[laminar]

Hmmm... I read the BTV document and it seems very confusing. Has anyone had the drills work for them? If so share what worked here.

I learned BTV because did a lot of flying on airplanes when I was a kid and found I could just click my ears.

I don't move any part of my mouth, throat, jaw or anything to open the Eustachian tubes. I have managed to isolate the one set of muscles that do it.

I don't think it is related to swallowing or movement of the jaw at all in terms of opening the tubes voluntarily. Thrusting the jaw forward and down helps in terms of making the air flow less restricted at the opening of the tubes in the back of the throat (I think).

To me, the essential development of the BTV comes from the beginning of a yawn. A yawn combines the jaw lowering/forward thrust and a sense of building pressure in the ears and the "crackling"... Try yawning on purpose a lot and see if you can notice those sensations.

Even if you don't have a crackling sound - perhaps that doesn't happen for everyone - you still should feel a kind of roaring in your ears as you open and hold the tubes open. Holding them open for several seconds, working your way up as long as possible is essential for pure BTV equalizing and of course helpful for any mouthfill or frenzel combos.

A simple way to work on your BTV is to reverse equalize your E-tubes. Pinch your nose, and suck air out of your E-tubes by filling your mouth or using your diaphragm (ask me for a more detailed explanation if you don't follow). My tubes crackle as they depressurize.

Then to bring your E-tubes back to full pressure, start to yawn. Try varying degrees of yawning to get there. Eventually, you want to not yawn at all. Just move the muscles that let air back into the e-tubes.

I have to go now, but I can write about how to practice in the water once you isolate the BTV muscles.

Pete