Tai Chi Breathing

Dan Tien (lower abdomen) Breathing During Tai Chi

 

In the last class there were questions about my comments on how to breath while practicing Tai Chi.  I have to admit that I was not very clear and far too brief for such a complex subject.

I discussed Dan Tien Breathing (lower abdomen) and here are some points that I believe I covered;

• The Dan Tien, according to Chinese Tai Chi teaching,  is a physical point in the body which is about one inch below the navel and about 1 to 2 inches inwards.  It can be visualized as a ball or glowing orb.  One translation of "Boiling Cauldron".
• The breathing I covered is for relaxing and rooting and requires that the abdomen be loose and move outward on inhale and inward on exhale.

 There is also a more advance, energy building breath exercise were the abdomen movement is the opposite.  I don't teach this until much later as it doesn't directly address our goals of  "stress lease" and "better balance" and is considered an advanced technique.

Back to Dan Tien breathing.

Allowing the abdomen to expend and contract with the breath is very relaxing because;

• The abdomen muscles are soothed through the expansion and contraction
• The diaphragm moves more distance than breath that includes just chest and shoulder expansion and this;
• Brings more air (with it's oxygen) into the lungs and the body (when combined with chest and shoulder breathing)
• The internal organs get a gentle massage. 
• The body becomes more relaxed give us both stress release and improved rooting (balance)

An important point is to not try to hard to breath correctly, just let it happen and over time you'll see improvement.

Here are a couple of links if you would like more information.

An in-depth conversation on Tai Chi Breathing;

Diaphragmatic Breathing training video;