I am a scientist in human physiology. I study how the body works in extremes of environments. I lived on mountains and underwater. I slept outdoors in snow to study cold adaptation. I spun pilots in centrifuges until their faces looked like shar pei puppies. I make grown men cry.
Readers asked for stories of when I lived the extremes myself.
Here is a story when I worked and lived in an underwater lab.
I didn't have a camera then, and have few photos from those years, so at right is a photo of an underwater lab found on the Internet using a search of the terms "underwater lab."
You live many meters underwater in a metal structure that keeps out the water. It is an air pocket the size of a big room and the air you breathe is under pressure equal to the surrounding water depth. Since you live there for days, or weeks, the lab has a kitchen. Cooking and using the bathroom in the higher pressure is for another story.
To get to the lab you need to dive down underwater. You can wear scuba gear or use a long surface supplied hose. Occasionally a reporter would come visit the facility and want to stay in the underwater lab for a day to get a story. We, the staff, would teach them enough to use the air supply safely to get them down and back up after their stay, and transport their sometimes large and unwieldy suitcases for them in watertight containers.
One day, another staff member and I helped a reporter dive down to the lab, helped her inside, all nice and dry, and left here there to set up her typewriter (this was a long time ago before laptops and wireless devices). We returned to the surface and put the air hoses away. Shortly later, we decided to free dive back down to check on her.
We took a deep breath, held our breath and dived down down down
We thumped on the big tempered glass portholes trying to get her attention.
thump thump! (holding breath)
thump thump thump! (holding breath longer)
thump! longer... oooooooh!
She noticed us. She was delighted to see two mer-people swimming in the blue depths outside. She waived at us gaily. We hovered swimming weightlessly outside in the blue, holding our breath.
She raised her two hands, making a camera gesture. She clicked a finger in air and then pointed it to tell us - "Wait!"
Through the porthole we watched her pawing around for her suitcase to find her camera. (still holding our breath, outside in the deep blue water)
She looked and looked. She scattered clothes and bags.
The other staff and I used a swallowing technique to extend breath-hold time -uuuuuuuuuuuMH
Finally, a camera waved at the view port.
She positioned the camera to take our photo.
(Still holding our breath waiting, waiting).
She held up the camera .... She leaned back, ... She stopped and oriented the camera the other way, ..... She leaned to the side
She gestured WAIT!! She gestured, "I have to get it just right! Just a moment longer just WAIT."
CLICK!!
She got the photo. We saw the flash bounce off the glass, knowing the photo would never come out. She didn't seem fazed.
She held up one finger and pantomimed through the glass - "Wait - one more!"
"The cure for everything is salt water — sweat, tears or the sea." — Isak Dinesen
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In the previous two weeks, I wrote about the Japanese diving women, the Ama. Readers asked about the divers of Korea. Although they are sometimes called Ama divers, "ama" is a Japanese word. The Korean diving women are the Hae-nyao. Both ama and haenyao mean "sea woman." The Korean divers are also called Jamsoo, or diving lady, and Jam-nyao, or diving woman.
The diving women are a respected profession of hard work to gather food for their communities. The work is difficult and cold. The numbers of both Ama and Haenyao are decreasing every year, as the daughters who would take their mother's roles go to other work in the cities.
The first recorded Korean diving (that I know of) is from the 400's A.D. around the Chechu (Jeju) Island area. It is likely that diving had gone on centuries before that. The Haenyao historically dived all year (even in winter), and without assistance of weights or ropes to ascend or descend. They made as many as 30 dives an hour, to depths from 10 to 30 meters, at temperatures in the winter as low as 10 C.
In the 1960s, many physiologic studies were carried out on the Ama and Haenyao to see what their lung volumes were before and after dives, their temperature regulation and tolerance to cold, their ability to tolerate strenuous work, changes in heart rate and blood distribution during breath hold diving, their physical characteristics compared to non-divers, how alveolar gases (oxygen and carbon dioxide in their body) changed during their breath hold dives, and other interesting topics. Some say that the sudden huge scientific interest was because they dived nearly naked.
Diving clothes varied by geographic area, with some divers wearing only a rope belt or loincloth. No fins were used to help swimming. Later when wet suits were developed, only male divers wore them. Women were prohibited protective suits by their cooperatives, since they were considered more cold tolerant to begin with, and the advantage of the suit would "accelerate over-harvesting" Later, the work became pretty much exclusive to women.
