Adam:
SNIP
I knew CXW didn't
emphasize it but to flat out say No it doesn't have a specific breathing method......
Zhu Tiancai absolutely emphasizes it
SNIP
Well, I have read a quote in an interview from CXW stating this - though it was possible he was mistranslated.
As for ZTC:
News to me. I started off my Chen training at Malaysia Chingwu in '95, and nobody there told me how to breathe, nor did ZTC, on the two occassions when he came up from Singapore to train us. Mind you, I was a beginner at the time.
It seems to me that the issue of breathing - like the issue of application - is a very vexed topic in Chen Taiji. AFAIK, reverse breathing is NOT openly or commonly taught by the village teachers- or at least not from day one. As noted, I asked very specifically about this to get a reply, it was not presented to me.
OTOH, I have not seen ZTC for 15 years, so I don' t know how or what he teaches these days.
OTOH #2: The issue of dantien rotation IS presented in the basic Chen silk reeling exercises, but IME, very few people actually get it - not just in the broad terms of moving from the center, but also power generation, particularly its relation to the spine. So though it is presented, IMHO, it needs to be presented and explained in much more detail for it to be functional.
Whether this is a problem of:
(1) Simply my personal experience;
(2) Students declining to ask questions of the teacher, instead, just doing "monkey see, monkey do"
(3) Teachers themselves being unable to teach the actual mechanics of the art for reason (2) above;
(4) Teachers being unwilling or unable to relate basic motion to function
Or what..
...I dunno.
FYI I am speaking only in Chen terms, here. In the Bagua I have learned (albeit, much shallower than Taiji), the teaching of dantien rotation and breathing methodologies was more functionally related.