We're going to do a practice today that let your body know that you are safe and bring it back into a state of regulation.
For me,
I find it reduces my baseline sense of anxiety so that I can be more relaxed,
Release more tension,
And be in the world the way that I want to be.
So for today,
We're just going to move through our qigong and then I'm going to teach my fundamental practice.
So this is like the stuff I do almost daily to support my breath,
To support my voice.
And then we're going to move into a singing practice.
So it's going to be a wonderful time.
We'll be here for about an hour.
So if you can stand,
That's great.
But if not,
Seated is okay.
So we're going to start by just shaking out the limbs.
Taking a deep breath through the mouth and exhaling it through the mouth as well.
So this is clearing.
We're clearing the body.
Shaking everything up.
And while we move our body,
We're using our mind to imagine all the stuff that no longer serves us,
Just sloughing off the body.
Jiggling up all the cells,
Getting our lymph moving,
All those toxins.
Getting moving in the body and detoxifying,
Shaking your ankles and your toesies and your knees and your hips out.
Just shake,
Shake,
Shaking.
And breathing in through the mouth or the nose,
Whatever feels good for you.
And then just letting it go like that with an audible sigh.
And then we're going to move into our bouncing.
So I like to bring my feet a bit closer in,
About shoulder width distance,
And then I'm just bouncing up and down on my heels.
Staring straight.
And just letting everything soften.
And your bounce can be like quite vigorous,
You know,
You can really shake it up.
Or you can just be gentle.
And this is you tuning in to yourself.
What do you need today?
What's going to serve you best?
Still finding that exhale out the mouth,
Maybe just bringing it back to inhaling through the nose.
Letting that exhale draw out longer.
And when we do this longer exhale,
We signal to the body it's time.
To relax,
We're in a safe place.
And just be,
Just be here.
Grrrrr!
And now just taking your gaze and.
.
.
Looking around your space wherever you are and just noticing the colors and the textures.
The shadows and the glint of light.
Giving your mind this.
Tactical focus point of your space.
Ahhhh.
Starting to tap on your body.
Tap your chest.
And you can start to turn that into more of a.
.
.
Slapping tap like palm palm open like that down your arm up the inside of your arms.
Saying hello to your body.
Hello to your skin and to your muscles.
Up the back of your neck,
Over the top of your head.
All these places.
Deserving your attention and awareness right now.
And gently fingertips over the face.
Cheeks.
The jaw.
Relaxing the jaw down,
The tongue,
Softening the tongue.
And then gently petting your neck.
And then back down to your belly.
Tap,
Tap,
Tap,
Tap.
Hello,
Belly.
Hips.
You can get a bit more sturdy and vigorous with your heels of your hands here.
I like to really dig them into my hips.
And your glutes and all the way down the front of your legs.
And back up the inside.
And we'll do that a couple of times back down the back or the sides.
And up.
Once more.
And coming back up.
Wonderful.
And just taking a moment to notice how you feel.
I separated my feet out a bit more,
They're wider than hip widths.
Heels and toes are facing.
Outwards.
About 45 degrees and just stand there and notice.
Mmm.
Do you feel the tingles of aliveness in your being?
This body is your instrument.
For singing and for creating your life.
And you have taken this time to nurture it,
To.
.
.
Tune to it.
And be curious,
And this is a good thing.
Maybe seeing if a smile can touch your lips.
Widening them.
Feeling a sense of lift from.
Your perineum,
Your pelvic floor,
All the way up your spine and your.
.
.
Central channel.
Lifting the inside of your mouth as if you were to yawn.
This kind of raising,
This inner smile it's called.
And then feel that in your eyes.
All the way up through your head,
Just feeling this rising energy.
Alright,
So what we're going to do is palms facing down or drawing energy up from the earth.
And then we flip the palms when they reach shoulder height.
And collect from the sky.
And then draw that energy down your central channel.
And just for those of you who might not know,
This is not a religious practice.
This is a spiritual practice.
And this is a physical exercise.
And that's what's so beautiful about Qigong is that it works our physical bodies.
It helps heal and process emotional tension.
And it also helps us to connect with spirit,
With source of life.
Whatever that is to you.
Just doing this with me and you can see,
You can't see my lower half of my body,
But it is bending.
My knees are bending as I collect from the sky.
See,
I'm coming down.
And then I come back up as I exhale and draw my hands down.
So if you feel like that's enough.
Stick with it.
Stick with the movement.
And just enjoy moving your body in this way today.
And if you'd like to add on.
Imagine energy being drawn up from the earth.
In from the sky.
And then pulling that on the exhale through your body.
Enlivening yourself with this earth energy and the sky energy.
And you're exhaling out the nose again.
