Hi it's Elissa Weinzimmer founder of Voice Body Connection and it is time for
another how to warm up video!
how to warm up
In today's how to warm up video we
are covering an exercise that I call release on the inhalation. Now this is a
really really important breathing exercise because when your body learns
how to take an easy inhalation, it means that you can actually deliver text or a
monologue or a speech or a song or whatever it is with a lot more ease.
Think about what happens when someone points at you and says "breathe.".
Probably your body does some version of this takes an effortful inhalation, maybe your
shoulders go up, or maybe you just go and take a breath. So the idea of taking a
breath is actually a little bit silly because you don't actually need to steal
air from the outside world but it's fair, our body is hardwired this way.
It's wired to take an effortful inhalation, do work as we inhale, and then release
as we exhale. And this is how we breathe when we sleep, this is how we breathe
most of the time when we're walking down the street. But there's an issue with
breathing this way when we are speaking or singing because while I'm talking to
you right now, I'm doing the work of talking on an exhalation and I can prove
it because if I were to start talking on an inhalation it would sound like this.
And that's not how we talk. So we definitely talk on an exhalation.
It's egressive not ingressive which means that the only opportunity to take a
break while we're talking or singing continuously is on the inhalation.
So wouldn't it then be lovely if we could release and take an easy inhalation so
we're not doing extra work? Otherwise we might get into talk talk talk talk talk
breathe talk talk talk breathe talk talk talk talk talk breathe and you know how
that feels when you're in front of people and you're doing that: Hyperventilation
So what we're going to do is teach our body to make an easy
recovered expansive inhalation and we're gonna do this using an exercise called
progressive relaxation. But here's the thing, when progressive relaxation is
normally taught, you go through different parts of the body
tensing and releasing. As you tense you squeeze and as you release you exhale.
So you inhale as you squeeze and you exhale and relax and that is indeed what
happens if you do this exercise progressively through different parts of
the body at the end you'll be relaxed you'll be ready to take a nice nap on
the couch, have a glass of wine chill out, you're not ready to perform,
right? That's actually not the state we want to be in to perform. Total
relaxation is not the goal it's about alertness and readiness and
responsiveness. So when we reverse this exercise when we squeeze as we breathe
out do the work as we exhale and then release as we breathe in that's gonna
teach our body what it feels like to have an expansive inhalation. So let's
try it we're gonna start with our feet.
So squeeze the muscles in your feet and
breathe out and then relax your feet, let your breath come in. Good, squeeze the
muscles of your feet again and breathe out relax let the breath come in, good.
And we're gonna do three times in each place one more time squeeze your feet
and breathe out and relax let the breath come in.
Now a couple things to say before we go to the second spot which is the knees.
First of all you may have noticed I was making sound on the exhalation
but then the inhalation is really quiet. The reason for that and that's good is
because totally fine to do work and make sound on the exhalation but when you let
go of all of the tension that would be in your throat or your shoulders or your
neck or up here around your voice box and your vocal cords, when you just let
all of that go the air will come in silently because since you've made your
lungs smaller by squeezing (yes I know we're down at the feet right now but
it's happening) since you're making things smaller, they'll want to recoil
and expand and as long as the airway is open the air will
come in. So aim for that easy silent inhalation as we go along. Just one other
thing to say about the feet since we're way down below the lungs is that even
though the air is not going down to your feet it actually is true that the shape
change of your body feels like breathing. So if you can allow shape change to be
breath then really it's sort of like when yoga teachers say crazy things to
you like "Breathe into your feet." Make sense? That's what they mean. So okay good
let's go down to the knees now
Take two fists between your knees like so, squeeze
your legs together and breathe out
release, let the breath come in. Good, squeeze and breathe out, release, let the
breath come in. Squeeze and breathe out
release and let the breath come in. Very nice.
Now the next place we're gonna go is to the buttocks and this is a very important place to use
because when people walk around as a tight ass if you will they are clenching their buttocks.
So this will help us release that area. I hope now that we're practicing the
exercise in feet and knees you can also feel that your body is starting to
calibrate and understand how to do what it probably wants to do backwards, right?
