And this practice,
It works through a series of three sections.
So first we clear.
Then we cultivate,
And then we create.
So this first part is about clearing.
And that's the most important thing you need to know.
Hi,
Benny.
Glad you're here.
If you can't stand or you don't want to stand,
That's okay.
I'm going to guide you in these practices and you can do what feels right for you in this moment.
Just think about,
You know,
What would feel clearing to my body?
What would help me move energy through?
Because when we sing,
We are becoming the instrument and we have to tune ourselves.
We have to clear ourselves of the stuff that we don't want to be holding while we are practicing our song practice.
It just helps to really ease tension out of the body to get us in touch with our instrument.
And I find it's best done through something called Qigong.
Practices from Qigong.
Enjoy them there's no there's no spiritual nature that has to be applied to these movements.
So if you feel like you want to add some in,
You're welcome to.
So just standing.
I have my feet just a little bit.
Further than shoulder width distance apart.
And my toes are facing 45 degrees out.
So they're not straight and they're not sideways.
They're just comfortably.
Supporting my knees.
And I'm just rocking forwards and backwards.
So I'm inviting you to do the same toes to heels.
Feeling your feet.
And from your feet,
Starting to notice your legs,
Maybe bending,
Giving a little bounce into this.
The knees.
Swaying with the hips side to side.
Maybe rolling the shoulders backwards a few times.
So that's scrunching them up to your ears and then letting them fall into your back.
No,
No.
And then the same in the opposite direction.
Come and shaking out elbows,
Feeling the hands.
And then going to the top of the head and just moving in a way that feels intuitive and natural to you.
If that means you want to start moving around the room that's available to you.
Taking out some space here.
Feeling your body,
Your physical body.
This is your instrument.
You are a singer.
And so just enjoying the sensation of taking up space here,
Moving your body fluidly.
And while you do this,
You might start to feel areas where there's A little too much tension.
Maybe where you've been holding,
Maybe you're recovering from a spring.
Illness and you feel tight in your chest.
And your back and your kidneys.
So we're going to work on that right now.
We're going to work to just tend to those areas.
So you can see I'm starting to shake here and I just invite you to do the same.
Shaking out the shoulders,
Shaking out the wrists,
Shaking out the ankles.
Ah.
And if it feels good joining me in that exhale out of the mouth.
Inhaling through the nose,
And then ha,
Exhaling out of the mouth.
And that can be audible like I just did with a sigh,
Or it can just be.
No vocalizing,
Just breathing out the mouth.
And when we do this,
Inhale.
Through the nose and out the mouth.
We're clearing as well we're clearing out the lungs And so turning this shake into more of a bounce.
Starting to bounce on the heels.
And you can bounce.
Big bounces or just little bounces.
And this is part of the practice,
Getting in touch with what feels right for your body today.
It will be different than it was the last time you were bouncing,
The last time you practiced with me.
Today I'm feeling much more energy,
So I'm like,
Oh,
I want to bounce more.
Getting in touch with yourself.
Coming back to home,
Back to center.
Noticing if you are leaning in forwards or if you're leaning back or side to side.
You're balancing.
There's no right or wrong.
It's just noticing where your body wants to be in space.
Ah.
Then coming to the still point and then really tensing the body so coming up onto the tippy toes stretching the fingers out wide looking up just really feeling tension tightness and then drop drop your heels down,
Drop and release.
We'll do that two more times.
Inhale,
Stretching,
Holding.
And then releasing down.
Wonderful.
And one more time.
And then back into Sangatsi.
And what we're doing there is when we tighten everything up,
We can get to a place with our muscles,
With our body tension.
We're triggering this response from our nervous system saying,
Oh,
I was tense here.
And then we totally relaxed.
Let it all go.
So if you want to even bend forward when we do that,
You can do that as well.
And it's another really wonderful way to release tension in the body is actually create more tension for a short period of time so that the nervous system can.
Pay more attention to that tension and then release it.
And as you're bouncing here,
Just seeing if you can bring a visual to your mind's eye that all this.
.
.
Dust is coming off of you.
All the way into your muscles,
Into your organs.
They're getting all shooken up.
And All of that is just leaving your body.
Hmm.
Making space.
Clearing out.
Mm-hmm.
