 Hello, my name is Brian Kroll and I'm really excited to be part of float conference again this year. Some of you might remember me from 2018 when I was one of the personal float stories that presented at that conference here in Portland. To kind of set the scene, I have a degenerative disease in my back that has required me to have a complete reconstruction of the lower part of my back. I'm fused from L1 to L5 which is the whole small of your back. And that surgery was 23 years ago. I've lived in a constant state of pain since I was 12 or 13 years old and I'm 51 now. As you can see I'm coming to you from Portland again but this time I'm coming to you from bed. I've had a pretty significant flare up. I'm coming to you right now on the Sunday of Labor Day weekend so about a week before you're seeing this. And I'm on medical leave from work and chasing down exactly what's causing this flare up but it's it's a step above what I've had any time recently. So I'm excited to be part of float conference but it's gonna be a little different than I had anticipated. I want to tell you the story about float today in May. When I came out of the float conference in 2018 I knew that I wanted to be more involved in the float community. Telling the story of how floating can be so impactful for everyday people. It wasn't the right path for me to go out and start a float center. So instead I started an online community and website called Love the Float. Love the Float is part of float conference this year and I have a virtual booth. I'll be around all weekend so I'd love to tell you more about that in that setting. But today I want to tell you about float today May. Floated May was kind of my hook to get interest started in love the float and so in May of last year 2019 I floated every single day for the entire 31 days of of that month. 33 floats in 31 days in the greater Portland area. We'll get started by flashing back to float today May. I documented every single day during that month and this little video highlight package will show you kind of a summary of what the month was like and then we'll dive deeper into some of the significant events and what I learned from floating every day. It's May 1st and May 1st has a lot of significance for me and for Love the Float. This morning I started float today May. I had my first float of the month at Float On here in Portland and my goal is to try to float every single day in the month of May. Just coming out of my first float of float today May. This is Brian at the second weekend update for float today May. Today is Saturday the 11th and I have floated seven times in 11 days. I am just climbing out of Float Number 14. That was so intense. I have it. Oh my. That was a much easier thing. Oh my body is so quaking. Oh my god. I'm really surprised to be able to save this but it happened again probably between a third and a half as intense as yesterday but that still means two or three times as intense as anything prior to yesterday. This is Brian and Linda and we're just getting ready to take Linda back for her float. She's pretty excited. Yeah. Well I'm just wrapping up a float and a massage and then a float. It's hard to imagine feeling all but more relaxed than that isn't it? Number 19 and my magical experiences have happened again. Well I've been dropping hints that there would be something special. It's approaching 11 o'clock in the evening on Saturday the 18th and I'm actually just getting in the tank to start the overnight float. Just waking up it's 9 o'clock in the morning which means that I've been in the tank for 10 hours. Just climbing out of Float Number 21 and I'm noticing something new and different that is kind of a hybrid between what happens when I have my extraordinary experiences and a normal pain. Free float and I'm getting to a main free state without unnoticeable endorphin release so something new and different to launch. Claire found it really relaxing. Different times. I had trouble letting my body relax because of the motion in the water that wasn't being caused by me so I would definitely do this again with Claire if she finds it comfortable. Here I am just trying to climb out of the very last float of Float of Day May. That gives you a sense of what Float of Day May was like. The first two weeks were really about finding my legs. How do you fit a float into your daily life every day? The majority of my floats were 90 minutes and that means about two and a half hours out of your day on a daily basis and that has challenges when you have work life and family life. I ended up doing a lot of 7am floats at Float On and that ended up working out really well for me so I could just float on my way into work and then continue my day from there. I'd never done morning floats on any kind of consistent basis up till then and found them really refreshing in the mornings. The highlight of the first couple weeks was getting to see some different float centers. Float Well in Camus was a highlight because she has some different modalities there that I had never experienced and that was an especially rewarding visit along with the foot bath at Float Shop here in Portland. Things really turned for me on the 14th float. That's the float that I call Float of a Lifetime and it changed floating for me forever. I thought that I had had some of the best experiences that a person could have in a float tank. Being pain free for a few minutes even for me is really spectacular but this float of a lifetime took that to a level that I've never even dreamed possible. Here's some footage from when I first came out of the tank. I'm just climbing out of float number 14. That was so intense. I am. Oh my. That was on my key anything. Oh my body is so quaking. Oh my god. I gotta get it myself. Tears in my eyes. My body was just in a completely different place. It was not a key thing. I've never experienced the northern release was just all of a sudden just happened. It wasn't like a wave over my body that normally when it happens my body was just surrounded by heat. It's like the water was cold because my body was generated so much heat and I just felt so amazingly weak and so without pain anywhere. It lasted for so long. It had to be like an hour. Every time I felt like it was going to start to go away it just came back even more intense. I still can barely even feel my body. Like outside of the tank that's never happened before. Had to make it to not be a great float. It was I couldn't get in it first. The door was locked outside. I had to call to get in and then I was in the tank and I can't believe what I've just experienced. Wow. I kept thinking of it. I wish the Dr. Fineson had his things on me because I don't know what's happening. I don't know if I'm dying. Is this what it feels like? Because it was just as you can see that was a float that affected every part of my being. It's a little bit vulnerable to watch that and share that video but it's also really raw. It's just in the moment coming right out of that tank. The heat generating thing was something that I had never experienced in any way before. Never knew anything about in talking to my friend Dana who operates float north here in Portland. There is a ancient Tibetan meditation technique called TUMO which means inner fire and it seems like maybe that's what I was experiencing was that heat that just emanated out of my body. The float solution around me literally felt cold. It was almost like I was floating in an ice bath by the end because my body was just so warm internally. The way that it just continued on was truly amazing. Up until that point if I could have five