Choo choo train!

[Fungus105 3]

Why do they do this? In my karate/swordsmanship practise, we were taught that one should hide one’s breathing cycle as much as possible because the best point to attack an enemy is when they are inhaling/at peak inspiration. Has anyone been taught this? Dave Lowry talks about hiding one’s respiratory cycle in one of his many books.

Never heard about "hiding" it explictly, but I never do regular long cycle predictable breahing in fighting, if you get hammered in your body at fast pace, there is not time slots for breathing normall, so the one way I found out from experimenting is to breath simultanously are short shallow breathing. Works fine. And when i plan to eat attacks i explicitly tense up with a shallow exhale on impact, like a kiai on taking the attack rather than delivering it. Works well for me. It also is natural part of toughening. It is also deterring to opponent when they realize that their attacks has no effect, then you get mental advantage.

 

[Fungus105 3]

Yes this is ‘go no sen’ in Japanese martial speak and one of the ‘mittsu no sen’ (三つの先) or three initiatives!
View attachment 33615

Awesome illustration!

 

[HighKick]

Never heard about "hiding" it explictly, but I never do regular long cycle predictable breahing in fighting, if you get hammered in your body at fast pace, there is not time slots for breathing normall, so the one way I found out from experimenting is to breath simultanously are short shallow breathing. Works fine. And when i plan to eat attacks i explicitly tense up with a shallow exhale on impact, like a kiai on taking the attack rather than delivering it. Works well for me. It also is natural part of toughening. It is also deterring to opponent when they realize that their attacks has no effect, then you get mental advantage.

I fully agree breath control is a Hugely important topic. But I also feel it must be modified to fit the application, just like almost every other skill.
Leading up to my Olympic run, I realized I was gassing out in the late round sometimes. I started doing more gassers and changed my breathing similar to what you are saying. I learned if I kept my diaphragm Slightly engaged all the time (shortening my breath stroke), I would not gas out. And burst (anaerobic intervals) were easier.
I think it is different for every scenario. When I wrestled in college, you learned you are in a strain just about the whole match. When you were stretched out, you could breathe deeper, when you were compressed, you breathed shallow.
If you know, you know.

 

[Gyakuto116 125]

Never heard about "hiding" it explictly,

It’s not something you hear about in the 20th Century martial arts, but from the old ones. I’m sure Dave Lowry takes about it in one of his books.

The steam train huffing and puffing is an affectation, in my opinion. It gives the illusion of power unless you’re aware of it doing nothing at all!

but I never do regular long cycle predictable breahing in fighting, if you get hammered in your body at fast pace, there is not time slots for breathing normall, so the one way I found out from experimenting is to breath simultanously are short shallow breathing.

Sort of, panting?

Works fine. And when i plan to eat attacks i explicitly tense up with a shallow exhale on impact, like a kiai on taking the attack rather than delivering it. Works well for me. It also is natural part of toughening. It is also deterring to opponent when they realize that their attacks has no effect, then you get mental advantage.

One explanation for ‘exhalation on impact’ is that if you’re asked to push a boulder or perhaps car, your natural behaviour is shove hard when you’re exhaling or at least momentarily holding one’s breath. It pressurises the abdominal cavity giving it rigidity upon which to ground a powerful shove or indeed punch/kick.