Breathless

呼吸往來，不及法禁*

Exhaling and inhaling comes and goes, never reaching what the method prohibits

At first your breathing will be rough. When it gradually calms down, your ch'i will become lively and should feel as though it fills Heaven and Earth. This is not a matter of holding your breath or straining your ch'i. In this case, your ch'i fills you internally and becomes active.**

當明內外呼吸之歸***

When understanding where internal and external breathing converge

Breathing is a complex matter which has been briefly described in Breathing, Complex and Evolving. Being one of the main obvious activities our body has, it is naturally ultimately the main tool used in practice, whether external, the body, or internal, the organs. Of all the different ways to train one's body, in the end, it just becomes a question of a correct breathing. Indeed breathing directs everything, from body relaxation and stretching to organs pressure, from body angles to vapours flow, from body stillness to mind awareness, from movements to emptiness of one's mind. Therefore fascias and vapours are linked through breathing, they naturally expand and retract following one's breath. Whether external (pulmonary) or internal, it may be interesting to describe a few ways breathing is used in order to decipher the method it relies on. 

The Rice Strikes Back

五臟實為生性之源，生氣之本*

The five organs are really the source of the production of essence, the basis of the production of vapours

布形候氣**

Deploying the body awaiting for vapours

行氣，深則蓄，蓄則伸***

Vapours behaviour, deep then accumulating, accumulating then stretching

Even if the original character for Qi was just a simple description of cloud vapours and did not contain any reference to rice, as explained in "气 Where is my Bowl of Rice?", one cannot also totally dismiss the presence of rice, or grain, in such notion. Indeed, languages are a living thing, meanings and understanding changes during the course of time, and the complex version of Qi, "氣", has been used for a time long enough to alter, willingly or not, the original meaning of what was just a simple way to describe the feminine and masculine principles interaction, more known as the Yin and the Yang. Futhermore, if the complex version was not a pictogram, it was still an ideogram made of two very recognisable compounds, grain (or rice) and vapours. Hence, for who opened the lid of a pot of just cooked rice, or grain, and saw the vapours coming out of it, the link between the character and vapours coming from just cooked grain or rice can seem quite obvious. A lot of texts describing the notions behind the concept of Qi were originally written with its complex version, meaning the understanding was also coming from an analysis including the rice/grain element.