Whole of ones’ martial arts boils down to breathing. Technique affects breathing, breathing affects technique but the cycle first begins with ones’ breathing. As long as one lives that is always ongoing despite our consciousness. First there is no technique there is only breathing. The point of practice is for the breathing to align with the technique. We rely on techniques and words of an instructor who hopefully understands and knows the terrain of what one is getting into. Even so the technique has to be presented and placed at the feet of one’s breathing and not contriving ones’ breathing to the technique. Breathing is sacred and will not bend to any will but only to devotion, diligence and honesty. But you will try to contrive it, bend it and make it yield to your will and with persistence also realize the futility of it- this is part of the practice to see it happen. Breathing is a primordial relationship between a body and its consciousness.

Skill acquired in executing a technique arises only after a felicity is achieved with regard to breathing. Repetition is a way in which the breathing and technique are made to interplay. Talking about a technique is not the same as executing the technique.  The breathing has to first acquaint itself with the seriousness and depth of ones’ intention. How resilient is it? Is it steadfast? and the experience shapes ones’ intention as to why and how one has to follow through with a technique. Experience shapes the way we see things and every experience changes what was. It should not matter that the ocean has an end or a beginning it will still be charted with our experience.