And then coming to a stop and again,
Tensing up the body,
Coming onto the tippy toes,
Stretching the hands,
Stretching the eyes up to the sky,
Looking up way up.
Exhale,
Releasing,
Letting everything go.
Doing that two more times with me.
And once more.
Wonderful.
Now we're just going to do a little bit of light stretching.
So when we're talking about singing,
Stretching for singing,
We want to stretch this area of the body.
So looking at intercostals,
The side body,
The belly area,
The shoulders,
And then that.
I like to stretch my neck.
I find when I do,
I end up getting neck kinks and things.
But if you're the type of person that doesn't get that experience,
Then I encourage you to do it.
And I'll show you the stretch that you can try.
So inhale,
The arms coming up.
And then just.
.
.
Turning to one side.
So opening this side that's stretching.
And going to the other side.
And you can make this more of a passive stretch where you're reaching with your upper hand over to the side and holding.
Or you can match it with your breath.
So that looks like this.
You'd inhale.
And exhale,
Come over.
Inhale.
And exhale to the other side.
Inhale.
And exhale.
Inhale.
So we both have a different energy and a different benefit to do the longer holds,
More yin style,
Getting more into the fascia.
You don't want to go as intensely into the stretch.
And you might feel it down into your hip.
And then if you're moving back and forth with the breath,
You can go a little bit.
More over because you're engaging more of your body as you move.
We'll go back into some of those shoulder rolls.
All the desk sitters here feeling that relief.
And this is shoulder,
But it's also this trap muscle.
I'm here.
I've got this.
Muscle right here is our trap muscle and i like to even just scrunch my shoulder up Squeeze that.
Squeeze it with my hand.
So I'm squeezing in right here.
And it's easier to do if your shoulder is up towards your ear like that.
Yeah.
And then you can drop it down slowly.
Feeling that stretch.
Such a tight one for me.
For a lot of people and it's so helpful to have it released for singing.
And then if you want to try the throat,
The neck stretches,
What you're going to do is put your chin down towards your chest.
And you're going to look over with your eyes to one shoulder.
You'll feel it radiating over here if you're really tight like me.
And then coming back to the center,
Chin to chest.
And then looking over to the opposite side.
Just feeling that stretch.
Radiating down here.
Always coming back to chin to chest in the center.
Okay,
And the last clearing we're going to do is,
I call it the vacuum cleaner.
So this is taught from Naomi Jason.
She's one of my Qigong teachers.
And so cuff your hands like this.
And pretend that there's suction.
That's here on the hands.
Like these are two little vacuum cleaners.
And what you're going to do is starting from your ankles way down here.
You're going to draw up the legs,
Up the inner legs,
Up the torso.
And then around the arms here.
And when you get to the fingertips,
You're gonna Just release the energy and then make those little vacuum cleaners again.
Coming over the outside of the arms.
The head.
Over and down the outside of the leg.
And then you're gonna release the energy from the ankles.
So while you're doing it,
We'll start with the motion.
So starting here.
Bathroom cleaners up the inner leg.
Crossing over the midline.
Over the shoulders.
Off the arms.
And then back over the outside of the arms,
Over the top of the head and the back.
Out the outside leg.
Outside ankles and you're just So you can hear with my breath,
I'm inhaling through my nose and then exhaling out my mouth with that.
And what I'd like you to visualize as you do this is that literally your hands become these kind of qi vacuum cleaners and they're sucking up all the unwanted energy and then releasing it out into the space with this kind of flick of the hand.
And then doing the same on the other side.
So we're gonna go through that and we're gonna do it.
Three times I'll guide you for the first one and then we'll just do it in our own time.
So inhaling vacuum cleaners up the inner leg.
Getting the shoulders and the arms and then.
And then we'll do the same inhaling.
Up the shoulders,
Over the head,
Back down the shoulders.
Side body and the outside leg.
Okay,
Twice more on your own.
Really visualizing.
All the energy is just,
Unwanted energy is getting specked up and released out the vacuum.
Wonderful.
So just noticing your body now.
Feeling how you feel.
Feels more bubbly and light.
Feel taller.
I feel more smiley,
If that's even possible.
I'm always smiley.
Oh.
Okay,
Now we're gonna move into our cultivation practice.
So we've cleared out that which doesn't wanna be here.
