How to Blow Smoke Rings

Party Pioneer Instruction Manual
Issue 002: How to Blow Smoke Rings (V2.0)
By: Michael Williams

The Basics
Blowing smoke rings is an art as much as a science; what works best for one person may not
work best for another. As you improve, however, you will experiment and develop your own
style and flair. This guide is where you start.

Goals:

1. Learn the dark art of blowing EPIC smoke rings
2. Get your first ring out and across the room
3. Understand the advanced techniques to improve your rings and build your rep

The Science
To blow great smoke rings, it’s useful to get an idea of what is actually going on when a ring is
blown. One of the easiest ways to blow rings is with a cardboard tube (like from a roll of paper
towels). Gently blow smoke into the tube until it is filled (cap the other end with your hand).
Now, remove your hand and blow a brief puff into the tube pushing the smoke out (briefer the
better, with some force). You should get a nice fat ring out the other end.

When smoke is confined to a space with one circular exit and a discrete (or quick and
substantial) force is applied, it will force the smoke out the open end with the smoke in the center
moving faster than that near the walls of the tube. This causes a vortex rotating the smoke in a
donut shape and thus a ring.

The rest of this guide will discuss how to get rings without a tube, advanced tricks,
recommended equipment, and cures to common mistakes.

Gear for Smoke Rings
Having the right gear and tobacco can make a big difference in how easy it is to form rings.
Obviously, you can blow decent rings with a good cigar or cigarette but for the best rings you
will want to be using a hookah.

Recommendation 1: Hookahs
If you’re using a cheaper hookah rig, you need to watch out for 2 problems:
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1. Poor sealing, which thins out the smoke and destroys your ability to get gloriously fat
rings.
2. Bad cooling, which won’t let you take pulls large enough for those truly mind-blowing
rings.

With that in mind, here are my recommendations for the best gear…

• For the Traditionalists I recommend either a Khalil Mamoon or a Temsaah brand
hookah for the best results. These large hookahs have great seals, consistent high quality
and cool the smoke very effectively. (Note that MYA brand hookahs have gone down in
quality and can be spotty. Best to stay away from those.)

• For the Traveler and Party Pioneer: The HoboNargile is my favorite pipe, especially
for traveling and partying. It’s compact, durable (for carrying or partying) and produces
excellent smoke. If you’re looking for a good setup, this one is a solid place to start.

Recommendation 2: Tobacco
When paired with the right coals and pipe, most hookah tobacco will smoke enough to get rowdy
rings, but I do have a few recommendations:

1. Nakhla is perfect if you’re relatively new to hookahs or want a tobacco that is just plain
easy to use. For guaranteed big smoke, try the cappuccino flavor. Other good options are
apricot, melon, mango, and rose.

2. Starbuzz is a good premium tobacco, known for producing big smoke. It has almost no
nicotine and is pretty easy to pack. I recommend their Pumpkin Pie, Sweet Melon, and
Blue Mist flavors, which are all very solid.

3. Tangiers is my favorite tobacco for rings, but it can be a bit hard to smoke when you first
start using it. Once you learn how to pack it and use a phunnel bowl, though, you can get
awesomely large amounts of smoke. (Click here to get hip to the phunnel method.) For
this tobacco, Lemon Blossom is pure bliss, and Peach Iced Tea and Apricot are good for
big smoke as well.

Recommendation 3: Coals
I like insta-light coals the best: you can start them with a regular lighter so they work anywhere
(great for parties, festivals, etc. Plus, they’re easier to manage heat with so you don’t accidentally
burn your tobacco. The problem with insta-lights, though, is they are either great or garbage.
Here are my favorites:

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1. Three Kings coals are the gold standard and were on of the first good quality insta-light
coals. I recommend getting the 30mm for Modern Bowls and the 40MM for large
phunnel bowls (break the 40MM in half and place on each side of the bowl). Three Kings
will create a little more ash than their competitors, but they have good heat and reliability.

2. Al Fakher makes some good tobacco, but their coals are inexpensive and excellent.
These coals don’t burn quite as hot as others, but pretty good for the price and with a
clean taste.

