In my second novel in the "Streetlethal" series, "Gorgon Child" I have a sequence where my hero Aubry Knight undergoes a manhood ritual that involves running across a desert while holding a mouthful of water. I was asked to comment on this, and that gives me an opportunity to take a break from talking about Musashi (don't worry, I'll get back) but also to discuss a couple of health and consciousness things, and also to use this as an example of integrating your specialized knowledge into your writing work. 1) The "holding water" technique was something I came across decades ago as an Apache ritual, if memory serves. The technique forces concentration, and more importantly--breathing through the nose. 2) When you force someone to breathe through their nose during exercise, you limit the amount of oxygen they intake. This forces them to keep the exertion level below the anaerobic threshold. You can't gasp open-mouthed, gulping air. You must pace yourself, and remain below the level where the Kreb cycle begins to break down and you cannot re-convert fatigue toxins to produce ATP. This means becoming smoother and more efficient, rather than just pushing yourself, multiplying biomechanical errors. 3) Once you become aware of the flow of breath, it opens the doorway to a vast world of internal states. Because breathing is the only process that is both voluntary and autonomic, it is the doorway to control of the CNS as well as the sympathetic and parasympathetic nervous systems, controlling the fight or flight response. Fabulous for stress control, health, concentration, energy, even pain management. 4) By placing my lead character into a situation where he had to evolve or die, I had the chance to create a "teaching" moment, where real physiological science met Eastern "mysticism" to create an entertaining sequence with a touch of reality. Anchoring a spiritual practice in hard science is one of my favorite things in the world. Steve #### Learn Thirty Years of Body-Mind Secrets in Thirty Days! The HERO'S JOURNEY program http://tiny.cc/poduh WARRIOR SLEEP: http://bit.ly/hJbFLZ
Tuesday, May 17, 2011
Water in the Mouth
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3 comments:
Was watching reruns of "Surviving the Cut" last week. Episode on Navy Combat divers.
They get to be tossed in the water with hands feet velcroed, hands behind the back (I'm told first hand in prior days it was tight zipties to really mess with your mind).
They have to desend and "bob" for a certain period and it takes great control not to panic and the key is to control their breathing on the way down and rate of ascent, then they have to circle the pool several times. Then at the end they have to desend, grasp a mask in their teeth and bob 5 more times. At this point they're pretty oxygen depleted and they still have to breath through the nose or loose the mask and fail.
Wow, there is really much useful info here!
This won't really have effect, I think so.
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