The Island of Crete by Wolfgang Staudt

My focus at the Instructor Training this summer is making an attempt to help you bridge the gap between your breath and chi. While your breathing is irregular, erratic and not very strong or smooth, it’s almost impossible to bridge that gap.

If you can take a 20-second breath at least you will have a stable breath, which is the foundation necessary to make the link between your breath and chi. Twenty seconds will regulate many physiological functions within your body. So a 10-second inhale and 10-second exhale (20-second breath) is what you need to come in with–no matter how you do it–to at least have a shot at the chi work.

From here at this summer’s retreat  I’ll take you through two methods to help you bridge the gap between breath and chi:

1.  The first and easiest way is through the nervous system. Understanding what your breath does to your nervous system is important. Chi flows through your nerves, so if you can recognize what your breath does to your nerves, then it can become a method by which you feel your chi. Eventually it becomes possible to then feel your chi directly.

2.  Chi moves the fluids of your body: blood, synovial fluid, cerebrospinal and more. If your mind can enter your breath and feel the way in which the fluids inside your body move, you have a second way of understanding how breath, chi and your fluids are interrelated. Since chi is in your breath and your fluids, recognizing the movement of chi in your fluids can help you make the link.

Ultimately, however, the root through which a person experiences breath and chi happens at the level of the Heart-Mind. That is it happens at the depth of the mind–not on the surface of conscious thinking. It’s not a mathematical formula: I’m doing this, I’m doing that.

Feeling your chi comes from a much deeper place inside of you. Before you can actually get how chi enters and leaves your body as your breath, you also need to allow your breath to really enter your body. So I’ll spend a lot of time helping you become conscious of your breath entering your body.

If you can prepare by working up to a 20-second breath by the time you arrive, you’ll have the stability you’ll need to make the leap possible. I make no promises though.

Of course Taoist Longevity Breathing involves moving your belly, sides, kidneys and really moving the diaphragm, so make all parts move as you practice for best results.

I hope to see you on Crete! For more info click here to learn more.

Magical Sunsets in Crete by Wolfgang Staudt

The simple fact is that most people do not breathe well. There are numerous studies on the effects of poor breathing on your health.

If a person doesn’t breathe well then it contract their body and induces tension and stress…so learning to breath well is very important to solve this major health problem. But why do we breathe poorly and what is the cause?

First we must explore the basics of breathing. How does your body actually take a breathe? From your lungs? You actually don’t start your breathing from your lungs. The lungs are the sacs that fill up with air as your diaphragm is pushing in or out. It is actually your diaphragm that CAUSES the air to go in and out of your lungs.

As you probably know as people age their breathing tends to get worse. Many years of habitual shallow breathing causes the diaphragm to spasm. It’s similar to a hand that tenses and spasms. The diaphragm for most people isn’t a smooth running muscle. Instead it’s under immense tension, and very often it flutters.

When the diaphragm flutters it causes you to involuntarily hold your breath. Most of the time you don’t even know you’re doing it.

There are many other causes for holding of the breath. When we have strong emotional outbursts or tensions we can easily recognize that we hold our breath. But what is interesting is that many people hold their breath while they go about their normal activities. It’s due in part to diaphragm spasms and due also to lack of awareness on how to properly breath.

So an important component of breath training is getting your diaphragm to relax by working on it sufficiently, and by consciously making the motion of the diaphragm comfortable and smooth. This takes practice.

So the movement of the diaphragm is critical to having good general breathing, and is absolutely necessary for breathing with your lower belly in Taoist Longevity Breathing. If your diaphragm is extremely tense, your breath will not penetrate your internal organs and go all the way to the bottom of your belly, and then move on to your sides and your kidneys. It definitely won’t happen while you have involuntary spasms.

The degree to which you can release these involuntary spasms the better will be your breathing. It can become dramatically better just by working the diaphragm more and making your breath comfortable and smooth. A positive feedback loop is also created as the ability of your body to naturally relax will also be enhanced.

So to get the diaphragm involved in Longevity Breathing, put your fingers on your diaphragm–right at the bottom of your sternum and where your ribcage starts. With your fingers in place breathe in and breathe out. You might feel that there is a short, stop-start-stop-start. Just become aware of it and try to overcome it. Put your awareness in your diaphragm. Slow down your breathing and breathe in less.

