Tai Chi Breathing Rhythm

[realjanuary]

I've always liked that statue. There's a copy of it in the gallery across from work. Here's the wiki page about it.
Although it's static (duhh, it's a statue) there's a great feeling of movement and possibility. Often when I use the gedan version of switching to sankyo from ikkyo this statue springs to mind.

Back on topic: we do a version of the Silken Brocade / Hachi Hanke. The breathing pattern in that is quite different from what I would consider intuitive or fitting with the general advice I've read here. Our coach doesn't emphasise the breathing very often.
I imagine this is part of the difference between tai chi (forms meant to have some direct application) and chi gung (forms that are not meant to have a direct application). As a non-cma'er I'm open to being corrected on that.

[Rivington]

Given that taiji is a mix of shuai jiao, tongbei, Shaolin longfist, and practiced through qigong modalities, the idea that it predates gongfu is pretty funny.

[lordbd]

Back to the original point of the thread briefly, I was researching martial arts mags this morning (thinking about subscribing to tai chi magazine) and they have a section of their website on breathing. Pretty much states what has already been said here, but has a little discussion of "buddhist" versus "taoist" breathing.

"While almost everyone agrees that breathing abdominally is most beneficial, there is more than one way to do this. One method is to expand the abdomen as you breathe in and contract the abdomen as you breathe out. This is sometimes called natural breathing or Buddhist breathing.

Another way is to contract the abdomen as you breathe in and expand the abdomen (sink the qi into it) as you breathe out. This is sometimes called Taoist breathing, reverse breathing, or natural breathing.
Sometimes a combination of the two is used. There are different benefits from each method. The only wrong method is to force the method you are using."

http://www.tai-chi.com/info_detail.php?id=10

....and yes I realize how fucking nerdy this is :-)

[Diesel_tke]

I used to subscribe to that magazine but it was mostly wushu stuff. They would have one little section towards the end with some taiji but it was usually some obscure form or something really basic.

I did see Dale in it a few times! But overall save your money and just use the internet.

Sent from my VM670 using Tapatalk 2

[lordbd]

Thanks for the advice brother. I was thinking that I wanted to something to leave around in the bathroom or bedroom when I'm feeling lazy, but I think you're right, and the days of magazine subscriptions (aside from RING magazine) are probably behind me.