How to become a martial arts master!

OK, let me start this blog post by telling you something you might not know: if you're into martial arts and you're following a specific training program for more than few months [1], what you're after is a form of expertise. Even if you have never dreamed of becoming the king of the ring, the mat or the octagon, even if you only want to learn how to protect yourself, or aspire to gain better control and awareness of your body, your goal is, in a way or another, superior performance, so... expertise it is! People are somewhat afraid to use this word in connection to their personal goals, because they seem to think that expertise is the realm of the naturally talented, a do-not-enter zone reserved exclusively for the Michael Jordans, the Mohamed Alis, the Bobby Fischers and the Tiger Woods’ of this world, the ones also known as the “naturally gifted”.

Well, I personally find the idea of any type of expertise quite fascinating and for the past year I’ve read a few books on the subject, most of them easy-to-read popularized science best sellers plus one quite stiff university textbook. From the stuff I’ve read, one thing you might find interesting is that scientists a) considerably disagree on a technical definition of what giftedness is (except for physical characteristics, such as height, body type or muscle composition) and on the methods by which it can be measured and b) have, after considerable research, all but abandoned the idea that innate giftedness and talent can fully account for expert performance. The two prominent scientific views on the subject of expertise today are the “nurturist” perspective (claiming that expertise is obtainable by virtually anyone, and expert performance, irrespective of innate ‘talent’ will inevitably emerge through an extended period of ‘deliberate practice’, typically either 10 years or 10.000 hours) and the “interactionist” approach that attributes expertise to a combination of environmental factors AND an extended period of deliberate practice. In a few words, the Michael Jordans, Mohamed Alis etc of this world became the greatest either because they simply practiced too much or because they had some talent and realized its potential by, once again, practicing too much [2].

We cannot of course rule out the possibility that scientists might someday get to prove that innate giftedness can exclusively account for expert performance, but for now, I’d rather bet my money on the 10.000 hours of deliberate practice. Now, I hope you noticed, both now and earlier, the adjective “deliberate” before the noun “practice”. Yes, I am sorry to say, it is quite true that not all practice makes perfect, or as psychologist K. Anders Ericsson puts it, living in a cave does not make you a geologist. You need much more than just going through the movements for ten years in order to play with the big boys, whatever your choice of field (music, dance, sports, sciences etc). So, what is deliberate practice? Once again according to Ericsson, “it entails considerable, specific, and sustained efforts to do something you can’t do well—or even at all. Research across domains shows that it is only by working at what you can’t do, that you turn into the expert you want to become” [3]. Doesn’t sound like much fun, huh?

In order to give an example of what deliberate practice is people who write on the subject of expertise – scientists and journalists alike – very often use the example of Benjamin Franklin and how he became the extraordinary writer he was. That is exactly what I will do right now – the following excerpt comes from the book Talent is Overrated, by Geoff Colvin, a well-respected American journalist. I guess the European readers of this blog will not know much about Benjamin Franklin, just like I did before I read the afore-mentioned book, and I hope they will find the story as fascinating as I did. My American readers most probably have studied the work of “America’s first great man of letters” in school, so I’ll just ask them to bear with me, because after the excerpt I’d like to make a few comments on how we can benefit from Franklin’s example to make our training in martial arts more substantial. Anyway, here’s the excerpt: “As a teenager, Franklin seemed to think he wrote well enough, but then one day his father found an exchange of letters between Ben and a friend, John Collins, arguing a point back and forth. […] Ben’s father first told his son what was good about his letters; they were better than Collins’s in spelling and punctuation. Then he told him and showed him specifically how they were inferior: ‘in elegance of expression, in method and in perspicuity, of which he convinced me by several instances’, as Franklin recalled. […] Ben responded to his father’s observations in many ways. First he found examples of prose clearly superior to anything he could produce, a bound volume of the Spectator, the great English periodical written by Joseph Addison and Richard Steele. Any of us might have done something similar. But Franklin then embarked on a remarkable program that few of us would ever have thought of. It began with his reading a Spectator article and making brief notes on the meaning of each sentence; a few days later he would take up the notes and try to express the meaning of each sentence in his own words. When done, he compared his essay with the original, ‘discovered some of my faults and corrected them’.One of the faults he noticed was his poor vocabulary. What could he do about that? He realized that writing poetry required and extensive ‘stock of words’ because he might need to express any given meaning in many different ways depending on the demands of rhyme or meter. So he would rewrite Spectator essays in verse. Then, after he had forgotten them, he would take his versified essays, and rewrite them in prose, again comparing his efforts with the original. Franklin realized also that a key element of a good essay is its organization, so he developed a method to work on that. He would again make short notes on each sentence in an essay, but would write each note on a separate slip of paper. He would then mix up the notes and set them aside for weeks, until he had forgotten the essay. At that point he would try to put the notes in their correct order, attempt to write the essay, and then compare it with the original. Again, he ‘discovered many faults and amended them’” [4].

