Question about the Standard of Breathing

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HawkeyeLinus

Lifer
Oct 16, 2020
5,827
42,097
Iowa
The Funkmaster has called me here… I have posted multiple times my take on the breath technique, but I think some have done a good job on here.

I would only add, to get a grasp on it, just walk around with a pipe in your mouth till you forget about it. THEN try lighting the pipe and forgetting about it again. I could wax poetic about how it all works, but really, just having a lit pipe in your clench while forgetting about it totally is the best way to start. If it goes out, just relight and focus your mind on doing something else, maybe take a walk, do some whittling, fishing, mow the yard, or take a nap. Your passive breathing through your nose will pull on your gullet enough to keep the pipe going. Unless your a mouth breather. In that case… just ask cigrmaster what he does, ha ha.
Good to read you!!
 

krizzose

Lifer
Feb 13, 2013
3,364
20,904
Michigan
At the risk of complicating something that shouldn’t be complicated, puffing/sipping/pulling on a pipe is usually quite independent of my breathing.
 

nolan613

Starting to Get Obsessed
May 21, 2019
153
191
79
Augusta, GA
I am a newcomer and have been reading a lot of people' posts about breathing. I got a lot of advice and harvest, but the standard is confusing me. I wanted to try to establish something that could be quantified, so I came up with the idea that when you light a pipe, the force of inhalation should be about the same, if the size of the pipe is not confusing. So my question is, How many times as hard do you breathe when you light a pipe as you do when you keep it burning?
Breathing is good... The rest will come with patience.
 

bullet08

Lifer
Nov 26, 2018
10,229
41,510
RTP, NC. USA
You should use just enough pull to pull the fire to just around the top of tobacco or little higher. And move the flame around so most of top will start getting cherry. But do it in away you are not torching the damned thing. Once done, time to relax and slowly draw the smoke into your mouth. Don't suck on it like a new born baby. Just enough to let the smoke it, and it will work. Occasionally, you might have to pull it little harder. But not very often. If you think you want to expel the smoke out, do it. If it goes out, relight and do it again. You don't have to put too much into relight, it's already charred and catch quick.
 

aspiring_sage

Part of the Furniture Now
Oct 7, 2021
556
1,946
West of the Twin Cities, MN
I pull and pull to get the thing lit and have an ember on top.
Huge plumes of smoke just after lighting.

Then I slow way down, one pull per three breaths. and the smoke dies down, just enough the keep it lit.

3 stages of smoking:
1) Transfer fire/ember to the pipe. <-- puff puff puff as needed
2) Keep an ember lit in the pipe <-- slowly pull over three breaths, tamp sometimes
3) Sometimes the ember goes out, begin again at step 1

So the math becomes something like 9 or more times the airflow when I lite vs just smoking it ?

*Notice the detail: puffing more times, but not harder)
 

Scottmi

Lifer
Oct 15, 2022
3,934
57,434
Orcas, WA
Just listened to pipesmagazine podcast #264 with Muttonchop Piper and found his description of breath smoking to be very clear and easy to comprehend. Excellent!
 
Nov 20, 2022
2,751
27,855
Wisconsin
Good luck man, no problem. Read more of my post and you'll find that I'm a bastard too.. but I'm just learning myself. Smoking a pipe is not common knowledge. It's 2022.

Everybody here had to learn how to smoke a pipe. Some of them may not admit that though. Haha
Some of us are born with the knowledge. Nipple or pipe, we know how to suck it naturally. :col:
 
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