Learn best practices for starting and running a float center:
  • This field is for validation purposes and should be left unchanged.

Something in the world of floating have you stumped?

  • This field is for validation purposes and should be left unchanged.

Show Highlights

Dr. Peicheng Hu is a researcher from China that studies floatation therapy over there. He’s speaking at the Float Conference this year so Ashkahn decided to take the opportunity to talk to him about the Chinese float industry and some of the differences in the practice as well as the type of research being done out there.

Show Resources

Get your tickets and find out more about speakers at FloatConference.com

Our Free Scientific Research List

Daily Solutions Podcast Episode 81 – Jake and Ashkahn share their experiences at the Chinese Float Conference

Listen to Just the Audio

Transcription of this episode… (in case you prefer reading)

Ashkahn: Okay everyone, welcome to the Daily Solutions podcast. We have a slightly different episode for you today. It’s just me here, Ashkahn, and I actually have a special guest with me, Professor Hu. He is one of our Float Conference speakers. We just did an interview with him over on our Float Conference Podcast. We thought we would bring him on here and Daily Solutions and ask him a little snippet of a question for you guys as well. So welcome to this podcast, Professor Hu.

Peicheng Hu: Yeah, okay. I’m glad to work with you here.

Ashkahn: Yeah. So I came out to China and met you at the conference that your association, The floatation Tank Association of China, put on earlier this year. One thing that I thought was very interesting about learning about float tanks and how they are being implemented in China was this kind of integration with Chinese medicine. Whereas here in the United States we talk about float tanks and Western medicine, but in China there were some lectures at your conference about actually adding different herbs and things like that to the liquid inside the float tanks and some of those things we don’t see as much here in the United States. I was wondering if you could talk about that a little bit, about the kind of way that float tanks fit in with Chinese medicine.

Peicheng Hu: Okay, okay. So why we call this floatation therapy as a Chinese floatation therapy. This is a way to integrate Chinese medicines, you know, factors. One thing is after each of the floatation we give the patients Chinese massage. Because Chinese massage is good for their health. After the each float they have their dress and in the bed, all of the floating therapies, they can do the Chinese massage in that they provide good massage to the patient. This is one kind of factors of why we call the Chinese floating therapy. This is one thing. The second thing is before or after the treatment we give the patient some special liquids. This is in the liquids they can drink, this is what we call pau fu ye. This kind of Chinese drinking including some Chinese medicines. They can drink this medicine, they can drink this water, is very good for their health. So this is second thing.

Third thing why we call the Chinese floating therapy is we put the Chinese medicine into the water. You know, in the waters our traditional floating is magnesium sulfate. But in now, we put hydrogen-rich water into the liquids. I don’t know whether you’re familiar with hydrogen-rich water. This is special water and there are special factories can produce it and we put this kind of things into the same waters, into the floating tanks. This kind of water can antioxidant. You know, antioxidant means they can prevent the cancer. This is a very good method and we include this kind of waters into our floatation liquids, they can produce more and miracle results. I think that this is our special thinking and this is special integration with the Chinese thinking.

Massage and drinking and the more water, I think this is our three kind of new things to this contribution of this floatation therapy. Maybe we can talk more in our Conference and we will introduce our thinking and our doing this kind of things.

Ashkahn: Yeah. This way that you add these things to floating, it seemed to me that usually required the person who was running the float tank to have more training or more knowledge.

Peicheng Hu: Yeah.

Ashkahn: Like they have to come into it with that kind of background of knowing how to do these things.

Peicheng Hu: Yeah, yeah. I think that there is more people, and also in my view, also in the training classes, also I tell the students, “If you are entering into our floating therapy and each of you should have created your new ideas. If you think this is a good method, you also can create it. Your thinking, your method, your specialty, and you can combine the other things.” So my means is I encourage, or I promote more and more people to focus on this floating, and more and more people will focus on this floating and interest on this floating and they can created more things, new things.

Ashkahn: Yeah.

Peicheng Hu: Such as, I think, because the people, they are in the water. In the traditional psychotherapy, the face to face and also in the ground, maybe we have some table or desk, this is traditional psychotherapy. But we now, we do the psychotherapy not in the ground way, but in the water. The water then creates like in the mother’s womb, or they are like in the outer space. So this a different thinking, different ways. So I think this is a good direction, maybe they have a new method, a new result, and maybe new things will be happen. So this, I encourage people to do more things, more new things, and give you good ideas also good. We can combine. But the basic thing is safety. The basic thing is scientific and I ask them to do this kind of thing and not only for the money, you should for the develop the science. This is very important. I think so.

