On the Subject of Inhaling

For some time I've been wondering, what is inhalation exactly?
I smoke cigarettes on occasion. When I first started smoking them, I'd puff, keep the smoke in my mouth and blow it out. I noticed that other smokers were blowing out a lot more smoke that I did, so I enquired. The answer: 'you need to pull it in'. Hmm, well, what I started doing was to contract whatever muscles are involved to pull the smoke into the pharynx and then expel it. Yeah, I blew out lotsa more smoke than with my initial puffs. But, is this inhaling?
Or is inhaling actually breathing in the smoke all the way in, as in when one takes a deep breath –or any breath for that matter?
When I started pulling the smoke into my pharynx, I also noticed that I could blow it out through my nose, something I can't do if I just puff and keep it in my mouth. So again, am I inhaling it?
The question has always been there, kinda, but now it has become more important since I started smoking a pipe. Considering one isn't s'posed to inhale (although some people do, I know), a few times I've done the motion to bring the smoke into my pharynx and exhale through my nose. I wonder if I'm inhaling...

A word of caution. Nicotine poisoning is nothing you want to deal with.

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I hear you there. When I was 'admonished' on my unsmoking cigarette smoking technique, some bloke said I wasn't pulling it in and made the motion of sucking in forcefully as a 'demonstration'. Well, I imitated the motion and got really ill. I remember because we were just about to go into a mid-term for which I had studied quite poorly. No time to go lie down or take something for it, although one kind girl gave me some candies. I finished the test in like 5 minutes, handed it in, and subsequently kinda collapsed on my bench. I was presently hallucinating: saw myself climbing the trees outside the window at great speed without grabbing the branches. Horrible.
When the test came back, it had a score of 97%. 8O
When I do the motion I described when pipe smoking I haven't felt any hit. Which again, makes me wonder that maybe that's not inhaling really. Wonder if that's what they call retrohaling. :?:

Ah-ha! That's what I've been doing all the time.
I'm safe then.