I have at last put some notes down on the benefits I gained by attending a
breathing workshop of Riley Lee's. Hope they will help.
There was at least 10 exercises, but 3 that helped me were,
Held breath, Whole breath and Gentle breath.
Held breath.. Take a full breath, relax and hold for up to 30 secs. Blow
out forcefully, emptying the lungs FULLY. Resume normal breathing then
repeat 3 times.
Whole breath..Inhale for 4 secs, relax and hold for 8 secs. Gently exhale
for 16 secs so lungs are empty at 16 secs. Relax 4 secs. Then repeat
process. Continue for 5-30mins.
Gentle breath.. Emphasis is on relaxing and gentle breaths. Gently inhale,
pause then slowly exhale, picturing the gentle stream of air. Empty the
lungs fully. Continue for 5-30mins.
Riley mentioned that when you exhale, imagine all your stress and tension
is flowing out. These are only a few of the exercises and to get most
benefit I think it is important to do them with an experienced teacher. I
am greatful to Riley for allowing me to pass on these notes.
A paper I found interesting was of a transcipt by Stuart Leigh of a talk by
Doso Roshi on "The Way of Watazumi" held in New York in 1981. Doso Roshi
was an interesting character. He was a senior zen monk before leaving to
concentrate his shakuhachi study based around daily vigorous physical
exercises using a Jo stick. His emphasis is on Zen and lengthening of the
out breath and conscious breath. I will quote some parts from the paper. "
The way of Watazumi is to take your life force, your life strength and
train it to be stronger, healthier. As you are all into playing music,
there is something deeper and if you go deeper to the source of where that
music is made, you will find something even more interesting. At that
source, everyones individual music is made. That place is your own life
force. He emphasizes that you have to use conscious mindful breath. Most
people use unconscious breath, simple movement of the lungs. He also said
that this type of breathing is like a pool of water that has been stopped
up and is stagnating. If you breath mindfully and train your breath for
different kinds of strength, then you will develope your own kind of
music". I believe he was quite a unique character who played shakuhachi's
of enormous lengths and diameter. He would use his feet to close the bottom
holes. Now that I would like to have seen. These notes I hope may be of
some help, but it is important to regulary review your breathing as I have
recently lapsed into breathing very shallow and with tension in the body.
This was pointed out to me by my teacher, when we were looking at why I am
having trouble with certain notes.
Bridget(see BIO 26 July), in an e-mail to me made an excellent point, " The
Shakuhachi is a good barometer to what is happening both mentally and
physically". Happy playing. Ross
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