Video 2: On Endurance  II

As a young magician, I was obsessed with Houdini and his underwater challenges.

So, I began, early on, competing against the other kids,

seeing how long I could stay under water while they went up and down to breathe, you know, five times, while I stayed under on one breath.

By the time I was a teenager, I was able to hold my breath for three minutes and 30 seconds.

I would later find out that was Houdini's personal record.

In 1987 I heard of a story about a boy that fell through ice and was trapped under a river.

He was underneath, not breathing for 45 minutes.

When the rescue workers came, they resuscitated him and there was no brain damage.

His core temperature had dropped to 77 degrees.

As a magician, I think everything is possible.

And I think if something is done by one person, it can be done by others.

I started to think, if the boy could survive without breathing for that long, there must be a way that I could do it.

So, I met with a top neurosurgeon.

And I asked him, how long is it possible to go without breathing, like how long could I go without air?

And he said to me that anything over six minutes you have a serious risk of hypoxic brain damage.

So, I took that as a challenge, basically.

My first try, I figured that I could do something similar, and I created a water tank, and I filled it with ice and freezing cold water.

And I stayed inside of that water tank hoping my core temperature would start to drop.

And I was shivering. In my first attempt to hold my breath, I couldn't even last a minute.

So, I realized that was completely not going to work.

I went to talk to a doctor friend

and I asked him, "How could I do that?"

"I want to hold my breath for a really long time. How could it be done?"

And he said, "David, you're a magician, create the illusion of not breathing, it will be much easier."

So, he came up with this idea of creating a rebreather, with a CO2 scrubber,

which was basically a tube from Home Depot, with a balloon duct-taped to it,

that he thought we could put inside of me, and some how be able to circulate the air and rebreathe with this thing in me.

This is a little hard to watch. But this is that attempt.

So, that clearly wasn't going to work.

Then I actually started thinking about liquid breathing.

There is a chemical that's called perflubron.

And it's so high in oxygen levels that in theory you could breathe it.

So, I got my hands on that chemical, filled the sink up with it,

and stuck my face in the sink and tried to breathe that in, which was really impossible.

It's basically like trying to breathe, as a doctor said, while having an elephant standing on your chest.

So, that idea disappeared.

Then I started thinking, would it be possible to hook up a heart/lung by pass machine

and have a surgery where it was a tube going into my artery,

and then appear to not breathe while they were oxygenating my blood?

Which was another insane idea, obviously.

Then I thought about the craziest idea of all the ideas: to actually do it.

To actually try to hold my breath past the point that doctors would consider you brain dead.

So, I started researching into pearldivers.

You know, because they go down for four minutes on one breath.

And when I was researching pearldivers, I found the world of free-diving.

It was the most amazing thing that I ever discovered, pretty much.

There is many different aspects to free-diving.

There is depth records, where people go as deep as they can.

And then there is staticapnea.

That's holding your breath as long as you can in one place without moving.

That was the one that I studied.

The first thing that I learned is when you're holding your breath, you should never move at all; that wastes energy.

And that depletes oxygen, and it builds up CO2 in your blood.

So, I learned never to move. And I learned how to slow my heart rate down.

I had to remain perfectly still and just relax and think that I wasn't in my body, and just control that.

And then I learned how to purge.

Purging is basically hyperventilating.

You blow in and out --

You do that, you get light headed, you getting ling.

And you're really ridding your body of CO2.

So, when you hold your breath, it's infinitely easier.

Then I learned that you have to take a huge breath, and just hold and relax and never let any air out, and just hold and relax through all the pain.

Every morning, this is for months, I would wake up and the first thing that I would do is I would hold my breath for, out of 52 minutes, I would hold my breath for 44 minutes.

So, basically what that means is I would purge, I'd breathe really hard for a minute.

And I would hold, immediately after, for five and a half minutes.

Then I would breathe again for a minute,purging as hard as I can,

then immediately after that I would hold again for five and a half minutes.

I would repeat this process eight times in a row.

Out of 52 minutes, you're only breathing for eight minutes.

At the end of that you're completely fried,your brain.

You feel like you're walking around in a daze. And you have these awful headaches.

Basically, I'm not the best person to talk to when I'm doing that stuff.

Questions

Why was Blaine interested in holding his breath?

>He was fascinated by Houdini's underwater challenge.

To resuscitate someone means to...

>bring them back to life.

By the time I was ateenager, I wasableto hold mybreath for three minutes and 30 seconds.I would later find out that was Houdini's personal record.

Why did Blaine sumerge himself in ice water ? 

>He thought it would help him hold his breath longer.

To get your hands on something means...

>to obtain it.

How did daily extended purging affect Blaine?

>unable to think clearly

Why is it better to remain motionless when holding your breath?

>Movement wastes energy and depelets oxygen.

If you are obsessed with something...
>youcan't stop thinking about it.

What are the side-effects of purging? lightheadedness and tingling of the body

What technique did Blaine learn after studying free-diving? to stay still when he was holding his breath

He finally realized that holding his breath without any assistance was the only possible way to succeed.

I would breathe again for a minute,purging as hard as I can, then immediately after that I would hold again for five and a half minutes.