3. Starlight (red box) coals are my absolute favorites. They have good heat, longevity, and
price. Stay away from the Starlight’s in the blue box though; those coals are a tragic
disaster.

Smoke Ring Methods
There are 4 primary methods to blowing smoke rings:

1. Coughing Method (Easy)
2. Clicking Method (Medium)
3. Cracking Method (Depends)
4. Finger Flicker (Easy)

In addition, these methods can be combined to achieve additional effects. This will be covered in
part three of the guide.

Let’s tackle the setup: Set up your hookah so it’s pulling dense smoke. On some setups you will
want two coals cooking on top. The tobacco should be hot and smoky, but not too much such that
you can’t hold in the smoke. On most pipes, you should be able to look into your vase and not
see the stem through the smoke in the chamber.

Next, take a pull and check the 5-second rule: Can you bring in and hold 5-seconds worth of
smoke for 5-seconds? If so, you’re all good. If not, it may be too hot or your lungs too virgin.
Keep working on it.

Now, on to throwing some ringery:

1. The Coughing Method is the best place to start. 

As you begin, you can expect small rings with a short life span. As you improve, you can try
rapid firing or combining this method with the Clicking Method.

Execution:
1) Take a pull of smoke.

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2) Relax your lungs so that smoke slowly flows out of your mouth (Do not blow out).
3) Form a small “O” with your mouth (should be the diameter of a US quarter).
4) Make a light cough (or pop) with the back of your throat (this should be inaudible).

Check the end of this section for troubleshooting tips for additional assistance.

2. The Clicking Method is slightly more advanced, requiring more timing and 
coordination.

Practice makes perfect. Likewise, the Clicking Method will allow for larger O’s that can glide
longer distances.

The basis for this method is to actually throw the smoke out of your mouth with your tongue.

Execution:
2) Relax your lungs to fill your mouth with smoke (Do not blow out).
3) Form an “O” with your mouth. Make it as big as you can, while maintaining a tight “O”
form.
4) Bring your tongue back as if you’re trying o scratch the top part of your mouth and then
swiftly click it forward. You can check if you’re doing it right by putting your hand on
your Adam’s apple, you should feel it move up.

With this method it will not help to click your mouth multiple times in quick succession. If you
don’t see an “O,” start from step 2 again and keep trying.

3. The Cracking Method can only be accomplished by those who can crack their 
jaw. 

Some can do it, and some can’t. For those who can, this method may give you bigger O’s than
the Clicking Method.

Cracking your jaw is more or less a god given trait. To see if you are one of those people: Flex
all of the muscles around your jaw. Move the bottom part of your jaw back while keeping it
flexed. Now move the bottom part of your jaw forward as fast as possible. Some people will hear
a crack. Some others can do this without a cracking sound. The faster and more abrasive you can
move your bottom jaw forward, the bigger and farther your rings will go. (Just don’t break your
internal machinery.)

Execution:
2) Relax your lungs to fill your mouth with smoke (Do not blow out).

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form.
4) Move your jaw back and crack it forward.

4. The Finger Flick is also fairly easy.

The Finger Flick is the cheekiest method of smoke ringery. Instead of popping out the ring by
moving your mouth, this method does so via the force generated by flicking your cheek.

1. Take a nice pull.

2. Form your lips into an O.

3. Let the smoke slowly waft out (similar to the Ghosting and French Inhale techniques).

4. As the smoke is rolling out, flick the middle of your cheek. Aim for the dimple if you are
blessed to have one.

You’ll likely get deformed rings the first few times you try this, so experiment with the amount
of force used to flick your cheek. If you are competent with the Cracking Method, try popping
the jaw right as you flick your cheek. This will provide very granular control over the size of the
rings, which is useful if you want to go uber-advanced and use this method to blow a smaller
ring through a bigger one.

Here’s a video demonstration and explanation of the finger flick.

Troubleshooting
There are a few key ways to assist in your pursuit of smoke rings. These tips should help stack
the cards in your favor.

