You can always spot someone who's trying to breathe to a pattern, because they're usually the ones holding their breath. A posture that takes a bit longer than normal to complete means they'll have to exhale for a lot longer, but because they're not so good at it yet, they exhale almost completely by the time they're 2/3 of the way through the posture and then hold their breath for the rest. This makes them hold tension and is a little self-defeating. They're putting a lot of effort into relaxing themselves off, only to have their breathing pattern tense them up again.
Breath holding will cause tension in the body, and tension is our enemy. One of the Taiji goals is to relax and let go of tension, not manifest more in the body. Holding your breath for long periods of time whilst practising form is also not good for the body. The body will remember the breath holding and out of habit it will make you do this in your everyday life, and that will only make you even more tense.
You cannot fix a Taiji form's breathing pattern. The body's internal state can vary a lot from day to day, depending on your general state of health, emotional balance or how fatigued you are. One day breathing may be easy, the next it could struggle. You have little conscious control over this, because this regulation is done by your body. It does what it needs to keep you going.
The other reason why you can't just take a breathing pattern and shove it into the Taiji form is because your body varies quite a bit from day to day, and one day it might find it easy to breathe in the pattern you've been given, and the next it might struggle. This is something you don't have conscious control over, because your body is different from day to day. That's just the way it is.
Pick an easy movement to practise with, something like walking. Breathe and coordinate your breathing with your walking. Your body will learn how to do this eventually. It will then, without any effort on your part, start to synchronise your breathing with your movement. Once you reach this stage, you'll probably start noticing it in your form.
Here are 4 tips to practise with walking: - Breathe in for 4 steps, and our for 4 steps. Increase the number of steps per in and out breath to a maximum of 10. - Find your maximum. If you're trying to do 8 steps per in/out breath, and you finish breathing by the fifth step, that's your limit. Practise until you're comfortable with it, then increase it. - Try not to hold your breath at any point - Do not force the breath Forcing = tension and that is the enemy. Do not force the breath to fit the steps.
Practise walking and breathing until your body gets into the habit of coordinating movement and breathing. This learning method is abstract and unconscious, so what will happen is that one day you will notice your breathing is in synch with your form, but till that happens keep practising.
If you do this often enough, your body will get the idea of co-ordinating movement with breathing and it will automatically start do regulate your breathing during your form practise.
Mark Tan is a taijiquan teacher specialising in simple techniques to control stress and relieve the back and joint problems caused by modern living.
Tags: fitness, tai chi, form, breathing, taiji, tai chi chuan, taijiquan