In a previous post, I detailed how much I hated doing yoga in college and how my discovery of Alexander Technique work has transformed my relationship to the practice--in fact, it is now part of my personal morning routine. The key thing that made this change is that rather than compressing into poses and flows, I now know how to truly lengthen into them, so that yoga can be an experience of expansion rather than contraction. When your teacher asked you to 'lengthen', how do you respond? It is worth it to define some terms, as the term 'lengthening' is one that every yoga teacher uses, but can mean a variety of different things*. My experience is that most teachers actually use it to mean an engagement of the extensor muscles--essentially an arch into the back of the body (often teachers will use the term 'flat-back' the same way'. The idea is that this will 'draw you up' and open your front. The main issue with this is that this isn't how muscles work--they can't draw you up, they can only contract. So what feels like lengthening is actually a contraction of the muscles of the back that compromises the shape and integrity of the spine (especially loading the lower back and the lumbar curve, where most lower back injuries happen). Furthermore because of antagonistic action (nothing in your body works in isolation) the muscles of the front will also be activated by the increased pressure on the back,, resulting in an overall shortening in stature and compression throughout the body, especially in the joints of the lower body which will tighten to keep the body stable. This also contracts the three dimensional breathing surface, forcing the breath higher in the body (you will feel it in your sternum and upper chest).
Overall, the result is lowered mobility, relaxation, and ease (those tricky balancing poses become much harder). It also greatly increases the risk of injury--studies show that the spine can function quite well departing from a neutral stance when truly lengthened, but when compression is present movements like flexion and twists can lead to breakdown in ligaments, soft tissues, nerve irritation, and muscle strain. I think this is partially behind the phenomenon of yoga injury--though yoga done well can have wonderful rehabilitative effects on the body, done without proper form it is as dangerous as any more 'high-impact' physical activities. So how can we practice with true length? Here are a couple of ideas that can help:
If you are a yoga teacher, studio owner, or practitioner who has an interest in exploring how The Alexander Technique can help your students and personal practice, please contact me at freedominmotionat@gmail.com. *It is VERY worth noting that this blog is a generalization drawn from nearly a decade of attending group yoga classes about the instructions received most commonly from teachers--I am aware that the best teachers have a grasp of these important distinctions. However, it is a pervasive enough pattern in yoga culture that it is worth discussing. This idea of 'good posture' is intrinsic in many aspects of our society and doubly so in fitness culture. Perhaps it is an argument for smaller classes where more attention can be given to student's individual 'Use' as even great teachers can have problems conveying this idea in large groups.
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It has long been an axiom that the most common fear is public speaking. This fear is pretty rational--we are social animals, and when we speak in front of a group, whether it is in a business setting or for personal reasons, we are exposing ourselves and our place in society. Your body can be a key tool for helping you to reduce this fear and communicate your message with ownership and ease. 1. Don't Be Confident--Be HumanAs a response to our fear, and to try and seem authoritative, most of us try to assume an air of confidence when we speak in public--this is a trap. When we assume an artificial confidence, we end up arching our chest and straining our voice, all of which conveys discomfort rather than competence (See my blog on 'Body Branding' for more on this. Remember that ease=expertise). Moreover, it has a distancing effect--we might be impressed by a 'confident' speaker, but we don't like them: their tension unconsciously transfers to us, and we feel a need to try and be perfect in the same way (unsuccessfully) by mirroring them. As a result, everyone is busy trying to impress each other and there is no sense of listening in the room. Instead of trying to be confident and creating an image of perfection try a radically easier tactic--share one of your imperfections early on in your presentation. This doesn't have to be a