Day 1: Physical Awareness and Breath

Time of Day: 7:30 PM

Location: My House

For day one of my voice exploration week, I dove into Kristin Linklater's first part of the progression. I re-read her introduction to this step in Freeing the Natural Voice and then went through each of her exercises.

One thing Linklater brought up was you must be able to, "perceive habits and register new experiences" (Linklater 31). This stood out to me more when I read about it for this project because I now have a voice warm up. I created one last semester and I am more familiar with the Linklater training technique. She mentions how we have a tendency to slip into things that are comfortable and I want to push myself to go beyond what I know/ is comfortable. I want to be open minded to both new exercises (from Berry and Skinner) and also to the Linklater exercises I may not have enjoyed the first time around last semester.

Basic Summary of this Step: Linklater focuses this part of the progression on the spine. She believes a strong spine will help free breathing which will in term, help free the voice. If the spine is out of alignment, your body support is weakened which forces the abdominal muscles to provide support. If the abdominal muscles are being used for support they no longer can be used for breathing, which closes off the voice. In terms of breath awareness, Linklater argues there is no one correct way to breathe, but one must first relax their muscles, become aware of their breath, and focus on their center to truly speak “on voice”.

Exercise 1: Getting Acquainted with your Spine

Brief description of exercise: This exercise involved lifting first one's elbows, then arms, then wrists, then fingers. After holding them up for a period of time, one is to release them one by one. This is to gain experience with tension/relaxation. The next step is to slowly roll down the spine. After hanging for a while, one slowly rolls back up the spine and (remaining aware of the spine) walks around the room. Linklater then asks one to think about breath and to do some yawning.

Reflection: This was one exercise I was not looking forward to repeating for this project, especially since my back was bothering me a little at work today. However, it was really good getting the tension/ relaxation sensation back in my body. While it is extremely uncomfortable, it reminded me how I much tension I hold in my neck, shoulders and spine. I believe this portion of the exercise will get easier the more I do it over the next few days. In terms of rolling down the spine, I think the most challenging part is remaining balanced. When the blood is rushing to your head, it is hard to remember to stay grounded and on the balls of your feet. One thing I did notice was how aligned I felt after rolling back up the spine. I have a really bad posture problem and that was something I worked a lot with my Voice for the Stage professor last semester. After this portion of the exercise, I felt my shoulders relaxed, but not slouched, and my head up. I was able to walk around the room with good posture and while my posture has been a lot better this semester I still think it has some way to go. I think rolling down and up the spine is an extremely easy (and relatively quick way) to help get my spine aligned and posture in check. I think becoming aware of my breath is something I am comfortable doing now even though last semester I found it more difficult. Last semester I had a lot of difficulty getting my brain to shut off and stop thinking. I would constantly worry if I was doing the exercises correctly or not and this time around it took me a lot less time to get into the exercise.

Exercise 2: Breath Awareness

Brief description of exercise: This exercise started with redoing the physical awareness exercise. The next step involves becoming aware of the breath- noticing small movements and discovering your breathing rhythm. The third step involves the recognition that breathing in is an impulse- you breath out, find the impulse to breathe in again, breath in, immediately breathe out and repeat. Step four involves becoming aware of whether or not you breathe through your mouth or nose and forcing yourself to breathe through your mouth. You should hear a natural "fff" sound without having to force it. The fifth step involves picturing your diaphragm with each breath and imagining each breath out as a willing escape. The sixth step is a mind exercise with the idea that your mind is controlling you holding your arm up or how you breathe. Step seven involves breathing on the floor and how it feels to breathe when you are completely relaxed. The final step involves standing back up and imagining you are still on the floor and seeing how that impacted your breathing.

Reflection: When I first started becoming aware of breath last semester I was extremely self conscious. I was worried I was doing it "wrong", even though Linklater argues there is no correct way to breathe. However, doing it this time around I was not as self conscious. I am still working on the idea that breathing in is an impulse (as opposed to breathing out). I did start with breathing through my nose and it was a good reminder that breathing through your mouth releases tension and makes you truly relaxed. I think the hardest step in this exercise was the mind exercise. I tend to get in my head so it was hard having my mind stop thinking about holding my arm up and my breathing. I was telling myself to not think about holding my arm up and it only made me think about holding arm up more. This is something I want to work on in the coming days. I did like doing the breathing work on the floor because it helped my truly relax as my body melted into the ground. I was no longer worried about posture and balance was able to focus on my breath. This translated well when I stood back up for the final step of the exercise.

Challenge Updates:

Number of Apologies: 3

Cups of Coffee: 1 Grande Iced Carmel Macchiato from Starbucks