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Hunter Ewen sets world records conquering balloonphobia
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Sep 16, 2024
Hunter Ewen, once terrified of balloons, now holds two Guinness World Records for blowing up the most balloons in a minute and an hour. His journey proves that overcoming fears is possible.
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My name is Hunter Ewan
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I'm from Longmont, Colorado, and I have two Guinness World Records titles, one for blowing
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up the most balloons in one minute, and that record is 18, and the other for blowing up
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balloons in an hour. I have the most at 910. I think part of why I wanted to try attempting to break these titles comes from my childhood
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fear of balloons. I didn't blow up a balloon for 15 years, and I thought that this might be a fun way to
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get over that fear. The first time I attempted this record, it was the record for most balloons blown up
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in an hour, I trained for about six months, bought a giant box of balloons, and then once
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a week I would do speed runs, trying to see how many I could blow up at a time
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Slowly got better and better, more and more comfortable with the balloons, faster and
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faster, and then eventually, I think my first attempt, I achieved about 500, well short
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of my goal, but again, practice makes perfect. The more I did it, the better I got
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Oh, it's exhausting. Trying to do the hour attempt is absolutely exhausting
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It's frustrating and it's painful and it's terrible, but it's also wonderful and liberating
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and exhilarating and fun and exciting. There are some things that happen to you midway through a run like this
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Your hands start to seize up, you know that thing where you sit on them and they kind
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of go to sleep and you get that tingling, but your hands start tingling and they kind of lock together into these claw-like shapes and you start to feel a kind of numbness and
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tingling pins and needles in the back of your neck and your legs start to go numb and your
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eyesight starts to narrow and you're trying to ride this wave where you're blowing up
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just fast enough to set the record, but slow enough that you're not passing out
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So it's a very delicate balance that you're trying to achieve throughout staying conscious
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but also blowing up enough to get the record. I think I'm the best in the world partly due to biology
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I have freakishly large lungs. I'm a little bit out of shape and so my body doesn't process oxygen as well as other people
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I don't get lightheaded. I don't get oversaturated with oxygen and I'm a trained classical saxophonist, so I
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have quick finger speed. Yeah, I'd love to be known as the balloon guy
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Clearly I've conquered my fear of balloons. I think if I can do it, really anybody can do it
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If somebody like me who grew up with this deathly fear of balloons can be at 32 surrounded
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by them and to have two Guinness World Records, I think it's a testament to the power of the
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human spirit. If you have the drive, if you have the energy, and if you have the desire to do something
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you can do it
#Self-Help & Motivational