Lesson 11 Upper Back Breathing As in Lesson 10,
Begin this exercise lying on your back with your knees on the air and your feet flat on the ground.
Once you feel you can breathe easily and comfortably,
Then sit in a chair.
You now want to combine both lower back breathing and full belly breathing with upper back breathing.
Also continuing to inhale and exhale using your central channel.
The lungs are constructed like a bag.
If,
When you inflate a bag,
You hold the back of it still,
The bag will inflate forward.
This is how most people breathe,
Causing the chest to puff out military style.
This is how you breathe in yoga.
If,
However,
You hold the front of the bag still,
The bag will inflate backwards.
This is what you do with the chest in Taoist breathing.
The front of the chest,
The sternum and chest muscles,
Completely relaxes and does not move at all as the lungs expand backwards toward the spine.
As you do this,
Allow your shoulder blades to spread as far away from your spine as they can and let your ribs and shoulders soften and move sidewards.
This action will release some of the anatomical bindings that prevent the lungs from fully expanding backwards to their utmost ability.
So lying on your back,
Breathe into your back with your hands on your chest.
Your chest does not move.
As you inhale,
Feel the pressure of your lungs press into the floor.
As you exhale,
Feel the pressure of your lungs release from the floor.
As you inhale,
Down your central channel,
Filling your front sides and kidneys with your hands on your back.
Let your chest expand backwards,
Pressing into the floor.
As you let all those other parts return to their original position,
Let your lungs relax and come back to their original position.
Most of us have not breathed with our upper backs for most of our lives and the tissue of the lungs,
The back part of the lungs,
Is often not stretched.
So remember the 70% rule and take it easy.
Don't try and do too much and gradually your lungs will begin to retain the stretch that they had when you were a little baby and anyway,
They will increase easily and effortlessly if you do it gradually and do not push.
As you breathe from your belly and from your upper lungs,
Two forces now simultaneously combine to give your heart a continuous massage with each breath,
Which is absent or diminished in regular puffed out chest breathing.
One,
The spreading of the ribs,
Shoulder blades and shoulder causes greater movement in back of the heart,
Which massages the heart.
The upward pressure applied to the heart by the diaphragm and the pressure of the lungs expanding backwards.
These two directional forces compress and release the heart muscle and pericardium in a tonifying rhythmic massage.
This heart massage combined with the lower belly breathing massage of your other internal organs now tonifies and increases blood circulation to all your internal organs.
Focus now on feeling what the lungs feel like when they fill on the inhale and the belly feels like when it fills on the inhale and notice how by adjusting the pressures you can get a little sense of pressure around your heart and how when you release it you feel that cavity release.
Massaging the heart is extremely valuable.
It is good for you and breathing this way,
In this way the Taoists found out about,
Causes a heart massage as well as increasing your breathing capacity.
You will find that since the heart governs anxiousness and anxiety,
The current terror of the modern age,
That if you actually focus on this breathing relaxing your heart,
That you may find your anxiety lessening.
As you inhale,
Bring strength into your heart and as you exhale release your tension,
Release your fear,
Release the wanting about the future.
As you breathe into your heart,
Let your mind be concerned with the present moment.
There is no future.
And as you exhale release the tension of the present moment and if you do the future will take care of itself.
Inhaling and exhaling.
Inhaling down the central channel to your Dandian,
Expanding your front,
Sides and back of your body,
Both the kidneys and your upper lungs and the back of your body,
The back of your lungs.
Exhale,
Let your breath relax,
Go up the central channel out your nose as you let the back of your lungs,
Your kidneys,
Your back of your lungs,
Your back of your lungs,
Your kidneys,
Your belly and your sides return to their original position easily and effortlessly.
