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Practicing Yogic Breathing Techniques to Heal Your Voice and Enhance Your Singing

1767 - Sept 2021

1. WHY WOULD A SINGER WANT TO INCLUDE YOGIC BREATH WORK FOR THEIR SINGING?

Well, the simple answer is because of the tremendous results they provide. The most important thing we do on this earth is breathe. Without that, you cannot be here. When I first learned about breathing techniques from Yogic Practices, I was actively singing, performing and teaching. I immediately noticed that my voice improved immensely. Because I have studied and trained for so long, I know my voice well.  The improvement that a singer expects to get from regular practice is a familiar sound and you know the regular response from your own muscles. You come to know what to expect. A steady improvement will suddenly be increased by new exercises and as usual, it then gets absorbed into your body’s reactions and becomes part of your available technique. 

However, once I started doing Yoga regularly, my voice started to improve in ways that I did not recognize and did not expect. I would have more stamina without doing more athletics. I would experience longer breaths without any increase in aerobic training. I was holding notes longer and easier without doing any extra vocal exercises for sustain. After a while, it became abundantly clear that most of the “new“ improvement was coming from the Yoga Practice. That was the only thing that was new and it was causing a very obvious change that was not coming from my usual vocal studies. I still see this in myself and in my students to this day. It never fails.

2. DO YOU REGULARLY TEACH THESE YOGA BREATH TECHNIQUES TO YOUR CURRENT STUDENTS?

Oh yes, At some point during the vocal training I introduce this information and show my students the techniques from these trainings. It is really helpful in so many ways. Unlike the earlier days when I was first learning these techniques, many more people are either studying Yoga or at least are more familiar with it. I try to have my students have a few different types of breathing exercises that they can do on their own. 

3. WOULD YOU GIVE US AN EXAMPLE OF HOW YOU ARE CURRENTLY USING THESE TECHNIQUES? 

Sure. I’d like to share how I have used this knowledge to help people to recover their voices from having contracted Covid. 

A singer who has damaged lungs cannot, in many cases, sing anymore. This is, of course, tragic. I have witnessed that this virus has had a terrible effect on the capacity of so many singers' voices that I just could not sit by and not figure out what might be able to be done about this. This is, of course, a complicated and painful topic that is in the forefront of our daily lives right now.

However, within that reality, there are remedies for us that are available in these ancient techniques that can benefit us on many, many levels. When Covid first came to us in the early parts of this pandemic, I had several students that contracted this virus. So many of my singers were suddenly out of work and also sick, that I had the idea that maybe I could help them to regain their singing abilities, by studying the impact of the virus on their singing and their breathing. Maybe the vocal exercises which have always been reliable in healing voices and the Breath work that I had practiced for so long, could help my students and maybe also help other people as well?

So, I put a small group of students on scholarship and began to study them. They were given a range of scales and vocal exercises to do and that initially helped somewhat. It was slow going and tedious and every week, after they did their assigned practice exercises, there would be some very obvious improvement. Slowly the voices were starting to come back.

However, as soon as I gave them some Yoga Breathing exercises, usually referred to in the Yoga world as PRANAYAM, that is when I really started to see tremendous change in their voices. The slow healing became much faster. That’s when their lungs really began to tolerate more and more breath. That is when they started to become less tired and stronger. They were all being treated by their own very different medical professionals during that time and so the results varied at first because they were all on different paths of recovery. Of course, the many different medical approaches to healing the residue of this virus are not my purview at all. They were all having different responses and much of their overall feelings about their health improved.

However, as they started to recover medically, many of them still just couldn’t sing as they did before. It just wasn’t the same. They were still moving along very slowly. The increased healing methodologies and the vocal exercises were working but not as dramatically as when the Yoga was introduced!! This was truly a game changer. 

I am talking about a long process, of course, and I am still working on this with a few of my singers. Even though I am not a doctor or a scientist, and I cannot nor would not claim that this is in any way a scientific study, I have to say that what I found was astonishing! !very time they embraced these breathing techniques, their progress accelerated. That is a fact! One of the students has been hired to do a show this summer and is able to work again! From where that student was, this is a small miracle to witness. I’m thrilled. 