Ashkahn: Yeah. Yeah, that’s interesting and I think it’ll be nice to see in a few years, you know, as people experiment with different combinations of floating and these other things. Which things seem to work very well with floating or complement it very nicely.

Peicheng Hu: Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Ashkahn: Excellent. Well, yeah. Very interesting stuff and very nice to hear about how floating is being used over there. Yeah, thank you for hopping on this podcast, too.

Peicheng Hu: I also thank you for the podcast and thank you for your work, okay.

Ashkahn: Excellent, great. Thank you.

Peicheng Hu: Okay.

Ashkahn: Okay, you guys can listen to Professor Hu give his speech at the Float Conference this year. To get all the information for that and to listen to the full interview with Peicheng Hu, you can go to floatconference.com and we will talk to you tomorrow.

Recent Podcast Episodes

Common Float Tank Issues – DSP 295

Graham and Ashkahn give the skinny on the foibles one my encounter when purchasing a float tank. These aren’t specific to any one manufacturer, but they are useful things to look out for when shopping around for a tank. 

What is Float On’s North Star Metric? – DSP 294

Graham and Ashkahn talk about the guiding principles and metrics that dictate how they run Float On and what they measure for success. While they don’t have any float center secrets, they do provide some useful advice in how to look at numbers, when to pay attention to them, and perhaps more importantly, when to ignore them. 

What Can you Say About Float Centers Closing? – DSP 293

It happens every once in a while that a center you knew closes down and it can seem like a dark omen for the rest of the industry. The reality is that these are individual circumstances that are brought about not because of a major trend as much as just life events coming up. 

Graham and Ashkahn share their take on other float centers closing and what they know about it and how frequently they think it’s occurring. 

How to Build a Green Float Center – DSP 292

Graham and Ashkahn talk about the options available for sustainable options when building a float center, or more accurately, the lack thereof. Unfortunately, the materials necessary to make a float room saltproof and waterproof tend to be very unfriendly for the environment.

The guys break down the specific options available and what to consider when adding green technology to your own center. 

How We Financed Float On – DSP 291

Graham and Ashkahn are asked about how they financed Float On. 

As the guys explain how they started, they go along slight detours to talk about all the mistakes they made along the way and how they’re unsure that Float On could even start today like it did back in 2010. They then go on to explain the pros and cons of the extreme bootstrapping they did to make Float On happen. 

Latest Blog Posts

The Heart of Floating – Guest Post by Kevin McCulloch

The Heart of Floating – Guest Post by Kevin McCulloch

“When we commit to The Heart of Floating, we form relationships and communities. We share experiences, we connect, we learn, we teach. We care.”

In this guest post, Kevin McCulloch, owner of Float St. Louis and organizer of the Rise: Float Community Gathering, explores the heart of floating and it’s power and potential to connect, heal, and grow individuals, relationships, and communities.

The Most Ambitious Float On Project Yet

The Most Ambitious Float On Project Yet

We have a new endeavor that we’ve been working on in private for awhile now, and we think that it’s going to make a big splash in our salty little industry. After many years of testing behind closed doors, we’re finally ready to take the plunge and release our secret project to you, the floatation community.

You might want to sit down for this one….

The Start-a-Center Giveaway Returns!

The Start-a-Center Giveaway Returns!

Everyone knows that, when it comes to gifts, it’s much more fun to give than to receive. With this year’s Start-a-Center Giveaway, however, I’m not so sure anymore. With over $13,000 in Float Tank Solutions products going to one lucky duck (plus $4,000 worth of goodies from other float industry homies), we humbly suggest that we may have finally tipped the scales in favor of the recipient.

If you’re Charlie, this Giveaway is the Golden Ticket, which I guess makes the Construction Package a Wonka bar and the Ninja Fans are the Fizzy Lifting Drink. So, what do you have to do for a chance at all the Everlasting Gobstoppers?

It’s been three years since our last Giveaway, and we thought that it was long overdue for another one. So, what’s the dealio? The Giveaway is a chance to give a big ol’ boost to a deserving Float-Center-To-Be. This time around, we’re taking things to a whole new level, with over three times the value of products and services being given away. To you. For free.

Dear Everyone: Please reconsider building your own tanks

Dear Everyone: Please reconsider building your own tanks

Look, we get it. Really. Float tanks are expensive – especially for what can seem, from the outside, like a glorified bathtub with spa parts attached. It doesn’t take long to go from, “Why is this so expensive?” to “I’ll bet I could save money by making my own tank!” After you start mulling it over, you get excited. You could be offering something no one else does right now… because it’d be your own creation! How hard can it possibly be?

As experts in only thinking about half of the consequences of our actions (at best), we’d like to say, “Incredibly hard, actually!”