Harsh hookah? Smoke through it!

[Lord Dorian]

My previous thread addressed how to avoid harshness, this will deal with what to do once it is harsh. My philosophy with harshness has always been to "smoke through it" (also my philosophy on life). Often, harshness is caused by over-stoaking the coal, but almost just as often it is caused or at least perpetuated by insufficent airflow. Once your hookah gets harsh, you take smaller rips or may even stop hitting it for a while. This often exacerbates the problem, the hot air gets "stalled" on the burning parts of the tabacco, and because you are no longer drawing powerfully, it burns more and denied of the cooling benefits of the acceleration and expansion caused by your inhale. My approach (WARNING: this is probably not healthy) is to move the coal, take as big and quick a rip as I can, this takes substantial mental concentration because the hookah will taste terrible and your body will often attempt to reject it, but I try and fill up 100% of my lungs as fast as I can. I usually do this two or three times and the harshness is gone. A better strategy is to take short forceful inhales that fill your mouth and throat, exhale them as quickly as possible and repeat this in rapid succession. When done in tandem with backing off the coal (Do not remove it) this draws the hot air deeper into the bowl, past the burning shisha, and helps to start the smolder in the lower portion, bringing the bowl back to thermal equilibrium.
Sometimes bowls become extremely harsh for whatever reason, if you can not even bear to bring the smoke to your mouth, there is an alternative solution. Remove the coals to the dish of the hookah, then remove the bowl and hold the bottom of the bowl an inch or two from your mouth and breath into it. Smoke should escape the holes. After doing this for 30 seconds to two minutes, put the bowl back on, throw on the coals and get back to it, or attempt the above strategy. 

[Lord Dorian]

The ideals mentioned in my original post may seem unappealing to some. If you are concerned for your lungs or just hate the taste you can construct a "plastic lung" to smoke through your harshness for you. Just get an empty 2 liter bottle, remove the top and cut a hole in the bottom. Then find a container larger than the 2 liter and fill it with water. When you want the lung to smoke for you, take the 2 liter and push it, bottom down into the container, it should fill to the top with water. Then insert your hose into the top and form a seal with your hand. Now pull the 2 liter out of the water, as the water falls out the hole in the bottom, it will fill with smoke. Now, remove the hose and push the 2 liter back into the container as you did before, the smoke will go out the top into the room, and the lung will be ready to smoke again if the hookah is still harsh.

[MR Bubble]

Usually, I take a toothpick and put a couple short, sharp jabs into the foil just to the side of my coals, then I take the short "popping" puffs to get new air into the bowl. Once I do that a few times, I clear the vase via the blow valve and continue smoking.
MR Bubble