Video: I believe we can all agree that this person here must have practiced his juggling in general and this routine specifically for a significant amount of time. It seems to me that learning how to manipulate a human body that - unlike those three little balls - is resisting, might requite even more training,. What do you think?

So, here’s the outline of a deliberate practice program for you, and I believe there is no doubt that the program was successful. But how does Ben Franklin’s method relate to martial arts training? As I was reading the above text, some thoughts came to my mind, and I would like to share them, so here they are:

1. Franklin taught himself to become a great writer, which basically means he assumed the full responsibility for his practice. He did not search for the ultimate method or some master teacher who possessed ancient secret knowledge on writing, and demanded eternal devotion from his disciples in order to share it. It is my belief that it is the same with martial art: all we need to know is either inside us or out there, hidden in plain sight. All we need to do is work hard enough to bring it to surface and eventually master it. The people whose help we need in order to make our struggle more focused are mentors and coaches, but certainly not “Masters”.
2. In order to become a great writer, Franklin had already learned the basics of writing in school: the alphabet, a limited vocabulary, the rules of grammar and syntax. Unfortunately, nowadays schools, society and the modern way of life do not provide students with the basics of movement, in order for them to learn how to perform the actions found in martial art. But if your quality of movement is not good, then your actions will always be lacking (speed, power, coordination etc), so, if you are a martial artist, unless you’re very athletic, you are starting your study with a disadvantage. Train generic movement first, until it becomes fluent and effortless. After achieving a good grasp of basics, you need to continuously search for what good movement (martial or other) looks and feels like. Following one system religiously doesn’t quite cut it – it leads to a cultish mentality (the way “we” do it versus the way “they” do it) which makes you blind to a wealth of information that your art or system may not provide but you could absorb otherwise. It doesn’t really matter if you just want to become a Specnaz killing machine – you might find treasures of information on good footwork or power generation (and why yours isn’t so good) by studying the movement of Michael Jordan, Roger Federer, masters of Aikido, MMA or boxing champions, salsa dancers and contact improvisers.
3. With the Spectator essays as a measuring stick, Franklin had a pretty good idea of what good writing was, i.e. he had a rough template of his goal, in order to compare his work to a standard and assess his weaknesses. How will you get to know what your weaknesses are? As a martial artist who is training in a specific style, first make sure that you understand the dogma, strategies and tactics of your art (the big picture, that is) [5] and then, for each and every drill you practice find out how it is serving the greater scheme of things. Do you drill in pushing people with your fists? Are you performing rolls on a hard floor? Make sure you know the reason why! Only then you will understand if you are practicing the drills correctly and you will be able to assess and coach yourself. Your instructor must provide this information in specific, easy-to-understand terms – if he does not, it means that either he does not know or he does not want to disclose this information to you. In both cases, a mentor who does not help you learn how to coach yourself is not a good mentor.
4. Franklin did not progress from a mediocre to an exceptional writer overnight. He took the time he needed. It is obvious that becoming an expert takes time and it is not something for the faint-of-heart. 10.000 hours of training is a prerequisite if you aspire to become a world-level martial artist. You can probably become a good instructor at somewhere around 5.000-6.000 hours of training and a decent practitioner at about 3.000 hours. If you are looking for additional short-cuts, there aren’t any. What I would suggest is that you start keeping a training log –today - so that you know where you are at every moment in relation to your goals. You might complain that you are way too busy to practice for so many hours. Well… tough luck. Ben Franklin managed his personal project while having a job that left him little free time – he practiced in the morning before work, at night after work, and during the weekends. But here’s some good news for you: you don’t always have to train with a partner or at a martial arts club, so you can fit part of your training to what your otherwise busy schedule allows you. Solo training can be very productive, as has been proven by Jerry Rice, probably the greatest American football player and definitely the hardest worker in the history of the sport. Rice’s legendary practice sessions included very little actual football playing and tons of strength, speed, and agility work that gave him a distinct advantage over his opponents [6].

