I have been following a thread about breathing on another forum and it has reminded me that there are so many breathing and breath techniques out there. Most of them have multiple levels of practice and utility. It is easy to be confused or lost with the variety of practices and methods.

    It is also easy to get caught up in semantics when discussing breath and even more so when discussing energy. Quite often different traditions will have similar techniques but might describe them slightly differently. What is important is that you feel comfortable with the technique or tradition that you practice. Much of the difference between traditions is style or flavor.

    A good beginning practice is to simply stand or sit quietly and breathe. Sit or stand straight, be relaxed but with good posture. Try to bring your attention to your breath.

    The point here at first is to just get in touch with your breath, bring some awareness to the process. Don’t try to change it or to regulate it in any way.

    After a bit bring your awareness to your body and how it expands and contracts with the breath. Where is there movement and where is there no movement. Then go back to following the breath. Check your posture and just breathe.

    This is the simplest and most basic breath work. It is foundational to other breath work and is therefore the most important. Don’t worry about doing anything in particular with it. Don’t worry about any particular meditation or energy to associate with it.

    First event for 2010 will be in March. Qigong Intensive Weekend will be held in Loveland once again at the Best Western Inn & Conference Center.

    The Workshop material has been somewhat updated. Still going for the “emersion experience” students will be given more than they can possibly absorb over the weekend the material has been reorganized somewhat. Students will now receive 14 CE credits rather than the 13.5 previously given. A much rounder number I think….

    For those of you who have already taken the Qigong Intensive Weekend I will be soon offering some deeper material. Coming soon is a series of workshops covering the Cheng Style Bagua Set. This will be a set of nine workshops. Each workshop will focus on one of the guas or sections of the form.

    I will also be offering a workshop which builds on the 8 Changes Qigong. This will give students a chance to dig deeper into the set and to clarify the material previously learned.

    I am very excited about the weekend and the new workshop material! Hope to see you all there. You can register for workshops at Workshop Registration

     This video is a collection of One Step Sparring techniques that I did for my first degree black belt exam in Tae Kwon Do 20 years ago. I have been digitalizing old VHS tapes that I have around and this exam is one that I recently preserved to digital. The One Steps are as you can see are basically a response to a single punch. I really liked these and I still think that they are good even now that I practice primarily Bagua. This was a great school that sadly is no longer in business.

    I think that these show the more practical aspect of Tae Kwon Do which for most folks is considered to be mostly a sport rather than a good practical art. I went on to get my second and third degree black belts at this school before going off to explore other styles and ultimately studying Bagua and other internal martial arts with Uncle Wayne. It was fun to see what I was doing back then again and I thought that I would share some of it.

    I still practice all of my Tae Kwon Do forms fairly regularly. I tend to do them with a more ‘internal’ emphasis these days. I am always finding something new in the forms. Now that I have had a chance to look at my old one step techniques I may have to add them into the trainning mix.

    Well the new year has gotten well underway and it is about time for me to get this Blog going. So far this year has been a good one for me and for Baguachaun.com. My personal training has been good and I have stepped it up quite a bit. I have added new strength and aerobic conditioning to my trainning schedule. So far it is just hard, in the long run though I am confident that it will all pay off.

    With the strength trainning my goals are to fill the gaps in my power train which for me, I beleive are my shoulders and the connection between my arms and the core. So this means lots of upperbody trainning. this ofcourse is in addition to all of my usual movement work.

    The aerobic conditioning is primarily aimed at weight loss. Over the years I have gained a lot of weight and as my skill level has risen so has my belt size. Seems to be a common issue among upper level martial artists and I would like to buck the trend. The goal right now is to drop down to the weight that I was when I received my Black belt in Tae Kwon Do 19 years ago when I weighed about 220 lbs.  I currently weigh-in at 280 lbs. , so that’s 60lbs…. A little daunting but after seeing what the folks are doing on the biggest looser this should be no problem…. OK, we will see.

    I was recently looking at the video of that Tae Kwon Do black belt exam and I still like some of the stuff we were doing. I particularly liked the one-step sparring techniques that we worked on. As soon as I get the VHS digitalized I will upload some of them. I am currently working on digitalizing my VHS collection most of which is martial arts and Qigong also working on digitalizing every thing that I can get my hands on from my teacher Uncle Wayne. Major, major long term project. I will occasionally upload clips as I have them ready.

    The new workshop schedule is slow in coming along. I had hoped to have it out by the first of December and here it is almost mid January and still not out yet. Maybe the first of February?!