Qi — Breathing and The Feeling of Qi
In this and the next one or two posts, I am taking a bold step to share my views on Qi. This initiative came from my dialogue with a reader, Kevin from Indonesia, who asked me about breathing techniques in training and the Qi phenomenon. My discussion is based on this dialogue.
But I start with a disclaimer first: I don’t have a good knowledge of Qi at all. If there is any, it’s all from my personal experience in practising Wing Chun. Thus my discussion could be regarded as “narrow-sighted”. I believe many of you know about Qi much better than I do. So please add your views and point out anything inadequate or wrong.
Qi or Qi Gong
The Qi concerned here is better interpreted as the “feeling of Qi”, rather than Qi Gong, which literally means “the kung fu of Qi”, a specialised stream with techniques commonly applied to health well-being and mostly seen in kung fu styles associated with the famous Shaolin origin.
On the contrary, the “feeling of Qi” is no secret. When your body is in a relaxed state or your mind calms down like during meditation, such feeling will easily (start to) come up. It is this kind of Qi being talked about in the context of practising Wing Chun.
The Question: Breathing and Dan Tien
Kevin: Is there any breathing technique in Internal CST, like Dan Tien (gathers oxygen when inhaling then expands every part of the body and exhales)?
Me: In the training of Chu-style Wing Chun, there is no particular emphasis on breathing. If there is any breathing technique, I would suggest it is that kind of breathing that helps keep your physical body calm, and it then goes deep down to the belly, in contrast to the normal breathing shallow down just to the chest. This “deep down to the belly” is also a natural result of your mind trying to open up and access different parts of the body, the belly being the site of CoG (centre of gravity) or the lower centre, representing the entire linked body mass as much as you manage to access.
This means: Before, air is inhaled into the lungs mainly due to activity in the chest (muscles and rib cage, etc.); now, air is still inhaled into the lungs, of course (air won’t penetrate into the abdomen), but the linked belly is so active that its activity is orchestrated with the chest’s to become one integral breathing movement. This is a manifestation of a more articulated mass.
You may regard it as the commonly known Dan Tien.
Breathing in Training
While I say it is a natural result, it is still your choice to turn it into a cause whenever it fits. For example, you currently practise very slowly, and your body is becoming calmer such that you feel more clearly your own breathing. Yet, you might feel by deliberately focusing on this deep breathing and maintaining it strong at Dan Tien, you will be able to better keep the calm state for further exploring the slow movements. In such a case, paying attention to breathing “using the belly” is beneficial.
As another example: When practising Siu Nim Tau, especially for beginners, the chest muscles usually contract to perform the move. This is particularly so when you try to test out power (force) of a specific move with your partner, in which it’s easy for you to become nervous and engage the chest muscles. Your breath is then being held up (constrained) at the chest. In such a case, paying attention to breathing “using the belly” can help sink (let go) the breath from the chest down to the belly for a more integral breathing movement, and hence a more articulated mass to perform the move, instead of the congested chest.
So far my discussion has been just on breathing, concerning normal air, not about Qi yet. When the physical body stays calm and relaxed, every part will become more active internally. This “activeness” is reflected in as well as enables various “communication” among the different bodily parts, which when actively kept, will give the “feeling of Qi”. I would like to map this “activity” to the proactive “filling up” initiated by the mind (Idea).
Simply said, the mind is the actor that turns a relaxed body into a vehicle for proactive Qi operation. More elaboration in the next post.
