hello Elissa Weinzimmer vocal health
educator and founder of voice body
connection here it's time for some talk
about breathing in my how to warm up
video series so last week we talked
about letting the belly be soft through
a belly massage and today we're going to
talk about what we do on the exhalation
which is actually engaging the belly
muscles so this is a little bit
confusing right because when someone
says to you breathe your body doesn't
totally know what to do because it
doesn't even know whether you're telling
whether the person is telling you to breathe
in or breathe out what kind of breathing
are you supposed to do so when we start
to get a little bit clearer about what's
happening on different parts of breath
it becomes much clearer what to tell our
body to do and also when our body needs
to let go so last week we talked about
how the inhalation is a recovery that
allows us to let go and the best thing
we can do with the muscles of our belly
is to let them go and let them be soft
like the belly massage taught us last
week and also like we learned with the
breathing tense and release but backwards
video last time you did breathing so now
this time we're going to talk about what
happens with our breathing when we are
actually making the sound and the sound
is flowing up and out of us I want to start
with a metaphor here so this metaphor is
that your voice is like a toothpaste
tube right and we're holding the
toothpaste tube upright and we squeeze
the toothpaste tube at the bottom and it's
of course open then all of the toothpaste
goes up and out of the tube in the
upward direction which actually
incidentally is the direction in which
are sound leaves us however if we squeeze
the toothpaste tube in the middle some
of the toothpaste goes down some of it
goes up and then we have to do more work
later to take the toothpaste down at the bottom
of the tube and squeeze it back up if
you've ever had a partner or someone
you live with get
that with you about how you use your
toothpaste tube my friends this is why
okay so we're going to squeeze the
toothpaste tube of our voice from the
bottom which means we're going to engage
the lowest abdominal muscles now how do
you do this a fun way to tap into this
idea is to think that you just bought a
pair of skinny jeans that are one size
too skinny for you so you need to really
really pull your low belly in in order
to get that low belly sucked in and can
you even see how my ribcage actually got
larger or not smaller when I do this
because it's sent energy upwards that's
what we want right now when you're
actually speaking you may be doing this
action just to a very small degree if
you don't need a lot of support or if
you're about to shout across the train
station to get someone's attention you
might use this action with a lot of
force right so we're going to practice
this action at a sort of moderate level
on the sound shh and here's what we're going
to do we're going to put our hand
on our low belly I'm putting my thumb
right over my navel right over my belly
button and we're going to go shh and then of
course we're going to let go because if
we don't let go in between the shh and the
let go then we can't do it again right
so this is the shh let it go exercise as I
like to call it here's how it goes shh let it g shh let
it go you don't need to say the let it
go I'll do that for you ready shh let it go
shh let go shh let go shh let go shh let go now you're
going to do this eight times is what I
recommend if you put your hand on your
chest what's actually happening when I
squeeze from the bottom of the toothpaste
tube on the exhalation is there's a
teeny little bounce of my chest upwards
right it make sense because the
toothpaste is moving in that direction
here we go shh I sort of exaggerated that
for you so you can see it right what we don't
want is this shh
shh shh that's compression in the downward
direction that's what I like to call a
poopy breath I got that from my teacher
Leslie Kaminoff where sound's going or
energy is going in the downward
direction which is not the way it gets
out of us it comes out of us up and out so
instead we want shh shh where there's freedom
there's moveabiliy there's release
through the top of the chest and it's
not totally rigid it's not not moving at
all it's just gently bouncing because
there's energy flowing through your
whole system or the tube of your voice up
and out does this make sense I hope it
does obviously you can't answer me in
this moment although I hope you did so
let's do it eight times here we go ready
shh let go shh let go shh let go shh let go shh shh shh shh and how
about one nice one that's long for good
measure the quality of that sound is
easy it's flowing through the shape
of the articulator making an SH sound at
the top of the tube and it's not pressed
it's not pushed right if I go back to
that contracting thing that I did
before listen to the different quality
of the sound you can hear how there's a
lot of extra tension in that sound
or you can start to be curious about whether
you're noticing it in yourself so
practice this shh let it go exercise in
order to activate that low belly or
sometimes we call it transverse
abdominis support that's the deepest
layer of these low abdominal muscles
although truly I do think it's all three
layers that are involved in this
exercise the rectus abdominis the
obliques and the transverse abdominis
enjoy let me know if you have any
questions this was a big overview of
stuff that I go a lot more deeply into
in my how your voice works online class so if
you're confused just leave me a comment
let me know what you want to know about
breathing okay I will see you next week
for sound