Last week, I got an email from Chris Prokop, one of our students and now a Buteyko breathing practitioner from Mississauga (near Toronto), Canada. Those who follow our work surely remember a young male with a large dark beard on many of our 2017 videos. Humility has surely been one of the key strengths that allowed Chris to achieve normal health.
In his email, Chris shared with me his news that he got to 60+ s Morning CP (control pause) with 4 hours of natural sleep. A fantastic result since there are likely only a handful of Buteyko teachers around the world who achieved the norm for breathing established by Dr. Konstantin Buteyko.
We had many students of our work who achieved this result during the last 17 years of teaching the NormalBreathing Buteyko method. But what is special about this particular case (and this is why I decided to make a separate post about this event) is that Chris was not severely sick and did not have intensive sports training or athletic background at the time when he started learning the method. He also spends a quite short amount of time on breathwork and physical exercise to maintain his health (see details below).
At the start of his Buteyko journey, he did some yoga while physical exercise was not a part of his daily life when he discovered the method. This video actually includes his testimonial when he just learned the basics of the Buteyko method having around 20 s morning CP in early 2017. So, here is Chris in 2017:
Later he persisted himself using some guidance from me and written resources. In spring 2018, Chris Prokop and Tadhg O’Leary worked with me for 2 months: one month in spectacular Herceg Novi, Montenegro and one month in Hamburg, Germany where they learned not only the whole regular course but also the Advanced Course and other 20 hours of teaching related to how to to become a Buteyko practitioner.
During these 2 months, I witnessed how Chris diligently applied the method by practicing breathwork for 2 hours per day and doing up to 3-5 hours of physical exercise – often sweating like hell. He was actually very close to breaking through 35 s morning CP and had many days with 50+ during the day and before sleep. On one occasion in the Balkans, he had 40+ s MCP, but only for 2 mornings. Maybe it was too hot there (especially later in Hamburg), or something else prevented him from staying in this zone…
He continued his work later after he returned to Canada, and, it took him several more months of efforts to break through into the zone of normal human health where symptoms and diseases are ceased to exist. Thus, in total, it was more than 2.5 years of
Before falling asleep he does breath holds on the inhale and also on the exhale (as it is safe and effective for advanced students). He does medical meditation in the mornings from the book “Meditation as Medicine” by Dharma Singh Khalsa M.D. It is called Vatskar Dhouti Kriya. His current fitness routine includes Nabhi Kriya and lots of poses from kundalini yoga. Additional exercises would include various dances (bboy, popping, and freestyle).
I included more details about his lifestyle on the page How to Maintain Normal Breathing (Buteyko CP 60+): Physical Exercise Guidelines since this is also another case when students require much less physical efforts and almost no breathwork after they achieved Dr. Buteyko’s norm. In his case, it currently takes him 1 hour and 40 minutes of devoted exercise, 1 hour of easy exercise, 10 min of meditation, and 10 min of breathwork per day in order to stay at this health level.
This case signifies that even ordinary Western people without any special daily fitness routines and background in sports are able to achieve great physical health while applying diligence, self-discipline, commitment to work, while using principles and ideas of breathing retraining, overcoming own limitations, and making right lifestyle changes. Note that the NormalBreathing Buteyko course goes far beyond practical tools and methods developed by Dr. K. P. Buteyko. There are over 20 innovations and discoveries that allow students to progress nearly twice faster and maintain normal health with nearly twice fewer efforts (time spent on physical activity and breathing exercises).
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