Water Breathing revisited

So, still at Harbin, our next experience with Water Breathing was amazing.

Our first experience was about relaxing. This one was about controlling your breath and breathing deep and fast. Apparently, this was the precursor to the out of body experiences of Shamanism. The fast, deep breathing caused an imbalance in the blood gases which caused the muscles to tingle and the body to shudder. By the time I'd finished I could hardly move my quads and forearms. My fingers were not cramped, but were constricted, as were my lips and face. It was the weirdest feeling.

After lunch we took a hike around the resort and hit the meditation pools again. Being a Saturday there were far more people in the pools that the previous day. We didn't stay long, since we preferred the seclusion and less strict talking policy of our conference center. I chose to lay around naked and soak up some sun.

Before dinner, we tried a similar fast, deep breathing exercise while laying on the conference room's carpeted floor and listening to really loud drumbeat music. I was glad that I'd chosen to wear shorts for this experience, since I started to feel some sexual arrousal this time. Although the experience wasn't quite as intense as the previous water experience, I still felt the tingling hands and legs. Wow, all this just from breathing! If I'd known that breathing was this much fun, I'd have tried it earlier. ;-)


More incredible food for dinner. Vegan nut loaf, some incredible soup, and various salad fixings. Yum!

Tantra. Now, I've heard of the term, and I saw it on the schedule, but I really didn't understand what it meant. Following a short break after dinner, we began with another heart sharing exercise, but this time with the partner that we came with. So, my wife & I sat close and began to talk heart-to-heart. I think I'm getting better at this.

The basic premise for this is to touch each other in a way that the person being touch likes. Now the only way to know if the person being touched likes the touches is for them to tell the person touching them. So, this exercise was to lay down close to each other and for one person at a time to be the toucher and to follow all the exact instructions about type of touch, pressure of the touch, speed of the motion and all that. First we did the exercise avoiding genitals, but then repeated the exercise afterwards without any limits except our own. That one was a little too much for my wife, who was very explicit that in a group setting there would be no genital fondling. This too was part of the Tantra communications. You have to verbalize your boundaries so that both partners are aware of them and comfortable with them. I didn't have any issues with this, since we were all in different corners of the room and no one was really interested in what everyone else was doing, it was all very much focussing on the partnerships.

Anyhow, once this exercise was over, the goal was to move into the pool and practice some Tranta along with the water breath. However, my wife was pretty tired from our hike, the Shamanism, and all the emotional expenditure of the day and didn't feel up to participating in anymore group activities, so we retired to the sleeping area and called it a day.