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Resilience Breathing
Life isnt measured by the amount of breaths we take, but the number of moments which take our breath away. ~ anon
Rapidly Recover from Excessive Stress Optimize Health, Energy and Fitness
World Martial Arts Champion, Master of Sport, USA National Team Coach, Health and F i t n e s s Consultant for F e d e r a l Government Agencies.
Scott Sonnon
Master of Sport SCOTT SONNON Chief Operations Officer RMAX International WORLD CHAMPION NATIO NAL COACH
Scott was Born to Lose. And Built to Win. Against all odds, Scott became a champion, and has shared the discoveries he made along the way.
Scott Sonnon is most known for being a martial arts champion in Sport Jiujitsu, Submission Grappling, Amateur Mixed Martial Arts, Russian Sambo and Chinese Sanshou. Sonnon capitalized upon advances in biomechanics, stress physiology, athletic biochemistry and sports/combat psychology to become a multiple time USA National Team Coach. Sonnon trained for six years with the former USSR Ministry of Internal Affairs (MVD) and Special Operations Unit (Spetsnaz) Physical Conditioning and Performance Enhancement Specialists at the RETAL (Physical Skill Consultant Scientic & Practical Training) Center, and became the rst American to be licensed by the Russian government in these studies. He is also one of a handful of individuals outside the former USSR to earn the coveted Master of Sport the highest athletic distinction recognized in the former Soviet Union. Sonnons peak performance enhancement methods are on the scientic cutting-edge, proving themselves again and again where it counts: in the real world, on and off the eld of athletics. He now consults for prestigious agencies such as the Department of Defense, Department of Homeland Security, US Marshals Service Training Academy, US Federal Law Enforcement Training Center FLETC, State and Local Law Enforcement Symposium SLLETS, US Army 160th Special Operations Aviation Regiment SOAR, US Customs and Border Protection Advanced Training Center, Israeli Defense Force LOTAR Counter-Terrorism School, the Wingate Institute, the Italian Gruppo Intervento Speciale GIS Special Forces, Italian 1st Regiment Carabinieri "Tuscania"
TA K I N G O U R B R E AT H AWAY
"Life is not measured by the amount of breaths we take in our life, but the number of moments in life which take our breath away." Nothing "inspires" us more signicantly than our breath. Inspiration. To breathe in. From the root, spiritus: spirit. Nothing exemplies our quality of life than the quality of our breath. Every ancient discipline has concentrated upon breath. Yet only in recent decades has modern science begun to comprehend the magnitude with which breath affects us, and how life affects our breath. Breath control remains the most rigorous and esoteric practice in human history: disciplined preparation to enhance your quality of life and, as evidenced by powerfully compelling modern research, even your quantity of life. "If you're breathing, you're alive. And if you're breathing hard, you're LIVING!" Those cherished breathless moments throughout our very short existence dene us. We recollect them with loving nostalgia in times of peaceful reverie, and with clutching comfort in calamitous times of imminent jeopardy. But what does it mean for a moment to take our breath away? What happens, and why? Many theories, and a species-wide chronicle of exploration, have offered libraries of ideas. Let us discuss just one: when a dire moment steals our breath away, how do we rapidly recover from it, to reclaim it, to seize it back from the vacuum which has sucked it from us? Breath is our nal addiction in life. Our spirited lives, like no other time in history, swim in an ocean of stressors, anxieties and fears. When overwhelmed by circumstances, we asphyxiate from the seeminglynecessary evil of excessive stress. If you're going to walk the line of adventure and growth, if you will not shirk from the challenges which life presents, then stress becomes the currency of our growth. Stress adapts us, and as Charles Darwin illuminated, "it is not the strongest which survives, nor even the most intelligent, but the most adaptable, which survives," and thrives as cutting edge neuroscience has revealed. Those moments which leave us blissfully at a loss of breath, erupted from what psychologists label as eustress: positive stress which fosters adaptive growth. We develop from eustress; and we can say that we live for it: those are the moments which take away our breath... in a positive way. But another more common perspective of stress pervades... the negative. The founder of the concept of psychological stress, Hans Seyle, on his deathbed described one of his greatest lamentations involved the miscomprehension of stress. He said that he had wished that he had used the word strain to distinguish it from positive stress (eustress.) Strain (excessive levels of stress to which we cannot adapt) oods over us like a tsunami. Our breath drowns in its turgid rapids. Psychologists offer the distinction of the negativity of strain by the term distress.
