Qigong, known as Chinese Breathing Exercise, is a holistic system of coordinated body postures and movements, breathing and meditation used for health, spirituality and martial arts training.
Kiko is the Japanese word for Qigong. Hachi Danken is Badua Jin’s expression from Japan.
The Baduanjin qigong (八段錦) is one of the most common forms of Chinese qigong used as exercise. It was primarily designed to be a form of medical Qigong, to repair injuries and enhance global health. It is also used as part of the training regimen in certain martial arts.
Hachi Danken
The Japanese version of BaduaJin, exercises aimed at enhancing the flow of energy in the body.
Like with Aikido and other martial arts, there are many versions of these millennial exercises. Although most versions taught today are from recent times.
The Chinese government has made great efforts to streamline the old ways of moving the body for martial or health purposes.
Standing
Every session start with a moment of standing.
In martial arts terminology we speak about “shizentai” or natural posture.
Diaphragm and pelvic floor muscles
When learning the exercises, you must be conscious of your diaphragm. When you can localize your diaphragm you can push down it after breathing in, you can relax and breath out. Don’t force the breathing. It must be smooth and no sounds. Try to avoid breathing in with the mouth.
A very difficult part of the exercises is the control of the pelvic floor muscles.
The pelvic floor is a muscular sheet that closes the pelvic cavity and the pelvic organs from below and is curved upward at the edges.
The muscles of the pelvic floor relax during bowel movements and while urinating. This also happens in women during sexual intercourse and when giving birth. The perineum is part of the pelvic floor too. It is located between the scrotum and the anus in men, and between the vagina and the anus in women.
Pelvic muscle control is important for keeping hara-tanden-koshi at the centre of your movements during martial arts training.
Breathing method
The synchronisation of the breathing and the movements will increase the effectiveness of the exercises. Nevertheless the breathing cannot be forced because this is unnatural. Breathing is a basically an unconscious process.
There are 2 fundamental methods of breathing.
- Abdominal breathing: It involves taking slow, deep breaths in through your nose. The goal is to breathe deep enough to fill your belly with air. This increases how much oxygen you take in, and may help slow down your breathing and heart rate.
- Reverse breathing: If you take a breath in and your stomach draws in, you’re reverse breathing. Usually, this goes along with a lifted chest and/or shoulders on the inhale. With the exhale, you’ll notice get the opposite: the chest/shoulders sink down and the stomach expands out. This breathing technique relaxes you. It also enables you to become aware of your emotions and increase your meditative focus which is necessary during martial arts training.
Reverse breathing is used for exercises 1 to 6.
Exercise 7 and 8 natural breathing.
Study Group Tomiki Aikido 