Breathing Retraining Greatly Benefits Shaolin Kung Fu Practice – Interview with Volker Schmitz


Practicing breathing retraining will allow you to practice Shaolin kung fu with intensity and joy. Volker Schmitz is a Shaolin kung fu teacher for over 15 years in Hamburg Germany. Dr. Artour Rakhimov is going to ask Volker questions about changes that occurred in people’s unconscious or automatic breathing patterns during the last 100 years. As well as how it influences the practice of Shaolin kung fu. Finally, how practicing Shaolin kung fu can help regain our health and retrain our breathing patterns.

Kung fu is comparable to yoga. When it was developed in China, the breathing patterns of people were completely different. People breathed around 2 times less and they had more oxygen in their body. A hundred years ago if they trained this art they often trained very intensely and spent more time doing it. Only some people do this today. You do not have this fast recovery or regeneration nowadays because of people’s breathing patterns.

People do not realize that meditation is at the center of Chinese martial arts. Meditation practice tremendously is improved from healthy breathing patterns. In older practices of yoga, before people start meditating they already have a few years of breathing training. In kung fu, breathing is also emphasized. Some better kung fu students can breathe through their nose during practice. Some kung fu movements are very intense and there can be acrobatics involved. It is very difficult to breathe through the nose. Most people would need 25 to 30 seconds for the body-oxygen test or the control pause test to perform this. Volker emphasizes to close the mouth and breathe through the nose during practice. It is not a traditional approach. When breathing is enhanced, concentration is enhanced as well.

At the top level of sports, mental concentration and visualization are emphasized. Many strenuous forms of kung fu can only be performed a specific amount of times because of their intensity. These require a high level of concentration. Hundreds of years ago people practiced kung fu differently.

More about Tai Chi Breath Benefits: .

Many students that are beginners will only have 15 to 20 seconds for the CP test. These students have diseases and very little ability to exercise intensively. This can be related to their psychological state. They are less confident and more anxious. It is important to have the confidence to perform kung fu movements. Kung fu means skill in Chinese. Moving skills are often impaired. These students need a lot more time to learn the movements. People with a lower CP sleep much longer. With 60 seconds for the CP test, sleep is reduced to 3-4 hours and people have more time for exercise.

Shaolin kung fu is very intense. Volker needs to make it a lot easier because nowadays peoples body-oxygen levels are a lot less than when kung fu was invented. Higher CP levels will allow you to practice just as martial artists trained hundreds of years ago. Your practice also becomes enjoyable. You become sensitive to how you train and train from a positive state of mind.

The YouTube URL of this video “Shaolin Kungfu Breathing Benefits” is /.

The video features Volker Schmitz (Kung Fu teacher and Buteyko/NormalBreathing practitioner from Hamburg in Germany) and Dr. Artour Rakhimov (Buteyko Practitioner Master Trainer from Toronto, Canada).

The video description was created with the participation of Chris Prokop (Mississauga, Canada).

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