Qi leaves traces — the cinnabar field made visible: a video-colorimetric study of exhalation-led breathing

The paper analyses an uncut twelve-minute recording in which the author, standing bare-chested before a tiled wall that serves as a colour reference, breathes with an exhalation-led organisation of the trunk: the trunk narrows with the outgoing air, a short audible switch follows, and the next inhalation fills the narrowed form without bracing and without the breath being held. The switch, a click of about 66 ms, recurs three times a minute and marks the hinge of every cycle. After it the trunk widens to the sides by up to 11 % of its width, about four centimetres, and deepens toward the back, while the abdominal wall keeps its place. Within 70 seconds of the first switch the skin of the lower abdomen reddens: CIELab a* rises from 12 to 18–19 relative to the wall while lightness falls and yellowness stays nearly constant, the colour signature of blood. The reddened area spreads to half of the visible skin, the lower back around Mingmen follows later, and the colour returns towards its starting value within half a minute after the practice ends. The reddening reaches down to the lower Dantian, the cinnabar field, where Qigong locates the gathering of Qi. The paper relates these findings to the classical principle that Qi commands the blood and to related organisations of breath in Qigong, pranayama and the appoggio of classical singing.