So keep going and your body will calibrate as you keep practicing this
exercise. Let's go to the buttocks now
Squeeze the muscles of your buttocks and
breathe out, release, let the breath come in. Good, like the breath is dropping all
the way down to the bottom of your torso. Squeeze and breathe out, release, let the
breath come in. Nice and you may notice now I'm doing this with closed eyes
because sometimes it's nice to go inside as you do it. Squeeze and breathe out,
relax, let the breath come in. Good! Hopefully your body's starting to
calibrate and feel that squeeze and breathe
out and release and breathe in works. And by the way, I know it's a little bit out
of rhythm as I'm introducing this to you and we're going between feet and knees
etc. But doing that on purpose so your body can calibrate in terms of oxygen as
well but when you start practicing this on your own and you're getting better at
doing it feel free to keep it in a rhythm as long as you don't over breathe,
okay? So next place we'll go is the low belly put your hand on your low belly
between your belly button and your pubic bone. Take that part of your low
abdominal muscles and draw them in and up towards the front of your spine and
breathe out. And then release those muscles, let the breath come in. Good.
Squeeze and breathe out, release let the breath come in. Nice. Squeeze and breathe
out, release, let the breath come in like a recoiled easy breath. Now you may
notice if you remember the breath support exercise in this How to Warm Up
series, that action we just did is the same as the "Shh, let it go" or the "Hey, let it go"
that we've been doing. So these exercises are really good to do together
in tandem, okay? Next step is to bring the shoulder blades together down the back
and breathe out and then let them spring open, let the breath come in. Squeeze and
breathe out,
let them release, let the breath come into the back. Squeeze and breathe out
and let that go, let the breath come in. Okay moving up to the hands.
So bring your hands up and squeeze them into fists and breathe out and then let your
palms, your hands, your arms expand, let the breath come in. Very nice. Squeeze and
breathe out, let your body open, let the breath come in, almost like the sensation
like it's coming in through your palms like you had mouths in your palms.
Squeeze and breathe out, down to the bottom of your breath, inhale as you
expand. Very nice. Moving up to the shoulders and the neck you're going to
lift your shoulders slightly and shorten your neck. Don't overdo this one or you
could crunch a little too much. But just gently squeeze and breathe out and then
release, lengthen, let the breath come in. Squeeze and breathe out, release and let
the breath come in. Good. Squeeze and breathe out and the movement leads the
breath as you release, breath just comes in. Very nice! And up to the face
squeeze the face and breathe out. This part's silly. Release, let the breath come
in. Two more times. Squeeze and breathe out, release, let the breath come in.
Squeeze and breathe out and then release let the breath come in.
Very good! Okay and finally we'll just do the whole thing a little bit everywhere
in all parts of the body. Squeeze everything we've squeezed and breathe out.
Expand your body, let the breath come in. Nice, easy squeeze and breathe out.
Expand and let the breath come in. So easy. Squeeze and breathe out, everything
opens releases and the breath comes in. So good!
Okay so that is the release on the inhalation exercise.
We did feet, knees, buttocks, low belly. We did shoulder
blades, we did hands, we did shoulders and neck, we did face, and then we did the
whole body. So as you practice it you can do three in each place, you can do two
you can really do this in whatever way you like. But I highly recommend that you
practice this exercise often until your body starts to really really recognize
this pattern. Now another really useful use of this exercise is for anxiety.
Because that feeling that I hope you experienced as you expanded and breathed
in is actually this really confident, buoyant, excited feeling, right? So if
you're ever feeling anxious like before you're about to go on stage or before
you're gonna press record as you are filming something, then this can be a
great exercise to do.
Now two more specific ways to modify this exercise.
If you need to do this socially-acceptable, no-one-notices-you version of it, you can
be on public transportation or you can be somewhere where people can see you
and you can very gently squeeze everything, breathe out and then
release, let the breath come in. No one even needs to know and conversely if you
really really want to pump yourself up and be more confident, you can do the
really big version where you go squeeze everything and breathe out and you get
really really small and then you get big and let the breath come in.
And that's maybe the toilet-stall or around-the-corner-from-the-other-people
version, okay? So enjoy this exercise! I really hope that release on the
inhalation is powerful for training your nervous system to know what it feels
like to do things easily, to have an easy breath, to be able to be in a situation
where people are looking at you and still breathe with freedom and ease.
Enjoy and I will see you in a future how to warm up video
How to Warm Up