Flashback Fri-yay: Daoist Breathing Techinques

Hey guys, welcome to Learn Feng Shui, where you'll learn Feng Shui from a classical point of view taken out the myths and superstition. If you like weekly tips as well as fun folklore tales, you'll enjoy learning Feng Shui with me. Hey guys, we're going to flash back Friday. Another one of my favorite episodes where I discussed Tao's breathing techniques. Just as a reminder, make sure you visit the links below to keep up with the events from the Learn Feng Shui podcast.

I was inspired to kind of look more into this topic after listening to one of my own favorite podcasts called Mysterious Universe. They covered a book called Breath, the new science of a lost art in which it's all about breathing techniques specifically breathing through your nose rather than breathing through your mouth. They included a quote from the book and it was called, it didn't specifically say which text it was from but it just said that Tao is text actually states here that the breath and hails are the mouth is called knee cheese. Or adverse breath and say to be careful not to have your breath and hailed through your mouth. So I want to do a little bit more digging on this and see exactly what the, you know, the Eastern people had to say about it.

So I found a great website called why maa.com, which I'll also link to in the show notes and it covers some different breathing techniques. So today is all about Tao's breathing techniques. So again, from why maa.com, the article in titled Tao's Breathing Take Meeks. Here it states that Tao's breathing exercises are designed to activate the diaphragm muscle, expand the lungs and invoke the body's innate relaxation response. And it states here there are four major types of breathing used in Tao's practices.

It is a common knowledge that eating a healthy diet exercising regularly is needed to have a healthy and strong body. Without exercise, the general condition of the body suffers. Without a diet, we lack the calories and nutrients we need for physical and mental health. However, air is arguably more important than diet and exercise because we work harder or made up by food or work hard to grow food. We have to learn to value food, but air is free.

And so it's kind of forgot the importance. But as we go longer without food and water, then we can go without air. So breathing along with adjusting sleep patterns, blood and lymph nodes, it's part of your body's cyclic pattern. But it's often overlooked and rarely practiced. Tao's breathing exercises are breathing practices designed to activate the diaphragm muscles, expand the lungs and invoke the body's innate relaxation response.

There are four major types of breathing used in Tao's practices. These are natural breathing, reverse breathing, daunting and breathing and embryonic breathing. These breathing practices can be used on their own as well as spiritual meditation practice or used to compliment your martial arts training, allowing you to reach a deeper level of mental and physical health. The first one described here is natural breathing. It says natural breathing describes the type of breathing that we typically use throughout the day.

This is the type of breathing when you inhale your diaphragm contracts and pulls downward, pushing your belly out and the lung expands. Exhalation is a passive act. So on the exhale, the body diaphragm relaxes back up into a dome shape, air leaves the body and the belly contracts inwards. The breast should be slow, deep, fine and even. This allows your body to take in more oxygen and release more carbon dioxide.

This leads to many health benefits, the lowering of bread pressure, slowing of heart rate and faster elimination of toxins. The next is reverse breathing. Reverse breathing gets the same because it is in many ways the reverse of natural breathing. To try to reverse breathing exhale deeply, contract your abdomen and fill the upper part of your lungs. So when you exhale, you push your abdomen out and drop your breath within your body.

Because of the decrease of pressure of your lungs and increase of volume, the diaphragm will move down so consequently the organs and the abdomen will be contracted. Everyone uses type of breathing, whether or not you are conscious of it, is the way we instinctively breathe when we push something heavy. The breath moves vertically up and down within the body like a pump. Interestingly, doing reverse breathing, the breath also moves horizontally moving backwards and forwards inside the belly during exhalation. A calmness down, the calm and talus technique is to imagine a pearl moving back and forth.

I find reverse breathing a useful technique to use before meditation practice. It's important that you never let it become your natural way to breathe. Over practice and impact practice of reverse breathing can actually lead to medical problems, it says. I would not recommend this to anyone with high blood pressure to practice reverse breathing. While I'm not a medical professional, I was taught that exerting too much downward pressure on the lower abdomen can actually cause her moids.