deep dark secret or a major flummox but a small mistake--mispronouncing a word, sharing a feeling you have in the moment, calmly admitting nerves. When I give big presentations or workshops, I actually plan a couple of these in the first couple of minutes--I find that once I give up the goal of perfection, I relax and so does everybody I am speaking to. It is important that when you do so, accept it without judgement--don't correct yourself with tension or apologize. Just admit your humanity and move on. Doing so changes the paradigm of the communication--it makes clear you are willing to share vulnerable parts of yourself, that you aren't here to judge, and will make you instantly more likeable. You can bring your body language in line with this by allowing a slight rounding in your back--this conveys that you aren't trying to 'put something on' or defend but are interested in open communication. 2. Occupy Your Rightful SpaceOne great tip for managing yourself physically when you speak is to be cognizant of where the weight is on your feet--if all of your weight is in your heels, that might mean you are unconsciously pulling back from your audience which will have a distancing effect as well as potentially causing tension in your throat and neck while you speak. Conversely, if your weight is all in your toes it might mean you are 'pushing' into your audience, which might cause them to unconsciously recoil. Try to feel your weight in both your heels and toes, have a stance where your feet are approx. under your armpits, and let your knees and ankles gently release, allowing a slow easy sway from your legs up. On this same theme, try not to be a 'space creeper' and wander around aimlessly during your presentation--instead, allow movement to happen when you are connecting to a specific person, or perhaps at transition points in your speech. 3. Talk To A Crowd All Together, One At A TimeOne thing that can get a public speaker in trouble is talking to the whole group as if they are an amorphous blob rather than a collection of individuals. This tends to make us use excess effort, push harder than we need to, lose focus, become intimidated, and miss important chances to make your words feel intimate and personal. An effective tactic I use is rather than talking to the group as a whole or talking over their heads, I let myself connect with one individual at a time while keeping the rest of the group in 'soft focus', switching every few sentences. I usually pick people in the middle of the group, occasionally speaking to someone in the back or front, to create the illusion that I am speaking to the whole group and so that people don't feel left out. This helps quite a bit with nerves, as I am much better at connecting person to person as opposed to trying to be an 'orator', and this unconsciously makes the whole group feel more connected to me. 4. Let Your Voice Ring Out Like A BellMany of us get concerned people won't be able to hear us when we speak and work hard to project our sound. As such, we sometimes will push our voice with a lot of tension forward into the crowd, making ourselves hard to listen to, causing vocal loss, and locking up our bodies with the effort of trying to be heard. Instead of trying to push your voice forward, imagine it filling the space behind you, above you, and to your sides as well. The result will be that you won't strain as much, your breathing will be deeper, and you will be able to reach more people with less effort. 5. Focus On Your Breath, Not Your HandsOne common trap is 'talking with your hands' to try to emphasize your points. Gesture, if properly harnessed, can be a powerful communicative tool, but instead we often end up moving our hands unspecifically, resulting in creating physical static that muddles our message. Instead of trying to control your hands (by putting them in your pockets, making fists, holding the lecturn, etc.), focus your attention on your breath as you inhale and exhale. Allow enough time for the breath to come in, which will allow your audience to process what you are saying before you continue on (another important aspect of public speaking). Notice the poise and movement of your spine. Without trying, the movement of your hands and arms will start to become synchronized and in harmony with your speech--you just have to take your eyes off the ball. 6. Don't Let Frowns Turn You Upside-DownWhen I first started doing public programs, I was disconcerted to look into the group and see some people frowning at me while I spoke. Others seemed very engaged, but these individuals seemed to hate what I was doing. Sometimes, it would throw me, and I would start to become nervous or speak with less ease.
