A Meditation on Breathing and Tension (Patreon)

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If we had to, we could live for an extended period without food. We can also survive for days without water. But we can only last a few minutes without air, which is worsened with exertion.

Our bodies are designed to constantly consume and use air. As a result, breathing affects every aspect of our being, from clarity to athletic performance, movement, health, and gene expression. It is arguably our body's most important role.

Breathing is necessary for movement. It can cause tension but also release it. Breathing is also essential for memory and concentration.

Breathing is both theory and practice. We can think about it while doing it.

Your body and breath are linked. If you slouch, you can't breathe well, but if you can't breathe well, it's hard not to slouch. Muscles, bones, and the nervous system support the respiratory system just as the respiratory system supports all the other systems.

If you're nervous, you can't breathe. If you can't breathe, you can't calm down. Breathing regulates or intensifies our emotions. It's bidirectional and synergistic.

Water helps to calm us down and maximizes oxygen utilization in our bodies. Air needs water, and water needs air. The combination of both is our blood.

Normal (quiet) breathing uses the diaphragm and intercostal muscles. Heavy breathing requires the additional use of the upper trapezius, scalenes, sternocleidomastoid, levator scapulae, and pectoralis minor.

You need strength to breathe deep, and deep breathing develops strength. The diaphragm is a muscle that needs strengthening and lengthening.

We understand breathing is essential for stamina, but ease is essential for productive breathing. Tension means you quickly tire out during exertion. Ease allows you to take in more oxygen and channel that oxygen more effectively throughout your body. From the LMA approach, ease, not tension, means strength.

Strength is a skill. Skill comes from proficiency, and proficiency comes from hours of play. Ease means you need fewer breaks, which increases playtime. Tension limits playtime and increases the need for breaks, recovery, and time off for injury and burnout.

When you don't have ease, you can't take deep, productive breaths. When your body is low on oxygen, your lungs must steal blood, oxygen, and energy from other parts of your body to keep you alive. You'll not only be out of breath but also have muscle fatigue, deepening the problem. Your oxygen debt will turn into crisis.

The American answer is always bigger muscles. That is a solution, but not for this problem. If the problem is uncontrolled breathing, the answer is to develop skillful breathing.

Ease and breath give us the runway for the rest of training and every other skill development. There is no wayfinding without our breath.

Skillful breathing helps stretch and strengthen your breathing muscles. Breathe deep, low, and expansive. Breathe all the way down to the bottom of the lungs, then expand in all directions. Your lungs have the most room to grow at the bottom because that's where the ribs least restrict them.

Think about a long balloon. When you blow on it, it doesn't just expand to the sides; it also grows in length. When your lungs expand down, it promotes digestion, relaxation, and a sense of peace.

Your breath expands your posture like a balloon. Shortening your posture compresses the balloon. You need posture for better breathing and better breathing for better posture. You need strength and flexibility for posture and breathing, and you need posture and breathing for strength and flexibility.

You are one whole unit, not separate pieces taped together. Everything you do must be integrated during every movement. The band plays together or not at all. You are not pieces of a person; you are one total person.

There is no point where your mind ends and your body begins. It's all one and the same. You are noncategorical and non-conforming. You are a living, breathing experience.

When you breathe up into your shoulders, it can tighten your upper body and even cause tension headaches. This will cause more tension, creating more tense and shallow breathing. Synergy works both ways: to make things worse or better. Since you're always breathing, synergy is always being created.

In everyday two-sided breathing, exhalation is automatic. All it takes is for the prime breathing muscles to relax. This is why when we panic, we can't breathe, but not breathing heightens anxiety.

Breathing is an automatic function we can override and take over, but it's sometimes difficult to intervene. This is why we need conscious practice to develop the skill for override.

Heavy breathing takes work and relies on the abdominals to compress the thoracic cavity and push air out. Without composure, heavy breathing can get uncontrolled and temporarily make things worse. It is when we are most tired that we need the most control. If we've been here during practice, we know we have the strength and skill to work through it. You want to practice breathing rather than learn it on the fly.

For normal (quiet) breathing, you breathe into your belly and diaphragm. When an increased workload demands more oxygen, you must rely on the secondary muscles to lift the rib cage and expand the lungs further. So it's belly, intercostal, and chest. The ribs should lift and extend forward, backward, and sideways. Your lungs should do the same, but also down and up—three-dimensionally.

Breathing through the nose helps promote deeper breathing, removes pollutants, and has a calming effect. However, there are times when you need more oxygen and harder exhalation. (Some people can't breathe through the nose, and with the planet being ravaged by colonialism, there will be more and more people who can't.) The next step is breathing in through the nose and the mouth. After that is breathing through the mouth.

When you're working hard, you must quickly eliminate waste products from your system to self-regulate. One waste product is sweat, and the other is carbon dioxide. You sometimes need to breathe out hard and fast, often through the mouth.

You'll notice athletes using pursed lips or their teeth to breathe. It may sound like they're blowing out a candle. Hoo. It may also sound like a chh, shh, or sss sound. (Two-sided breathing: inhale, audible exhale.) It can even sound like a growl. It can even be a yell, as you hear in martial arts. They're all attempts to remove waste gas quickly while creating speed.