Tip 1: Environment
Smoke rings are tough to blow in a room with active air currents. Practice your rings in a closed
room, windows closed and your pets/roommates locked away. If there is a slight current, try
blowing a little smoke out and find the direction of the current and blow in the same direction.

Tip 2: Angle
Rings are most easily blown with your head angled downward. Try your rings with your head
tilted down 45-degrees, looking at the floor.

Tip 3: Form
Take it easy as you start off: Don’t try to blow multiple rings right away. Try, pause, try again.
Make sure that you keep your “O” tight throughout the motion. You can try making a smaller O
with your mouth at first, to see if that improves your rings. For the Coughing Method try varying
degrees of coughing: Try making a softer pop first.

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For a visual demonstration of the Coughing and Clicking Methods, check this out right here.

Common Mistakes
Mistake 1: Continuous exhale
One of the most common mistakes is blowing out while using the coughing, tongue clicking or
jaw cracking methods. If you are getting some rings that dissipate quickly, it’s likely you are
exhaling while you are blowing your rings. When you are blowing rings, there should be smoke
already in your mouth. You don’t need any more from your lungs. Focus on executing one of the
methods while making sure that your lungs are not releasing any additional smoke. The subtle
exhale of smoke while trying to blow rings will disrupt the ring creation.

Mistake 2: Too much force applied
If you have a good feel for one of the methods, but you are still not getting rings, try blowing
“small” rings. Use as little force as possible: Either very gentle tongue clicks or coughs. Try
getting small rings first and practice those. Begin gently increasing the force of your tongue or
coughs. This is more art than science: More force will make the rings less likely to form, too
little force will give you weak rings. Trying to find the balance and being able to replicate that
balance is the key to truly great rings.

Mistake 3: Moving your mouth
For those more advanced, I’ll describe below how to control your mouth to add extra speed to
your rings. However, when you’re first trying to blow rings, keep your mouth as steady as
possible. Try using different size mouth openings to get better rings, but for each attempt, keep
your mouth steady until the ring is Ill past your lips.

Mistake 4: Not enough smoke in your mouth
Make sure that your hookah is putting out a good amount of smoke. You really need dense
smoke in order to allow rings to form properly. As soon as you have enough smoke, practice
exhaling slowly. Now try exhaling slowly while your mouth is closed. Now try just pushing the
smoke that is in your mouth out (while retaining the rest of the smoke in your lungs). How much
came out? Try practicing this to get more smoke in your mouth.

Advanced Tips and Tricks
So you’ve learned to blow rings, and now you want even more glory. Perfect. There are two
critical skills you will need to master for the high ball tricks:

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1. The “Deep” Inhale – once you start consistently blowing rings, you may notice yourself
naturally taking bigger pulls to make the rings with crowd-pleasing thickness. This is the
Deep Inhale – you expand your chest and stomach for peak inhaling capacity. You
probably don’t want to smoke like this all the time, but it's a corner stone to your trickery.

2. The Jaw Drop – If you’ve learned to blow your smoke rings with the Cracking Method,
the more advanced tricks will come easier to you. This is because the first part of the
cracking method is the jaw drop. True to its name, this technique requires that while
inhaling, you pull your jaw down, elongate your face and force your cheeks to suck in a
bit. This allows you to pull more smoke without having to inhale it.

Once you got these methods down, take a shot at the following tricks:

HowTo 1: Blow Rings Outside
This is best done with the Clicking or Cracking Methods. Blow out a little smoke to find the
direction of the wind. Face the direction of the wind and pop out a strong ring. It should come
out, stop and then pass back over your head. Sometimes, by facing directly with the wind, you
can give your rings extreme distance.

HowTo 2: Multiple Rings
To get many small rings popped out in quick succession, use the Coughing Method: Take a big
pull. Relax your lungs so that there is a constant stream of smoke seeping into your mouth. Form
an “O” and make several coughs in quick succession. See the video demo with Trent here.

HowTo 3: Blow a Ring within a Ring
This will take much practice, and an optimal environment. Using the Clicking Method, make a
big “O” with your mouth and click your tongue at the slowest possible speed while still forming
a large, slow ring. Quickly thereafter, make a smaller “O” with your mouth and pop out another
ring with as much force possible, aimed right through the center of the bigger guy.