It was a shock that after my workshops or talks, these would be the people who would come up to me and want to do more work or tell me that what I had said had a profound impact on them. The reason for this paradox comes from neuroscience--when we engage our conscious, thinking minds the muscles of the face as well as the eyes engage with it, pulling the lips into a frown and furrowing the brow. So this expression I was seeing was not one of dislike, but of deep processing (yawning can also actually be a sign of this). Once I realized this, I was much less likely to be thrown by audience reactions, and was able to be more detached from what I saw when I spoke. This is not to say that your audience should always be frowning--it is important to give them cognitive breaks where they don't have to process anything: this can be done by creating light buffer material between serious points, or by changing up your tone and delivery. In the end, you can never really know how you are impacting people while you speak, so letting go of trying to judge your own performance is an essential skill, or else you will become reactive rather than responsive and connected. Learn About Our Programs for Public Speakers and Executives 1/23/2018 1 Comment 5 Tips for Easier SingingThe ability to sing is a human birthright, and something we start doing before we have words. As we grow older, this natural access to our voice narrows, often in response to our efforts to gain 'technique' and learn how to sing 'better'. The Alexander Technique can be an essential tool for recapturing the balance between ease and refinement. Here are a couple of ideas to play with that will get your inner songbird going. 1. Singing Is A Whole-Body ExperienceThe more trained a vocalist I work with, the more likely they are to have their attention concentrated on a small section of their body--their lips, tongue, jaw, soft-palette, and throat. It is necessary to focus on these areas when you are training in order to refine vowels, open up tone, get rid of pushing etc. The danger of this is that when focusing on these areas, we go dead to the rest of our body. It is my experience that when the whole body is set up well and the breath is moving with freedom, a lot of problems in the articulators and the complex mechanisms of the throat and mouth release on their own. Let's look at a couple of points that will help to expand this idea for you. 2. Support Is Everything--But Not the Support You ThinkSingers are all about breath support. This sometimes mistakenly makes us try to push the breath out (usually tensing our abs, backs, and shoulders to do so), as if we have to squeeze our bodies tight to support the breath's movement. My wonderful teacher Liz at the Voice Lab likes to say that it is a misleading term--it is the breath that supports the voice, not our muscles that support our breath. If you tense to try and push breath out it actually results in trapping the flow of air and as a result the parts of the upper respiratory system engage to compensate. True breath support is a release that allows the breath to flow without restraint. A support relationship that IS important is the way your body meets the ground. When you stand and sing, is the weight more in your heels or in your toes? The majority of people I work with have their weight committed backwards into their heels. This is a symptom of the whole body arching back, particularly the head. As a result, the muscles of the torso and legs tense to keep the body from falling backwards, constricting the breath and tightening the larynx and throat against each other. As an antidote for this, try relaxing your neck and letting your head float gently forward and up (easier said than done, you can see this blog to help), and let the weight shift slightly forward at your ankles until you feel some weight in the big toe-ball sides of your feet. Make sure you release your knees (try softening your inner thighs) a bit when you get there, or else you will feel as if you are falling forward. It also helps to have a supportive width to your feet--if your feet are too wide you won't feel any weight in the little toe side, if too narrow there will be no weight in the book toe. It can be amazing how a sound can transform with a better support relationship with the ground is achieved! 3. Breathing is DimensionalMost of us know that we are trying to bring breath deep into our bodies when we sing. However, most of us try to primarily draw breath into our front. This often leads to us arching our body back (see point #2) and drawing breath shallowly into our chest in order to feel like it is going deep. There is a better way. Many people are surprised to hear that a majority of of breathing room is not in our front, but in our back. There is simply more lung tissue there, and the 3 dimensional movement of the ribs actually favors the expansion of the back and sides rather than the rise and fall of the sternum experienced in the front. Allowing the ribs to gently swing in all three dimensions (a full circle around the body, as well as up and down) can provide an antidote to this, as long as you resist the temptation to arch to suck breath in. The bubble exercise is excellent for expanding our attention in this fashion. 4. Exhales Trigger InhalesThis one is potentially controversial and requires some nuance. When we are told to take a deep breath, we usually focus on the inhale. This attempt to pull breath in can activate the accessory muscles instead of the diaphragm and lead to some of the problems discussed in #3. The best way to activate the diaphragm is to exhale to the point where the diaphragm activates and 'does' the inhale for you. This can be a complex process and is best left to an experienced teacher, but once learned it should become an integral part of your vocal warm-up. In performance, you can try playing with this in a simple way--before the first in-breath of your piece, simply gently exhale to make space for it. As you work breath to breath in your piece, making sure you aren't leaving a cushion of air as 'insurance' in your lungs at the end of each phrase will help you get fuller breath to support your next phrase. 5. Will Getting 'Serious' About Your Music Will Help You Sing Better?Often, we think the reason we aren't progressing as a musician is because we aren't trying hard enough and we need to get 'serious'. Here's what getting serious leads to: a tight neck, jaw, back, and face and all of the problems seen in #1-4. If you lose touch with the primal joy of singing it is the first thing you must rediscover if you want to be the best vocalist you can be. This non-technical advice will reap copious technical rewards: your body will relax, your sound will immediately become fuller, easier, and richer.
