Abdominal Breathing Training

For the starters, whether they are the training of meditation, or Taji, or many other Chinese martial arts - widely known as Kong Fu, one of the fundamental training is "abdominal breathing". Literally, it means to breath with your abdominal muscle.

There are certain physical or biological theories about this, but in order to train yourself doing it, the first step is always the hardest. One way of helping yourself is by putting your hand on your stomach, and inhale in the air as normal, but putting pressure when your exhale out the air.

You may notice that when you try to breath, the chest area enlarged. It's simply because the air you inhale in require more space in your body. But that's only one way of increase the volume of your lungs. The other way is to "lower" the "diaphragm" between your lungs and stomach. And the key of "Abdominal Breathing" is by combining both breathing methods, you actually inhale way more air into your lung, and greatly increase the time between each breath.

In a matter of speaking, it's an advanced version of "Deep breath", and if you practicing it for a while, you will find that it helps you calm yourself very quickly, not only because you get more oxygen, but also because it's not that "natural", you need to draw away some attentions from what's bothering you.

And my Taji teacher told me that there are several steps, you can followed when using abdominal breathing.

When you completely exhale out all the air.

1. Relax the muscle below your stomach

2. Let the air flow through your nose, put the tip of your tongue on the top of your mouth cavity.

3. After you feel the air had flow down to your stomach, continuing taking deep breath using your chest, to inhale in more air.

When you felt you have inhaled enough air (It can be full, 70% full, or just half normal)

4. Using your stomach muscle to squeeze the air out. 

5. relaxing the muscle of your chest to exhale out the air in your lungs completely

6. If there is saliva in your mouth, swallow it before the next inhaling. (or you may choke yourself)

The slower the better. And if you feel there is a "ball of air" choke in the center of your chest, it means you did not exhale completely. And you need to stop for a while, and probably find a suitable teacher for consulting.

Personally, I've practiced it from I am still a child, and it has become very natural to me. It also helps me with some physical exercises, like swimming, or hiking. And of course it's a must for Taji practicing.