So now we're cultivating energy,
Inhaling and exhaling out the nose.
And this simple yet powerful form is reminding us that we are conduits of energy.
That we collect.
From the environment around us.
Energy,
Memory.
Experience.
And we process it and digest it through our bodies.
To understand.
And when we are creative with our bodies,
When we make music,
When we sing.
When we make art of any kind.
We are using that power of the conduit for creative good,
For the good of ourselves.
For healing.
And for creating understanding for others,
We're sharing our experience of reality.
So that others and ourselves can understand it.
More fully.
Find peace.
And understanding and connection.
Just doing that once more.
Okay.
And today I'm going to teach you,
I always just do one form,
A class,
Just to keep it manageable.
Because we're here to do a whole bunch of practices,
Not just Qigong.
This one I learned from a woman called Mimi Coco Demmer.
She's a wonderful Qigong teacher.
And this is what it looks like.
So I'll do it from the side as well.
You'll see my arms aren't touching.
It feels like I'm a ballerina in a way that I'm just gracefully.
.
.
Bringing my arms in front and up overhead,
Give you the other angle.
My arms are always in front of my head.
Body so they're never going behind.
I'm not arching my back in any way.
I'm always being able to see my arms.
In my peripheral vision.
And this is called separating clouds.
Oh,
How lovely.
And I've been doing it all week.
And so you can just imagine that you're high up on some mountaintop and there's this mist and clouds and you're just separating it.
In front of you with your hands and arms.
Inhale as you bring the arms up and then exhale as they come to your sides.
And really enjoy the gracefulness of this.
Like imagining that you're this ballerina or a swan opening your arms And see how I'm just kind of going side to side.
You can do that if you'd like.
It feels good for me today to just.
I clear the clouds from my whole field,
But you can also just stay in one place as well if that feels better for you.
And if you'd like to add on another layer,
Just picturing in your mind's eye,
The clouds in your life,
The things going on.
That are.
.
.
Irritating.
Disappointing,
Stressful.
Overwhelming,
Whatever those things are,
And just parting them away.
Goodbye!
And they're just dissipating like the clouds.
And you have this clear view in front of you,
Perhaps You know,
You're moving the clouds away and you can see the beautiful stars in the night sky.
Moving the clouds and seeing with clarity for the first time.
In a long time.
And I'm going to invite you,
Because we're working on our voices here,
I'm going to invite you to make a sound on the exhale,
Whatever sound you want to make.
I'll give an example,
Inhaling.
Ahhhhhhhhh sound of relief.
What is your sound of relief?
Grrrrrrrr!
And just doing that over and over and over again.
It can be whatever sound wants to come out.
That's just the right sound.
So we're using movement and sound to clear our energy fields.
To remind us of the spaciousness we have in our life and these tools that are free and immediately accessible to us at any moment.
Always have our bodies and our voice.
And always use them to help us.
Grrrrrr.
Just doing that a couple more times here.
Ahhhhhhhhh Okay,
Coming to bring your hands to your low belly,
Your lower dengtian.
And just breathing for a moment.
And I'd like you to find a center place.
So.
Just going toe to heel.
You might want to keep your eyes open for this in case you tend to not have the best balance or tip over.
Toe to heel,
So I'll go sideways.
I'm rocking back and forth.
Where is my center point today?
The place where I feel grounded.
And then tucking the pelvis slightly.
Drawing that low belly in it's not a sucking in it's just a engagement awareness of oh yeah okay I'm supportive you can see that in the video right where I can be kind of tilted like that and I'm just tucking it in.
And with strong feet then and strong pelvis,
I can.
Raise my upper body to be very strong feeling.
And we're rolling the shoulders out.
They don't need to be like perched on the back.
We're not pressing our chest wide.
We want to keep 360 degrees strength in our hands.
Chest and in our back,
Spaciousness.
Like we have wings on our back.
And they're just resting there nicely.
This is a powerful stance.
And in this stance,
I want you to look out into the world,
Imagining with your mind's eye that you're on this mountain like I described earlier.
Just say,
I am here.
Say it out loud with me.
I am here.
I am here.
And maybe there's something that you've wanted to experience in your life.
I'd like you to affirm that now.
Perhaps,
I am brave.
And courageous.
I am loving.
Just something short like that,
Just saying it out loud right now.
And if you happen to be somewhere where you can't say it out loud,
You can picture it in your mind's eye,
But I really encourage you to say it out loud over and over.
I'm just experimenting with how those words.
.
.
Land when you say them out loud.
Does doubt creep in,
Shyness perhaps?
Embarrassment.
Wondering,
Like,
This exercise seems silly.
Redundant or whatever just letting those thoughts come in and out and keep on the practice This is foundational confidence work that you are doing.
