, with any difficulties you may ascribe to your continued development from having trained in these areas ?

[ Hopefully, not getting too many old timers off-side !!!!!! ]

Cheers :D

PS

Looking over this now, it appears that my uptake on the essense of this thread may have become displaced.

Moderaters - please feel free to either erase this post or to transfer it to somewhere else if it may be better suited.

[James Boelter]

This is interesting...my sifu seems to fall into this category, a man who could indeed hit like a wrecking ball and move with incredible celerity and speed when demonstrating his art...yet there seemed to be a problematic 'ground bass' note in his vitality. He had (has) a very powerful presence and a lot of charisma, but he drank a ton of coffee, smoked like a chimney and had a serious gut. His martial method included reverse breathing for martial purposes and his chi kung protocol emphasized 'natural breathing' for health cultivation. And of course, he loved to fight and spar and to show his students 'real' self defense and practical fighting ability. (It was one of the reasons I liked him so well.)

Most of his senior students (with three exceptions) seemed to go the same way - I wouldn't want to face them in a fight for any reason, and they all had very impressive presence. But there seemed to be something 'off' about them. At the time I simply thought it was the fact that in spite of their martial prowess, they were still very human and real, and it was my own tendency to look for comic book superheroes that made them seem 'off'.

On the other hand, Larry Johnson OMD teaches a form of 18 Buddha hands that can be practiced with 'natural' breathing OR reverse breathing, and he feels that reverse breathing is the most effective way to practice. And Larry is as lean as a rail at 40. His own emphasis in practice is an elaborate 47 form 'packing' and vibratory practice which he has done for decades, but again, he emphasizes reverse breathing = he even wears a belt or a sash while practicing to better feel the resistance against the reverse breathing.

Interesting food for thought. My own chi kung background isn't deep or profound enough to judge whether this idea has real merit - it may be an individual matter, or systemic one where we can't see the forest for the bark.

[somlor]

I've only just begun experimenting with reverse breathing, so I certaintly don't qualify as an "old timer" but I also just learned something called "counterforce" breathing, or "internal chi breathing" that may be of interest here. Supposedly it combines the best of both natural and reverse breathing. Basically it's natural breathing, but shrink a "chi ball" into a tiny space in the center of your abdomen (dan tien) on the inhale, and expand it to fill your whole lower abdomen (I let it kiss guan yuan, hui yin, and ming men) on the exhale. So as the belly expands on the inhale, you are also breathing and condensing chi into a point, and then as your belly shrinks on the exhale, your are breathing chi into the ball and expanding it. There are also some Chi Kung forms you can do while breathing like this that make it even more powerful. Pretty interesting stuff.

[JasonE]

Just noticed this thread... very interesting!

I had about 18 months of Chen Tai Chi training one night a week a few years ago, in addition to my MMA training. Not a lot of training time, but I did spend some time learning Reverse Breathing, which I also practiced on my own time.

In a very short time, maybe 2 weeks, I went from tapping out when someone got a knee-on-body grappling position on me... to being able to stay there as long as needed until I could find a way out. Considering the size of some of my opponents, this was amazing at the time.

My practice of Reverse Breathing became infrequent and now it's been over a year, but I still enjoy the benefits I attributed to it back then.

I too am overweight, but that's the result of over 6 months of eating junk and not exercising, a trend that I am reversing now.

[Vbrown]

I've been mucking around with various breathing methods for a number of year. I'd like to think I've met and talked with a few ofthe top names in the CMA relm..at least the ones out in the open.

As far as the health issues; I'm not so sure it's just the reverse breathing. As mentioned, a number of those scary folks also have less than healthy lifestyles. It stems from a training culture that you are training to fight to live till tommorrow and you most likely will die long before old age comes knocking. Much to their suprise, they've made it this far.

The "qi belly" is a peculiar byproduct of the training and I'd really like to do an indepth study of what changes in the structure have occured.

I'd also like to figure out what it is about that breathing method that seems to ramp up the striking power. It's a slick trick to be sure.

FWIW,

Vince

[rcoyle]

I have had experience with reverse breathing through my study of Uechi-ryu karate and Longevity QiGong. I also studied Chen Style Tai Chi for a while but had not advanced far enough to become involved with their breathing protocol.My Uechi teacher had cautioned me on the reverse breathing I may be exposed to with chen style and Longevity QiGong as it would generate too much internal heat and could lead to diabetes and that this was fairly common in chen practioners. Ken cohen also warns against reverse breathing although if used in small doses it is good for generating energy but should not become your normal method of breathing or used for extended periods. The type of reverse breathing I am referring to is drawing the abdomen in on the inhale and expanding it on the exhale. The type of reverse breathing that my Uechi teacher taught me was to to expand the abdomen and compress on the exhale but to allow the inhale to happen naturally. The exhales tended to be short in order to keep the abdomen pressurized. A training method we used was to tighten our belts and at the beginning of the kata we would exhale and feel as though we were pushing our belts off our body all the way around our abdomen. We would hold this compression and breath by concentrating on the exhale(short exhales) and allowing the inhale to happen naturally. This would create a very powerful feeling along with great stability and centering. It is interesting to notice that in the Uechi world it was quite common to observe what we would call the Uechi belly ie not a flat abdomen. My teacher who also practiced various forms of qi Gong was full of vitality and advised that this form of reverse breathing was safe and produced a tonic effect. I have found that with the practice of this type of breathing it is important to be careful not to create excessive pressure in the chest or let it rise to the head. I have found that coach Sonnon's performance breathing and many of his articles and threads on breathing related matters have and are continuing to help refine my breathing when it comes to karate and athletics. For instance when I I am performing Sanchin I keep the glottis open where as before I tended to close it or partially close it to create more pressure for a more powerful feeling. although I felt more powerful I felt I was losing fluidity and the ability to be in tune with my opponent slowing down my reaction time except for prearranged drills. I find with concentrating on the exhale and significantly reducing the pressurization I am more relaxed and fluid. Training I think is about learning how to balance these things and finding what works for you. Regards Rick