Something in the world of floating have you stumped?
Show Highlights
Ashkahn and Graham thoroughly debunk the myth of a “best” float position. The Float On boys explicate their philosophy that there is no right way to float and instead talk about all the different positions they enjoy floating in. They learn more about each other than they expected to in the process.
Listen to Just the Audio
Transcription of this episode… (in case you prefer reading)
Graham: Alright hey everybody, Graham and Ashkahn here
Ashkahn: Welcome to another episode. It’s like these things just come out every day or something.
Graham: It’s crazy. So I am Graham.
Ashkahn: And I am Ashkahn.
Graham: And today’s question is: “What’s the best position to float in?”
Ashkahn: Easy. Handstand.
Graham: The easy handstand? Yeah I agree. I would say there is not a best position.
Ashkahn: Yeah except for one, which we will reveal at the end of this episode.
Graham: At the end of our entire podcast series. So keep listening if you want to find out.
Ashkahn: Keep listening it will be there, a little surprise.
Graham: But no right, just like there is no right way to float in general, I’d say there is no right position for your body inside the float tank.
Ashkahn: Yeah and I switch up positions all the time.
Graham: Yeah, in fact, I make it a point to never use the same position twice.
Ashkahn: Two fingers together in the left hand. Well so the interesting thing about positions is that it kinda changes the center of gravity on your body in there. It’s not just like “it’s comfortable for my arm to be this way” It’s like as you move limbs and stuff around into different places your shifting kinda how your body sits in the float tank.
Graham: What’s the “and stuff” in that scenario?
Ashkahn: Hair. Switch your hair from one side to the other.
Graham: Yep, I’ll allow it.
Ashkahn: So there’s the common, like arms down by your side, and then, if I were to have a default position it would be arms up by my side.
Graham: And I think a lot of people that is actually what ends up being there default position.
Ashkahn: That’s like the most common position, the most time that I am in a single position in a tank is that, arms up by side for me.
Graham: And weirdly, I’ll spend a decent amount of a lot of my floats with my legs crossed.
Ashkahn: I’ll actually, another common one for me is legs crossed and arms crossed. I’ll get into this like Vampire-
Graham: Arms crossed in the front of your chest kinda thing?
Ashkahn: As opposed to behind my back?
Graham: Yeah.
Ashkahn: I’ll do that sometimes too actually.
Graham: Cause I do arms crossed behind my back for a little bit too.
Ashkahn: Sometimes you’ll put your finger down and you’ll just lightly touch the bottom and you can move your whole body around, rotating on one finger.
Graham: Don’t use the words “you” when you’re describing that. Can you just say “I”?
Ashkahn: Generally, this is the thing that people do. Anyways its fun. You should try it
Graham: The universal “You” huh? You’re like reading John Lilly’s books, just him taking personal experiences and extrapolating to the masses.
Ashkahn: Before we go in, lets talk for a second about arms up because I think its super common. I feel its-
Graham: When you say “let’s” if you can just say “I’m going to talk about it” that would be great.
Ashkahn: Yeah, I’m going to talk about us talking about arms up. I find that it is, first of all, its really hard for me to not do these positions physically right now as I’m talking about this.
Graham: He is, he’s just doing all of them even though it doesn’t matter. I get a nice visual I know exactly what he’s talking about.
Ashkahn: With your arms up I feel like it just kinda arches your neck a little bit less and I just feel like my whole shoulders up. My shoulder feels a little bit in a nicer spot, my neck feels in a nicer spot, my head feels in a nicer spot when my arms are up, as opposed to down. My guess is that’s the reason why so many people like that position. It kinda just like takes the very upper part of your body and makes it little bit more in a comfortable position in there with the buoyancy.
Graham: And so many of our daily activities as human beings now do the opposite right? They curl our neck forward, they kinda hunch our backs over. It’s not like when we are talking about posture positions for Americans its because so many people are just leaning back so far with their neck just kinda tilted up towards the sky and that’s how their going through the day you know? It’s because we are hunched over computers and hunched over books, and a lot of our culture involves hunching so I think it does feel really good to have those arms up and expand out both your chest and your back. It makes me want to hope in a float tank right now actually.
