Start the new year right – with strong, grounded support right where it belongs.
If you’ve ever wondered what breath support is supposed to feel like, this is the exercise for you. We’ll engage the low abdominal muscles to feel their strength and then decouple that engagement from tightening in the throat – it’s a win-win!
Have you ever wondered if your belly should move IN or OUT when you support? If it should feel like it’s moving UP or DOWN?
Here’s the tricky thing: the movement should be an engagement in the muscles of the low belly – your reflex movement if I were going to punch you in the tummy (although I would never do that! I love you!). And that engagement feels different in different bodies. I can watch two singers sing with support and one will say he feels the belly moving in and the other feels a downward movement. What’s up with that?
Well, think about those interwoven, basket-like muscles of the abdomen. Your sensation might be predominantly the pulling in, or the isometric push against them. Both will be happening, but what you feel most strongly will depend on you as an individual.
So instead of asking you to feel a particular direction of movement, I’m going to ask you to create the engagement using a silly sound, and then you can replicate it in your singing, however it feels. Sound good?
How to do Grunts and Sighs:
- Put your hands on the low belly and grunt like a caveman. I mean, really go for it. Do not be elegant!
2. Make note of what that feels like FOR YOU – Up? Down? However it feels, the grunt sensation in the belly will be what you want to replicate in your singing. Also pay attention to the tightening in the throat – we will be editing it out in the next step, but I want you to be aware that it’s happening.
3. Now, we’re going to recreate that strong engagement without the clenching in the throat, so instead of grunting, put the tongue on the lower lip and sigh, beginning with that strong engagement in the low belly. I call these Heimlich sighs because they feel somewhat like a Heimlich maneuver in the abdomen, and the breath just flies up and out, without blocking in the throat.
4. Repeat that sigh a few times, sustaining the final time.
If you enjoyed this exercise, you might benefit from some Panting/Whinnying work, so check out that video, too!
Thanks for practicing!
