September 2008
Heavy Breathing
Advised for Jocks
AMERICAN HEALTH MAGAZINE (circa 1986-1988)
Cyclist Alexi Grewal, a 1984 Olympic gold med-
List, calls it “the most powerful tool that canbe imagined,”and cites it as a key factor in is
medal-winning performance.
It’s BreathPlay, a new breathing technique that
emphasizes the outbreath. Creator Ian Jackson believes
BreathPlay makes breathing easier and more efficient.
New research indicates Jackson may be right. In a
study f 25 top cyclists, University of Toledo researcher
Daniel Wojto found that those using BreathPlay
significantly increased endurance and improved aerobic
capacity by more than 17 percent.
“BreathPlay basically turns the active and passive
phases of breathing upside-down,” Jackson explains.
Instead of sucking air in and letting it out, with
BreathPlay you push the air out, then let it back in.”
Next step: setting up a regular breathing rhythm. With
BreathPlay you breathe in steps, progressively
flattening your stomach in and letting it out. Think of
each breath as a footstep). The rhythm is always
odd-numbered (three out-breaths followed by two
inbreaths, for example.)
Working with Wojta, Jackson taught BreathPlay to 15
Cycling Federation cyclists. The athletes and 10 USCF
controls first took an exercise test measuring oxygen
consumption, heart rate, blood pressure and perceived
exertion. At the end of a 10-day period, they repeated
the test, using BreathPlay.
Results: The BreathPlay cyclists increased endurance
by more that 3 percent. And Breath-Players found the
test easier and less taking.”
SEPTEMBER 2008 - Well … a bit late
this month ...
I am
not quite sure exactly when I came upon this article, but I have
been giving it to my students for years. I suspect it was around
1986.
For
some inexplicable reason … I always breathed in the proper way,
when I sang … but, breathed backwards when I ran, just like all
of the athletes mentioned in the article above. Since I ran two
miles a day … every day, I began using proper breathing and
enjoyed the “extra oxygen” available. I no longer run, but use
the breathing in my fifty to seventy miles I ride on my
Cannondale road bike.
While
having a lesson with Beverly Johnson, about 1962, she identified
the fact that I was breathing properly … but then suggested I
using the action of “spitting a hair off my lip” to get a
cleaner attack for each phrase. I had already been at N Y City
opera, for a couple of years, but I found that my singing
improved with the use of that simple technique. Beverly
suggested I start teaching and sent me my first two students.
Over the years, I developed the technique, which is quite
unique, that I describe in detail, in “Tips” of last August,
September and October. Please print them out and read them out
loud. You can only imagine how much more you learn … and how
much more the technique begins to work by that simple device of
“reading it out loud.”
In the
last two months, I have had five new people come in the door,
one who had suffered a freak accident on stage while falling and
splitting a lung, in Thailand. Her doctor’s told her not to sing
for a year although, strangely … allowing her to run for
exercise/ (???) She couldn’t find her voice … and hadn’t sung in
four years, while her speaking voice is well modulated and
supported. The moment she tried to sing … her throat seized.
After teaching her my breathing/support technique … she made her
first full singing sound … in about six or seven minutes. Was it
pretty? Heck no … but it was fully supported which allowed her
to keep her throat open. I gave her extra time … and at the end
of a little more than an hour and a half … I had her singing her
first fully sung phrase.
The
main difficulty is to build up her confidence, knowing that if
she gives it a shot of breath pressure and thinks of what the
sound should sound like … way over there … the sound keeping
flowing. It is a wind instrument,” after all. She is now singing
…She never had never used her real high voice, because she
didn’t know she had one. She is now comfortable with the high A,
after only seven lessons. Technique …
Two
very bright fellas came in, John at 39 and Jason at 55. Both
professed to be “tone deaf!” I had each one singing in full
baritone voices, comparable to my own sound, in ten to fifteen
minutes. Jason is inordinately talented and, while he professed
only to need an E, for his songs with the guitar … I took him to
a fully focused and supported A … in his first lesson.
In the
old, old days … that used to take me several months. I didn’t
realize I could go right to the voice, that easily. The other
two just didn’t really want to sing … they wanted to “play at
it.”
http://www.breathplay.com/PAGES/articles_details.php?article_id=22
AUGUST 08
-
THE VAGARIES OF
AUDITIONS AND AUDITIONING (Part 3)
JULY 08
-
THE VAGARIES OF AUDITIONS AND
AUDITIONING (Part 2)
JUNE 08
-
THE VAGARIES OF AUDITIONS AND AUDITIONING
(Part 1)
MAY 08
- ABSENCE OF TENSION
APRIL 08
-
THE FLAT TONGUE TECHNIQUE AND HOW DO YOU
MAKE A VOWEL
MARCH 08
-
THE VOICE COACHING THAT MADE MY
CAREER
FEBRUARY 08
- WHAT ARE YOU SINGING?
JANUARY 08
-
VIBRATO/WOBBLE
DECEMBER
07
-
BREATHING
REVISITED
NOVEMBER 07
-
HOW TO
KILL A COLD IN FIVE DAYS
OCTOBER 07
- A BIT MORE
SUPPORT
SEPTEMBER
07
- MORE SUPPORT
AUGUST 07
-
INTRO &
BREATHING/SUPPORT
