margaret,
I may be totally wrong but when doing Pilates you breath into your upper back and keep your chest still. Now, this immediately made sense to me as I can tell you than when an asmatic has an attack (me) you feel it in your back, mostly. It is where your lungs hurt. So, I understood when we were told that is the location of the lungs and this would make them stronger. From doing Pilates (and looking in a mirror) I can now breath that way. (But you only do it doing the exercises). So when I learned QiGong, it just seemed to me that when pulling in the abdomen, you were breathing into your back. Try it, I don't see how the chest can rise when you do it. So, this is my interpretation which may be wrong. Maybe Pete will explain--
