Breathing Skills For Health & Wellbeing

The great acting coach and movement director Jean-Louis Rodrigue once said,

 

“The way you breathe is related to who you think you are in this world”. 

 

No statement about the reality of our existence and the breath comes closer to this truth. However, it might be surprising that something so primal and instinctual could somehow go terribly wrong. The fact is that most of us don’t breathe correctly. Yes we are all alive right now so we must be doing something right! But are we doing it in a manner to which we were created to do? Unless you are a trained actor, singer, or a yoga or Tai chi practitioner, chances are you were never taught how to breathe correctly. We are slowly beginning to realise, with the help of authors such as James Nestor, the importance of good breathing and how poor breathing habits could have detrimental effects on the human body, and in some instances, leading to poor maxillofacial formation, dental abnormalities, posture imbalances, and even disease. Good voice is a combination of just the right amount of breath with just the correct contraction/force of muscle. Mess this up and you'll either be over-breathing and tiring yourself or under-breathing and running out of breath. 

 

The great opera singer Richard Tucker once said, 

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“Voice is a result of what you do with the breath. Voice does nothing. Breath does everything". 

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Building on all these facts, this course aims to teach you or your child how to posture yourself and breathe correctly. During these sessions, we’ll use my specially designed VoIXStraw™ to train the diaphragm to efficiently do its job and produce the tone and resonance desired in good speech. Aside from the speech benefits, these breathing exercises will bring along other health advantages such as reduced stress and anxiety, improved oxygen circulation crucial for cellular energy production and overall vitality, improved mental clarity and alertness, improved lung function and stamina, and lowers blood pressure (or the risk of it happening in the future!). 

The course will incorporate methods learnt from James Nestor, Patrick McKeown, Patsy Rodenburg, and other experts in the field of Yoga and Tai chi, all related to optimising speech and voice production. I strongly believe that mastering the breath is the primary determining factor between a good and great speaker. 

 

Overall, this course is essential and foundational to all other courses I teach. However, this course will dive deep into breath-work and how it connects to proper speech production.