And now we're going to cultivate energy and draw energy into our instrument,
Into our bodies.
So we're going to start with something called drawing down the heavens,
And this is a qigong.
Practice this is a it's called a form and and you can just watch me do it first So inhale,
Palms face down.
Up until the shoulders and then they flip.
Up overhead.
And then exhale,
The hands come through the body and I'm leaving this space between them.
So practice that with me.
Inhale.
Arms come up to the shoulders,
Palms down,
And then you flip the palms.
Bring them up overhead.
And then draw down.
And as you can perhaps start to notice,
I'm bending into my knees as well.
That is optional.
It's more vigorous that way.
It's warming for sure.
You can stand like this.
And come down as well if you're feeling lower energy today.
Meeting yourself where you're not trying to push yourself too hard if you're feeling that vital life worth wanting to move through you can bend down into the knees and again my feet are wider than shoulder width distance and my toes are facing about a 45 degree angle out in line with my knees.
Is so that I'm taking care of my knees.
So that's the movement.
And now we add the intention behind the movement.
And that is We are all conduits.
We are conduits of energy.
The human being is a conduit.
Of energy.
And so on the inhale,
We draw energy up from the earth.
In from the sky from the heavens and then we pull it down Arshashuna,
Our central channel.
Central energy channels that it moves through all of the chakras.
And from there,
It swirls out into all of our other energy centers,
All of our organs and tissues.
And we are filled with this.
Aliveness of the earth around us,
Of life all around us.
And this practice softens us into the present moment and reminds us.
Of our birthright to do this.
To be this conduit.
That flows the energy of the earth.
And the sky through our bodies.
And as we remember this.
Our true essence.
We also vitalize all of our tissues.
We nourish this instrument that we are.
And if you feel comfortable inhaling and exhaling out the nose.
We want to keep that energy in now.
And by inhaling and exhaling out the nose,
We do that.
Just taking a few more passes here and really feeling this.
Posture,
Imagining.
What color and texture the energy of the earth is.
What color and texture the energy of the heavens,
The sky is,
And how they intermix as you draw them through your body.
Filling up those pockets we created when we were clearing with all this vitality.
You can even draw upon The energy of a guide or an ally,
Such as a tree or a plant that you connect with,
A star.
A galaxy.
Just feeling that energy moving through you,
Inspiring your life.
Okay,
Just two more times here,
Collecting and.
.
.
Remembering.
And as you finish your second set,
Bringing your hands over what is known as your lower dension,
Your lower belly here.
And just rotating the hands nine times in one direction,
Giving a nice rub.
And nine times in the opposite direction.
Sealing all that good chi into your body.
Taking a deep breath like that,
Sighing it out.
Noticing again how you're feeling.
And we'll meet in Asit.
So today I'm going to do a bit of a talk on what this idea of the conduit is,
Because I feel it is.
.
.
An essential point,
A beginning point,
But also a point to carry through all of our voice work that we do.
And this is going to lead us into this beautiful,
It's like a breath work,
Voice work practice,
Spiritual practice all together.
And when I say spiritual,
It really connects with whatever you are holding sacred right now.
So that might be God,
That might be ancestors,
That might be earth spirits,
That might just be yourself and your own energy.
And part of singing is cultivating relationship to the secret.
And I'll just get right into it.
So one of the things that's so hard about being a singer and why it's so vulnerable is because you,
Your body,
Is the instrument.
You don't have anything to protect you.
You don't have a guitar in front of you or a huge piano or even like I use a shruti and we'll use this later,
You know,
To protect you.
And so it can feel very isolated as a practice and very vulnerable.
And so.
.
.
This idea of creating and cultivating relationship to energy around you,
Whatever that might be.
It helps you to feel less alone.
And this helps with confidence in all ways of life,
But especially when we're singing,
To know that you're not doing it alone,
That you have allies,
That you are moving energy through from the universe,
From God,
From ancestry.
You know,
Some people love singing folk music,
And those songs are so old.
I'm talking about folk music,
Like cultural folk.
Music,
Indigenous folk music.
You know,
I've learned from my teacher,
Sonia Draculet.
Variety of Bulgarian folk songs and when we sing those songs It's like.
.
.
Such a deep resonance of what the land felt like there and what the people were wearing and how they were living their lives and you get to have this connection.
