u/tc-trojans

I watched a video about frenzel, and was practicing it, and couldn’t exactly get it down. In my Lvl 1 class, I just did valsalva the whole time, but wanted to learn frenzel. Anyway, I can just manually pop my ears with basically no effort. But I never really use the “piston” in frenzel and was confused by it. I later came across a video by Alchemy about hands free eq, and it sounds basically like what I’m doing. I can probably do it like twice per second if I’m focused. But I haven’t been able to get in the water and try yet. So here’s what I’m doing, and I’m asking if this is VTO, or if I’m somehow just making a click/pop noise in my middle ear without opening the tubes.

- Mouth open or closed. I tried with tongue stuck all the way out to make sure I wasn’t using it, and it didn’t inhibit the clicks at all.
- No mask on
- No nose clips or hand involvement

It sounds like a click in the eardrum. Not painful at all, and simultaneous in each ear. My throat or Adam’s apple aren’t really moving at all. Is there anything that could be mimicking VTO, or does this pretty much mean I’m doing it. Thanks for any input. I’m still relatively new and before this just worked on static apnea a lot and line diving a few times.