How you breathe in the field under stress differs significantly from how you breath at rest in the sanctuary of protected walls.

The central nervous system cannot differentiate between a true physical threat and an emotional/symbolic one, so regardless of whether someone’s pointing a gun at you, or you’re facing infantile tantrums, belligerent co-workers or reckless drivers, your nervous system reacts with the same alarm systems.

The following method will be of use to both professionals and weekend warriors, no matter what sort of stress arousal you’re dealing with. It’s a little something I learned while working with Russian Spetsnaz snipers.

Many Sambo fighters, like myself, were called to special operations units due to their hand to hand fighting expertise. But the snipers had an unusual skill set to bring to the “think-tank” we were dropped into. Unlike the armies of other nations, the Soviet/Russian sniper backed up a squad with a long range semi-automatic rifle, for multiple shots on single and multiple targets.

The snipers faced long durations of ultra-slow crawling and even longer durations of motionlessness. One of their exams involved remaining in constant motion for one hour, but only covering 1 meter. Few people realize the stress of ultra-slow motion and motionlessness. They believe that if you move slowly or not at all, you couldn’t possibly be stressed. But the body is always moving even when lying motionless, because we are constantly resisting gravity’s pull.

Unlike yoga “corpse pose” (supinated) breathing meditations, the sniper pose (prone) presents stress challenges to the movement of the respiratory mechanisms: the ribs must widen rather than extend, and they must do so without disrupting the spine so as to avoid “noise” interfering with the rifle shot.

Lying on your back and moving your belly in yoga certainly helps you to de-stress, but the reality of managing a tactical lifestyle — or a modern lifestyle for that matter — involves not stress avoidance but stress management.

The sniper’s meditation is performed prone, with your arms overhead, palms flat, and your mouth on the ground. (Rest your mouth on a folded hand towel if you wish.)

You may adjust your elbows down to parallel with your shoulders if you feel sharp pains, or pins and needs from prior conditions of impingement. If you don’t have existing issues that prevent you from holding the pose, then keep your arms overhead. Holding that position will help you to realize just how much shoulder (clavicular level) breathing you do.

There are three depths to breath:

• clavicular -  lifting your shoulders to relieve pressure to the lungs, and as a result “sucking” in air through the back pressure – which is what most people do
• intercostal – expanding your rib cage to create back pressure, rather than lifting your sternum in clavicular level
• diaphragmatic – moving your belly to allow the dome of your diaphragm to compress your guts, which allows air to be “sucked” to the bottom – rarely used – third of your lungs

The snipers meditation forces you to use the bottom third of your lungs, while minimizing the disruptions caused by the middle and upper thirds.

Instead of pressing your belly down into the ground (as you would press it up into the air in yoga’s corpse pose), feel the muscles of your exhale press down into the saddles of your pelvis. You’ll feel pressure into the earth, but it shouldn’t lift your back. Your ribs should widen, but you should prevent your sternum from “lifting” (pressing your back up by pushing into the earth.) With your arms overhead, keep your shoulders from lifting away from your rib cage, as you might if you were gassing out of breath and heaving your shoulders up and down.

Practice these mechanics until you feel as though you could balance a bowl of water on your back without spilling it as you breathe.

Once you have the basic mechanics mastered, it’s time to begin the real challenge: placing your chin instead of your mouth on the towel. If you have pre-existing neck injuries, you may not be able to do this meditation. If so, restrict yourself to the face-down version.

The typical rifle used by Russian snipers, the SVD-Dragunov, brought with it a particular challenge of eye relief when using the POSP 3-9×42 scope. To meet this, snipers practiced specific optical strengthening exercises. Some look rather crazy, and I use themto scare my kids when we’re playing zombie-chase. In this case, you’ll be practicing the “unblinking eye.”

The average blink frequency interval is approximately every 2 to 10 seconds for most people. When reading, the blink rate decreases to as long as 3 to 4 minutes. The sniper meditation works up to 10 minutes, which doesn’t sound superhuman until you realize you won’t have anything distracting you, like a book, television or computer. You will become fully aware just how much your frenetic mind chatters away as you try to keep one-pointed focus on relaxing your face, while simultaneously managing the stress of controlling your breath so as not to disturb your sniper position.

Begin with a goal of 30 seconds. Relax your forehead, jaw, lips and eyelids — in that order — and give yourself one last, long close of the eyelids. With your eyes closed, take one final large inhale. As you open your eyes, exhale long and go for 30 seconds before you blink.

Focus on a distance of at least 30 to 40 feet away from your current position. Keep your eyes open the entire time. The chattering mind can be disciplined much more rapidly and effectively with open-eyed meditations, because when you’re attending an external object, the mind goes into information gathering mode rather than into processing, strategizing or reflection mode.

When you can exhale for 30 seconds and not blink until the end of your exhale, then blink and begin over. Practice 5 inhale-exhale cycles in a row without blinking to reset the nervous system.

