We teach beginners to time their forms with their own breath. We say that the more deeply one can breathe then the slower your form will be. What often follows from that simplistic advice is the student co-ordinating their breath with the physical movement of the forms. This is ok as a start but eventually the student must look a little deeper and adjust their forms.

Since the speed of your form is dependant on your breath, then it follows that your movement must follow the breath. This is completely different and opposite of co-ordinating your breath to your movement. Think about that for a second.

The best way to comprehend this training is to pick one specific form to train (I like commencing the forms) and then do the following:

Stand and breathe as deeply as comfortable (remember the 70/30 rule!)
Breathe like this for a while, say ten breaths, concentrating on how deep you are inhaling and on how slow and steady you are exhaling.

After ten breaths, we add the arms.

Start your inhale and only allow your arms to move AFTER you have started to inhale. This translates into a conscious raising of the arms. You attention remains on the breath as the arms rise. When the inhale is complete, you need to observe the void which is the space between the inhale and the exhale.

Then AFTER you consciously choose to start the exhale, you allow the arms to float down timed with the breath. Repeat using only one form for as long as you need to before tackling the entire set using this concept.

By training in this manner you take the focus off the physical movement of the forms and place it on the breath instead. This promotes many advantages not the least of which is helping the student to “play in the zone”. One can only get in the “zone” if you stop concentrating so much on physical movement, as that keeps the Yi mind activated and tied to the world of the 10,000 things.

Movement follows the breath.

Peace
Rod