Haven’t We Moved On From Here Yet? Why Pushing on the Belly Isn’t Teaching Breathing
A colleague reached out to me today, unsettled.
They said, “A famous teacher is here, and they’re teaching breathing by pushing on people’s stomachs.”
And I felt that familiar mix of sadness and disbelief. Haven’t we moved on from this yet?
Why We Think This Works
When someone places a hand—or worse, a fist or the end of an instrument—into your abdomen and says, “Push out as you exhale to engage your diaphragm,” it sounds like they’re teaching support. They might even believe they’re helping students “breathe lower” or “use the diaphragm correctly.”
This idea has deep roots in performance culture. It looks authoritative. It gives a teacher something to do and a student something to feel. Touch can indeed heighten awareness—but this method confuses pressure with presence.
The teacher feels resistance and believes they’ve “activated the diaphragm.” The student feels contact and assumes they’ve found the right place. But what’s really happening is not coordination—it’s compensation.
What’s Actually Being Taught
Pushing, prodding, or pressing into the belly doesn’t teach diaphragmatic movement. It teaches the abdominal wall to brace. It trains students to perform breathing for external approval rather than notice their body’s design.
When a student is told to push against an object, they learn that breathing is a muscular event they must produce through effort. They learn that someone else’s authority supersedes their own lived experience.
That’s not learning—it’s compliance.
That’s not embodiment—it’s control.
And it creates confusion that can last for years.
Why It Doesn’t Work
The diaphragm doesn’t need to be “engaged.” It already is.
It descends when we inhale, rises when we exhale, and coordinates beautifully with the ribs, spine, and pelvic floor—unless we interfere.
When someone pushes on your abdomen or tells you to “push out,” your nervous system reads it as a threat. The breath becomes defensive. The spine stiffens. The abdominal wall takes over a job that was never its own.
The result might look like strong breathing, but it’s actually restricted. You can’t force organic coordination. You can only allow it.
True breathing doesn’t require pressure—it requires permission.
What To Do Instead
If you want to learn how to breathe with freedom and integrity, join us for Mapping the Body: Unlocking the Creative Breath—a six-week course designed for wind players, singers, and teachers ready to move beyond old myths.
You’ll learn:
How the diaphragm, ribs, and spine move in elegant coordination
Why “push out,” “breathe low,” and “engage the core” interrupt natural design
How to sense breath as a living relationship between movement, sound, and awareness
Breathing isn’t something you fix.
It’s something you remember.
Let’s leave the fists, instruments, and stomach-pushing behind—and return to the intelligence of the body itself.
Join the course now → https://www.mbodyed.com/about-courses#breathing