Never let this be the last step: let it be the first. Check Out Our Workshop for Musicians at the Old Town School of Folk Music 1/16/2018 0 Comments Body Branding and SuccessWhat does your body language say about your business? Does your posture undercut or serve your messaging? How do you hold yourself in the boardroom, with clients, when networking?
If you haven't considered these questions, you might be in need of some Body Branding. Body Branding is a process by which you can become aware of how your postural, gestural, and expressive habits interact with your efforts to communicate with co-workers and customers and retrain these habits to align with your goals and vision. An example--is you brand meant to engender trust, but when you speak to people you lean back with your weight on your heels, your chest out, and your body gently falling backwards? This might have an unintended distancing effect that will make clients feel uncomfortable with you without knowing why. Or when you try to appear confident, do you push your body up, gesture out, and lean in towards them? All of these indicate insecurity and aggression and will unconsciously undercut your intent. These are negative examples, but when your Body Branding is on point it can be a powerful tool for converting sales, building relationships, and being comfortable in your own skin. If you want to feel relatable speaking to a small room, try sitting instead of standing, turn the chair backwards, lean gently forward and allow a slight rounding in your back. You will effortlessly project intimacy and sincerity. One of the reasons why strategies like this have an impact is because of the primal social cues we send using our body (hence the old adage that communication is 90% non-verbal). Another reason is because of mirror neurons--when we interact with someone, our brains literally 'try on' their body language to see how it feels and reads intent using it. Both of these things have an out sized effect on your personal brand and how it interacts with your larger message. It only takes a few coaching sessions to create and implement a personal strategy to get your body on board. It is important to know that it is not just about knowing the right and wrong things to do--it is about rewiring your habits and making them animated and flexible so they won't appear stiff and uninviting. Though in person sessions are always the best option as they allow us to use bodywork to assist the habit change, online lessons are a great way to get coaching on this if you are a busy professional without a lot of extra time on your hands. Whether you take on this work or not, I hope this gives you some food for thought on how you show up in the world. Playing guitar is hard. These tips can help. 1. Don't Fall Back to Support Your Instrument--Free Up Into ItGuitars are heavy, especially acoustic guitars. It is tempting to bend backwards to help support their weight. As a result your back with start to contract which can cause shoulder tension and finger control issues, as well as breath support problems if you sing while you play (plus it doesn't feel good). Instead, think of your body moving forward in up in opposition to the weight of the guitar--it will feel almost like you are doing a shared weight exercise with it. It will be helpful to have your support well set up--if you are sitting, see if you can have the balls of your feet on the floor relatively close to your chair (I recommend a simple musician's stool). If standing, make sure you have some weight in both the heel and ball of both feet (including the big toe side), and consider playing in a subtle 'lunge' position. 2. Don't Fret With Your NeckAs a self-taught guitarist, this has been something that has been really difficult for me: only look at the fret-board when you need to. When we are learning, it is easy to spend all of our time with our head craned towards the fret board to make sure we are doing what we think we are with our hands. Once we get going, this creates a habit of pushing your head off your spine to see what your hands are doing. This tightens your torso, tenses your shoulders, crunches your larynx, and generally makes guitar playing less fun. It can feel ponderous at first, but slowly start to nurse yourself off this habit and try to look up and out as you play. Of course, that doesn't mean you never look down--just try not to get stuck there. One thing I find helpful for this is looking down as much as possible with just my eyes rather than bending my neck--it helps me quick reference without getting to out of sorts. Plus, it is great for keeping sound contant if you have to sing into a mic while you play. 3. Breath Like You Are SingingSingers are aware of how important breath support is, but string players often don't know that it is just as important for them. The reason why is simple: when your muscles are oxygenated, they relax. When your system doesn't have enough air, it tightens up. Rather than focusing on gulping air in, try this: as you play, exhale gently through each phrase. And the end of each phrase, open your mouth and allow breath to flow in. You should feel your ribs move in your back, and be careful of tightening your abs or letting your head pull back as you inhale. The strange side effect is that you will fine your rhythm becomes more steady, your phrases more musical, your fingers more precise, and your muscles more relaxed--everything will start to feel much more effortless. Plus, you might find this strategy helps you with your stage fright!
Check Out Our Workshop at the Old Town School of Folk Music! What does it mean to be embodied?