Video: There he is - the coolest guy in the world! Does he look like he learned his moves from some "grand master"? Yeah, especially the one he's doing at 1:40:-) And FYI, this guy has got a day job. Check his Youtube channel for the video where he explains that. Where does he find the time to practice?

Well, now you have a rough picture of what it takes. If you have any thoughts to share on the idea of acquiring expertise through deliberate practice, I would be happy to hear them. Otherwise, go make a Ben Franklin out of yourself…

Notes and references:

[1] There is also the category of people who take up martial arts in order to learn “a few easy-to-learn, effective” techniques in order to defend themselves. I believe the military paradigm has shown that this is indeed possible and can be achieved in about 50 hours of training. After that, all the students need to do is occasionally refresh the basic tactics they’ve learned, in order to retain most of the skills acquired. This type of training is primarily tailored to the needs for efficiency of the army as an organism and not to the learning capacity of the students – a great number of recruits have to go through basic training in as short an amount of time as possible, so the idea of them becoming experts is in this case inapplicable. In this sense, the idea of civilians training in “military combat systems” for year after year (and getting graded with belts or levels) seems rather absurd.

[2]Starkes, Janet L., Ericcson, Anders K. (Editors). Expert Performance in Sports. Human Kinetics, 2003. p. 26 – 27.

[3] Ericsson, Anders K.; Prietula, Michael J.; Cokely, Edward T. (2007). "The Making of an Expert". Harvard Business Review (July–August 2007).

[4] Colvin, G. Talent is Overrated. Portfolio, 2008. p. 105.

[5] I recently read in some online forum an instructor claiming that having a strategy and tactics goes against the principles of his art. This claim is absolutely absurd and probably the result of ignorance. The principles of any art (the “how”) are born out of the strategies, i.e. the ways this art chooses to address the problems of combat (the “because”). If there is no “because” there cannot be any type of “how”.

[6] Colvin, G. Talent is Overrated. Portfolio, 2008. p. 52 – 56.

Which way to mastery?

It was a few weeks ago on a Sunday morning when I found myself in an airport, ready to board an airplane, with nothing to read during the flight. My only option was the airport newsstand and, without giving it too much thought, I picked something from the non-fiction shelves - a book titled Drive: The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us, by Daniel H. Pink. The book is about human motivation, the things that make us tick, and what scientific research has discovered on the subject. I found it a pretty insightful read, although the author tries to reach conclusions mostly on the gap between what science knows and what is commonly practiced in the field of business management (which I do not care much about). What impressed me the most from Daniel Pink's argument for the need of a new approach in order for people to get motivated, creative and productive, is the importance of the element of mastery, i.e. the urge most of us have to become better and better at something that matters. Here's some advice the author gives, which I believe will be helpful and inspirational to martial arts practitioners:

"One key to mastery is what Florida State University psychology professor Anders Ericsson calls 'deliberate practice' - a 'lifelong period of... effort to improve performance in a specific domain[. Deliberate practice isn't running a few miles each day or banging on the piano for twenty minutes each morning. It's much more purposeful, focused, and, yes, painful. Follow these steps - over and over again for a decade - and you just might become a master.

