Almost all modern Chinese Tai Chi masters dismiss breathing and any attempt to explore this absolutely essential and fundamental life process as a silly obsession. Breathing is dismissed as “low level”, “dangerous”, and causing people to “go crazy”, particularly Westerners. At best, these “Masters” tell us that we should breathe “naturally.”
Over the years, I have seen hundreds of people whose health problems could be cured or 90% resolved if their teacher fine-tuned their movement and breathing patterns. And, if these “teachers” taught their students the fundamental tools and principles of how to adjust their own energy body, then the student would be able to handle most, if not all, of their own problems in their practice and daily life.
Instead, they are being incorrectly taught with a random methodology, and then blamed and ridiculed for their “stupidity” and inadequacy. Apparently these “teachers” do not believe there is any money or glory in being truthful and actually instructing their students correctly and empowering them to succeed in their own self-study in the Taoist arts.
Breathing is absolutely fundamental to all aspects of the Taoist arts. Physical, mental and emotional health, healing ability and skill and progress in the martial arts are fundamentally related to breath, movement and mind. Meditation, enlightenment, and spiritual strength are also fundamentally linked to movement, breath, and the mind. It is crazy not to teach and explore breathing and its applications and meaning in these arts.
How did this miasma of ignorance and superstition surrounding breath come about? It began in the 1970s, on the West Coast of the United States, when a well-known teacher began teaching non-Chinese students the complete and authentic art of Taoist Kung Fu. The other teachers questioned why this teacher was teaching the “foreigners” and many arguments and fights ensued. The teacher continued to teach and had hundreds of students. Many of these students developed excellent skills as healers, teachers, and fighters. Suddenly, this teacher stopped teaching breathing, calling it “dangerous” and claiming it drove Westerners crazy. And then teachers in San Francisco, Los Angeles, and Seattle made a rule not to openly teach breathing, and especially not to their non-Chinese students.
Why? There are many different opinions as to why, here are a few. The 1970s and 1980s spawned an incredible array of new experimental and effective therapies, particularly in the realms of psychology, human potential, and spirituality…such as the Janov Primal Cry, the TM movement, Gestalt Therapy, Reichian Therapy, Arica, Bioenergetics. , Neurolinguistic Programming, and Rebirth, to name a few. There was a great emphasis on getting in touch with emotions, past traumas, and other psychic phenomena. Various breathing patterns, with or without movement, were often the centerpiece of these therapies, as the primary vehicle for getting in touch with repressed memories and emotions, and hopefully integrating the individual psyche.
All these new, wild, sometimes outlandish, but often powerful and effective therapies were disturbing to traditional Chinese teachers; emotions and emotional expression made them feel very uncomfortable. Traditional teachers only deal with people on their terms; it is a culture based on Confucian customs and properties. If people are experimenting with therapies and states of consciousness outside the Confucian “norm”, then the teachers want nothing to do with those “crazy Westerners”, whatever. And to top it off, many of the higher-ranking students even surpassed some of their teachers’ levels in healing, meditation, medicine, and self-defense, threatening the established hierarchy of authority that is so ingrained in Chinese culture.
So the instinctive reaction was to ban any teaching on breathing and the specific principles and techniques to enhance strength, intention and skill in Kung Fu. They began to water down the art to its current state of pseudo-mysticism, confusion, jealousy, gossip and mediocrity.
So what is breathing all about? Dr. Yang Jwing Ming provides many of the classical theories and techniques of Taoist and Buddhist breathing methods used in the Taoist arts. His two books on meditation, Qigong Meditation: Embryonic Breathing and Qigong Meditation: Small Circulation (YMAA Publishing, http://www.ymaa.com) are excellent references for this knowledge and are an excellent overview of breathing, the functions and the uses. Breathing is widely mentioned and discussed in many of his other books on Tai Chi, Qigong and Martial Arts.
The goal of all Taoist practices is to return to the Natural State. A baby’s healthy breathing and relaxed state are often presented as an ideal metaphor for “natural breathing.” This is a good ideal and benchmark, but unfortunately, most of humanity is not breathing naturally, continuously, smoothly, relaxedly, and gently. Through life traumas, cultural indoctrination, impression of bad habits of breath, movement and mind, the majority of humanity needs to be aware of their current condition and learn how to move towards the healthy and harmonious state of Breath. Natural and Natural. In other words, most people have to study breathing, unlearn bad habits, and learn to breathe. Then one can return to the Natural State, not by luck, but by skill and knowledge.
In conclusion, do not be fooled by your teacher withholding this knowledge and information, or any other deception about the true teaching of these yogic arts: learn the art of breathing and realize your birthright to remain in the natural state.
