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. 

呼吸 in Chinese refers to the normal breathing process through the lungs while 息**** briefly described in Breathing, Complex and Evolving to a multitude of so-called breathing techniques in the sense that they follow the same principles but are often actually directed at phenomenons happening inside our body. One can only understand the internal, invisible and impalpable, through the external hence visible, palpable... As it has been mentioned already, the main two aims of internal practices are to gain more elasticity as far as the body is concerned and more vitality as far as the organs are. Everything in the training should lead to that, breathing included. Indeed, through it, one will relax, stretch and direct body angles, improve the organs and the condensation of vapours.

Breathing to Direct

Apart from relaxation, which is something widely known, using breathing to focus on a particular part of the body can also be experienced in pain control and in some massage schools for example. Old methods were about training twenty-four/seven. That is why taking advantage of a real and obvious twenty-four/seven activity our body has seemed to be quite opportune. Indeed, if one could manage to imprint a reflex linked to inhaling and/or exhaling, it would also become a twenty-four/seven one. To keep the discovery spirit of old methods, make it easier to understand and avoid having a too long post, the examples will be limited to simple ones and mainly to exhaling.

If exhaling and relaxation is something quite generally understood and the first breathing directing technique, one can use also exhaling to correct one's posture and to imprint a stretching reflex for the muscles and the fascias.

Exhaling to Relax

In the search of real relaxation some schools first training used to be sitting or, even better, lying postures. Hence, the second quote which comes from the description of a lying one or the ones described in the Sword of Chaos quoted in a previous post. Why? Simply because when standing on one's legs, it is quite difficult to learn how to relax them at the same time. Therefore, imprinting the muscles while exhaling with first a getting lax reflex and, then and at the same time, a stretch one is better done in the beginning when all the muscles are under no pressure. 

For internal practices, the first reflex is then to get one's muscles as lax as possible. To get back to an easy example, let's just consider one's arms in "Wei Tuo Presenting the Pestle II" because this part is very easy to check.

Wei Tuo Presenting the Pestle II

The first training would be then to learn to have the muscles become totally lax, hence flabby, every time one is exhaling. Once relaxation and exhaling are overall mastered, one should stress on any part in one's body which remains not relaxed. Following the principle "No force is the better force" which implies the search of the absence of sensation, any part of one's body still experiencing some is deemed to remain tense for the wrong reasons. If so, the exhaling shall stress on such part(s) until one's can almost not feel anymore his/her whole body. 

Then, following the method described in The Bow, Cornerstone of Elasticity, one shall tense the muscles by indirectly stretching them through precise postures while getting them as lax as possible at the same time (see also Back to the Fascias II, Using Fascia Elasticity).

Breathing Out a Correct Posture

As just mentioned, the second thing to work on is to have the body take correct angles in order to force flabby muscles to stretch, such stretch creating a tension making the muscles firm by pulling them in opposite directions. Therefore they become firm through the stretch but still remain flabby by nature, exactly like a pulled elastic.
In order to correct one's posture, one shall in a similar way align any part of the body while exhaling. This shall be done to every part to be aligned, one by one until it becomes a reflex.
Once again, the absence of sensation will remain the way to make sure that muscles do tense without contracting and that one's posture is correct. One shall exhale focusing on the parts where sensation remains and find the proper angle annihilating it, hence furthering his/her knowledge of a correct posture.

A Longer Breath for a Longer Stretch

Finally, correct angles stretching indirectly the muscles, one will learn to stretch them at will by, first, extending the stretch coming from one's posture through a proper breathing, which will be a long exhalation. Active stretching will allow to work deeper and deeper muscles and fascias elasticity. While doing so, one may discover new parts of the body needing stretching. Therefore, coming back to the absence of sensation requirement, any new sensation will be a sign of a blockage. Then, one shall further stretch while exhaling the part where this new sensation has appeared.

At his stage, when exhaling one will relax, take a proper posture and stretch all at the same time and then focus his/her exhaling breath on parts where sensation remains, this being done until relaxation, stretching and posture become a reflex while exhaling. Of course, such training requires one to be aware of his exhaling as often as possible, training this only a few hours a week cannot change deep imprinted breathing reflexes, it is an almost every second of the day work until it becomes a second nature. Then, without having to move, the body will still be in motion, retracting and extending while breathing, one of the so-called motionless motions.

All this, the external part of one's training, is done with the help of normal pulmonary breathing. One will also improve his/her organs in a similar way but, as far as the vapours flow is concerned, one has to use what is considered as internal breathing.