• Remember that deliberate practice has one objective: to improve performance. 'People who play tennis once a week for years don't get any better if they do the same thing each time', Ericsson has said. 'Deliberate practice is about changing your perfromance, setting new goals and straining yourself to reach a bit higher each time'.
• Repeat, repeat, repeat. Repetition matters. Basketball greats don't shoot ten free throws at the end of team practice; they shoot five hundred.
• Seek constant,critical feedback. If you don't know how you're doing, you won't know what to improve.
• Focus ruthlessly on where you need help. While many of us work on what we're already good at, say Ericsson, 'those who get better work on their weaknesses'.
• Prepare for the process to be mentally and physically exhausting. That's why so few people commit to it, but that's why it works".

If you are interested in the idea of mastery you will probably find this previous post on the Systema Sweden blog interesting.

You can buy Daniel H. Pink's book Drive: The Surprising Truth About What Motivates us, here (Amazon UK).

More than one path leading to the same goal...

I am always impressed to discover converging views expressed by people who seemingly belong to different martial or physical culture disciplines. Check out the following excerpts from two books I am currently reading, Hidden In Plain Sight: Tracing the Roots of Ueshiba Morihei's Power by Ellis Amdur, and Free to Move by Scott Sonnon.

Amdur writes:
"For Ueshiba, however, 'kasutori' was not primarily for the purpose of martial prowess, as analogous training was for Daito-ryu practitioners, even though such martial effectiveness could still be developed. Practice is for the purpose of creating a body that is not only analogous to the enlightened spirit, but also a body that makes the elightened spirit possible".

The word "kasutori" in the above text, refers to the extraction of the pulp-like sediment that is a by-product of the production of Japanese alcohol. The claim here, in a few words, is that through the practice of the Aikido basic techniques, we remove the tension that lies our partner's joints as if it was residue.

Now, let's check what Sonnon says:
"I came to realize martial art is just a physical trick to convince the mind to adopt a higher vibratory frequency: to be more graceful and less disgraceful. The immediate and traumatic feedback of being hit, thrown, or joint-locked tells you precisely where you're holding tension. It shows you where your ego abides within you, when your mind should have no abiding place. Wherever you stop mentally, you amplify emotionally and brace physically".

To my knowledge, Scott Sonnon has not studied Aikido, and my guess is that Ellis Amdur, a respected scholar and instructor of classical and modern Japanese martial arts, knows little about the range-of-motion exercises that Sonnon describes in his book (actually the book is about way more than healthy joints, but you get my point). Could it then be possible that there are a number of universal laws which govern the relationship between our mind as a manifestation of our matter (body) and vice versa? And if these laws do exist (I strongly believe they do) wouldn't they be independent of the cultural context (Japanese martial arts, Russian system of health, Alexander technique, Feldenkrais method, you name it) they are expressed in? Just a little food for thought and maybe basis for constructive dialogue...

You can find out more about Ellis Amdur's Hidden in Plain Sight here.
For more info about Scott Sonnon's Free to Move click here.

The purpose of Aikido practice

What follows is an excerpt from a book I read recently, and made quite an impression to me. The book is Ellis Amdur's Hidden in Plain Sight: Tracing the Roots of Ueshiba Morihei's Power. I want to make clear that I haven't ever trained in aikido, nor am I interested to. On the other side, I believe Morihei Ueshiba was one of the greatest martial artists of the twentieth century and also a great thinker, although limited by the era he lived in and the Japanese culture. I also consider Ellis Amdur an excellent writer and I especially appreciate the fact that he attributes Ueshiba's formidable power to his training and not to some supernatural energy he mysteriously tapped into.

Here's the excerpt:
" A person with 'locked' joints has 'handles' and 'levers' - when force vectors are applied, such an individual cannot absorb and flow with said forces, cannot channel them into the ground, or cause them to resonate and amplify within a trained body, and more importantly, send them back through himself into the aggressor. Such locked joints do not only occur within the physical body. Ueshiba shows the same understanding as Wilhelm Reich, Ida Rolf, and Moshe Feldenkrais, that physical 'handles' and 'levers' are associated with binding and limitation within the psychological structure. Even with the most dedicated practice of physical technique, one very possibly will remain psychologically distorted, something we have seen in even graceful, very powerful martial artists. Similarly, were one merely to chant, meditate, or otherwise strive to cleanse the 'psychological/spiritual' body, one might be quite at peace until one 'runs into' the world, something occurring again and again when spiritual teachers of quite high attainment meet the temptations of modern society with a body still hungry for that energy".

