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.

     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.