Taking many large breaths before a breath hold extends time because "overbreathing" lowers carbon dioxide in the body. Carbon dioxide signals you to breathe, so it is protective to have it build and make you want to return to the surface before you go unconscious from lack of oxygen. Hyperventilating (too many large breaths) before a dive can cause a drowning accident. The haenyao and ama practice a short hyperventilation with a distinctive whistling maneuver which was studied to find why it may not cause the problems of hyperventilation without the maneuver.
To call them "The haenyao women divers" is redundant. The word haenyao already refers to the female. I asked them what the males were called and the Haenyao laughed at me, saying that males cannot withstand the hard work or the cold, and it is known that women do better in the cold. Dr Suk Ki Hong, one of the best known researchers of immersion and the haenyao and Ama divers wrote, "The shivering threshold is elevated as compared to men, and thus women are distinctly in a better position than men to work in cold water. Undoubtedly there could be many other reasons. However these facts lead us to postulate that men could not compete successfully by virtue of their poor tolerance to cold."
Sadly, Western sport divers started writing articles and presenting lectures at dive conferences in the 1990s, mistakenly claiming women did not have better cold tolerance and had greater risk of cold injury. The myth was repeated in diving magazines, scuba classes, and textbooks of the era.
Are there male indigenous divers? Yes. I will write of them and their stories in the future. Stay tuned.
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Japanese Ama Divers - Cold, Clothing, and Children
Wednesday, July 29, 2009
Jolie Bookspan, M.Ed, PhD, FAWM
The multi-part story of diving with the Japanese Diving Women continues here:
In villages along the Japanese coasts, diving by the AmaSan for sea plants and other harvests goes on without tourist fanfare. We dived in the cool, dim waters, rubbing leaves on the inside of our masks to prevent fogging, although there was little to see anyway.
The AmaSan - the SeaWomen - told me that during "the war" soldiers came and were horrified that they dived in only small underwear pants. The women told me they thought Westerners were funny and strange for their discomfort about diving naked in cold water. But after that, they were made to wear clothes for diving. I experimented with diving in clothes versus none. It is colder and clumsier to wear clothes in the water, especially over repeated dives. As people know who hike or pack out gear, wet stuff is hard to deal with, change, and keep clean. It's easier without clothing. The old traditional diving garments were white. Now, commercial wetsuits are worn for the AmaSan working day.
With exercise in the cold, your body makes several different adaptations to tolerate cold better. You need cold exposure to keep those adaptations. The Ama divers mentioned that before they used clothes, they tolerated cold better. After wearing cotton suit insulation and wet suits, they lost tolerance.
They dive throughout their pregnancies – even up to the moment of delivery. They don't find that unusual, but more comfortable than moving heavily on land. They said they had no problems doing hard cold diving while pregnant, and their children were all born healthy. They all dive during menses. They told me that during "The War" (WWII) they had no sanitary supplies so were happier to be in the water anyway. They said the work is terribly hard. They asked me to tell the world that.
I asked them many questions – "If I wanted to become a SeaWoman, can I?" "Eei No! You too old!" they said. I asked if an outsider, someone who wasn't the daughter of the Ama-San wanted to become an Ama diver, could they? The diving women didn't understand. They shook their heads, "Eei. No, the daughter do not stay." I asked if a son wanted to become an Ama-San, could be become one? Most laughed at me immediately. Others looked at me for a moment to be polite, before laughing. "Eei, they can't do this work. Too cold for them." I asked again, if someone's else's daughter, unrelated to a diving family wanted to join. "Eei no – the daughter all have gone."
Years ago, the Ama-San regulated themselves to prevent taking too much. They wanted to preserve resources. They shortened the harvest season – which was roughly from April to September.
The few thousand remaining Ama-San still make substantial money diving, although income continues to drop. Large-scale commercial fishing has depleted and polluted the waters so deeply and widely that there is little left for the SeaWomen. This is the opposite of what they tried to achieve by limiting themselves.
"I was the best harvester," one told me. "Tell them that. Tell them I made more money than my husband. Tell them that."
Are there not... Two points in the adventure of the diver: One --when a beggar, he prepares to plunge? Two -- when a prince, he rises with his pearl? I plunge! -- Robert Browning
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Last week's story started our travel to several Japanese villages to live and dive with the AmaSan breath-hold divers, the SeaWomen. It continues here.
The SeaWomen told me their stories. "I started when I was eight years old," one told me. "I gathered kelp and seaweed on the beach. As I got better and older, I could go further in the waters, and bring more food." None had any knowledge of Ama history before their own family's time, or of other Ama-San in other villages, nor did they care.