And feel less alone in your expression.
And so this is a really important point that I really want you to hold and work with as you move through your life,
Even through other creative projects.
If you're an artist in other ways,
How can you create alongside the mystery,
The sacred?
How can you bring it into your practice?
This idea of the creative life force that is flowing through all of us and always with us.
What I like to do,
One of the practices that I have in the course,
The ally meditation.
And we're going to just do a very brief version of that today and then move into our vocal practice.
And some of you have done this practice with me before.
I call it the curiosity technique.
And we're going to use the Shruti box to support us today in this.
And it's going to be a little different than how I've,
More in depth than how I've taught it before in my live sessions.
And hopefully it gives you a better,
Well-rounded idea of what the practice is and how you can really use it to help you connect with Source,
With Spirit,
And have that support in your life,
In your relationship.
To your music,
To your singing.
Ah.
.
.
So just feeling your feet on the floor,
On the earth,
Wherever they are.
Coming back into your body.
And if you'd like to,
Closing down the eyes.
Coming into full presence in this moment with me here.
With your fellow students,
With your body.
On the inhale Feeling your awareness coming down into your heart space.
And on the exhale,
Going into your heart.
Just whatever visual comes to you with that.
Maybe a color,
A texture,
Or a visual of your heart actually beating and moving into it,
Feeling the blood.
Inhaling attention to the heart and exhale going into the heart.
Feeling like you have eyes down here in your heart and that this is where you are seeing from.
Your heart is not only an organ that helps to move blood around,
It is an organ of perception.
Of presence.
And has its own knowing.
Beyond even the gut or the head,
It has its own wisdom.
And so while we're here in our hearts,
I'd like you to go somewhere that is a sacred place to you.
Maybe it's in nature.
Maybe it's in your home.
From your heart visualizing this place.
Maybe it's a.
.
.
Grassy field or a flower-covered meadow,
A special tree,
Special trail for you.
Rocks on the beach.
Cozy chair wherever it is just Being there.
As well as being here.
So being in your heart.
And being in this place in your mind's eye,
Your heart's eye.
And as you rest here,
In this space.
You start to feel a.
.
.
Benevolent,
A loving energy surrounding you.
And you notice a color and a texture.
And if nothing comes to you,
You can imagine a soft red pink color.
And a gentle pattern.
Of swirling and wind And as you breathe and center here,
An image becomes more and more clear.
Of an ally that is here with you.
They're here with you,
Loving you,
Supporting you,
Protecting you.
This might be a person who is in your life or has been in your life.
Or an animal friend,
An animal totem,
A plant friend.
And so for this practice now,
Just keeping this this ally,
Vocal ally with you.
And.
.
.
We're going to sing.
We're going to sing now that.
.
.
We have this ally with us.
And see how it feels differently.
To be in connection to spirit.
So before we begin to sing,
We're just gonna.
.
.
Notice our breath.
And I say our breath because that's what we usually say.
It's our breath.
It's our lungs.
And I'd like to bring a new idea to you today.
What if the breath is breathing you?
What if the gravity and the force of air is actually coming into you and breathing you?
And we're going to call the air the breather,
This energy,
Because it's not just air,
It's also life force.
It's also spirit.
In this air is so much information,
Particles of dust,
Ancient and new,
And they're coming into you.
The prompt is just to notice.
That you are being breathed.
Rather than you are breathing.
I'm taking a breath.
That's what we usually say.
Instead,
The breath is breathing me.
It is filling me up.
It is coming into me and I'm welcoming it.
Hmm.
Relieve some of the tension,
Some of the pressure that.
.
.
You might have to say,
Oh,
I have to keep breathing.
No,
The breath is here and it's coming into you.
You can soften and allow You're safe here with your ally in your heart.
Seeing if the air comes more into the body this way,
If you can relax more into the side,
Into the back.
Into the belly.
Welcoming it like a friend.
Letting it fill you.
Maybe you feel it all the way up into your head,
Into your skull.
And as you allow the breath to come in,
We're going to start to make a sound,
Just the most passive sound.
And exhale out of the nose and you're just gently engaging.
Allowing the throat to kind of interact with this breath.
Every breath gets a sound.
Mouth is closed,
We're not making any opening of the mouth.
