holding breath

[Anonymous]

hi there
i have found a qigong group in town in which we are taught breathing exercises that involve holding the breath. I’m not really enjoying that and haven’t found this kind of method in any other taoist/chinese based meditation or energy work. Actually, what i have found so far, is that you are advised never to hold the breath.
Is this local group just using another method?
Is there anything somebody could tell me about this?
Thanks you ~ Zizi

[Anonymous]

Hi Zizi,

There are so many different Qigong methods out there. It’s difficult to comment on a specific one without having practiced it, and I’m not famaliar with the method you mentioned.

In Bruce’s system we are taught never to hold the breath. A lot of the material that we learn in breathing chi gung revolves around trying to relax the breath and make it smoother and more continuous.

If you are interested, Bruce has a nice 2 CD set that teaches some of his breathing chi gung

Hope this helps,
Janak

 

[Anonymous]

thank you Janak.
I do have the longevity breathing cd, which i think will be similar. I enjoy that breathing work a lot.
Zizi

[Anonymous]

Hi, Zizi

I wouldn’t be surprised if there are qigong groups that use breath holding techniques out there somewhere. It sounds more like something Bruce would classify as “fire method”, which involves more forceful techniques as opposed to using softness and yielding. It’s also good to keep in mind that not everything out there comes from a pure source or lineage, meaning that sometimes someone will take some Taoist stuff they learned, add a little breathing from a yoga technique from India, a little something from somewhere else…and you end up with something that’s more a hybrid than something pure. Not to say that this is necessarily bad, I guess it all depends on viewpoint and what you’re looking for. There’s just a lot of mixing and matching out there these days.

[Author]

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