Almost none of the working AmaSan who I stayed and worked with, spoke any English. Friends interpreted, and through my amusing broken Japanese I asked them about their dive profiles - how deep they dived, for how long. Did they do deeper dives first or shallower. Did they have injuries from the pressure, the cold, did decompression bubbles form, did their heart rate change – many of the questions of the early studies. Many serious early studies of the Ama-San claimed to have measured and asked these same questions.
The Ama-San were uninterested. Staying deeper or longer is not what they measure, remember, or care about. The recurring answer was always about harvesting more kilos. Each was proud of how much she was able to gather diving unassisted (cachido diving), how many kilograms of food she hauled up to her husband waiting in the lonely boat (deeper depth funado diving), or that they dragged onto shore in baskets.
They enjoyed the time spent with the other SeaWomen between dives around the fires on the beach, without housework or being told what to do by the constraints of society. They told me stories of the sea, of love, and dragons, and magic.
A common image is the SeaWomen diving for pearls. The Ama didn't dive for pearls, but food. Before it was discovered how to artificially cultivate pearls, pearls were too rare to be counted on for a living. Kokichi Mikimoto of Japan financed development of cultured pearl science in the 1900's. Ama divers were hired to place and care for oysters in submerged beds. They didn't dive to bring them up. At Ise-Shima in the Mie Prefecture, the Mikimoto Pearl Museum teaches the generations about the development of cultured pearls, and as a tourist attraction, about the Ama-San, but this is not the real Ama diving.
We went to the Ama-San festival in Shirahama's Nojimazaki district on the tip of the Boso-Hanto Peninsula, about 100 kilometers (60 miles) southeast of Tokyo. After all-day festivities and prayers in a colorful, carnival atmosphere, they walked solemnly past applauding crowds into the chilly night sea and swam holding torches. It stirred the heart.
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My husband Paul and I had trained in the martial arts together since our teens. Years later, we were both black belts, teaching martial arts. One day I asked Paul what was his life dream. He told me he wanted to train in Japan. I found work there teaching at a medical school, getting the chance to do some interesting comparative orthopedics, found a place to stay with people we had once helped, and arranged to train at the Japan Karate Association, the JKA. Eleven days after arriving, we suddenly had no more place to stay, and were standing on the street needing to immediately speak more Japanese than karate and medical words.
We landed on our feet, getting a small apartment in northern Tokyo, and training daily. We were invited to the training camp of a Japanese living treasure, and left our little place to head south.
After the training camp ended, we traveled in the coastal areas of the renowned Diving Women of Japan. I had heard of them since I was very small, studied them in graduate physiology classes, and wanted to know if the stories were true.
We were invited to stay with the Ama diving women in several villages. "Ama" literally means "sea woman" in Japanese. When you spell 'ama' you use two kanji characters, 'sea' and 'woman.' In Japan, they are more properly called Ama-San; "San" is an honorific suffix. The Japanese have long held these professional diving women in high regard for their hard-working life.
The SeaWomen have breath-hold dived in chilly waters for perhaps thousands of years to harvest shellfish, seaweed, and other food. They were the major providers for their villages. At one time, the Ama-San were the world's largest fleet of commercial divers. Now there are few left. The youngest are in their 50's. The oldest working divers are now 70 and 80 years old, and even older. The daughters move to the cities, not wanting to train in the cold waters with their mothers to become Ama-San. Soon there may be no more.
In the West in the 1960's and early 70's, there was a sudden scientific interest in studying the mammalian dive reflex. Many studies centered on the Ama. Scientists wanted to study how deep they dived and for how long, to measure slowing of heart rate and redistribution of blood from limbs to the core, representative of the dive reflex. Studies were also initiated to estimate oxygen saturation and decompression stress. It was often conceded that the real interest in the Ama was because they dived nearly naked.
--- Questions come in by hundreds. I'm bailing the ocean with a bucket. I make posts from fun mail. Before asking more, see if your answers are already here - click labels under posts, links in posts, archives at right, and the Fitness Fixer Index. Why not try fun stuff, then contribute! Read success stories of these methods and send your own.
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"Are you a real mermaid?" asked 6-year-old Claire. Readers have been asking about skin and scuba diving, training for triathlon swims and breath hold diving, getting in shape for beach lifeguarding, science of swimming, Navy undersea maneuvers, and many aquatic adventures. Then, at a gathering I attended, the young granddaughter of a friend asked a question.
For the next two weeks or so, I will post Fitness Fixer answers to some of these from the road to teach at the Wilderness Medical conference in Colorado USA. Here is the first story.