And too much upward pressure on the stomach can contribute to acid reflux problems. Techniques like moderating the amount of force used and lifting of the pelvic floor can be used to prevent straining the breathing muscles. So it's important that any advanced breathing technique you learned and practice under the supervision of an experienced teacher. The third is daunting breathing. The Chinese word daunting literally means cinnabar field.

Cinnabar refers to mercury sulfide, a toxic metal that early Taoist use to make medicine. Dantean is usually roughly translated as a licks or field since the Chinese name means that a valuable energy center, a place for something valuable and medicinal can be cultivated. Although there are considered to be three major daunting in the body, the daunting we are talking about for daunting breathing is the lower daunting a major energy center found slightly underneath and behind the naval. Dantean breathing describes when the lower back is incorporated into deep breathing practice. For this type of breathing, the mind focuses on the daunting and the chest stays relaxed while the abdomen and lower back expand on the exhale and contract on the inhale.

There are very important acupuncture points on the lower spine called the gate of life which can be stimulated by daunting breathing as can the kidneys. Taoist medicine tells us that the kidneys are stimulated the entire body's vitality energy level will improve. The next one is called embryonic breathing. Embryonic breathing is sometimes called stopping the breath, but it's important to differentiate that stopping the breath actually does not mean to hold the breath. There are several Taoist practices that involve holding the breath to increase lung capacity, but embryonic breathing is actually a bit different.

Embryonic breathing means that your breath feels like an effortless internal movement. Your breathing is so natural that you're not aware that you are breathing like a newly formed child in the womb. When I practice this type of breathing, I find that my spirit and breathing become aligned. I become less aware of myself sitting there. I become present in the moment and I am only aware of the breath.

This is very useful type of breathing for meditation. Focusing the mind too sharply on your breathing can prevent the naturalness of the breath needed for embryonic breathing. So instead, the diligent practicing of this technique, I find it more useful to let it happen naturally. If you use one hand to hold a feather under your nose, we're practicing this type of breathing, it won't move. Your breathing is calm and subtle.

Embryonic breathing is also called knee who see meaning internal breathing. She and the martial arts. Soldiers in China, singers and external martial artists often practice chest breathing. This involves breathing practice that expands and contracts the chest and the rib and develops the strength of the upper lung. The practice of yelling or exhaling chief through the mouth when practicing martial arts also practices the chi of the lungs.

And so if you'll notice, of course, when martial artists practice, they usually yell some sort of, um, expletive when they're, um, punching. So they'll, you know, you know, high R, key R or something. They'll usually do, um, something like that. And that's because they're taking in their breath and they're pushing all their power out and they're doing their punches and their kicks. These types of breathing are not typically part of Dallas or internal martial art practice.

The Dallas conception of the body tells us that she or intrinsic energy in the body moves upwards. We believe that practicing chest breathing encourages this tendency. When the key in the body is raised, it is best to do your jumps and flips that are common in the external arts. However, if the key in the body is high, the person will also feel unsettled, like a tiger in the cage and they'll have a bad temper. And the internal arts of the key of the chest is compared to fire and a tiger.

The key of the stomach is compared to water or dragon. The traditional Dallas practice involving the grounding of Chi, low within the body instead of raising it. When the energy of the chest and energy of the belly are able to mix, it's called mixing fire and water. As everyone knows, when fire and water or mix, they create steam. The steam Chi creates more energy of the body.

And this type of metaphor is calmness and Dallas internal art practices where the body is compared to a crucible or a stove that says for making medicine. Where fire and water creates steam and it creates more Chi. So the role of the mouth and internal arts also relates to the Confucian and Dallas theory. Confucian taught us that the mouth is a source of many problems. Apparently the Chinese says we have a traditional saying, meaning that trouble exits the mouth and sickness enters.

