What does “Breath Support” really mean? Most will answer that it is the ability of your muscles to support your breathing. This is certainly true, but I’d like to suggest another viewpoint: that breath support actually comes from your skeleton. “What? From your skeleton, you don’t breathe with your skeleton!”
Sure, you don’t breathe with your skeleton, but how you use or organize your skeleton is crucial to lung capacity, and ease of breathing. When you stand or sit, all of your body weight needs to be transmitted to the floor, or floor and chair. How easily this happens depends on the alignment of your skeleton. In this case, alignment doesn’t necessarily mean “straight,” as a well-organized spine, for example has its natural curves and is actually stronger than a “straight” spine.
To experience this for yourself, find a friend and stand behind them. Gently place the palms of your hands on their shoulders close the base of their neck. Ask them if it’s all right for you to gently push down on their shoulders in the direction of the floor. Be sure to push directly downward because if you pull them towards you while pushing, you will influence their posture. Notice how strong your friend feels and how they would collapse if you were to push really hard (which of course you will not!). Do they feel solid like a tree or springy like a bow?
If they feel strong, that is, they feel like they don’t have to do anything to counter your downward force, it means that the force is traveling through their bones and the bones are carrying the weight. In this case, have them move their pelvis a bit forward so their upper back is more rounded and their head sticks a bit forward and push again. You will most likely feel them become springier like a bow. Ask them where they have to contract their muscles to resist your force and they will probably say in the abdomen, back and thighs. Have them move their pelvis back to where they feel strong again.
If your friend is springy from the beginning, have them move their pelvis back to the point where they feel more solid and won’t have to use their muscles as much to resist the downward force.
This demonstrates that the muscles are freer when the skeleton is better aligned. Freer muscles mean easier breathing, more lung capacity and it takes less energy to be upright, hence breath support. Of course this is never the same from moment to moment because we are moving around and adjusting our alignment to carry our weight (and possibly the weight of an instrument) whenever we’re in an upright position. Breath support also means the ability to find the best alignment for a given activity. I touched on this in an earlier blog entitled “What is good Posture?”
There are many practices that can be used to develop better skeletal alignment while playing and in daily life. The Feldenkrais Method® is the method I personally find the most effective in working with this theme, but I know many other musicians have found help from other methods as well. You can experience more of what I’m talking about by doing the podcast lessons or doing the lessons from Volume one of the “Dynamic Musician Series.”
Thanks for reading, John Tarr
Be sure to check out the DMS podcasts, Feldenkrais® mini lessons for musicians and speakers.
If you have any specific questions or comments on The Feldenkrais Method® breathing and posture, send me an e-mail and I’ll try to respond in a future blog. Until then, breathe, sit, and stand well!
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