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June 20, 2005
The Mysterious Relationship Between Movement, Breath and Qi
To illustrate the relationship between movement, breath and qi I sometimes have my students open and close a fist very rapidly while observing what happens to their breath. I then ask them to observe their breath when they switch to opening and closing that same hand very slowly.
Try it for yourself.
What you will notice, normally, when your fist is opening and closing rapidly is that your breath becomes relatively fast and shallow. The breath will also have a tendency to be focused in the mid or upper chest.
However, when you open and close your fist very slowly, there is a dramatic shift: the breath slows down, becomes deeper and sinks to be focused in the abdomen. If you have some prior training you become aware of a strong link between the hands and the abdomen. The whole body seems to inflate from your core as the hand opens, and gently contract as the hand closes.
Before we come to qigong or tai chi, most of us breathe at around fourteen breaths a minute (a breath being one inhale and one exhale.) Extended qigong practice brings the cycle down to around six breaths a minute, or lower.
Slower, deeper breathing is more healthful and energy efficient. The reason you’ll see tai chi and qigong practitioners practicing their movements slowly a lot of the time is because they are training their breath through movement. They are also training themselves to move with minimum tension and blocks in their limbs, which allows for a freer flow of qi.
The idea is that when you then have to move with speed and vigor you can retain that open, relaxed movement and maintain a relatively smooth breath. Small children and wild animals possess this quality naturally. As we age and become crudded-up with residual tensions, our movements and breath lose their smoothness, elasticity and range, leading to all kinds of health problems.
I sometimes hear folk idealize that “real qigong” doesn’t or shouldn’t have to involve actual movement-practice. “Real qigong” is an ongoing act of consciousness, of highly attentive living.
Well, how many of us human animals can really maintain that refined state moment by moment, without falling into some level of stagnation or energy imbalance? Let’s get real!
If you really want to achieve and maintain both vibrant health and a strong spiritual presence, then make sure to include movement-breath-qi training as a daily practice.
Check out John Du Cane’s Qigong resources here.
Posted by james at June 20, 2005 6:38 AM