In a previous post, I wrote about my journey with the Alexander Technique--how I identified with my brain and imagination and was disconnected from a feeling of living in my body, and how much my life has deepened since learning to live with a sense of embodied presence, not as a mind or body but as an indivisible unity. If we don't feel connected to our body, we often try to gain this connection by engaging in physical activity in a mechanical or even a self-punishing way. This is extra present in the first few weeks of the new year--we go to the gym fueled by guilt about how much we ate during the holidays (I just got back from Mississippi--so I totally understand). We see our body as a bad thing that has to be whipped into shape with the best intent and will power of our virtuous mind. The shot of adrenaline we get while working out makes us feel as if we are connected to our body, but there is an illusion here--we are actually hyper-activated in our fight/flight system, which is pleasurable as we are in it, but will fade and actually distance us as we come out of it. We have treated our body as a mule to be whipped rather than as an inherent part of ourselves to be treated with kindness. A personal example on how this mechanical approach can be ineffectual or even damaging. My freshman year of college I knew I was pretty terribly inflexible so I took a yoga class. At 7am. On a Friday. So already off to a bad start. I was painfully aware of how 'behind' everyone in the class I was, so I buckled down and pushed myself as hard as possible. Remarkably, I didn't seem to be making any progress, and would leave the class feeling tighter and more wound up rather than looser and relaxed. Years later, I am convinced it was the relationship I had with my body that did this--since changing my perspective, I have come to love yoga and see consistent results. I have become a big proponent of this attitude--that there is no thing good or bad but thinking makes it so (also see my blog on mindfulness and meditation). So as you turn your attention towards your new years goals, I encourage you to be kind to yourself, and bring your body along. Keep a sense of presence in your whole body--a good way to do this is to picture your consciousness as being in the center of your body as you move rather than as in your head (a little weird, but it works). This will keep you from dissociating yourself. Remember gradual habit change is ultimately better than crash attempts (which tend to....crash, as well as being more about ego than progress). And be careful of self hatred disguised as self love. 11/15/2017 0 Comments Four Holiday Stress BustersThe holidays are meant to be a time of joy and light, but somehow always seem to bring people into a place of stress and heaviness. Here are a couple of Alexander Technique tips to help you deal with family and frenzy as we enter this holiday season. 1. Don't Forget to ExhaleWith all there is to do to get things ready for the holidays, whether it is making a meal, taking care of guests, finding presents, or finishing last minute work before the break it is amazingly easy for things to accelerate out of control. A simple way to counteract this feeling is to focus on not holding your breath and instead allowing your breath out on a long, unforced exhale. This will help to decelerate your heart beat, unclench your muscles, and you may even find time will slow down to a manageable pace. If you need a good way to do this for maximum effect, check out his blog on the classic Alexander exercise 'The Whispered Ah'. 2. Watch Out for Body Language FlashbacksWhen we are around our families, we all have a tendency to regress a little. It is useful to know that our bodies do as well--after a couple of hours I start moving like I'm a teenager again. Along with this come behaviors that are sometimes less mature and don't serve me. Be conscious of your body language, and instead of falling into the trap, see if you can leave your body gently alone by imagining your neck releasing when you start to tighten up (a key point in A.T. work). It also pays to be conscious of relaxing your jaw and eyes, as these are often also key points for tension release. 3. Take 'Time-Outs'Even when things are really busy and stressful, you need to make sure to take care of yourself. So if you are overwhelmed (or your uncle decides it is necessary to comment on your vote in the last election), take a moment to yourself and try the Active Rest procedure to get back some internal and external space. 4. Remember That The Holidays (and You) Don't Have to Be PerfectOne of the things that puts the most pressure on us around the holidays is the sense that we somehow have to present some sort of ideal self. As simple as it seems, reminding ourselves that holidays are just another day and that we are still allowed to be human and faulty can go a long way to giving us a little mental space. The magic of it is that this will help everyone around you have a better time as well!
On November 17th, Freedom in Motion is taking a big leap. We will no longer be just Freedom In Motion Chicago--we will also be launching Freedom In Motion Online, our new distance learning program.