You still inhale and exhale without stopping, but each time you consciously relax your diaphragm. Keep practicing until the pain or the pressure you feel from your fingers on your diaphragm begins to naturally diminish.

If you want to make this a habit then you will want to do this practice over and over again until your fingers being in your diaphragm no longer causes pain. Do it over and over again until the motion doesn’t have a start-stop quality as your diaphragm goes up and down.

Eventually the motion will become smooth and comfortable. Getting your diaphragm moving properly is one of the most important things you can do for your health and for life.

photo by kirtaph

This summer I’ll teach one of the most important trainings I’ve ever offered. It’s a three-week Instructor Training  on Longevity Breathing or Taoist whole-body breathing on the island of Crete. My hope is to certify up to 100 breathing coaches/instructors.

Breathing is at the heart of Taoist arts and other Eastern practices, such as yoga and Buddhist meditation. Breathing well is also a key to success in Western athletic sports, including running, swimming, football and tennis.

Leading up to the Instructor Training this summer I’ll share a lot of important information about breathing to help you prepare. Whole-body breathing will make you feel more alive, improve your health and make your body conscious…bringing real value to your quality of life.

So in this first post I’ll talk about a classic Taoist phrase in the Inner Chapters: “The wise man breathes from his heels.”  Well, if you haven’t got the faintest clue what Chuang Tzu means you’re not alone.  Let’s explore some possibilities…

The Physiology of Whole-body Breathing

You begin by fully engaging your breathing mechanism to its highest capability. That is you breathe from your belly and the sides of your body, which engages your liver and spleen. Breathing from your belly also activates your diaphragm. You actually want to get your breath to move everything that’s below your abdominal muscles, including your intestines and all the parts involved with the digestive system.

Your are effectively giving all of your internal organs a massage while oxygenating your blood. Where there is oxygen there is life: It has been shown, for example, that cancer simply cannot survive in highly oxygenated environments.

Of course whole-body breathing also includes opening up your lungs. This will  apply pressure to your heart (in a good way) by supporting the  muscles around the heart. When you get this going really well, then the breath in your belly will go all the way up into your brain, energizing your think-tank. For this to happen your glands must also be activated.

Going Deeper than the Physical Body

Whole-body breathing penetrates deeper than only the physical body.  The wise man breathing from his heels says that if you breathe in and out of your feet, in that process you will have a sense of your breath going from your feet all the way through your entire body to the top of your head and out your fingertips.

The implication is that if you breathe from your heels you’ll draw on the earth’s energy. You can use that chi to open up the energy channels of your body. So you breathe not only from your physical body, but also in a manner that activates your etheric and other non-physical bodies. The Taoists have been practicing this technique pragmatically for thousands of years. It’s not a matter of creating a nice visualization.

You’ve probably heard the Taoist joke: You can visualize yourself walking like a duck and talking like a duck, but until you can lay an egg and feed a starving person you’re not a duck! So visualizations can be helpful, but actually activating energy flows is a different story. Taoists were not only able to demonstrate breathing from their heels, but teach people how to do it–24 hours a day.

In the West breath training has really only been recognized as having a significant link to stress reduction and a greater sense of well-being, but that’s just the tip of the iceberg.

Opening the Energy Channels of Your Body

The Taoist phrase, “The wise man breathes from his heels,” is talking about the entirety of how you open up all the energy channels of your body. As you breathe in from your nose, you want to feel your breath in your entire body. This activates and increases blood circulation, which is critical to the transportation of vital nutrients and oxygen to and removal of waste products from every cell in your body. Whole-body breathing therefore has a positive systemic impact. Only breathing into the chest and upper lungs won’t cut it–no matter how hard you huff and puff.

Many people take Taoist practices as metaphor: I put my mind in my feet and breathe in and out and somehow I become healthier. In reality the process of genuine whole-body breathing starts in your belly, works its way up to your upper body, and then goes all the way to your finger tips and bottom of your feet.

If you are serious about qigong, bagua, tai chi, hsing-i, yoga, meditation–or your health in general–breathing will be at the core of each and every practice. If you truly learn to breathe from your heels just about anything is possible.

I’ll guide you through the process this summer in Crete, so eventually you can be a wise man/woman breathing from his/her heels too.

Until then, breathe deep!