You can find more about Ellis Amdur's work (which includes much more that martial arts training and writing books) here: http://edgework.info/

Manny says: "it's how thin you wanna slice it!!!"

I must have heard it someplace before, but it all came back to me during my summer vacation, when I was reading Malcolm Gladwell's last book, Outliers: The Story of Success (a great read whether you're on vacation or not): in order to become a world-class expert in anything, you need 10.000 hours of practice. In one chapter of the book, Gladwell goes on to describe in detail how the Beatles had performed live for 10.000 hours before reaching their artistic apex, how Bill Gates had been doing computer programming nonstop for seven consecutive years before he dropped out of Harvard to try his hand at his own software company, how it took Bobby Fischer nine years to become a chess grandmaster and so on. It's not as if this conclusion is in any way surprising - we have all heard sayings about one having to "pay his dues", "put the time and effort needed", or even "sweat the t-shirt" as people say in Greece - but now we have a specific target number, synonymous with greatness: 10.000 hours. So, is that it? You fill in your quota and go ahead to become a master? Well, I'm not so sure and the scientists are not very specific either: "In study after study, of composers, basketball players, fiction writers, ice skaters, concerts pianists, chess players, master criminals, and what have you, this number comes up again and again. Of course, this doesn't address why some people get more out of their practice sessions than others do", writes neurologist Daniel Levitin, as quoted by Gladwell. A number of theoreticians suggest that it is the microstructure of the practice sessions (the specific routines and exercises) that is most important, but existing empirical research in the field has several limitations. OK then, if it isn't just the 10.000 hours of practice, what else helps one become a master???

A few months ago, I had the opportunity to spend about a week with senior Systema instructor Emmanuel Manolakakis. Manny, as he is known in Systema circles, has definitely done his 10.000 hours of practice - he's been training in and teaching Russian Martial Art for more than fifteen years and his fighting skills testify to that. He also has a great talent in communication and, when he's talking, some very complex ideas seem to flow out of him effortlessly. During one of our long conversations on the value of the Systema training methods and their adaptability to each practitioner's lever of skill, he asked me:
"How good do you want to become in this?"
"Well, as good as I can be", I said.
"You know what? It's all about how thin you want to slice it", Manny replied matter-of-factly.

Before I go ahead and try to explain what this means in the context of Russian Martial Art training, let me quote here psychologist Mihaly Csikszentmihaly, from his book Flow:The Psychology of Optimal Experience, on the relationship between physical activity and the phenomenon of "flow" - a state of joy, creativity and total involvement, in which problems seem to disappear and there is an exhilarating feeling of transcendence. "Even the simplest physical act becomes enjoyable when it is transformed so as to produce flow", writes Csikszentmihaly. "The essential steps in this process are: (a) to set an overall goal, and as many subgoals as are realistically feasible; (b) to find ways of measuring progress in terms of the goals chosen; (c) to keep concentrating on what one is doing and to keep making finer and finer distinctions in the challenges involved in the activity; (d) to develop the skills necessary to interact with the opportunities available; and (e) to keep raising the stakes if the activity becomes boring" [bold added my me]. As an example of this method, the author takes walking - as simple (some might call it tedious) an activity as one can do using his body. Well, a simple walk can be spiced up in a number of different ways so as to produce flow, Csikszentmihaly claims, such as choosing slightly different itineraries, selecting places to stop along the way, developing an efficient walking technique, paying more attention to intersting sights that might be located nearby, measuring the time taken to complete the route, or comparing the perceived effort needed to cover the distance each time.

Now, let's take a moment to think about it: doesn't this recipe, suggested by Csikszentmihaly, on how to make a flow experience out of practically any physical endeavour, seem to be the path leading to mastery? Because what else is mastery, if not continuously setting goals (slicing it very thin, that is) and measuring one's progress towards them, concentrating, making finer and finer distinctions in the challenges tackled (once again, slicing it really thin), acquiring skills and raising the stakes again and again? Or is it that one becomes a master by simply "going through the movements" for 10.000 hours? I personally doubt that, or else our world would be full of people who have achieved mastery - for example, every person who's done a job for six years would be one - and this is obviously not the case. Oh, and one more thing: 10.000 hours of just going through the movements would make mastery an extremely dull affair...

