Wednesday, July 21, 2021

Thoughts on taking a breath

 



 

Overall over the years I have developed a deeper understanding of breathing in karate. There are a number of separate issues here.

 

1.    Breathing to control the speed of kata training intra technique series. (an example might be the use of inhalation for this)

2.    Breathing to control the speed of kata training inter technique series. (an example might be the use of exhalation for this)

3.    The use of variation on these themes for varied training purposes, (one example might be the use of exhalation on some series of techniques because they work more effectively when adhering to the opponents center) (another might the reverse).

4.    Utilization of hard breathing patterns in Sanchin training. The use of it within Seiunchin kata practice could be the same, to assist compressing the center into the body movement.

5.    Use of set breathing patterns in kyu development. To do so is to get everyone on the same page so to speak, when the primary purpose is overall physical development of the kyu. This would be accompanied with the use of group kata training, where everyone focuses on audible breathing to regulate the timing of the group.

6.    Training the hearing to recognize the opponents breathing, then to use that for an opening to exploit.

7.    Training on reverse breathing to confuse the opponent hearing your pattern. Example would be to strike on inhalation. When they are used to strikes done on exhalation. For example there are tai chi systems of study that use reverse breathing in their training. But then they are constant in that use. Rather this is at a specific time in training the breathing pattern of the adept is specifically changed permanently.

 

This is but a partial list of the topics that present themselves. No they are all not presented at the same time. Each has a use in the adept training, over the decades.

 



 


 

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