I've got a question,is there a breathing method during an execution of a technique? For example, do we breath normally (from our stomach) as a nage during an execution of say iriminage or do we inhale during entry and spinning the uke; and exhale when we finish the execution?? just an ad hoc example, correct me if i'm wrong.

Hi, garyc

Shouldn't your sensei be teaching you this? Ask him before anyone else, I know I would..

phew
 

Garyc,

Jvdz is probably right about asking sensei, people have very different views about this; but I can tell you what I've been told:

the breathing flows with your internal energy. When someone attacks you breath in (though this can be quite painful if they succeed in a blow to your sternum). At this time the uke should be breathing out (for their attack). When you throw your uke you breath out (to get the power of the throw).

There are disagreements over this but most people say at least this: breath naturally and don't strain, always breath out when being thrown (if you follow the advise above this makes it difficult for uke as he has to breath out twice in a row!)

And think in terms of the sword, when you raise the sword(that is your hand):inhale, inhalation means your muscles are working.
If you cut: exhale, exhalation relaxes your muscles.

Regards.

heck i try to remember to breathe at all.
but breathing is really important. i can remember all the teachers i have come across say how important is breathing. and have often corrected me by saying the reasoni was having problems was that i wasnt breathing correctly or i was holding my breath. and i used to say to myself what does my breathing have anything do with it. it wasnt until i was chopping logs one day that it dawn upon me. i noticed when i held my breath i could not chop threw the log, but when i exhaled as i chopped the log would spilt into 2. so i spent the whole day chopping logs to see if it wasnt a fluke and sure enough when i held my breath very rarely did the wood spilt. my parents could nt understand why i was outside for 4 hrs chopping wood. i told them i had finally figured out what all my teachers have sayn to me about breathing. my parents said "really well keep trying to figure out what they were sayn cause they needed more logs chopped."
well i hope that helps

I find that very reassuring - I've often wondered whether breathing out is any better than holding your breath. I always feel a tendancy to want to hold my breath when weight training - maybe it tenses your body too much and to actually release more power (esp. dynamic power) breathing out is essential.

thanks guys!! i did ask my sensei, in fact several senseis, most of the answers are exhaling/inhaling as what was discussed in this thread. any other views?

puff & pant
 

Hi Garyc,
there was another point that I have problems with and I don't know if anyone else can talk about this. I went on a course where we did quite a bit of boken work and it was quite tiring, so everyone was puffing and panting. The instructor was a bit mad at this and said that you should never show you are tired during training. I agree with this, and I always jump up to be an uke again after being thrown for the millionth time. However, if I try to hide my 'out of breathness' it just takes me longer to recover and it actually reduces my performance.

Any thoughts from people? Is there a way to breath deeply and vigorously without making yourslef look out of breath?

essential!!
 

The way to breath deeply, steady and vigorously is kokyu (breathing).
To develop this you should practice a lot of kokyu techniques, actually there is kokyu (kokyu leads ki)training in every technique.As I mentioned earlier: when raising your hand/sword,inhale and when cutting:exhale.
Also there is breath meditation (makoto no kokyu: true breath), do you know it?
As hard as it is to keep your breath controlled, (I suffer myself all the time)just keep practising aikido!
Ush!

Re: puff & pant
 

I know that in the dojo where I train, all of the instructors like to teach pretty vigorous classes, so everyone is usually sweating pretty well by the end of class (with the exception of the sempai with high endurance). I remember one instructor was surprised once when we had a guest student practice with us who didn't like to sweat, and for some reason to avoid sweating she started yawning alot. The instructor initially was worried that she found his class boring!

However, that said, they also stress that you should try not to be huffing and puffing either, and this is managed by relaxed and controlled breathing (I can't say that I am able to avoid huffing and puffing all the time, because I'm still working on it)! This is consistent with other martial arts I have practiced - you exhale when executing/finishing a technique as nage and when receiving a technique as uke.

-BC

Take a breath!
 

While uke attacks they NORMALLY will be breathing out. Nage begins Aiki blending with uke by breathing in. The blend then reverses and nage is breathing out while uke is breating in. Uke and nage are now connected through breath ( kokyu). Ebb and flow, in and out, ying and yang.... Anyone see a pattern here? ;)

Pretty kewl way to practice blending huh..........


Still breathing,

Dan P. - Mongo