How can a discussion that seemed so on track so go crazy in such a short period of time???
All along, I believe what you teach and what George does are not inconsistent.
Please be careful!!!
In my estimation, there are correct things being done by all. There are also poster boys of bad breathing from every teacher. (That's just plain bad execution, folks.) And there are myriad ways of misintepreting (or misrepresenting) methods being discussed on these pages.
You threw up a lot of things on your posts. Let me comment on some of them, if I may.
Mas does not teach anything that leads to hyperventilation, such as the ‘exhale/inhale/loop’ over and over in between strokes in the Uechi breathing we are familiar with, that if internalized, may well take us there.
First, I don't understand why "Mas" and "Uechi breathing" are in the same sentence here.
Second, you have no evidence to support your claim that "Uechi breathing ... if internalized, may well take us there. (to hyperventillation)" If you have evidence to support this claim, please do so.
If anything, Van, proper "Uechi breathing" reduces the likelihood of hyperventillation ocurring on perceived threat before action. My source? Siddle and his use of "autogenic breathing" to reduce the intensity of the survival stress response. Autogenic breathing is the same thing we do in Uechi junbi undo (a.k.a shinko kyu). It is one of many breathing methods taught in a traditional Uechi Ryu class.
You posted this from Ayoob, Van.
The heart and lungs are sending oxygenated blood through the body as fast as they can. However, if no strenuous physical activity has yet taken place, the body is now over-oxygenating, and hyperventilation can set in.
Generations of medical professionals have advised hyperventilating patients to breathe into a paper bag. This causes them to inhale carbon dioxide they’ve just exhaled, and helps to quickly restore a normal O2/CO2 balance.
As it happens, people in actual fight or flight situations don’t usually have access to paper bags. This includes both you, and your potential opponent.
If you are the one hyperventilating—at a high risk scene or anywhere else—my fellow instructors and I will advise you to consciously perform what has been called “combat breathing,” “stress breathing,” or “crisis breathing.” Martial artists call it “sanchin breathing.” The breath is intentionally held, and then slowly hissed out. It is the internalized version of the paper bag treatment.
If you have been trained in the Lamaze Method of natural childbirth, you are familiar with a very similar version of stress breathing.When you see laboring women on TV huffing and puffing through clenched teeth, they're practicing the Lamaze technique of childbirth.
It was popularized in the early 1950s by French obstetrician Dr. Ferdinand Lamaze, who discovered the psychoprophylaxis technique on a trip to Russia.
I've donne Lamaze with my wife, and have done both Goju and Uechi Sanchins. I believe what he's talking about is what I refer to as "dragon breathing", and this is really the Goju Sanchin breathing. It is closer to what a traditional Uechika does in the Uechi junbi undo (shinko kyu).
Yea, it works!
So the correct way to breathe in Uechi is: an exhale, then an inhale, and then physical action during the PAUSE.
Close, but not quite.
As George has stated (and I agree), nobody says you can't breathe during the thrust. As George has stated (and I agree), you are not breath holding. The epiglottis should be wide open. If you get hit, air comes out. If you thrust lightly, little to no air comes out. If you do an intense effort - particularly with resistance to movement - then air comes out.
You like to use boxing as an analogy, Van. Boxers typically have gloves on their hands that have finite mass. George (and I) would likely exhale harder throwing those gloves around than we wood if our hands (of doom) were swinging around doing nothing more than separating air molecules. That's a no-load situation. That requires little effort. It's like revving the engine in the driveway with the transmission in neutral.
If George (or I) contacted a bag with our fists and continued with the thrust, you would hear a strong exhale with the continued penetration. If we were to throw someone, you would hear a strong exhale.
The goal of the method George teaches is not to use the breath to power your movement. The goal is to make sure you breathe inbetween movement - and QUICKLY - so you are constantly at that optimal point in your respiratory volume. That way it will be very difficult to have the BG catch you with your respiratory volume at a non-ideal place. You're constantly ready to "be breathed" with high exertion or with a hard hit. Your blood gasses are at optimal levels (because you are breathing inbetween movement) and your system is ready for whatever may come.
Rather than be a slave to a particular kind of breath with every movement, you allow your body to breathe as it needs to breathe with movement. You continue to breathe as you need (with quick exhale/inhales) inbetween techniques.
This is a major concern with which I am very familiar _ from having handled job related heart attack fatalities of employees shoveling snow.
I have about 20 published papers on the subject, Van. When I was doing research on the subject at UVa (while faculty in the division of cardiology) I had an experimental dog model that reproduced the problem. The issue is something called a critical stenosis. A coronary artery is narrowed (from plaque) to a point where it is fine at rest, but unable to give any more blood to the distal myocardial bed at exercise. Shoveling snow in the cold is about as extreme as Joe Sixpack is going to get. When the heart muscle demands more blood with exertion, you get a paradoxical reduction in blood flow in the affected coronary bed. The phenomenon is called coronary steal.
The result? Chest pain, and heart attack.
This has nothing to do with breathing, as much as you'd like to make it so. It has to do with too many Big Macs and Buds, and not enough time in the gym.
Bad breathing would just be one more twig on the bonfire.