Ashkahn: I wonder if ornithologists really like having their arms down and getting that contrast?
Graham: You mean because their busy flapping through the sky all day long?
Ashkahn: Yeah, I’m pretty sure that’s what they do.
Graham: Or just looking up at trees is what you meant. I understand.
Ashkahn: Yeah, that’s what I meant.
Graham: Good one. Good one.
Ashkahn: Alright so we can go back to what you were saying now.
Graham: Legs crossed, arms behind the back sometimes is really nice.
Ashkahn: I don’t know why I like arms in front, it just like tucks everything in I feel like.
Graham: When you says arm in front do you mean like on the stomach or on the front of your chest?
Ashkahn: On the stomach’s nice, like fingers crossed right about the belly button.
Graham: That’s my starting position.
Ashkahn: That’s how you start? You just know when you get in the float tank you’re going to go-
Graham: Ready, set, arms on stomach, float! So here’s the deal, I like to keep my hands out of the salt water for about the first two minutes that I’m in the float tank. Just in case I have like an extra drip of water coming down, or I get a random itch I don’t want to have to deal with like drying my hands off of salt water for that little bit. So when I first get in I settle back into the water and without ever having gotten my hands salty I put them carefully onto my stomach and kinda cross the fingers, you know like interlace the fingers because then even my fingers although they are resting on a little bit of a salty stomach just rest on my non-salty hands and then if I have an itch then I can do it. Then after about two minutes I’m like okay its safe and I kinda take the next position.
Ashkahn: I just dive in like I’m ready to go.
Graham: You just full body face first?
Ashkahn: Full body Head dive! No, the first thing I do is usually take water and splash it up over my chest. Really cause the whole top of your body-
Graham: So we were wrong when we said this. There are right and wrong ways to float. For example, I think mine is very logical and maybe the right way to float. Just going in and splashing yourself.
Ashkahn: Not like splash, but you like pull water over the front half of your body so it gets all nice and warm otherwise you’re whole top half is kinda like chilled and not wet. I like feeling like I have a bit of submersion.
Graham: You can’t tell, but our audio engineer is just shaking his head vigorously
Ashkahn: You’re both wrong. You guys are both wrong. You’re saying your stomach just like never gets wet the entire time.
Graham: No, I’m just saying I don’t go out of my way to get it wet.
Ashkahn: I gotta do a full splash all the way. Get a nice coating.
Graham: Do you do the same for like your face?
Ashkahn: Not my face, I don’t splash my face but I get a coating on the rest of my body. That’s how I start.
Graham: We’re learning a lot about each other here, actually. So here’s the thing, there is absolutely no right position. Not only that, I don’t think there’s even a right position for a single person or a single float. Mine change float to float. If we talk to our regular members they like trying out different positions.
Ashkahn: You stretch in there, there’s a lot of positions for like stretching, I can put both knees to one side or the other in it does a nice stretch on the back.
Graham: So play around figure out what you like and don’t feel like you always have to go in there and do the same thing. Just kinda let whatever feels right at the time kinda be the way that you float you know?
Ashkahn: I do weird things in there sometimes, like full on spinning karate kick sorta things. I’ll hunch my legs and arms up and I’ll try to kick off the side and see if I can do a full spin without hitting the side. You do that? you guys do that?
Graham: I kinda Mermaid in there. Get your hands above your head and shimmy back and forth with your legs together and the ripples that it sends out, kinda like almost like hula dancing but with your hand up above your head. And then you stop for a second and that creates such cool little ripples you can just kinda feel them going wawawawawa all around you.
Ashkahn: I do that the other way. I do that lengthwise. I’ll push back and forth and I’ll feel like a wave just go like-
Graham: Like you’re flopping your hands and legs
Ashkahn: I’m not flopping, I’m using my whole body to go back and forth in the tank and then I’ll stop and I’ll feel a wave start at my feet and just go like all the way up my body.