4. WHAT ELSE DID YOU DISCOVER?

I also discovered that this virus has a sound that can be heard that is almost a signature sound. It is a very dark, scratchy sound. The coughing goes on and on and is exhausting, contributing to the scratch. Even as my various students tried to sing, again, we had to go very gently at first and very slowly. The singers simply  could no longer sing the way they used to.  They all had this scratchy sound when they spoke and sang. They all had this swollen dry, scratchy stuck sound. That sound was consistent across the very different range of singers in the group.

As they continued to work at their healing, they were all using a broad range of medical approaches, vocal exercises, physical exercises and everything possible that could possibly help. The one element that was also consistent across the board which was pushing the whole process forward, was the breathing techniques from the Yogic Systems that I had studied and that I taught to all of them.

Eventually, for all of them, that nasty sound receded and their own familiar vocal sound returned. The singers with long haul symptoms, were struggling to be as aerobic as they had their whole lives (and I’m referring specifically to singers that had been on Broadway, doing 8 shows a week who could now only sing one or two songs and then go back to bed and sleep). There were good days and bad days.

The Yoga Breath Work played a significant role in helping to reestablish their former breathing capacity. They were also starting to walk again and try to increase their athletics and, slowly, each of them were improving in all different ways on the recovery of their health. Given that, the Yoga Breathing Practices assisted them and it accelerated their progress. No matter what else they tried, The Yoga pushed them forward faster, and it worked every time with each of them… To me that was astounding!

5. WHAT ARE SOME OF THE YOGIC BREATH STYLES THAT YOU USE FOR YOUR STUDENTS?

I have practiced and become Certified to Teach in Two Styles of Yoga. One is Kundalini Yoga, as Taught by Yogi Bhajan. The other is called Naam Yoga, and that was taught by a man named Joseph Michael Levry.

I started down this path a long time ago and I love the very inspirational things I have learned from both systems. The breathing practices that I have learned find their source in Hatha Yoga. Yoga practice is believed to have been around for 125 thousand years.

Yoga breath work changes the energy state of the body. In healing the body, it is most important to adjust the state from injury to health. At the root of all healing are the breath, the thoughts and the emotions.Change the breath, change the other two. They are bound together and one affects the other two, always.

We will look at 3 Basic Breaths and it's important to note that, although we might be attempting to achieve Mastery of them, it takes time to work with these practices. Not everyone is on that kind of a journey. Some have no immediate interest in Yoga and some people are eager to start. No matter where you are in your understanding of Yoga or its contents and styles, there is always room for beginnings. I have studied these things for many years and perpetually feel like a beginner because the subject is so vast. However, we can borrow from these techniques to benefit our health and our capacity to breathe which, in turn, heals and assists in our health and also our singing in a very profound way. 

Each of these 3 Basic Breaths have its own particular resonance and purpose, so I’ll start with a brief overview of them:

First, there is a technique called "Long Deep Breathing".

This is the simplest of them all. Mastering this brings with it a change in your overall health. It cleanses the blood and increases the amount of oxygen reaching the brain and to the body. This brings both increased emotional and physical healing. Your magnetic field around your body will become revitalized and you will experience a greater feeling of calm and relaxation. This is a great starting place. Anything heals better in a state of calm and increased oxygen.

Second, there is a Breath technique called “Breath of Glow”. 

This is a breath that helps you to literally shine and glow as it increases the oxygen flow to your heart and helps to remove toxins out from your blood and consequently, your circulatory system. In addition, it helps the body to cleanse its lymphatic system and releases stress that has accumulated from a million different reasons. It is also a simple breath to do and it is very efficient.  

Third, The next one is called “Breath of Fire”.

This one is used all the time in Kundalini Yoga. The focus is on a very even and somewhat rapid movement of the Navel Point in and out with no pause, constant rhythmic movement and vigorous constant expanse of the breath and lungs. Within 3 minutes of doing Breath of Fire, your entire blood system is entirely cleansed. This powerful breath cleanses the blood, expands the breath capacity and expands the lungs. It also helps to clear out  the negative results of addictions to certain substances and the bad effects of things like smoking, drugs and alcohol. It also  increases the Magnetic Field around the body, and strengthens the nervous system. 