INHALATION VS EXHALATION
Near the close of the 19th Century, Russian Physiologist Verigo and Dutch Scientist Bohr independently discovered that without CO2, oxygen remains bound to hemoglobin, unreleased and incapable of being utilized by our tissues.As a result there is an oxygen deciency in tissues such as our brain, kidneys and heart, as well as a signicant increase in our blood pressure. Russian and former Soviet research, such as Dr. V. Frolov, Dr. K. Buteyko and Prof. R. Strelkov surmised that deep breathing serves as the root cause of many illnesses. Deep-breathers suffer from O2 starvation and so they over-breathe which begins the cycle called the Hyperventilation Feedback Loop. Notice how a person holding his breath becomes increasingly hyperactive. Over time the level of CO2 increases dramatically causing the rapid consumption of O2. This hyperactivity continues until unconsciousness (syncope). We use this method in martial arts to expedite chokes and strangles: the more he struggles, exerts himself and overbreathes, the faster he goes unconscious. The cause of O2 deciency is not due to the lack of O2 presence, but by the lack of CO2 retention. Over-breathing causes O2 deciency.If we inhale too much, we have less O2 in our body. Two methods of breathing developed from this understanding: hypoxic (lowered oxygen count) and hypercapnic (carbonic gas saturation) breathing. Dr. Vladimir Frolov (Endogenous Respiration) concluded from his research that both methods intend the same goal but achieve it through different means: Buteyko achieved positive results raising the concentration of carbonic gas in the lungs. Strelkov, in turn, obtained the identical result by lowering the oxygen content in the lungs. The paradox solves itself if we compare oxygen concentrations in both methods. It turned out that what united them was an approximately identical hypoxia regime (lower oxygen content) from two different methods. For many strength athletes, the conventional method of breathing entails the Power Breathing Technique - a hypoxic method was researched by a Russian scientist Professor R. Strelkov (popularized by Pavel Tsatsouline in the West). Power increases immediately, but due to the elicitation of SAPS, ne and complex motor skills deteriorate. This force level breath is temporarily acceptable for powerlifting competition but highly inefcient for athletic, combative and life skills. The problem with inhalation bracing lies with the pneumatic pressure it creates intra-abdominally. When you inhale and pressurize yourself, you literally attempt to move over an inated balloon within your torso. When moving in 1 or 2 dimensions and short range, that may be acceptable. However, when you must resist rotation in six degrees, you must use muscular control, not pneumatic pressure to withstand forces while remaining mobile. Inhalation cannot do this, and like twisting a balloon, will eventually rupture. Only exhalation can, creating space, and muscular activation can resist rotation, and ward.
FREEZE FLINCH
relates to an inhalation and breath bracing the held inhale; a reexive collapse demonstrated by prey. relates to an inhalation and a pressurized exhalation during reexive movement, indicative of predatory readiness. relates to a conscious exhalation on effort during a movement with a passive inhalation happening from releasing the power of the muscular squeeze to exhale. happens as the body shifts to exhalation on passive compression, so as the body moves it becomes breathed by the accordion like action of gracefully expressed movement; and performance is performed during and after the exhalation, at the control pause before inhalation begins.
FORCE
FLOW
Rapid Reduction in Heart Rate Using Hard Exhalation Diaphragmatic Breathing: Implications for Performance Management. Journal: Applied Psychophysiology and Biofeedback Issue: Volume 25, Number 4 / December, 2000 Pages 247-271 ROBERT M. STEIN ISSN: 1090-0586 (Print) 1573-3270 (Online) DOI 10.1023/A:1026411022674 Abstract: Diaphragmatic breathing or "belly breathing" is preferable to costal or chest breathing, in producing objective and subjective measures of relaxation. Practicing diaphragmatic breathing is not too difcult when already relaxed, but can be a challenge when one is in a high-pressure situation. High-pressure or "performance demand" situations present themselves with little opportunity to remove oneself for breathing practice. The current strategy emphasizes bodily movement and orally mediated hard exhalation to facilitate a rapid transition from costal to diaphragmatic breathing. Bodily movements include rotation of the shoulders, movement of the hips, bending at the knees and expansion/contraction of the torso. Oral movements include progressively more intense expulsion of air. Training involves increases in intensity, duration and speed over time. Data will be presented that demonstrate short-term reduction in heart rate that is associated with the transition from ordinary resting breathing to a more specic diaphragmatic breathing pattern.