It was her birthday. She wore a mermaid costume, and held her gifts of assorted mermaid dolls and toys. Claire loved mermaids. My mother, a Russian circus teacher, came to her party as a surprise and was teaching everyone to juggle scarves. Through the moving scarves, looking like sea waves, one of the mothers pointed my way and said, "Claire, look, that's the lady who lived under the sea - she's a mermaid!"
Claire edged over. She asked, "Are you a REAL mermaid?"
I thought before answering: I had devoted years of research career studying the human body diving deep underwater. I had lived days at a time inside research chambers simulating high and low pressure conditions. I had lived in actual undersea vessels on the sea floor called habitats. I helped test and pilot small submarines. But these were living in air pockets, breathing air. I thought a bit more. I had been a competition swimmer, training 5-7 miles every day, but that was in a pool. The longest I swam at once was 20 miles. Not as much as I imagined a real mermaid could easily swim. I had done open water swims across lakes and in rivers and harbors. I did ice swimming in winter. But that is still just swimming. I am a scuba instructor, who taught students and led trips far underwater. I had my scuba students and dive trip participants dress in costumes and sports clothes and we did underwater tennis, ballroom dancing, drove pedal cars and bicycles underwater, held umbrellas, and did underwater karate. But still, we breathed air from tanks or surface supply hoses, or did long breath hold dives from the surface. I worked with one of the greats in diving medicine who had worked developing liquid breathing long before the movie "The Abyss." I had put myself through school lifeguarding and teaching swimming at a city pool. I had guarded beachfronts, and competed in lifeguard contests, running the beach in a small red swimsuit and red rescue tube, body-paddling a rescue board over crashing waves to dive down and lift a human to the surface like stories of sea-dolphins, or maybe mermaids, buoying drowning sailors. I had lived in Japan and got to study the legendary diving women, spending long deep dives in hazy green cool waters, appearing briefly at the surface with seaweed decorating my long hair. I ate algae and sweet sea grasses. I love the water. I feel at home in the water. Then I spoke, "No."
Claire crinkled her small nose and stomped away. "NOT a REAL mermaid!"
I turned to my friend and asked, "Should I have lied to your child?" She said, "Tell the real stories."
Diving Physiology in Plain English - for all divers, novice to instructor.
Hyperbaric Medical Review For Board Certification Exams, CHT/CHRN - chamber nursing and technology, to learn and prepare for the CHT (chamber technician) and CHRN (chamber RN) certification tests.
Diving and Hyperbaric Medicine Review For Physicians - concise compendium of information physicians need to work in hyperbaric medicine and prepare to pass the board exams, and for anyone interested in the field.
For the next 2-3 weeks, write in with your success stories and links to your photo sharing site to send your photos, but hold questions. I will have no Internet to answer them while teaching at the conference.
--- Questions come in by hundreds. I'm bailing the ocean with a bucket. I make posts from fun mail. Before asking more, see if your answers are already here - click labels under posts, links in posts, archives at right, and the Fitness Fixer Index. Why not try fun stuff, then contribute! Read success stories of these methods and send your own.
Subscribe to The Fitness Fixer, free. Click "updates via e-mail"(under trumpet) upper right. See Dr. Bookspan's Books, take a Class, get certified through DrBookspan.com/Academy.
Here is a story when I worked and lived in an underwater lab.
In the 1960s, many physiologic studies were carried out on the Ama and Haenyao to see what their lung volumes were before and after dives, their temperature regulation and tolerance to cold, their ability to tolerate strenuous work, changes in heart rate and blood distribution during breath hold diving, their physical characteristics compared to non-divers, how alveolar gases (oxygen and carbon dioxide in their body) changed during their breath hold dives, and other interesting topics. Some say that the sudden huge scientific interest was because they dived nearly naked.
Diving clothes varied by geographic area, with some divers wearing only a rope belt or loincloth. No fins were used to help swimming. Later when wet suits were developed, only male divers wore them. Women were prohibited protective suits by their cooperatives, since they were considered more cold tolerant to begin with, and the advantage of the suit would "accelerate over-harvesting" Later, the work became pretty much exclusive to women.![Reblog this post [with Zemanta]](http://img.zemanta.com/reblog_e.png?x-id=52d1f1f2-7e37-46d7-8039-2c70a89fc982)
![Reblog this post [with Zemanta]](http://img.zemanta.com/reblog_e.png?x-id=d732a467-cfe7-4f9c-a8ee-db2332defb26)
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