Your nervous system commandeers the “blinking center” of the brain when faced with stress. It’s a defensive reflex, which is why people reflexively blink during startle response, unless specifically trained otherwise. The stress of the sniper position with the objective of not disturbing the spine causes the nervous system to trump out the blinking center of the brain. It’s quite an ordeal.

Do just one set per day, and do it in the morning when your eyes are fresh. Don’t do more than that. You have 20 to 30 sebaceous, oil-producing glands located between your eyelashes, which are invisible to the naked eye. Blinking automatically coats the eyelid and eyelashes with lubricant from these glands to prevent them from drying out.

Roll out of your rack and onto the floor to perform your set before your mobility warmup for the day. What we were taught, and what I use to this day, is to focus upon my “mission critical” tasks for that day. With each exhale I visualize the successful completion of each objective, then move on to the next in sequence of importance, timing and scheduling.

The sniper’s meditation has helped me just as much — and perhaps more — than any yogic meditation, because it “checks” me to see how I hold my intent for the day under stress while remaining steady as granite

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I have seen many punching and kicking movements in my time, most often, they are a learned technique and not connected to the person. Very rarely, do you see a person that can move from punches to kicks in a smooth, collective way. Most people train these two resourceful parts of their bodies separately, and combine them periodically through repetitive techniques. When faced with clear danger, people do what they are connected to in a deeper physiology way.

It was only when I damaged my hand in a fight that I realized how much I relied on my hands and how little I did with my legs. Although, I have practiced kicking in the past it never came to me in a real dangerous situation. That is not to say I did not practice them enough. Ever since then my training has taken a much more balanced approach.

Below, I have outlined some basic drills that involve connecting your arm and leg movements in a variety of ways. This type of training will open you to new perspectives and abilities.  My hope is that you will look deep inside yourself and build skills that can be called upon when in need.

Before beginning, here is some advice:

• This is as much a mental exercise as it is physical.
• Begin slowly and increase speed as your comfort level increases. If you don’t like the word “slowly”, than insert the word “controlled”.
• Don’t love or hate any movements, both extremes are no good.
• You may second guess yourself and get frustrated, but in the end it’s worth it.

The ultimate goal of training should be to ‘know ourselves’. Our arms and legs are just tools in an arsenal of abilities to utilize when the need arises. If they work together, they are much more powerful then separate.

Warm-ups and Exercises:

* Remember to always practice and apply good breathing principles *

Lie on your back with your legs and arms off the ground. Begin by drawing numbers with your hands and feet individually, and then try doing it together. Don’t worry about how you look!

Relax your arms and tense your legs when you inhale, then do the reverse – tense your arms and relax your legs when you exhale. This can be done lying down, or from a standing or sitting position.

Visualize breathing in through one part of your body and out through another. This is pretty simple, so try breathing in through two parts of your body and out through two different parts of your body.

Walk or run with your arms held out to the sides. Focus on keeping a natural stride and breathing pattern, even as the pain and tension grows in your arms and shoulders. See how long you can last.

Using Tennis Balls:

Stand out about ten feet from a wall. Throw a tennis ball at the wall with your right-hand and catch the rebound with your left-hand. Then throw the ball with your left-hand and catch it with your right-hand. As you abilities grow, stand closer and closer to the wall and add kicks or leg movements as you’re throwing the ball.

Stand out ten feet from a wall. Now kick a tennis ball towards the wall with your right-foot and return the rebound with your left-foot. As your abilities grow, stand closer to the wall and hold a cup of water in your hands while you’re kicking.

Using a long stick:

Place a stick in between the bend of your forearms. Make sure your palms are facing outwards not upwards. Hold your hands at chest level. Begin to throw and practice your leg movements and kicks, remember to hold the stick steady but do not lock it with the arms.

The same drill can be done with a partner. Throw kicks at each other but hold the stick steady. Any choppy movements or tension will be evident in the stick immediately.

Training drills without a partner:

Stand in-front of a wall at arms length. Reach out and touch the wall with your right-hand and foot at the same time. Then switch and use you left-hand and foot. There is no need to put a hole in the wall, just simply have your hand and foot touch it at the same time.

Stand in the middle of a room. Make an arm or leg movement but do not pull it back. Instead follow the momentum by stepping. Once you feel the energy slowing, start another arm or leg movement. Let the body become light and free and maintain good posture. Again, don’t worry about how you look!

Training drills with a partner:

Try sparring with your partner – the main focus being on a balanced offensive or defensive application of leg and arm movement.

Wrestle with your partner – the main focus being on a balanced offensive or defensive application of leg and arm movement.

Practice grabs and holds with your partner – the main focus being on a balanced offensive or defensive application of leg and arm movement.

Get the idea.

There are so many benefits to connecting your arm and leg movements and for that matter your entire body. With patience and practice, you may find that by moving your arms and legs you will also be moving the body itself, creating one complete unit in motion. This is the ultimate outcome!

I hope this helps,

Emmanuel Manolakakis