COMPLEMENTA RY
SUPPLEMENTAR Y
RESIDUAL
As just described, the science behind respiratory performance goes very deep. We concentrate on unhinging the Fear breathing (inhale bracing), reclaiming our skills from brute gross motor Force breathing (pressurized exhalation), and discipline our Recovery breathing (controlled inhale and short sharp exhale with effort), so that we can revive our Survival breathing and restore ow (one long, slow, deep exhale with compression)... eventually, thriving with mastery level breath of the control pause.
The stronger your exhale, the more powerful you become. Martial artists have known this for millennia. Modern respiratory science (Olympic level training) understand this mechanism, as it mysteriously branches into both aspects of the nervous system: the autonomic (what you cannot control), and the voluntary (what you can control.) The depth of your exhale determines how deeply you access your chamber of power. Physiologically, it is impossible to tap into the power of the core and spine without exhalation. It will not happen immediately. You will need practice daily. As it remains impossible to plumb the bottom of residual breath volume, you can always go deeper and deeper, no matter your age.
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Use Four Count Breathing when you need to quickly get control of your breathing. It will take focus and control to maintain this rhythm. This technique may need to be used to silence any heavy and labored breathing that you may have developed from a long run carrying lots of gear. You may discover urgency nearby and do not want to announce your presence or give away your position with the sounds of labored breathing. Tactical Breathing will also help alleviate the affects adrenaline and stress.
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the movements.
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The reservoir of courage draws from faith that we ARE resilient, that in failure we WILL adapt and ratchet our performance forward. Press beyond the threshold of condence, nd your edge, recover, grow, adapt, press forward again. I have found that my condence has shifted away from myself, to condence in this process. My attitude had shifted from striving for higher performance, but faster and better quality recovery. Better to have full access to current conditioning and cognitive performance under stress. ~ LTC Daniel Market, US Army
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the movements.
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PART IV
Like in athletics, yoga and meditation, martial art is a micro of the macro, with all of lifes lessons encoded in it. We must learn to get up, get knocked down, and get up again and again: we need resilience. Without this persistence, we will not have the opportunity to learn how to absorb, blend, and conuently resolve our challenges, and never unlock the opportunities within them. This lesson has been clearly reected in my relationships, my personal growth, my vocational development, my nances, and that of those I mentor. So my condence grows that though we must get up again and again, eventually we will learn how to ght less. Like in grappling, we begin by aggressive counter-attacking, but eventually begin to defend without struggling, and realize that every attack from our opponent creates an opportunity for nalizing the bout. When I was a child, I began martial art not to learn how to ght, as I was unfortunately intimately aware of violence. I began martial art so I could learn to STOP ghting. You cannot ee confrontation. You must have the courage turn and face it directly to most effectively resolve it. But my condence grows that in all things, although you may not be able to end the need for resistance, you can become sufciently pliable to absorb it with conuence. Like my teacher has told me personally, you may be in pain again, but you no longer need to suffer in the pain. I may again be knocked to the ground to learn the opportunity within a challenge , but the courage to stand again and again has given me the chance to gain condence that getting up is only the means, only part of a greater process. I no longer doubt that we CAN get up. We can. So, get up. But, lets not merely get up this time, but lets get through with grace. Getting through gracefully is the real black belt. As a result, we will no longer be required to relearn the hard lesson that we can get up. We will then discover that our opponents dont provide an obstacle to growth, for they are the challenge which allows us to adapt and grow. We can get up. Be condent of that. We will grow from every challenge. So condent of this, lets now learn how to get through gracefully, and transform these challenges into collective opportunities for something much greater. I grow more and more condent that we are specically placed into circumstances to steward a greater outcome, by not merely getting up, but getting through with grace.
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PART IV
Imagination is more important than knowledge. For knowledge is limited to all we now know and understand, while imagination embraces the entire world, and all there ever will be to know and understand. - Einstein Having the courage to overcome perceived limitations is the rst step, but it cannot be the nal for it is essentially an oppositional advance. To truly reframe your potential, you must avoid dening yourself as merely capable of what others say you arent. And move on to dening your potential by what you have not yet imagined you are. You are so much more than beyond the limits others perceive you to have. You are beyond what you can currently imagine.
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