Graham: Yeah, I see like pushing your body back and forth vertically. [crosstalk 00:08:42] Like a human wave machine.
Ashkahn: I used to do that in the tub. Exactly. That was a common tub activity for me as a child. Until like half the tub water was out in the bathroom and my parents got mad at me.
Graham: Some other honorable mentions, people do do stomach-down floats which you can do with a pool noodle or something like that to support you or even sometimes with your arms, or you can actually have a full on snorkel and do face-down floats.
Ashkahn: Which is pretty intense.
Graham: I’ve heard good things about it. Once you get used to it.
Ashkahn: Yeah, but if you get the salt water in the snorkel.
Graham: Oh for sure, yeah there are dangers associated with it. Just the general Superman, laying on your back with your arms outstretched above you with your feet kinda down below, actually full on above you as opposed to just elbows at a 90 degree angle out by your side.
Ashkahn: Yeah, break dancing. Doing spins in there.
Graham: Yeah, Sick moves in the tank, that’s definitely a thing. Play around have fun. If we didn’t name your favorite float position feel free to send it off to us and we give it another honorable mention on a different episode. If you have your own questions don’t hesitate take advantage of it now, go to floattanksolutions.com/podcast.
Ashkahn: Right now. We’re watching you.
Graham: We’re really creepy, if you want us to stop watching you send us a little submission on that form.
Ashkahn: We’ll leave you alone after that.
Graham: Thanks everybody.
Ashkahn: Bye.
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The truth is… not much. As it turns out, monthly expenses for float centers don’t have huge variations unlike businesses that rely on retail, for example. Graham and Ashkahn explain they developed a sense for what’s within reason.
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Graham and Ashkahn share their thoughts on psychedelics and floating and how, as a business, they can be completely separated while still being important, as well as explaining why some people might reasonably decide to disassociate from them.
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Latest Blog Posts
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Some of the most common questions you’ll get as a float center operator involve the cleanliness of the tanks. This post will be an introduction to some of the most commonplace sanitation methods used in float tanks. These are generally either chemicals that go in the water or devices that attach to your filtration system. We’ll be discussing chlorine, bromine, ozone, UV, and hydrogen peroxide, which accounts for the sanitation methods used on nearly every float tank on the market.
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Editors Note: This is a revision of a past blog post, updated to reflect the most current sanitation methods and standards
In a perfect world, you could just pour water and salt into a float tank and it would stay pure and clean and fresh and salty forever. In the real world, conditions in the water are constantly changing, so keeping your water safe and clean takes a fair amount of vigilance.
This post covers how we maintain basic water quality in the float tank, except for sanitization methods, which will be covered in their own beastly sanitation blog post. Stay tuned for that coming out next week!
Floating, mental health, and wellness
This post will explore the intersection of floating with the concepts, beliefs, and experiences related to mental health and wellness, with a focus on anxiety and depression. I’ll explore my own story as it relates to floating before diving into the current intersections of floating and mental health, with a look at past, current, and potential opportunities for research and personal growth.
Massage, Acupuncture, and Float Tanks… A Chat with Sandra Calm
We’ve seen lots of float centers that aren’t just float centers.
Many have massage, some offer counseling, some have yoga classes next door. Lots of people start out either by incorporating float tanks into a larger business, or with float tanks only being one of many modalities at their center. Being specialists in floating, Float On has not mastered anything else.
So, to help gain insight into this growing aspect of the industry, we contacted our old friend, Sandra Calm. She started up The Float Shoppe here in Portland with her husband and podcast sensation, Dylan Calm, back in 2011. When they first opened, they had just two float tanks, and slowly added acupuncture, massage, counseling, along with two more tanks. Talk about expansion!
She was more than happy to take some time for the industry to help us understand just what it’s like to run a center with multiple services by answering some questions.
