31/05/2026
So, the other day I ran onto a video that was translated into English with some very good points about breathing and how to guide your qi during your practice, especially in Chen style Taijiquan. I believe if anyone takes the time to watch the whole video (less than 10 minutes), their practice will go to another level. Off course it will take serious practice in order to master all of those details, but this is a unique opportunity as you don’t get to listen everyday to one of the Masters to explain to you in depth.
In order to facilitate your study, I spent quite some time to do the transcription of the video so you can read it again and again if you need to. I have also added some explanations that are not in the video and corrected some of the english.
Please leave a message if you have any questions or you liked the work. You can also subscribe to my YouTube channel for more videos :)
Master Chen Zhenglei talks about breathing and qi circulation!
(For those who don’t know, he is one of the 4 great Masters and holders of the Chen Lineage - unfortunately Master Wang Xian passed away a few years back).
Use external form to lead the inner qi.
Upward movements to inhale,
e.g. the hands
e.g. Qi shi ( 起势- Opening the form) the hands are moving up, inhale,
go down, exhale.
Or jīn jī dú lì (金鸡独立 - the Golden Rooster in One Leg) when the hand is moving up, inhale,
Go down, exhale.
This is on a large scale
Don’t worry about the small scale at first.
Second, when closing inhale, when opening exhale.
(He performs silk reeling exercise)
When the hand closes, inhale, when it opens, exhale.
This is the second way.
Third, when releasing power.
When you store the energy, inhale
When you release, then exhale.
Just pay attention to these three aspects.
The rest (fast, slow, big, small, high, low) don’t worry about it. Just use natural breathing.
Wait until the qi inside and the external form are completely united.
When that happens, your body movement will be harmonious, the whole body will move together. When the qi inside and form outside are united, then inhale and exhale will be naturally coordinated.
Still, this is not absolute. You should understand that the rules governing the movement in the human body accord with its physiology and with the rules of nature.
If you practice correctly, you will be naturally integrated including the micro and macrocosmic breathing circulations. But don’t go deliberately seeking them, deliberately thinking.
If you do, you deliberately seek it out, you will run into problems, defects.
Yesterday somebody asked, in qigong why can you get “zou huo ru mo” (走火入魔) (serious qigong deviations)? In short, it is because you go deliberately looking.
Because he didn’t stay natural, his neigong, inner strength, ability, weren’t ready, to blindly go looking, deliberately looking and raised his qi …
First, you should link up the microcosmic circulation, down the renmai, up the dumai (acupressure points of TCM, renmai points are the “sea of yin” and dumai points are “yang”).
The hardest place to cross in the microcosmic breathing is the yuzhenguan (jade pillow pass), the fengchi point, this point at the back of the head. (both points to the back of the head). This is the weakest segment of the tiny vessels. It helps to go up here, to the baihui and it is hard to get through here.
It is all a sort of thinking, thinking, thinking, collecting the qi here, but it won’t go through. Then suddenly you get a terrible shock, perhaps it’s a door opening, perhaps a cat knocking over your water bottle. For some it is the creaking of a window, with a sudden shock the qi floods into the brain, the mind is thrown into confusion. So this is what causes “zou huo ru mo”.
When we practice taiji, we don’t use these short of “fantastic intentions” to make the connection, we don’t use that, we use the inner qi to press it open. As the inner qi gradually gets fuller, it continually filters through (permeates), just like water irrigating a field, slowly, slowly permeating into every part around. When the sea has water, the rivers are full. When the sea is full, the qi in the tiniest vessels also fills up, so quite naturally it all connects.
This filling we call substantive (genuine / palpable) filling.
Fictitious connection, when someone is in a hurry to get there, it’s easy to get into trouble, “zou huo ru mo” , and then the connection is only there while you are training – when not training, it disappears. So our method is to teach you some methods, to let you practice continuously, to increase your skill (gongli) – (Gong Li , often translated as "strength development" or "power-building" skills refer to the physical and internal conditioning used to generate, coordinate, and release explosive power in traditional Chinese martial arts),
To fill out your neiqi (inner qi) to let it gradually permeate, permeate into the smallest vessels, every segment, every acupuncture point, every meridian. In this way, naturally the connection will be established.
When the small circulation is connected, that is still not fully connected, you have to establish the large circulation. Connecting the large circulation means the whole body, laogong, baihui, yongquan, the most important is the yongquan (acupressure point on the sole of the foot). That is why we say that the hardest part to connect in taiji is the bottom of the feet. And so we say, in the first level of the gongfu, the qi appears in the hands. In the second level the qi appears in the dantian. In the third level the qi appears in the feet. When it reaches the feet, then you can really talk about “connected”.
The hardest point to cross is the knee joint, the weizhong point.
So in the past many old folks would say: “when mules and horses eat peas (expensive food), the force can pass the knees.”
At first, I didn’t know what this meant, so I asked them.
When you hear the sound of horse’s hooves, you can hear it a long way away, you lie on the ground, the vibration of the horses’ hooves, the sound is very penetrating. So, when the horse eats peas, the qi can pass through the knees.
Later when my qi connected in 1980, I finally understood what pass the knee meant. Before I didn’t understand, but as soon as the qi went through, it was connected at once, it feels like the things you notice at the beginning; your palm will start to feel warm, tingling, swelling in the fingers, the dantian sinking, these shorts of feelings, these swollen, expanded sorts of feelings.
Before you are connected all of these are sometimes there, sometimes not, sometimes hidden, sometimes apparent. When you practice, they are there, when not, they are gone. If you stop for three months, they disappear completely. It takes a month, two months, three months to find them again. When the connection is really there, these sort of feelings you will always have, you will never lose them again. This is real connection.
When we start practicing, inhalation and exhalation should be natural (shun) breathing.
(Natural Chinese breathing, known as Shun Hu Xi (顺呼吸) in Daoist practice, is a method of relaxed, diaphragmatic breathing designed to calm the nervous system, lower heart rate, and restore the body's natural energetic (Qi) flow.)
Normal physiological breathing. Normally we breathe 12 to 14 times per minute. Through practice we need to adjust this to 10 times, 8 , 6 times, twice, down to one cycle per minute. This is called deep, long, fine, even breathing. You must have adjusted bellow 6 – 8 times before you can start to feel what is called abdominal breathing (Fushi Huxi - 腹式呼吸).
Abdominal breathing is also called contrary breathing (ni). When the whole body is connected, off course the breathing is in the lungs, but when the thorax is hugely expanded, the breathing can permeate into the smallest vessels, the thorax and the rest are connected…
Why do we distinguish between chest breathing and abdominal breathing, it is in the difference in your skill (gongli = Internal & External Strength (Gong & Li): "Gong" develops internal energy and breath control, while "Li" focuses on raw physical power).
It is not something that everyone does. So, this abdominal breathing depends on your practice, normal people breathe normally.
So, what is vocalizing about? We are practicing fast power, we are after speed, to get the whole body power to where we want it. How fast does it need to be? 0,015 seconds!
Ha! (punches) Done …
With normal breathing, you can’t keep up. So, as the speed increases, the breathing must also be quicker so a sound is generated. This vocalization is also natural, don’t copy the way some teacher vocalizes, you should just feel that … it is not opening the mouth wide, nor blocking the breath. Don’t gape, don’t stifle, just le the sound follow the speed, that is natural, not conscious, because it is coordinated with the speed of the movement, so when the breathing is faster a bit of sound id produced. Don’t gape and don’t stifle. Remember these two and you’ll be ok.
This is a video with Master Chen Zhenglei explaining about breathin...
