Day 12
Timer on…
So…I need to continue the “to be continued…”
It’s the bullet pointed details to the Kapalabhati breath:
· “Begin with two or three relaxed deep breaths all the way down into the abdomen.
· Move on to Kapalabhati, working toward 20 rounds (a round consists of one inhalation and one exhalation).
· Once you have completed the rounds, inhale and exhale deeply, then inhale deeply once again and contract the abdomen as for Kapalabhati, holding the breath for as long as you can, without straining.
· Exhale fully and take a few relaxed breaths.
· Repeath this cycle two or three times, and with practice you will find that you are able to increase the number of breaths in a cycle, to 40 or even 60 breaths.”
Now, re-examining the details of Kapalabhati breathing, I want to clarify that I don’t do the first relaxed breaths or the holding for every pose. I just do the breathing. I also want to say that I’ve been doing this breathing by itself without poses for the past three years, and I first learned it 6 years ago when working on the staged reading of the play ORDINARY MAGIC which is about Alexandra David Neel (who was the first European to make it to Tibet). She, apparently, did this for an entire year all day when she was meditating and waiting for Lhasa to be open to her. I was intrigued by this forever use of the breathing, but…today…I made a discovery about it…
So…when I was 18 years old I started acting school at Cornish College of the Arts in Seattle, WA, and I began my first “Voice Class”. Now, I had been taking private voice lessons since I was 11, so I felt as though I didn’t need this class. We’re so egocentric and know-it-alls at that age…anyway, I didn’t even know there was a difference between Voice for singing, and Voice for speaking…
The first class with Deena Burke (who I was attracted to, frightened of, and, mostly, in awe of) consisted of lying on our backs most of the class with Deena walking around telling us to do all number of things… Now, I’m a perfectionist, I’m not proud of it, but…I like getting good grades and I have always liked people to leave me alone because I’m doing it “right,” but I wasn’t doing this work “right”. The first day, Deena told me I was holding…and then I really wanted to do it “correctly,” but everytime I tried to do it “correctly” she would walk by and tell me I still wasn’t doing it “right” (whatever that meant). It seemed the more I tried, the worse I did. Anyway, I also was extremely clautrophobic during this whole practice. I was never comfortable, I was afraid of Deena walking around, my neck was tense… Essentially, I couldn’t do anything she asked because I was in terror…terror breeds tension, and then being told I wasn’t doing it “right” terrorized me even further.
Anyway, last Saturday, Janet (the Iyengar yoga/music person) said that Iyengar has a saying that we have no business breathing when we don’t know where our big toe is…
Well, I put this together… I have never beeen good at voice work for speaking on the ground because I was not comfortable there. I was a child of abuse and I felt too vulnerable there… Kapalabhati breathing forces the stomach to relax and hang loosely because the individual practicing it, is making the stomach muscles tired. After having them be “tired” I am able to relax…
This got me to thinking about how I excelled in Suzuki Voice work because it had a technique I could follow. Just laying on the ground…did nothing for all of my past traumas and vulnerabilities… But, I’m thinking if I do some yoga before hand with a lot of Kapalabhati breathing…I might be able to tap into something more definite with the Voice work of Kristin Linklater, Patsy Rodenburg, Arthur Lessac, Cecily Berry, and Catherine Fitzmaurice…
I will test this theory out after the 69 day journey…
Timer on…
So…I need to continue the “to be continued…”
It’s the bullet pointed details to the Kapalabhati breath:
· “Begin with two or three relaxed deep breaths all the way down into the abdomen.
· Move on to Kapalabhati, working toward 20 rounds (a round consists of one inhalation and one exhalation).
· Once you have completed the rounds, inhale and exhale deeply, then inhale deeply once again and contract the abdomen as for Kapalabhati, holding the breath for as long as you can, without straining.
· Exhale fully and take a few relaxed breaths.
· Repeath this cycle two or three times, and with practice you will find that you are able to increase the number of breaths in a cycle, to 40 or even 60 breaths.”
Now, re-examining the details of Kapalabhati breathing, I want to clarify that I don’t do the first relaxed breaths or the holding for every pose. I just do the breathing. I also want to say that I’ve been doing this breathing by itself without poses for the past three years, and I first learned it 6 years ago when working on the staged reading of the play ORDINARY MAGIC which is about Alexandra David Neel (who was the first European to make it to Tibet). She, apparently, did this for an entire year all day when she was meditating and waiting for Lhasa to be open to her. I was intrigued by this forever use of the breathing, but…today…I made a discovery about it…
So…when I was 18 years old I started acting school at Cornish College of the Arts in Seattle, WA, and I began my first “Voice Class”. Now, I had been taking private voice lessons since I was 11, so I felt as though I didn’t need this class. We’re so egocentric and know-it-alls at that age…anyway, I didn’t even know there was a difference between Voice for singing, and Voice for speaking…
The first class with Deena Burke (who I was attracted to, frightened of, and, mostly, in awe of) consisted of lying on our backs most of the class with Deena walking around telling us to do all number of things… Now, I’m a perfectionist, I’m not proud of it, but…I like getting good grades and I have always liked people to leave me alone because I’m doing it “right,” but I wasn’t doing this work “right”. The first day, Deena told me I was holding…and then I really wanted to do it “correctly,” but everytime I tried to do it “correctly” she would walk by and tell me I still wasn’t doing it “right” (whatever that meant). It seemed the more I tried, the worse I did. Anyway, I also was extremely clautrophobic during this whole practice. I was never comfortable, I was afraid of Deena walking around, my neck was tense… Essentially, I couldn’t do anything she asked because I was in terror…terror breeds tension, and then being told I wasn’t doing it “right” terrorized me even further.
Anyway, last Saturday, Janet (the Iyengar yoga/music person) said that Iyengar has a saying that we have no business breathing when we don’t know where our big toe is…
Well, I put this together… I have never beeen good at voice work for speaking on the ground because I was not comfortable there. I was a child of abuse and I felt too vulnerable there… Kapalabhati breathing forces the stomach to relax and hang loosely because the individual practicing it, is making the stomach muscles tired. After having them be “tired” I am able to relax…
This got me to thinking about how I excelled in Suzuki Voice work because it had a technique I could follow. Just laying on the ground…did nothing for all of my past traumas and vulnerabilities… But, I’m thinking if I do some yoga before hand with a lot of Kapalabhati breathing…I might be able to tap into something more definite with the Voice work of Kristin Linklater, Patsy Rodenburg, Arthur Lessac, Cecily Berry, and Catherine Fitzmaurice…
I will test this theory out after the 69 day journey…