Proper Breathing

[camouflage]

What do you guy's know about proper breathing. I recently was training and had the instuctor tell me I was breathing wrong he gave good reasoning and good instructions I found all this to be interesting. I always just thought a good Kiap and in through the nose and out through the mouth was good breathing.

[The Elusive]

well it'd be hard to tell what you're doing wrong without watching you kick, but there is a little more than a good kihup. The kihup is to stress power and tense your muscles at the point of impact, but when doing some of the arial kicks you need to control your breathing in order to control your movements. One of the things that i was always told was that when executing a spining kick of any kind you should be able to hum steadily until you kihap. If you can't do that, then youre too tense while kicking. Just relax, stay loose, and breathe calmly and normally until you impact the target.

hope that helped!

[kuk sool won]

Try to breath from your abdominal area or the bottom of your stomach and not from your chest. Put 1 hand on your chest and 1 hand on your stomach, just to make it that the hand on your chest doesn't move whilst the hand on your stomach does. At first it may seem akward but after a while of practicing it it becomes second nature.

[Piston]

Kuk is quite right there, although the stomach is a common misconception. Its re-learning to breathe with your diaphragm, rather than your chest i.e making its movement pro-active rather than reactive. Think of your chest as the bag on some bagpipes and your diaphragm is the arm controlling the pressure, that way you'll be able to breathe far deeper and stronger. Classical singers use this method of breathing as do babies, ever wondered how they can keep screaming and screaming without getting a sore throat or running outta breath?

Also training your diaphragm up can really help when you receive blows to the sternum area as your diaphragm is the second largest muscle in your body and training it will help you absorb the blows far better.

[us-navy-seal]

In order to increase your breathe time and be able to hold your energy longer, without fighting that is.

Stand at a ready stance and slowly step forward with your favored foot. As you do so let your arms swing outward gently and take a deep breathe and I mean DEEP. Use all the space you can. Take the breath in through your nose. Stand in that outstretched position for about 10 seconds while holding the breath.

When the time is up, release through your mouth as you slowly step back, bringing your arms back in.

Do it over and over again while alternating legs.

[kuk sool won]

you're talking about spreading your arms, not swinging, correct?

[us-navy-seal]

Correct. Sorry but my terminology tends to be off on late nights