Do you live somewhere that isn't Chicago? Do you not like to go outside once we hit February? Do you not have time to travel to and from lessons? Do you want to be able to record your lessons for future reference? Understandable. You will now be able to benefit from the same Alexandery goodness as folks who come in for in person lessons. Pretty neat huh? A couple of perks these sessions have compared to normal lessons-- PERKS:
More info will be available the week before the launch! If you have questions, comments, or quemments about this, please feel free to email me at Freedominmotionat@gmail.com. When I was in junior high, there was one day a month I dreaded above all others. Mile run day. I still shudder in horror thinking about it. I remember the feeling of trepidation and panic at the extraordinary effort I was going to have to put forward to get in before the 12 minute cut off. It was like my version of the Hunger Games. I would push really hard in an attempt to be ruled 'fit', my legs punching into the ground, my arms swinging, gasping for breath. I would often experience knee pain afterwards and have trouble walking for days, all of which convinced me I needed to learn how to be 'stronger' and try 'harder'. It wasn't until well into my adulthood that I realized this attitude was not only hamstringing me but keeping me from experiencing an activity that can actually be, dare I say it, pleasurable. As an adult post Alexander training, I have found I no longer have the feeling of 'pounding the pavement' that I used to have, and I can go further with much less effort and no joint pain after (though nothing can help the soreness in my thighs). Here are some of the most useful things I have learned that you can apply to your running today! (Much credit goes to Malcom Balk and The Art of Running for introducing me to some of these concepts) 1. Head Forward and UpOne of the foundational movement principles of A.T. can be articulated like this: the head leads and the body follows. Having your head balanced on top of your spine and not allowing it to pull back is crucial for any movement, and extra special important for running. If you allow your head to tilt back, it distorts the shape of your spine and causes you to run with your torso slightly behind yourself (you can see some of this in the photo at the beginning of this post!), creating drag and implicitly changing your stride, causing you to kick your legs in front of you rather than running over your feet. The best way to change this is to simply be aware of the orientation of your head and let it gently rotate forward from a point approx. between your ears. Thinking of releasing the base of the skull can help with this. Be careful of adding a push through your back by trying to 'straighten up' --it can cause you to over-curve the place where your lower back meets your ribs, which has the effect of tilting your head back! Let yourself be easy through your back so it can be gently flexible to the movement of your arms and legs. 2. Run 'Up and Over' the Ground, Rather than Down Into ItThink of yourself as a stone skipping across the surface of a lake as you run, your feet tapping the ground rather than pounding down into it. Sometimes we step heavy thinking that we are engaging our muscles more--in reality, we are actually compressing ourselves into the ground, which creates friction with the feet that slows us down and can be hell on your knees. Thinking of running up and over the ground can help to keep you light, easy, and in rhythm. 3. Be Aware of Your Hands, Jaw, and EyesThese are three places we tend to unconsciously clinch while running, and though they themselves aren't going to cause you problems, residual tension can easily creep into your neck and shoulders from them. Try gently softening these areas as you run to avoid this. With my hands, I find it useful to have them lightly curled and have my thumbs and pointer finger touching, but not to clench my fists. Also, you want to let your arms gently move as you run, but be careful of letting them swing without a connection to your back--they should be moving because of a diagonal stretch across your back with every step, not because you are consciously pumping them. 4. Focus on Your ExhaleWhen we are doing cardiovascular exercise, it is natural to want to gasp for breath. However, this can become a negative cycle, as inhaling heavily without exhaling fully can speed up both your breathing and heart rate in ways that won't help you and cause your muscles to seize up from buildup of carbon dioxide. Try to balance this out by consciously extending your exhale just a bit to slow down your breath rate and allow it to go deeper. 