Hel,

I am a new comer to SF Qigong. It is so good to see so many good insights come out from the questions.

I almost posted the very same questions that you have. The day when I was thinking about writing the post after reading through the forum I got the letter from Master Lin through LS Corp.
... <Talk about mystical timing!>

In the letter there is a section "What is the proper way to breathe?"

The points that helped me most are:

1. "Breathing is important to your practice, In Level 1 it is more important that you breathe slowly and evenly than it is to do Qigong breathing."

2. "When you practice breathing like I suggest, it will soon become second nature."

3. "I breathe this way all of the time."

Since, I choose to practice SF Qigong. I know how I want to improve my way of breathing.