So, how is it then that Russian Martial Art allows one to divide the road to mastery to an infinite number of very thin slices? I believe the secret lies in the lack of emphasis on technique and what in sport science is known as "external focus training", i.e. concentrating on the results one's actions have on the environment. In Systema, there's is no "ideal" way of performing an action, so the practitioner builds up skills by actually solving motor problems, adapting from trial to trial, and not by constantly reproducing a supposedly ideal technique. Take, for example, a takedown that is achieved by rotating our partner's shoulder line, clockwise, by manipulating the neck and one wrist. Well, what if we tried for the same effect by manipulating the neck and one elbow, or the neck and one shoulder? How about if we rotate counter-clockwise, will our partner still fall down? We can also try to use our elbows instead of our hands to apply the force needed, and maybe add a hip or a knee-bump or a nasty little kick to the shin, in order to break our partner's structure further and do the takedown even more effortless. This freedom to explore can lead to endless variations on a specific action, and according to recent scientific research in the field of motor learning and control, what we have as a result is "better skills retention and transfer". Perhaps we could translate this as "a step closer to mastery"?



In case you've missed the point here, I never claimed that one does not have to train for 10.000 hours in order to become a world-class expert in anything. My whole point is that practice doesn't necessarily make perfect - only perfect practice makes perfect! So go ahead and put the time and the effort needed. But also make sure to do as Manny says: slice everything very, very thin...

How much do you really know about stretching?

Like most people involved in martial arts training for a long time, I too have done my share of harmful stretching practices. I still remember with dread my years of practice in a hard-style Shaolin style of Kung Fu, where stretching was accompanied by growls, moans and pretty often, screams! To be totally honest with you, even if I wanted to forget those "training" sessions, I still have the nagging injuries (insisting for more than a decade later) to remind me. I really don't know if the extreme Shaolin stretching methods are beneficial for the children in China that take up Kung Fu at the age of five, but they most certainly have not been any good for me and all the people I know who practiced them from the age of eighteen and up.

After my Kung Fu years, I trained in Filipino martial arts and Judo, so stretching was never a serious part of my training - what I did was spend maybe thirty seconds stretching a muscle that felt "kinda tight" and that was it. So, the other day I was reading an excllent book on sports conditioning methods (High-Performance Sports Conditioning, edited by Bill Foran, published by Human Kinetics) that included one chapter on Performance Flexibility, written by Nikos Apostolopoulos, director of the Serapis Therapy Clinic in Canada, the only clinic in the world pioneering the development of therapeutic stretching. In that chapter I found tons of interesting information I wish I had known earlier, so I thought I'd share some of it with you:

On why you should stretch:
"Proprioceptors in the muscles, tendons, and joints, which sense muscle length, tension and joint angle, are critical in providing information to the motor system. Therefore, flexibility enhances the development of coordination and technique and the ability of proprioceptors to receive stimuli".

"Proper flexibility training can moderate, or even delay for many years, the deterioration of range of motion that occurs with age".

"Done at low intensity, static stretching and micro-stretching develop the flexibility reserve, decrease the influence of hypertrophy and other muscular changes during the development of strength, and decrease muscle tension, thereby increasing circulation and neural conductivity. This decrease in muscle tension also assists in decreasing muscle tone and aids the removal of metabolic wastes (i.e. lactic acid)".

On how you should NOT stretch:
"When the athlete performs a stretch and feels the muscles burning or senses an extreme pull in the muscles, that is a strain... A strain results in microtears of the muscle near the muscle-tendon junction. Microtears are microinjuries. The body responds to these tears by releasing collagen in the area, resulting in the development of scar tissue. As scar tissue ages it contracts, further tightening the surrounding tissues. These microtears [...] are located in the area of transition between elastic (muscle) and inelastic (tendon) tissue. In contrast to the middle of the muscle belly, this area has poor circulation, which is further diminished with the development of scar tissue. Therefore the repair process is slower".