HowTo 4: Two Rings at the Same Time
More so than any method, it helps to try this in front of a mirror. Take a pull, elongate your smile
such that your cheeks are up, your front lips are angled down. Now do the Coughing Method.
Smoke should be coming out of the left and right of your mouth. Play around with your form to
perfect the tandem tiny O’s.

HowTo 5: Bigger Rings
By combining the Coughing and Clicking Methods you can get bigger rings and develop your
own style. In this setup, you are using the Coughing method to fill your mouth up with smoke so

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that when you click your tongue, there is a maximum amount of smoke in your mouth. Click
here for the video demo.

HowTo 6: Mouth Control
You can get slightly larger, faster moving rings by controlling the movement of your mouth. As
the ring is exiting your mouth, try moving your lips (which should be in a wide O formation) to a
smaller diameter. The closing of your mouth, as you blow your ring, will add extra force behind
the ring. Try this while trying to blow one ring into another. For the first ring, don't move your
mouth, but on the second ring you should close the O of your mouth as you blow it out. The
second ring should be slightly faster than the first, allowing you to blow one ring through the
other.

Execution:
form.
3) Make a light cough to put smoke in your mouth.
4) Right after your cough, click your tongue forward. In addition, you can move your jaw
back and forward with the click of your tongue.

HowTo 7: Ghosting
“Ghosting” is essentially a fancy name for a partial exhale, or exhale fake-out.

Execution
1. Take a nice, healthy pull.

2. Form your lips into the O position like you’re about to blow a ring.

3. Let some of the smoke begin escaping your mouth and drop your jaw like you’re about to
blast a ring across the room (but do NOT send it on its journey).

4. Right as the first plume of smoke escapes, suck it back in. Psyche. Fake out.

Although this isn’t too hard to learn, it is a good foundational technique that continues improving
your muscle control. You can also push you lip forward to try letting some of the smoke slowly
swirl along it. Or, if you want to get doubly fancy, try blowing a ring with your exhale and
quickly sucking it back in. See the video demo here, and don’t hassle me for my hair.

HowTo 8: French Inhale
Despite its name, the French inhale was actually reportedly invented by Jason Nolan of
Walkinstown on the set of a Charlie Chaplin movie in 1921. So, if you’ve seen it on film, it was
likely in black and white. This trick is unparalleled and can be used in many contexts. Simply
doing it is not difficult, but doing it well is a lifelong pursuit.
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Execution:
1. Slowly inhale and while doing so, pull your jaw down to draw more smoke into your
mouth. Don’t pull to full capacity; leave a little room to inhale further.

2. Open your mouth and let the smoke slowly billow out. Don’t Exhale!

3. As the smoke flows out of your mouth, begin to inhale through your nose and move your
jaw forward and up.

There is only 1 hurdle to getting this trick good enough to impress most people, and that’s
learning how much smoke to pull relative to your lung capacity. You can get extra smoke with
the jaw drop, but not enough to really make the French inhale look nice, so it’ll take some
practice to get your pull right.

If you want to be a true master, you’ll need to learn to exhale and inhale at the same time. Like a
sax player, the better you gauge your air, the better the flow. This is tough, but man does it look
cool.

HowTo 9: The Bull Ring
This one is a real crowd pleaser. First, a visualization: after taking a triumphant pull from your
hookah, open your mouth to reveal a thick, swirling ring that appears to hover motionless in front
of your face. After inspecting it, you lean forward, place your nose atop the disk, inhale and
watch as the circle fragments into a parabola slowly disappearing into your nostrils… giving the
appearance of an opaque ring pierced through your nose.

Execution:
1. Unless you’re Chuck Norris, get into a room with still air.

2. Let your mouth slowly fill with smoke.

3. Let out a ring as gently as you possibly can. To do this, slowly bring your jaw forward
and up, popping it at the very end to form the ring. The ring should exit with little
momentum, so it stalls in the air close to your face.