minutes of pain-free that was something really spectacular. In this float it was it was around an hour. I mean it just was from another world for me and it completely reset floating from that point forward. After that time I now have this heat generation not to the extent that it was in that float but it's become a relatively common part of my experience. In fact the very next day I had an experience that was probably 70% of what this float was and you know that by itself is just in a whole another world from what I had ever experienced before that. I really think that the continual floating was part of what led that to to occur and just my body kind of becoming one with the float in a way that it never had before and even with what's happened with COVID and not being able to float for three months and things I still am finding myself being able to get back to some level of that again and it's it's changed floating for me forever. If you'll grant me a little bit of a side trip not specifically part of float-a-day May but it occurred during that month was the opportunity to float my dear friend Linda. Linda has cerebral palsy and has been in a wheelchair her entire life and she and I have been friends for over 20 years and in describing to her what floating is I just really wanted to find the opportunity to be able to get her in a tank and on Wednesday she's going to float for the very first time at Float North here in Maryland and so with the help of Dana and one of her main caregiver Shailene we were able to float Linda at Float North in the Mandel open pool and that experience was just really spectacular. She experienced life in a way that she never has she was able to move her body under her own control in ways that she has never been able to do. It was really a special moment and while it wasn't directly me floating it was definitely one of the highlights of Float-a-day May. Yeah you really look like you found your happy place there at the beach. I'm glad how do you feel today? Yeah did you sleep well? Yeah. Another highlight of the month was the opportunity to do a float massage float combination or a sandwich and that was really pretty spectacular from a relaxation standpoint. I've done floats with massage and done it both directions with the float before or after the massage but the opportunity to have it both before and after was just allowing my body to receive the massage in in a very relaxed state coming out of that float and then actually going from the massage to the float again I was so relaxed that I was actually a little bit weak-kneed and needed a hand to walk up the hallway and then that second float afterwards was one of the most deeply relaxing floats that that I can ever remember. Another highlight of the month was the overnight float. This is something I've been wanting to do for a long time and Floated Day May was the perfect opportunity to make it happen. I think the video from that day really tells the story the best. I just finished a 10-hour overnight float here at float north in the ocean float room number one. I went in at about 11 o'clock last night it's now nine o'clock in the morning on Sunday morning so my 20th Floated Day May float was a 10-hour overnight. Feeling really good this morning was up three different times starting the night to use the restroom or refill water that sort of thing but was in the tank essentially the entire time. Had good float, nice relaxing slept probably seven and a half hours out of the tent and then the last two were just really deep terrific sleep and really warm comfort in my body so it was quite an exceptional experience. The final highlight of Floated Day May for me was the chance to float with my daughter Claire and you saw that in the Mudbong highlight package she had a terrific experience which even though my experience wasn't quite as great it was really wonderful to share that with her. What did I learn from Floated Day May and how has it changed me to have floated for 31 straight days 34 floats? It's pretty amazing to think back on that. To set the stage a little bit I do a chart of every single float and I chart my pain levels before and after the floats and have some commentary about those those are all on the Love the Float website that you can take a look at and it's important to note that my pain level scale maybe is a little different than some people. My 10 was a pain that I couldn't even stay conscious through so it was extraordinary. As a normal course of life I live somewhere in the 7-ish range over the past 20 years and that's just kind of my normal state of being. If you look at this chart of what my pain levels were and what my experiences were during the month of May you can see that it really changed after that 14th float up until then the floats were certainly good but they became extraordinary from that point forward. The pain level coming out of the floats is what I just marvel at when I look at it. You know I had floats where I came out of those floats at fours. I can't even imagine a sustained four right now and it became very common to be at fives and then coming back into the float the following day starting them out of the six that's that's just phenomenal to me. And it really showed what consistent everyday floating can do for a body like mine. This chart breaks out what my float experience was like before float of day May, during float of day May, a subset of float of day May after the 14th float and then the 30 days right after float of day May. When you take a look at this you can really see that my floats became much more effective coming out of float of day May even though my overall pain level in the floats right after float of day May were higher coming in. The pain levels coming out of the floats were quite similar to what they were before float of day May so so that effectiveness how much it changed my pain level became more effective coming out of float of day May and that's something that I continued to see for a long time after. Here we see the period of time before float of day May, during float of day May, and after float of day May further broken out for after float of day May prior to the shutdown for the pandemic and since the shutdown. The quality of my floats has remained really strong since float of day May and it's noticeably higher on average than it was prior to float of day May. Pain level has increased recently for other reasons the delta between pre-float and post-float pain levels has remained really strong. It's clear that the lack of floating for three months has had an effect with the pandemic shutdown. Floating day May was really an amazing experience for me. It has transformed the way floating affects me and my body and I really look forward to the opportunity to maybe do it again. I had just started making plans for a float of day May 2.0 for this year around St. Patrick's Day when the world kind of changed for us all but I do definitely hope to have a float of day May 2.0 in 2021 and maybe have some other folks join with me and get some media attention for it and do it in a bigger and better way that will draw more attention to the benefits of floating. I'm here all weekend love the float has a booth so I'll be there frequently and I'll be around the conference as well. I look forward to getting a chance to talk to you throughout the course of the conference. Coming out of this session there will be a think tank session with me as well and be happy to answer any questions that you might have. Thank you for joining me and learning a little bit more about float of day May and I hope you'll go out and love the float.