My sister is a sailor on the Stanford women’s team, the number one ranked women’s sailing team in the country. She’s starting in regattas as a freshman, so one would assume she knows what she’s doing. Although I couldn’t get any specific advice on how to make that happen—sorry to those hoping—I did manage to squeeze out some of what she considers to be a part of her “luck” factor. Before any race, and whenever she’s feeling nervous on the water, she does a specific breathing exercise that her coach introduced to the team.
This breathing exercise, which she plainly calls “our breathing exercise,” is recorded online as “5-in-5-out.” Funnily enough, she never really learned it “formally,” she told me:
“It’s just something that our coach told us one day. No real explanation, no official name—I don’t even think he gave us instructions beyond ‘do this when it feels right.’”
Still, from what I found online, the method follows the exact same steps she described:
- Sit up straight or cross-legged.
- Relax your shoulders.
- Inhale quietly through your nose for a count of five.
- Hold your breath for a count of five.
- Exhale quietly through your nose for a count of five.
- Repeat for 10 minutes.
She did however note minimal flexibility in how she practices it:
“I don’t really care about sitting a certain way or how long I do it for. Most of it is just up to whatever I think is best at the moment.”
At the end of the day, she does it however and whenever she feels she needs it.
Breathing exercises are one of those things that I’m not sure folklore has fully claimed yet. I feel as though it is typically regarded as more medicinal than folkloric, but we all know those two things go hand in hand. If I had to classify it, I’d say this kind of ritual has two hands in the folklore cookie jar—one reaching into sports superstitions, the other into traditional yoga and meditative medicinal practices.
When it comes to luck in sports, superstitions are everywhere. Baseball players wear the same jersey without washing it, Serena Williams famously wears the same pair of socks throughout a tournament, and my sister practices this breathing ritual before racing. It’s fascinating that humans try to “cheat” natural physical systems by invoking rituals, almost like tapping into forces beyond the physical—maybe an over-dramatization, but I think my point stands.
The interesting thing is that these seemingly kooky practices often have real benefits. If you believe you are lucky, you can sometimes manifest that luck into something real, whether it be confidence, composure, or performance.
Historically, these breathing techniques have deep roots. The Box Breathing method—famously taught to Navy SEAL snipers to maintain calm and focus—is a modern example. Yet, these practices aren’t new. Yogis developed Box Breathing over 5,000 years ago, originally calling it Sama Vritti Pranayama.
Despite their very real effects, breathing exercises like Box Breathing and 5-in-5-out don’t quite fit within traditional academic “science.” They exist in that murky space between folk wisdom, practical ritual, and physiological effect.
I’ve always loved the idea of trying to cheat chance and manifest luck. Whether it’s for tests, sports, or life in general, it’s only human to strive for perfection and victory by any means necessary—no matter how strange.