5. Run on a Three Count, Not a TwoIf you study the rhythm of your feet, you might notice you are internally counting it on a 'one-two one two' count. This can cause you to lean into whatever leg is on the 'one' count and move too much side to side while you run. Internally counting to three can reprogram this, make your stride smoother, and give you a delicious sense of flow as you move. 6. Remember that Running is FunAs related in my experience running in junior high, many of us correlate running with a sense of effort and intensity it really doesn't need. Sometimes this takes the form of a gritty 'eye of the tiger' attitude. Though this can be fun and make us feel sort of bad***, it can also cause us to overexert ourselves and run with too much heaviness and compression, which will have a deteriorating effect as your run goes on. It is amazing how an attitude that running can be light, easy, and fun can be self fulfilling! We're all tired of performing with freedom and ease right? Here are some ways you can interfere with yourself to make sure you never reach your full potential onstage. 1. Take Deep Breaths.We all know how important breathing is not only to your voice onstage but also for physical relaxation and emotional access right? So you want to make sure to sabotage that for sure. The best way to do that is to try and take deep breaths. Wait, huh? Isn't that supposed to help you relax? Not so much. When we try to breath deeply by focusing on the inhale we employ the accessory muscles of the ribs, abdomen and back to pull air into the chest instead of allowing the diaphragm to engage to make space for air deep in the body and back. This means we often get much less air than if we focus on not holding our breath and allowing a gentle exhale, triggering the reflexes that engage the diaphragm and giving a deep, full unforced breath. Plus, whenever you inhale, your heartbeat increases, so by inhaling a lot any stage fright you have is bound to increase and you will probably hyperventilate. FUN!!! 2. Stand Up Straight So You Look Really Confident!Nobody likes a vulnerable actor right? So push that chest out, pull those shoulders back, and make your spine as straight as a Kansas highway. If you follow these instructions, you will come off as super defensive and forced! It's like you have literally put a barrier between you and your audience/scene partners and as you will have frozen the movement of your breath mechanism (see above), you will probably have to push through your performance without feeling a thing all while looking strained and stiff. WHEW GOOD JOB. 3. Just Relax As Much As Possible. It's REALLY IMPORTANT. But Be Cool About it.Never in the history of relaxing has telling yourself to relax has it ever helped anyone to relax. So you should probably tell yourself it a lot in a really judge-y tone! Better yet, just slump. It is the best way to be relaxed. If your neck starts hurting or you notice yourself being short of breath and heavy feeling don't worry--that's what relaxation is supposed to feel like. You should hang out onstage like a boneless cat from a Far Side cartoon--its called being expressive. WHATEVER YOU DO, don't try to find a healthy alternative between slumping and pushing into your body. It can only lead to horrible, horrible success. 4. Get Grounded.Grab the ground with your feet. GRAB IT!!! And better yet, push down through your body like you are trying to break through to the center of the earth. If your knees lock, so much the better--you might even feel like it would be impossible to move if you wanted to! Like these other strategies, you will know if it is working if gets harder to breath. Definitely don't release your knees and ankles, slightly widen your stance, and feel a balance between weight on your heels and toes--it can only end in a supported, free body. 5. Whatever You Are Interacting With Onstage, Stare At It Like Your Eyes Are Lasers and You Want To Melt It Into Oblivion.Really, this is how you know you are acting with intensity--when your eyes are so hard and scrunched up you could bounce a quarter off of them. People do this in real life and sometimes they don't even get arrested! Remember, life is a staring contest and you WANNA WIN. The eyes are the window to the soul--brick those bad boys up. You might notice your neck tightening up and your breathing stop--high five. If you release your eyes and keep them soft but not too soft (which will lead to number 3), you will be in this terrible place where you can be responsive to your scene partners and vulnerable to the circumstances of the play. HORRORS. 6. Get Out of Your Head and Into Your BodyYou think too much. The best way to get around that is to unthinkingly move your body and see what shows up. Use your instincts and habits--it will probably get a little repetitive and tense, with boatloads of inarticulate effort. Good. Check to make sure your feet are shuffling aimlessly back and forth across the stage while your other hand makes the same gesture over and over again, and add some forced yelling into the mix. That's what it is like to act instinctually. If you let the circumstances of the play, your imagination, and the interaction with your scene partners and audience permeate your mind and trust your body to respond in unity with it, HOW WILL ANYONE KNOW YOU ARE ACTING????!!!!!!!***** *****if you would like to learn how to do the opposite of all of the advice in this blog, consider checking out 'Effortless Performance--An 8 Week Introduction to the Alexander Technique' at Green Shirt Studio. It's actually pretty fun, and not nearly this salty. |
Thoughts on what is going on in the work and the world right now. Many posts to come. Archives
June 2021
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