On how often you should stretch:
"...An athlete must stretch at least twice a day to improve flexibility. The athlete must stretch each muscle group at least three times per session".

On how intensely you should stretch:
"Performance flexibility stretching is always done at a low intensity level (approximately 30 to 40 percent of perceived exertion). At this level, stretching increases the pliancy of the connective and muscle tissues".

"While stretching it is critical to avoid strain or pain, which would result in the activation or constant maintenance of a subconscious protective loop. The body maintains this loop to respond to an injury. Its activation results in the development and reinforcement of muscle imbalances and a further decrease in the range of motion around a joint".

On how long you should hold a stretch:
"The optimum length of time to hold a stretch is approximately 60 seconds. It normally takes about 30 seconds for a stretch to progress from the middle of the muscle belly to the tendons".

"... Individuals who hold a stretch longer than 90 seconds often complain of feeling tighter".


Highly recommended (available from www.humankinetics.com):

A few things you should know about breathing

Here is a number of interesting things I have read about breathing during the last few years - I believe you'll find these interesting:

"A person reacts to stress by breathing in shallow patterns using chest muscles. The habit carries to times even when not stressed and erodes into times of sleep. [...] When excess CO2 is exhaled, blood becomes too alcaline, leading to vasoconstriction, which causes a feeling of apprehension. The breathing pattern worsens and alkalization leads to increasingly sensitive nerve endings until pain can occur even during tasks, which were once pain free. Overused muscles (once postural but now used for breathing) retain acid wastes becoming stiff and fatigue easily as they are used for non-productive energy even during sleep. Spinal joints stiffen as they fail to move properly during breathing. The person seeks more rest and less movement. [...] Finally sleep deprivation then brings about mood and cognitive changes. This quickly becomes a case of physiology overwhelming psychology. By the time shallow breathers are seen in clinics, it may appear that the psychology is overwhelming the physiology and such patients are labeled psychosomatic".
Colangelo, Joy. Embodied Wisdom : What our anatomy can teach us about the art of living. iUniverse, 2003, p. 112-113


"...Diaphragmatic breathing, with the belly expanding to the front and sides during inhalation [...] has the following effects on cardiac function:

1. decreased heart rate
2. decreased cardiac output
3. reduced peripheral systolic blood pressure
4. regulation of the cardiovascular system by parasympathetic functions of the autonomic nervous system
5. regulation of the heartbeat by the ebb and flow of respiratory sinus arrhythmia.

Number 5 is the most universally recognized effect of respiration on cardiovascular function. Respiratory sinus arrhythmia refers to the way in which heart rate varies with the phase of respiration. The heart rate accelerates during the inspiratory phase, then decelerates during the expiratory phase. [...] The respiratory sinus arrhythmia, with its rising and falling pressure, and its variable rate of flow, has the effect of massaging and buffing the vascular walls, which are flushed smooth by the pulsating pressure. The vascular canals tend, then, to remain supple".
Hanna, Thomas. Somatics. Da Capo Press, 1988, p. xiii


"For those who prefer the 'certainty' of physiological science, it may help to understand the localization of the olfactory system in our central nervous system. Over the course of evolution our have enlarged like a city that grows progressively. There is the historical part: the antique city that embraces the oldest quarters, which in our brain is the 'reptile' or 'primitive' part - the palocortex. Then, there is the new districts of the city, or the neocortex. The most sensitive nerve endings that cover the area of the olfactory receptors are in direct contact with the 'old city', or with the part of the brain that is the seat of instinct, inherited from our most distant ancestors. With reflexive mechanisms [i.e. breathing exercises] we touch the 'visceral brain' and therefore organs such as the heart, blood vessels, bladder, intestine and gall bladder. Through other connections we also influence the pituary gland and the hypothalamus that both lie in the primitive brain; in this way we stimulate, through the use of hormones, the whole endocrine system - the 'chemical nervous system'".
Pelizzari, U., Tovaglieri, S. Manual of Freediving: Underwater on a Single Breath. Idelson Gnocchi, 2004, p. 114