This refers to problems that say the wrong things you're eating and drinking and healthily can cause these issues. However, the mouth is also necessary for preserving life. Ideally it should be for nourishing Chi, which means when we eat and drink, we should do so in a way that brings energy to our body. Dallas teaches that too much can exhaust the body's energy and vitality. This is why all religions have practices where people actually will take a valve to silence.

When I first learned these techniques, I tried them out by walking through the outside walls of the temple with my mouth wide open. I found that I got tired a lot easier. This is something you can actually try for yourself. It also states that preventing excess energy from exiting the mouth spans the Dallas meditation and martial practices. For this reason, I was taught that it is bad to expel breath through the mouth in your practicing.

The reason for this is because the energy and breath in the body should be conserved. Even if too much, she is exiting from the mouth and weakens your punches. You will tire more easily. Also if you're making loud noises while you're practicing, it's become self-conscious about the noises you're making and how loud they are. Many people have found that they feel a little bit embarrassed, that they're making noise around people.

When this happens, your mind may be drawn away from where it should be. It's said that the internal martial arts will use Chi when we practice. This is important to remember that Chi does not mean breath. Chi refers to material energy of the universe. It is the air we breathe and the food we eat.

It is given to us from our parents before birth and taken in during our interactions with people. Chi refers to anything intangible but perceptible. Things you can feel easier than see. However, it's easy to think of Chi as an energetic substance. It's also correct to think of as a process.

In Chinese medicine, Chi is most commonly defined by not what it is but what it does. This is similar to the conception of energy in modern physics where matter is described as having interconnected physical and energetic qualities. Chi is that which warms, raises and harmonizes us as well as a process by which things are warmed, raised and harmonized. This energy works in many ways creating movement and nourishing the body. Creating your body's Chi can be done by practicing breathing techniques, meditation, eating, drinking nutritious foods and also keeping up healthy relationships and working on creating a clean environment which really all does tie into the concept of Feng Shui and your even your personal energy.

The article also says when a martial artist uses Chi to refer to a process, for me, this process begins by keeping the breathing in the body low and emanating force through entire body. When I practice, I breathe deeply into the abdomen and fill the dantian. When I eat my force, I'm breathing out from the dantian through the nose which lets air out slower than the mouth. Hence avoiding letting out too much Chi. While the mouth mainly exists for the intake of nutrients, the nose was designed to be the main organ of respiration.

The dantian is also kept full on the exhale and my mind is focused on using the Chi and strength for my lower body and waist. In this way, the whole body movement is used. This means using the leg is dantian and waist area to emit force and keeping the mind focused on where the force is going. The mind, breathing and body are all in harmony. When the body and mind are synchronized, the Chi of the body will harmonize your movements naturally.

I highly suggest you check out the YMAA.com website. They actually have a great website. It really is geared more towards that Chi-Gon practices, martial art practices, and what is called the Mountain Study in Chinese Metaphysics. I know I've covered this before, but all these practices are part of what are called the five arts of Chinese Metaphysics. It's one of the arts that's actually called Mountain.

Of course, included in that is martial art, Chi-Gon, and these sort of energetic practices where you're moving and even breath work and stuff like that. Go check out YMAA.com and I'll put a link in the show notes. Don't forget to register for Del Eyes Workshop, which will be July 25th, 4pm. The subject is a Feng Shui for the bedroom. This is a super easy beginner series that I'm doing over the next few months.

This month's focus is the bedroom. If you're interested in learning some Feng Shui dos and don'ts for the bedroom, as well as some color theory, a little bit of color, according to the Feng Shui elements, join me on the 25th and follow the link below to get registered. To support the podcast, be sure to subscribe, we review, and share with your family and friends who you think may be interested, especially if you found this content useful. To learn more about Feng Shui and Chinese Metaphysics, follow the link to the website below.