Just letting this.
I like to say it's like a curious hum.
Or like you're affirming something,
Like,
Yes,
This feels good.
Inhaling and exhaling And if you'd like to go back to just receiving the breath,
You can do that as well.
Adding on as you feel ready.
And if you're anything like me,
The sound and the desire to open the mouth might start to feel like a hunger.
You just want to make a sound.
So badly you just want to open your mouth And when that feels.
.
.
Unbearable enough.
Then I invite you to just open up into a.
.
.
Whatever sound wants to come out.
No.
Maybe it's just a sigh like that.
Maybe it's a tone.
Not trying here.
Just allowing the sound to come out.
Hmm.
And as soon as you start to feel effort,
As soon as you start to feel the throat is tensing,
Just stop.
Just stop making sound and just continue to exhale.
You So what we're doing here on a physiological level is we're allowing relaxation and allowing the sound to come just from no tension.
Straight letting it come out so we can get to know this sensation.
Sensation of just allowing versus pushing versus straining and trying to get it out.
Feeling that urge,
That urgency and longing to sing,
Longing to make a sound.
And if you never get there today,
If you're just enjoying the breath and enjoying being breathed by the breather,
Making little sounds,
That's okay too.
No need to go further.
Just be in the pleasure and the enjoyment of the fact that you are an instrument making sound.
Hmm.
And I find that ma sound,
M-A,
Is the most soft sound.
The most gentle sound for your body to use.
You hmm hmm You are being brave.
So now we have three parts.
That are working with us to create this sound.
We have our own bodies,
These instruments,
The tissues.
We have the breather,
The breath coming in and moving through us.
And then we have the inspiration.
That longing I spoke to,
That hunger.
The emotional body,
The inspiration that makes sound possible.
And when we have all three of these together,
Working in tandem,
Playing off of each other.
This is.
.
.
The essence of singing.
This is how we get in touch with effortless singing.
When we let go of the ego,
It's not all about you.
It's you in relationship.
With everything around you.
With life,
With breath.
Your experience of emotion.
Mmmm Mmm.
So now we've spent 45 minutes attuning to our instrument.
We've been clearing it.
We've been cultivating it.
We've been exploring different aspects of.
.
.
The instrument,
The voice.
And now it's time to play and to create.
And so I'm going to play the Shruti here.
And I just invite you,
We're playing C and G,
So if you want to join and play that on your own instruments,
You can.
If you have a guitar or an accordion or whatever,
You can play with that.
And we're just going to sing.
So I'm going to tone.
I'll try to tone on just one or two notes.
And I just really invite you to play here and see what wants to come out of you.
If it's hard for you to just straight up sing then a really great tool is to go into your mind's eye into your heart's eye again and just see what's there see if there's an emotion there that is stuck and wanting to be expressed.
Maybe you're feeling frustration or joy or grief.
And just ask that emotion,
What do you want to say?
How would you express if I gave you my voice?
I'm giving it to you now.
Please use it to express.
And another great tool is to just visualize a place.
And see what that place would sound like.
Is there wind there?
What are the colors?
And just play and play.
And I'll call us back in about 10 minutes or so.
Welcoming the yawns if they're coming that is a great sign that your body is relaxing and opening the yawn shape actually is the shape we want that our mouth to be in when we're singing so That's a great,
Great thing that's happening if you're yawning.
If you're feeling like you need more inspiration,
Inviting you to notice your mouth shape as you're singing.
Allowing the O to be really like a circle.
The AH to be really wide.
Exploring those,
Trying those out if you like.
You you Hey,
Bringing this practice to a close.
Finishing up your composition,
Creative playtime.
You And before I talk again,
We're just going to sit in silence for 20 or 30 seconds,
Just a few breaths to notice how we're feeling.
Thanking your body for remembering its capacity to create.
And to connect for showing up here today in an effort to Gather more knowledge and practice the art of singing.
The art of breathing and being present with your body.
Hmm.
Can you just give yourself a squeeze,
A hug?
Squeezing your arms.
Running your fingers through your hair.
A little head massage.
That feels good.
I like to get into the back of the throat here and just like lean my head back into my hands.
Message.
Occiput area,
The upper neck Ah.
Just taking a sigh like that,
Scrunching the shoulders up.
