I’ve noticed several different methods of people breathing while they perform their various martial arts techniques at my school. I’m told that the breathing (performed from the diaphragm/abdomen) is used when a strike connects to increase tension throughout the body both to make things more rigid to transfer more force to the opponent as well as giving a little extra “oomph.” We can see similar examples of this in grunting while lifting heavy things.
My question is: is there a method that is more effective than any other?
As I said before, I’ve noticed several different methods, including: the traditional Japanese “Kiai!,” the “hup!,” “hiss,” and one that seems popular with the Muay Thai crowd, “ishh!”
Having tried these different methods myself, I’ve come up with the following comments, “Kiai” is nice and all, but seems ill-suited for quick combos. “Hup” is nice, but seems to tense the abdomen too much and leads to shortness of breath and abdominal fatigue." “Hiss” is just sort of silly, but doesn’t seem to wear one out as fast (possibly as one is not tensing fully, holding and releasing, but seemingly building up to both and then, “letting the air out slowly” as it were)." “Ishh” seems to combine the best of the hiss (if we buy the slow build/release theory) and the “Hup” for tension.
When asking about this at the dojo, I get the standard, “whatever works for you” reply. Any thoughts/scientific principles on this?
Seriously, whatever works for you. None of them should be too short, too long or too anything. If they are then you aren’t controlling your breathing effectively. Most karate and kung fu styles have a few forms that actually use exaggeratedly slow, high power moves that require breathing as well as exaggeratedly fast combos precisely to demonstrate that breathing can be controlled an focussed as long as it needs to be.
Remember, mostly these things are just exercises designed so that in an actual fight you remember to breathe. And don’t laugh, it’s amazing how many people simply forget to breathe when a real fight starts. Breathing also helps you to absorb blows, while controlled shallow breathing teaches you how to breathe while someone is doing a combo on your ribs.
Those are all worthwhile things to know, and the aspect of actually focussing power is only a small part of breathing during formwork. It doesn’t really matter what sound you make unless you are using it to frighten an opponent, in which case a yell is usually more effective than a hiss. In fact I would suggest that if you can’t pull off the move effectively with any ki op or none at all then you need to practice the technique more and stop worrying about how you sound.
Apologies if that sounds patronising, I’m just trying to illustrate why it really doesn’t matter. You are giving it way too much importance and assuming there can be some mystical or physiological importance. In reality the same muscles contract and the same amount of air is expelled no matter what tension is on the larynx and where the tongue is.
I took MA for a number of years, and most of my friends and I settled on “Ahh-chaa!” The “ahh” would be right before the contact and the “chaa” would be at contact. I don’t think anyone every taught that to us; it just seemed natural.
I would also make a sound like “eye-yaaa” - with the “eye” at pre-contact and the “yaaa” at contact. I never thought about what I was saying. Whatever came out, came out. Sometimes it was one thing, other times it was the other.
For some reason, I always liked, and used, a two syllable yell. The first part tensed up in anticipation of the hit, and the second part was the release.
Hmm, the two-part thing is interesting; I’ve never thought of that. I’ll have to give it a go in the dojo next time.
Now that I think about it, the breating does seem to be mainly for making sure that one doesn’t forget to breath, especially wihlst sparring (oh boy, does that suck). I figured, however, that the answers I’d get were some mumbo-jumbo about chi.
See, you asked for scientific principles and we aim to please arund here. Had you asked for mumbo-jumbo about chi we could have given you that as well, but you didn’t.
Chi is primarily a religious/spiritual belief and isn’t generally open to factual intepretation. As such such a disussion belongs in GD. It’s not really appropraiate for GQ unless you’ve got some very specific factual questions.