During martial yells, you'll hear all sorts of variations depending on the speed of the movement. On top of the chh, shh, sss, there's also hah! You'll also hear two-part cries (three-sided breathing: inhale, two exhales). It can sound like ee-yah, he-yah, gee-hap, ah-sah, and uuu-ahh.

When you hear a two-part yell (three-sided), it often means a speed change. In Thai-boxing, you'll frequently hear it during a kick. Different sounds indicate different speeds. For example, you might hear an oh-ee during a sweep and a uuu-ahh during a body kick. Different sounds for different speeds.

For combat sports, keeping your lips and teeth close isn't just about speed but also jaw positioning, especially since you'll be biting down on a mouthguard. In fact, a mouthguard can take some getting used to, so it might make sense to exercise with it to get used to it.

Biting down on the mouthguard and breathing through your teeth keeps your jaw and neck working as one unit, making it less likely for a punch to knock your head back. You'll also absorb the punch with your entire body rather than just your jaw or your neck and brain.

Exhaling also cushions the impact of blows. An overinflated balloon is much easier to pop than a soft balloon.

You need relaxation for speed. Double exhales (three-sided breathing), like uuu-ahh, cause even more relaxation. This allows you to move like a whip and prevent overextension and injury. You don't move beyond the length of your breath. You stop when the breath stops. Movement and breath are in harmony.

For combat sports, posture also means stance. Without your breath, there is no stance.

In LMA, there are no styles or techniques, only rulesets (games). Movements, therefore, are all about creating shapes. Your breath allows you to transform your body into different shapes and materials. Your breath helps you move like a rubber band, whip, balloon, slow-moving boulder, or waterfall. Your body is more like water than you know—if that's how you train it.

Maximizing breathing means loosening restrictions on breathing. This means flexibility, mobility, rest, and recovery. Self-care and rest can be radical, so do those things that soothe you. Consider even using a foam roller to self-massage. Fortunately, breathing exercises can also help to relax and soothe our bodies.

Breathing examples

Deep breathing on your back: Lie on the ground with your knees bent. If you're near a wall, put the bottom of your feet against the wall so your knees are bent 90 degrees. Put one hand on your stomach, the other on your chest. Breathe in for as long as you can and exhale for as long as you can. It's long, two-sided breathing.

At first, breathe in and out through your nose, but it's not a big deal if you can't and need to open your mouth.

With each breath, the goal is to expand your stomach first and then your chest second.

Now, move on to three-sided breathing. Inhale twice, first into your stomach and then your chest. Exhale out through pursed lips like you're blowing into a balloon until you run out of breath. But don't arch your back. Instead, keep your back flat on the ground; otherwise, you're not really expanding.

This exercise is the opposite of double exhalation for increased work. Instead, it's double inhalation for recovery. (Variations of three-sided breathing.) Your hands are there to monitor the expansion and contraction. Your stomach and chest should rise into your hands and then collapse.

When you exhale, force all the air out of your body. Even when you think you're done, there's probably still some trapped air left. Deeply inhale and exhale so that your next breath is brand new. I think about each new breath being a fresh start.

Use a timer and initially do this for only a minute, then work your way up. Even ten breaths is a lot. In the beginning, you might get tired or light-headed because there's more oxygen and less waste gas, affecting your blood pressure. So, breathe normally for a while (two-sided back and forth) before getting up. When you do get up, get up slowly. Sit up first before standing up.

After this exercise, you might notice more clarity, sharper senses, and brighter vision. You might even feel lighter—physically and emotionally. Air does that; it lightens things up.

Try carrying this feeling with you throughout the day. Breathing while lying on the ground can help straighten and lengthen your posture, which in turn helps your breathing.

Breathing is softness, breathing is posture, breathing is length, and breathing is movement.

Mini-deep breathing: When recovering from strenuous activities or when you only have a short time to heal, you can do a mini-version of deep breathing. Take two quick inhales through your nose and exhale deeply through pursed lips. The breathing pattern is still three-sided: sniff, sniff, exhale; sniff, sniff, exhale.

Shake tree branches: Take a deep breath and lift your arms like a tree growing branches. Then exhale, release your branches, and shake them out. (Two-sided: deep and slow inhale and hard exhale.) Do a few of these. This can release even more tension and foster more recovery.

Empty space

Whether water, natural, or recovery breathing, avoid using your neck, shoulder, and back muscles to breathe. This causes tension and fatigue, disrupting movement and mobility. Breathe into the empty space of your body.

Tension and life

Think of tension and relaxation like a video game health bar. Tension diminishes your health bar, and releasing tension replenishes it. Tension blocks recovery, healing, and movement. We take medication to reduce tension for a reason.

In a boxing prizefight, the more I hit you, the more tension and instability I induce. If I tense up as I hit you, and you can relax while being hit, you can turn the tables.

For the rest of your life, you'll be breathing. So practice to do it skillfully. Many magical things happen when you can move and breathe skillfully without tension. Breathe, release, and repeat.

– Sam