6. WOULD YOU LIKE TO SHOW US HOW TO PRACTICE "LONG DEEP BREATHING”?

We begin this yoga practice with a Tune In. This following chant gets you connected with the Sound Current and is repeated 3 times with your hands at your chest and in prayer pose. The translation is a greeting to yourself and to your experience of the Divine. You are asking to be led from the darkness to the light, linking you to the highest version of yourself, and you are asking for guidance, protection, and wisdom from your own soul and the Divine teacher within.

I’ll sing it for you.

(Singing) ONG NAMO GURU DEV NAMO…

This is repeated  3 times in prayer pose: Hands in prayer, thumbs touching the chest at the heart

The following postures are used for all three breaths that follow:

• Relax your chest and shoulders and keep them still and relaxed throughout.

• Extend your arms downward with your elbows extended and with your index finger pushing slightly into the center of your thumb.

• Your remaining fingers are extended straight downward and touching each other.

• You can sit on the floor with your knees bent and legs crossed in what is called “Easy Pose” or, you can sit on a chair with a straight spine towards the front of the chair to ease your breathing.

• Close your mouth and do the entire breath exercise with your mouth closed breathing only in and out through the nose.

For Long Deep Breathing:

Allow yourself to release all the way to the bottom of the tail bone and the lower belly. The very long and very slow breath enters the body as you practice receiving rather than taking breath. 

Allow yourself to receive breath all the way down to the bottom of your lungs and start exhaling and releasing the breath once you have felt yourself to be full without strain or lifting the chest in any way.

The inhale allows your belly to expand and your exhale allows your belly to contract inward towards the spine.

Begin with 3 Minutes of this and then move on to longer amounts of time as you are ready. The time amounts are generally 3 minutes, 7 minutes, 11 minutes, 31 minutes, 62 minutes and beyond!

7. WHAT IS BREATH OF GLOW?

This is a type of breath that emphasizes the exhale more than the inhale. 

To begin, you tune in and sit the same way as you did for Long Deep Breathing. The breath is slightly faster and eventually it can be equally as deep. That takes patience and practice!!

To begin, you allow the breath to enter the same way as we said before,but this time, you push the exhale out by quickly contracting the abdominal muscles and allow that very noisy breath to quickly and suddenly leave through your nose. 

It is the very sudden pulling of the muscles of the abdomen that rushes the breath out of the body. The contraction  pushes out all the dead air and releases and empties the lungs allowing the stuck areas to move so that the next inhale is more relaxed, more expansive and more filled with the oxygen that your body craves and depends on. The inhale is slightly slower than the exhale. The breath is continuous so that at no time does the breath stop moving. It is coming in fully and then exploding out through the nose. The times are the same.

8. WHAT IS BREATH OF FIRE?

"Breath of Fire" is the most well known of the three breaths we are talking about today. It is an intense breath practice which was used by warriors going into battle to make the men more powerful and ready to fight for long periods of time.

When you begin this one, it is common to do only 30 seconds of this or maybe even one minute to start. The sitting posture is the same and so is the hand posture. The mouth is closed and the breathing is also only through the nose. With an even, rhythmic pace, you begin to inhale and exhale at a fairly rapid pace. Unlike the Breath of Glow, the in and out are equal. Very much like the rhythm of a panting Dog.

A big mistake people make with this one is going faster than you can sustain over time. Many people start out very fast and then cannot continue at that pace. I believe it is better to start at a pace that you can manage and, then over time, increase the rate to a faster and still comfortable pace. This is also a work in progress and very overwhelming if you start out too aggressively. Your belly moves inward for the exhale and expands for the inhale and this is a continuous movement until you stop.

Again, try this for 30 seconds first. You can always increase it later. For this breath to do all the things it does, it makes vast changes that you can feel very quickly. A little goes a long way as you start.

9. IS THERE A SPECIAL WAY TO FINISH THESE BREATH PRACTICES?

To finish, put your hands in prayer pose at the center of the chest. Inhale naturally at an even pace a few times and then chant:

SAT NAM, SAT NAM, SAAAAAAAAT NAM.

This means “Truth (SAT) is my Name (NAM)”

10 . DO YOU HAVE ANY OTHER COMMENTS ABOUT BREATHING FOR US TODAY?

Yes, regular slow breath helps to keep you calm and steady. If you are feeling nervous or upset and you notice your breath is fast, slow it down and you can completely change your state and feel almost immediately better!!