Echolocation Pushups?

I was doing pushups recently and noticed an interesting effect that you might want to experience on your own. I was breathing deeply as one tends to do under exertion and listening to the sound of my breath against the hard wood floor. As my body rose and fell and my face became closer and farther away from the floor, the reflection of my breath phased in and out like a musical instrument.

There's nothing unique about this exercise compared to any other beginner echolocation exercise. However, I think it's important to understand and practice using your own breath as a signal as opposed to a click. There are certainly scenarios and circumstances where a loud click is inappropriate, but ambient noise is generally much more challenging to use to see objects at any distance and even more difficult to distinguish detail from.

By learning how your breath sounds reflected off of objects may serve as a good alternative in a quiet environment if need be. The sound of a deep breath, either through the nose or the mouth, is remarkably similar to white noise which I discuss in greater depth in the book Beginner's Guide to Echolocation.

Basically, white noise offers multitudes of different frequencies, high and low which, as we know, all reflect off of objects differently. Some objects reflect higher tones, some lower tones. In some of the very beginning lessons we suggest using a "SSHH" sound to emulate white noise. Breath isn't as loud as making a "SSHH" sound, but in effect it is very similar.

Another interesting note about pushups is simply the fact that your echolocation target is moving in and out, in and out, over and over again. Even if you're not actively learning anything new by experiencing this effect, it's great practice, it's becoming accustomed and, little by little, getting more in tune with the subtleties of echolocation.