Breathing and the chest

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  • #128688

    Anonymous
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    I’m a bit confused as to how chest movements play in the whole torso / diaphragmic breathing.
    In order to engage back and side portions of the lungs, Bruce instructs us to keep the chest as flat as possible, at the same time expanding back, front, and side diaphragm. Another piece of instructions is to relax the muscles of the chest.
    At first I didn’t notice the instructions re relaxing the chest muscles and focused on the keeping chest flat and expanding the diaphragm. That resulted in sort of congestion I started to experiense in the chest and the windpipe. After re-listenening to the intructions, I noticed the one on the chest muscles relaxation. My problem is that if I relax the chest muscles, the chest portion of the lungs will expand, which is not a goal.
    Has anybody had this sort of issues/questions?

    #133008

    Anonymous
    Guest

    Hi, Igor.

    In the Taoist breathing CDs, Bruce gives extensive and clear directions about how the chest relaxes and sinks while the back rises, creating the microcosmic orbit of breathing. If you follow his step by step procedure, it feels very natural and the front of the chest remains relaxed and still during breathing. It does take a while to get the hang of it, but it feels right once you get it.

    Best,
    Matthew

    #133009

    Anonymous
    Guest

    Yes, good advice from Matthew. Maybe it would help to try breathing this way while lying on your back on the floor? With gravity, it should be easier to keep the chest still and relaxed. Perhaps slowly transition to an upright position. Just a thought.

    #133010

    Anonymous
    Guest

    I’ve found this part challenging as well, and I haven’t gotten a totally natural feel for it yet.
    I think, at times, I’ve over focused on the lifting of various parts and actually patterned in some tension in my chest, which unfortunately hasn’t been so easily undone. I’ll have to check out the resource Matthew mentioned. Thanks Matthew!
    Has anyone else had (and hopefully overcome) some building chest tension in the later stages of the circle practices?

    Best wishes for all in 2013.
    Steve

    #133011

    Anonymous
    Guest

    Thanks everybody for the discussion.
    One of my working hypothesis right now is that at least partially the feeling of constriction in the chest could be caused by reflux from the heartburn. It’s not a burning sensation, more like tension/constriction, but it still could be the heartburn effect. The other possible cause is obviously tension in the chest muscles when I do conscious breathing. Relaxing the shoulder nest is a good idea. My problem here is that I have a bad posture; and when I try to relax the shoulders it makes the posture worse, so I’ll have to figure out how to do that without compromising my posture.

    #133012

    Anonymous
    Guest

    Hi Igor,
    sorry I’m coming to this a little late, but I think I know what you mean with posture getting worse when you try to let your back rise. I find the same in the first few minutes when I do standing practice. But I find that if I don’t worry about this too much and just try to concentrate on the relaxation, then after a while, as the sinking starts to work, the posture adjusts all by itself. The same might be the case for you, if you just stay aware of what you would like your body to do, but don’t try to make it happen with conscious effort.
    Maybe it might be worth going back a little and practice earlier stages for longer until you can get into a more relaxed state more easily and reliably, so that you’re not trying to do too much in one go.
    I know this sounds like a bit of a catch-22: you’re learning the breathing to relax, and you need to relax to do the breathing right… but I think it’s little steps of both, taking turns.
    Hope this helps a little.

    #133013

    Anonymous
    Guest

    Yeah, this is exactly what I eventually decided to do: not to go ahead but rather stabilize the practice at some point and move on only after the stabilization.
    The sternum feeling is most likely due to the heartburn; but I have to make sure I don’t provoke it with my breathing.

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