4. Lean in and slowly bring your nose to the ring without disturbing the air around it.

5. Start inhaling. You don’t need to be right on top of it; if you inhale slowly, the smoke will
appear to be filling both nostrils even if you are just close. Now you’ve got a sweet
temporary bullring piercing your nose.

See Dave demo it here.

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FAQ: Teaching Others
So you have pretty good rings now, and you always get asked at parties how to do it. With smoke
rings, as you will experience… once you know how to blow them, it’s easier done than said.

But that won’t stop me from sharing a few shortcuts with you, because I’m here to help you
build your party rep:

Question 1: When to teach and when to defer
One thing with teaching smoke rings is you have to make sure it’s worth your time. This means
basically making sure the environment is conducive for beginners to actually blow a ring. My
general rules:

• Never teach rings outside. If you are a pro and can get decent rings outside, good for
you, but beginners will get frustrated in outdoor or high-traffic environments with a lot of
air movement. Definitely defer and tell them some other time.

• Make sure the smoke is really rolling. If it’s close to the end of the bowl, and the smoke
won’t be thick for much longer, it’s not worth training up someone new.

• In addition to thickness of smoke, make sure it’s not too hot. Most beginners won’t
have much lung capacity or heat tolerance, so if it’s harsh they probably won’t be able to
get the right amount of smoke to take a good crack at it.

• Make sure you have some time to spare. Beginners will want your attention and
critique frequently and probably for most of the bowl. Make sure you are prepared to sit
for a while and are teaching to good company.

The best times to teach rings are at the beginning of the party when only a few people are
leisurely sitting around, the bowl is freshly lit, and you got a bit of time before the action starts.
If you are in such a situation, it's a great skill to pass on.

Question 2: What method to teach?
When I’m teaching people at a party, I always go for the low hanging fruit first, and that is the
Coughing Method. The other methods take some coordination, but anyone who can skillfully
make tiny coughs should get at least a few small rings in the first 20 minutes. These small rings
build the confidence that will allow them to tackle the harder ring blowing methods.

Question 3: Demonstration
Demonstration is one of the best ways for beginners to learn. First blow a few of your own rings
and then ask them what you are doing. Can they hear the faint cough? Do they notice how your
mouth is formed? Then point out everything you are doing, and let them try. When they fail or do
something wrong, take the hookah back and tell them to witness what you are doing right and see

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if they can emulate. Demonstration is important, but make sure 70% of the time, they have the
hookah and are trying themselves.

Question 4: Critiquing
When you teach a person to blow rings, it’s not enough just to show how you do it and explain
the mechanics happening in your mouth and throat. You have to let them have the hookah for a
while and watch what they are doing. The biggest things to look for:

• Watch the mouth: Most beginners won’t hold the O shape throughout the ring blowing
exercise. Have them master that first, and focus them on keeping their mouth in O form
throughout the motion.

• In the Coughing Method, most of the time beginners will try to use too much force and
the cough will be audible. Listen for the sound they are making, and if it’s above “barely
audible,” then have them take it down a notch and try again.

• Next, look for the amount of smoke they are taking in and blowing out. If it looks faint,
have them take deeper pulls.

Summary
Like any ninja skill, the ability to throw fatty smoke rings takes focus, practice, and persistence.
It doesn’t happen over night. Most people can’t do it because most people lack the dedication to
practice enough and make it happen.

You are not most people.

Your mastery of this skill will instantly elevate you higher in the social food chain, but buyer
beware: you are reckoning with a talent many desire. Along with enduring social envy, you will
be forced to field many how-to questions to which answering is often time-consuming and
complicated.

And so it was in this light that this manual was written, for now you possess the simplest of
answers. Any time someone requests the secrets to taming the smoke ring beast, simply pass
them this guide. And then continue living The Dream.

So here’s what to do next: review the equipment guide and make sure your pipe and shisha are
up to par. If they aren’t, now’s the time to revamp them! Once you’re hot to go, focus on one
method and keep at it until it is natural. Don’t move on to another technique until you’ve become
proficient, lest you wish to become master at nothing.

Rock on. If you have any questions, stories, or rad photos please send them my way:
mike.williams@hobocans.com
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- Mike Williams

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How to Blow Smoke Rings

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