IGX

Good video. Great exercises for spinal flexibility coordinated with breathing. Shows how to use your body movements to breathe and thereby save energy. Some very cool exercises that would be great as a warm up or energy booster. I recommend this video and think it would be a great health and performance booster for anyone.

Matt

I was actually a bit disappointed by BB. It is a simplification/dumbing down of the material in volume 5 of the Zdorovye series (the one about 'endless respiriatory energy' or whatever the Russian term for it is). The Zdorovye breathing stuff was much more diverse and sophisticated than what Sonnon teaches in BB, and has much more to offer than just spinal rocks. The 'dog's breathing' material in particular would have added much more to the value of what it taught on BB.

OTOH, BB has better production values: two cameras, better lighting, better editting and a more streamlined approach. Plus Sonnon wears a nifty little spandex outfit, as opposed to the T-shirt and Spetnatz pants all the teachers wear in Zdrovye. And BB is fairly inexpensive.

Worth getting, but Zdorovye is better for those truly interested in Russian breathing practices.

Let's all remember that a lot of this counterintuitive breathing stuff is counterintuitive for a reason. It's really not all that effective. If at all.

I remember contradicting people over on the Circular forums about this type of breathing. They were saying it's natural and you can watch animals and little children breath that way. I quickly checked out my 9 month old daughter, two siberian huskies, and three cats, and didn't see them breathing that way. That post was deleted. Shortly afterwards I was banned when I questioned the whole "Potatoes Not Prozac" thing. I was also amused when Sonnon mentioned he gave up coffee to extend his life, and I replied that a bit of moderation might be the ticket he was looking for, and that post was deleted as well.

Mel Siff debunked the whole "exhale all the way then see how long you can wait until breathing and if you can't wait over 30 seconds to breath you have a disorder" stuff as being just a parlor trick that you can easily train for.

And before you start off with the whole "You can't make a call like that until you watch the tape" schtick, let me say that I've watched the tape, and felt it was of maybe some use to an rhythmic endurance athlete, and abolutely contraidicated for a strength and power athlete.

Yeah, it seems to me the "Potatoes Not Prozac" thing was a signal of the beginning of the end for the Sonnon and the CST forum. Nothing against Connie, who seems to be the one who introduced and advocated the thing - she seems like a nice lady. But PNP was one more bit of pseudoscience/New Age craziness too much. Now the whole CST forum seems a bit divorced from reality.

I suppose they actually prefer it that way.

For you insiders, what ever happened to Doug Szolek?? I liked his articles and use of the 45lber. His DVD on the single heavy clubbell is well delivered as well.
For a short period, Sonnon changed his mag to be very physically oriented. Then he decided to get all spacey with his approach. I think the whole thing will implode. I do like my 15lbers and love doing swipes. I wish one of the companies would produce cheaper clubs in a variety of sizes.

Tom Furman

I'll admit, I'm a bit wishy washy when it comes to Scott's stuff. Some of it really chimes with what I know, and other stuff is totally alien to me.

I should try to take a more objective approach to stuff. Scott's marketing got kind of berserk for a while, and I didn't like that approach.

Szolek probably just got caught up with life, maybe got a girlfriend or something.

Yeah, it's weird. His stuff is all over the map. Some is innovative and its usefulness really resonates with me (Body Flow) and some of his other stuff is just esoteric weirdness. He seems to be moving away from the athletes as target customers and more to the everyday person. I mean, I see what he's saying about working out smarter, not necessarily harder, but some of that stuff is just not going to provide a useful workout after a while.
Rat

Eric Cobb offers his own take (book and DVD set) on the Z stuff on Zhealth.net. I've never seen the Zdorovye videos, so I can't say how much of that material, if any, made it to Cobb's Zhealth DVDs. When it comes to drills that are similar to the WW drills, his DVDs place more emphasis on posture and offer more detailed instruction on each drill.

I've had trouble understanding the "performance breathing" in Body Flow. Be Breathed for me presented a clearer explanation.

Hey, that Z-Health site looks pretty useful, and it would be great to have the Zdorovye exercises on DVD with the indexing and the higher quality image. Many thanks, Cuke, for referring us to this resource. I plan to have a closer look at this.