Dysfunctional Breathing in Martial arts& sports

[Guest guest]

Optimal Breathing

 

SPORTS, EXERCISE or

INTENSE-EFFORTS-INDUCED BREATHING PROBLEMS

 

Why do some pass a cardiac stress test and drop dead

the following day or soon thereafter?

Competitive athletes and non competitive exercisers

(this also applies to Fire and Police personnel as

well as emergency paramedics and anyone that must

intensely breath-heave, gasp or over exert repeatedly

on the job or otherwise) routinely breathe too hard,

too fast, and too soon.

This is unbalanced hyper-inhalation. They often

mouth-breathe, breath-heave and/or gasp to get the air

they need to support their exertions.

 

This kind of charged breathing can develop respiratory

problems due the constriction of the breathing

muscles, reduced breathing volume, and internal

coordination restrictions such as presented in sports

induced asthma. I believe this is often why many

athletes develop

sports induced breathing problems, and die

prematurely of heart and vascular problems, and incur

many of the problems listed below.

 

Retire and die?

I believe that many need the movement that causes

extra oxygenation and as soon as they stop moving as

with a job or activity they MUST perform, the UDB

[ Unbalanced Dysfunctional Breathing]

takes over and slowly locks their breathing up and

with less and less breath they succumb to oxygen

deprivation.

 

Most forms of competitive sports are in NO way a

guarantee to a long healthy life. Most often the

reverse is true such as with sprinters and or

professional football players (an average age life

span of 56 years - information obtained in 1993.)

 

Let's take a look at several athletes and see if we

begin to see a pattern.

 

Recent News Clip. The week following a Los Angeles

marathon, " 13% of runners reported upper respiratory

tract infections compared with only 2% of 'control'

runners. "

 

From Mike This should include hard style martial arts

as well. You simply must do something to rapidly

offset the accumulating breathing constriction of

competitive sports. ..

 

....From a leading martial artist... Dear Mike;

Once in my early training years I witnessed, and

helped, one of my teachers in Judo. Do you remember

when Ingemar Johansson, the boxer who won over Floyd

Paterson once, on his second match I think it was, was

knocked out. People where talking about his shivering

foot. One of his feet was moving because of the damage

the knockout from Floyd gave him. I am not sure this

is what happened for my teacher, but this was the

situation.

 

He was wrestling on the mat with his opponent. He

ended up under his opponent, who got a

judo-strangulation around his throat - and I saw one

of his feet started to move as it did with the Swedish

ex-champ. I yelled STOP and let go, since he had

fainted because of the lack of oxygen. This was 1968,

and I was at that time not so well aware of how the

hazardous way the Martial Art strangulation hold could

be handled. Well, he came back with some dizziness,

stood up and thanked me. I don´t think I saved his

life, but I did a good thing for him, since his

opponent didn´t see what was happening.

 

Later during the years I have been studying more of

the strangulation techniques. It is a ART in itself.

Sorry to say, it is a killing art. One Japanese friend

of mine, he is dead now, rest his soul, not by

strangulation though, he died from diabetes. He told

me about one of his teachers in Japan. For the

Japanese (some) it seems as " close death experiences "

is close to orgasm. This teacher had a way of doing it

by throwing a wet towel around his neck and from that

reach the goal of " almost " strangulation. It worked

always for him, except one time, when he could not

remove the towel from his neck - he died from the

strangulation (maybe a fantastic death considering his

view of sexual pleasure).

 

In Judo, i.e. there is at least ten to fifteen

different strangulations. Some going to the windpipes,

others attacking (don ´t know the word for it) other

places in the throat.

 

Once when I was in Japan, my teacher, Ishizuka-sensei,

showed me the following thing; " Bo-san look, " he said.

Called for another student and hit him with his thumb

(a special technique we use) in his throat and the guy

lifted from the mat and landed two or three meters

from were he had been standing.

 

All those strangulations are very dangerous handled

improperly. Sometime Martial Artists say, " You can

take a strangulation for ten seconds " . This is a lie.

I ended up in a choke-hold and I had to give up

straight away, the other person was so powerful so I

felt the blackness coming over me.

 

I think Mike, that it could be a good thing if you

from your side, as a breathing-specialist, wrote about

the hazardous ways of handling opponents while

training. In this so called Ultimate Fighting, where

it obviously is correct to hit and choke ones opponent

until he is unconscious. Some of the contestants get

hurt real bad. In the East, Russia i.e. there have

been at least a couple of deaths from those so called

gladiator-games.

 

I get very angry when it comes to those spectacular

games. In the end, a person can die. We all die, it´s

the only real truth in life. But as I have learned

from much of your writing, through the proper

breathing we can live longer, instead of shorter.

B.M.

 

From Mike

 

This is an important insight, though very extreme

examples, that will add to other's understanding of

the importance of healthy breathing and longevity.

Many thanks.

 

Chief Seattle said many years ago that if the white

man continued his life in the direction it was going

that he would spend most of life surviving instead of

living. Breath is life. I think the ones to really

watch are the ones that do NOT abuse their bodies and

die anyway. They are far in the majority then the

fighters whom we know often push the limits beyond

reason and sanity.

 

My friend Margo Anand who wrote The Art of Sexual

Magic and teaches Tantra in the form of spiritual

sexuality would absolutely have a fit at someone

trying to choke themselves to achieve ecstasy.

Ecstasy stems from the breath being greater, deeper

and easier. From being directed to specific areas of

the body in great amounts. i feel sad for these

" choking " people.

 

Many thanks Bo. You are a friend and colleague, I

honor and value our relationship.

 

Namaste.

 

From Steve

 

Unfortunately I think some of them don't care if they

shorten their lifetime or even die. They are doing

what they love and are willing to die for it. It is

almost like a Samurai Warrior. He knew he could die

tomorrow, but he kept on training as hard as he can

and continued to be a Samurai. I also saw this analogy

with rock climbers who climb without ropes. They love

living on the edge of life. If they die, even their

survivors say they died doing what they loved. There

was also a story about these guys who jump from cliffs

with bungee cords but stopped above the tree line.

This one guy tried to aim below the tree line so he

would go between 2 trees. He missed. To each his own I

guess.

 

 

COPYRIGHT 2003, Michael Grant White.