Breathing Exercises

Instructor: Rainsong
Date: October 3, 2009 (Saturday)

Rainsong Good evening, ladies and gentlemen.

Rainsong Welcome to the second session of PSC’s Psionic Seminar Series, for the 2009-2010 Fall and Winter season.

Rainsong Because we had modem issues last week, we’ll be starting off with Breathing Exercises tonight, which were intended to be covered last time.

Rainsong The usual disclaimers apply: This is not a gaming room. Gamers are certainly welcome to stay, but we’ll be discussing real-world psionics rather than game rules. If that is a problem, you might want to wander off to another room before you get too weirded out.

Rainsong Are there any questions before we get started?

ShadowRain none here

Jael None here either

Nevyn nada

Rainsong Breathing is a useful activity. It does all kinds of nifty things such as balancing the pH of your blood, gas exchange and oxygenation, settling the mind, and it forms a relatively important part in the cardiovascular workings of the body.

Rainsong Breathing is good.

Jael 🙂

Rainsong I’m working from the presumption that most of you know how to breathe, and have a decent handle on the whole “in out in out” thing.

Rainsong If not, please say so now.

* Rainsong looks around the room

Rainsong So far so good.

Rainsong For our purposes, breathing can serve secondary functions that are also useful. The one we will discuss tonight involves using breathing to move “energy”/psi-stuff/qi/whatever around, so that it goes where you want it to.

Rainsong It is strange but true that it doesn’t actually matter whether said energy/whatever is even real. This stuff can produce real, demonstrable effects.

Rainsong There are two prerequisite skills needed for today’s exercises, in addition to the in-out-in-out bit.

Rainsong 1) You should be able to locate a finger or similarly moveable body part.

Rainsong 2) You should be able to count to six (possibly even seven).

Rainsong Everyone okay with those?

Rainsong (Anyone who is noticing that we are dealing with a pretty rudimentary activity is indeed correct.)

Jael hehe. All good here.

ShadowRain same lol 😛

Rainsong Good stuff.

Rainsong We are going to go in nice simple steps.

Rainsong Move a finger along the side of a leg, going up when breathing in, and going down when breathing out.

Rainsong Then, slow (or speed) up the movement so you move the finger up (and breathe in) for a slow count of 4 ….i.e., 4 seconds, roughly

Rainsong and down for a slow count of four

Rainsong Try that a few times, and let me know if you encounter any difficulty.

Rainsong Remember: 1, then 2, then 3, then 4…just a quick review.

Rainsong Then do the same without bothering with the finger movement. Do you notice any difference?

Rainsong (other than not moving your finger…?)

Jael I find it less relaxing. I suspect this is because my mind can focus on the finger movement instead of other things.

Rainsong Pretty much, less. And, for this exercise, there is no harm in using the finger all the time, if you want to, other than the fact that it can look silly.

Rainsong And, as you know, we psion types _never_ do anything that looks silly….

Jael rofl

Rainsong A little bit of concentration on directing the “energy”/psi-stuff along the same route can be useful, but it makes no difference whether you can feel any “energy” movement, so don’t worry about it. Some people do, some people don’t, same results.

Rainsong Next step, same count but move the finger (or not) all the way up the body on the in breath, and then down to your hand/palm on the out breath.

Rainsong For some people, it will feel a little different if the hand is in a fist, as compared to loose. For other people, it makes no apparent difference.

Rainsong Again, as far as results go, it doesn’t make any difference.

Rainsong Any questions at this point?

* ShadowRain raises hand

Rainsong ShadowRain?

ShadowRain When you said to move the finger all the way up the body on the in breath… where were you starting from? Like what track are you tracing?

Rainsong Excellent question. Ideally, start at the foot, go up the leg, then up the torso, and to the head, then down the shoulder, arm and to the hand.

Rainsong Exactly where doesn’t actually matter….except that I would advise _against_ following any of the traditional (Chinese) “meridians”.

ShadowRain why’s that?

Rainsong Tracing the Chinese Meridians has been observed/reported to cause specific effects that might not be desirable depending on your currents state of health. Why risk it?

ShadowRain ah ok

Rainsong When this is done as a Quantum Touch exercise, the eventual goal is to bring the energy-stuff over the entire body, on the way up. And that’s cool, but not entirely required.

Jael no questions here so far

Rainsong If you want to try some basic, reasonably safe healing workings, putting your (relaxed) hands on or near the person or critter, and running “energy” into them this way can be helpful. Keep the hands relaxed, and just let the “stuff” continue on out through the palms.

Rainsong If you’re making a construct or a thought form, much the same, except you don’t flow it into anyone…

Rainsong If you are using it for grounding, either flow into something inanimate, or just stand there.

Rainsong And, if you are “charging”/gathering, it seems most efficient to make fists, and accumulate the “stuff” in your hands.

Rainsong So far so froody?

* Jael raises her hand

Rainsong Jael?

Jael Basically do the same thing for microPK? The breathing bits are important?

Rainsong I’ve never used it for microPK, actually. In order to answer that one, I’ll need to do some trials, and get back to you. It might take a few weeks to get useful data…

Jael Okay. Nifty.

Rainsong Perfectly reasonable question, of course, especially since some types of healing might be microPK. Jael Ah, right.

Rainsong There are several variants of this breathing exercise. In most cases, the difference is in the number of seconds one breathes in and/or out.

Rainsong I should point out that the breath should not be held or caught at any time, for these. That said, some types of breathing exercises catch or hold the breath between the ins and outs.

Rainsong Also, it is often advised to breathe in through the nose and out through the mouth. (And some folks say it is best to hold your tongue against the roof of your mouth.)

Rainsong So variants:

Rainsong 1) Six or seven seconds in, same number of seconds out.

Rainsong 2) Six seconds in, two seconds out (more oomph).

Rainsong 3) One second in, one second out (much oomph, but you’ll hyperventilate if you do it more than a handful of times).

Rainsong 4) Two seconds in, two seconds out.

Rainsong Any questions?

* Jael raises her hand

Rainsong Jael?

Jael Do you know of a specific effect that is known for variant #4?

Rainsong It’s useful for getting a bit more oomph without passing out. Good question.

Jael Ah, shiny.

Rainsong Any other questions?

Jael None here.

Rainsong Thanks for participating in tonight’s class. Have a great night.

Jael Thanks Rain 🙂

Aphanas Thanks, Rain.

Rainsong 🙂

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