Breathing To Improve and Condense

Organs are improved by learning how to relax, align them and through added pressure while exhaling. Vapours are, as always, a question of condensation when breathing out.

Relaxing, Aligning and Pressure

Improving the organs through breathing works exactly in the same way as what was just described, it is a question of getting lax and stretching all the muscles related to them when exhaling. Done properly, one stomach will flatten at its utmost while breathing out in order to have all the membranes lining them stretch. Once learned how to stretch visible muscles like the biceps, one will locate the organ to be stretched and try to relax it as much as possible while breathing out.

Breathing out and retracting the stomach as much as possible seems to be totally contradictory to the principle of diaphragmatic or abdominal breathing in which the stomach is supposed to expand while exhaling. Abdominal breathing being the preferred one for internal practices, one should expect then the opposite of a flat stomach while exhaling. A previous post, Condensation and the Belt, has already introduced this issue and the modern misunderstanding leading to the big belly fashion among a lot of internal martists. Indeed, to reinforce the organs, the fascias and muscles around them, one will force the body into two opposite directions, retracting the stomach by an heavy stretch and a correct posture while trying to expand it through breathing. In this sense, in one exhaling breath, one will imprint two opposite movements in the area. In other words, the stomach retracts but its content grow, smaller but fuller, hence more pressure which is what is sought. The physical body retracts while vapours in the stomach condenses implies that external breathing is forcing the body to stretch and relax while internal breathing to concentrate more vapours in the area, a "full empty stomach". This puts the organs under greater pressure, forcing them to grow stronger and stronger. 

Vapours Condensation

The necessity to create a ball of vapours in the lower stomach described in Condensation and the Belt, is actually linked to one's breathing. Indeed, while inhaling and exhaling, one shall learn to concentrate his/her vapours inside the body in, first, the abdomen. This skill mastered, one shall then do the same in the upper abdomen, the middle cinnabar field. The student will then be able to move something looking very much like an inflated ball all over his/her torso, up and down, left and right, front and back, straight or in circle. Inflating such ball while exhaling is considered internal breathing.

Once these skills understood, one shall try to do the same with other parts of his/her body. 拍打功, "patting and hitting skills", are therefore a means to learn how to condensate vapours in smaller parts of one's body and without the help of a cinnabar field. While patting and hitting, one shall exhale and try to concentrate vapours in the patted and hit body part in the same manner it is done in the torso.

Mastering those two skills one will be under way to be able to direct the flow of vapours and learn the connection between breath and mind, or more simply breath and vigilance.


It is easy to understand that a leisurely activity in our modern hectic societies cannot provide the proper environment to really become skilful at such breathing techniques. Indeed our breathing changes when we are under pressure or confronted to various emotions, which living in society provides almost every minute of the day. Therefore, the need to take time apart in a calm environment and preferably alone when studying the old practices was just dictated by efficiency. 

This is further accentuated by the fact that working on the relaxation-expiration-stretch trio is only the beginning. Indeed, once this is mastered to the reflex level, one has then to work on the relaxation-inspiration-stretch trio, which may seem counter-intuitive at first. Finally, one must learn to decouple breathing from stretching and retraction movements, stretching and retracting several times in one long inhalation or exhalation, which is extremely difficult to achieve.

Once the skills mastered one could go back to living in society and confront them to this kind of world if such was his/her choice.



*The lady from Yue talks about the way of the sword in Spring and Autumn of the Wu and the Yue, King Goujian's Plots Unauthorized Biography, Goujian's Reign Year Thirteen 吳越春秋, 勾踐陰謀外傳, 勾踐十三年. If the first part of the quote is quite easy to understand, the meaning of the second part might be obscure. The translation into "never reaching what the method prohibits" is based on the fact that most of the internal practices, one's breathing shall remain natural in the sense of following the rules of Mother Nature, hence 法, "method" for the author refers to the laws of nature. For example, one shall not hold one's breath when training is the kind of prohibition that may be implied by such quote.

**The Demon's Sermon on Martial Arts and Other Tales, Issai Chozanshi, translated by William Scott Wilson. 天狗芸術論, 佚斎 樗山子

***Divine Motion Canons, Left (Upper) Second Paragraph, Talking about the Divine Motion Posture 神運經 右（上）第二章，言神運之式

****A reminder: 息 early meaning points to a calm breathing as opposed to 喘, "to pant": "人之氣急曰喘。舒曰息".