To say something out loud.
That you believe is true or that you want to believe is true.
I am brave.
I am creative.
You can say more than one thing if you'd like.
And just notice how it feels to be in this strong stance.
You can even do that,
Put your hands on your hips,
Bring your elbows out.
Enjoying this moment where you are these things.
You are fully embodied in your strength.
Wonderful,
Just giving a shake out.
You feel complete.
And we'll come back down to do our singing practice,
Down to a seat.
Is my go-to singing routine and I'm so excited to share it with you today.
We are going to start with the breath.
What we're going to do is we're going to inhale.
Wide 360 into our ribs,
Into our back.
It can feel nice if you have a chair to lean back and really feel your ribs pressing in as you inhale.
And just fill your lungs all the way up.
Feel how wide and full you can be.
And then sigh it out.
Yeah.
So that's step number one,
Just feeling how wide you are.
And then step number two,
What we're going to do is we're going to exhale fully,
And then we're going to let this rebound.
It's called the rebound breath.
So we're going to let this rebound come back in where our diaphragm just naturally wants to expand.
So with me now,
Just exhaling wherever you are in your breath,
You don't have to inhale.
Exhale,
Exhale,
Exhale.
All the air out,
And then just let it come back in.
And then sigh.
So there's the exhale fully.
And then the surrender to allow the rebound to happen,
And then the sigh.
And then we just breathe normally for a couple breaths.
Notice how we feel differently,
If at all.
I always feel like I can find more pockets where breath can go,
Especially up in my shoulders.
I hold a lot of tension in my traps and in my neck and my shoulders.
And so when I do this practice,
I find there's a softening there that just feels so great.
Nothing else really catches it,
Even if I do a massage.
It's not as good.
Here just noticing,
Welcoming the air back in as it is.
We're going to do that two more times.
So wherever you are on your exhale,
Just starting to exhale fully now.
Squeeze,
Squeeze,
And then I'll feel it in your body,
But let your jaw and your tongue release off.
And then as you're completely empty.
Just allowing the air back in.
And sign it out.
Yeah.
Feels so good.
Now just breathing normally.
And.
.
.
Just want to say like a lot of what voice work is is noticing what our breath patterns is and finding ways that we can optimize it,
Finding ways that it can be more full that we can take more air in and that we can be okay with the relationship of holding on to air while letting it go more slowly so we're not like You know,
That's like the opposite of what we want.
And this goes for nervous system healing too.
If you've ever practiced any form of breath work,
There's so many types.
And usually there's like one type that works for every person.
And there's all these different ways that we can manipulate our nervous system with our breath.
And so if we can come into a place where our breath is the most natural,
The most full,
I believe that that is a key foundational aspect of our nervous system healing and regulated nervous system response.
So last time,
Wherever you are in your exhale,
Just continuing to exhale fully.
Getting all the air out.
Really knitting the ribs.
And then inhale.
And ahhh.
Letting the jaw soften.
And then just inhaling normally and noticing what's going on.
What is going on with this body?
And this pause,
This noticing between the breath practices is so important.
This is the actual space where we do the healing.
Notice if you feel softer in your nervous system.
I know I do.
I feel just calm or it's like the energy drops.
Even though I'm teaching and my nervous system is on,
It's like,
Whoo,
It just feels a bit more.
Situated in my heart now.
So now.
We've done the breath and we're going to move into the practice of It's called a raspberry trill.
So you might have done horse lips before or something like that.
It's really difficult when you first start to do this,
So if you can't do it today,
That is okay.
Just keep practicing.
It took me probably like.
.
.
Six months to really get it so that my cheeks and my tongue and everything were relaxed enough to to get this.
And that's the whole point,
Is we're retraining our physiology to soften,
To reduce as much tension as possible in this area,
In our throat,
In our face,
So that we can propel our voice out and just have this all be the flute that it needs to be in order to make the sounds we want to make.
So I'll show you again and then I'll guide you through.
So we're going to start without sound.
So it's helpful to have some lip chap if you have some.
Makes it way easier.
So I have some here,
Some lip balm.
And you can also just wet your lips with your tongue.
And what you're going to do is stick your tongue out a little bit.
And when you do that,
You're not like poking it out.
It's not an active tongue,
It's a passive relaxation.
Is letting it hang out.
You might feel like your ears popping a bit.
That's a great sign.
And your jaw,
If you were to touch your jaw bones up here in this area.
You feel them kind of relax down.
Change position a bit.
Even that just feels so good.
So just sitting there and.
.
.
Attuning to that posture.
Maybe it looks silly,
Doesn't matter.
It can be helpful to have a mirror.
Be in a bathroom if you can see yourself doing this.
I can see myself on the screen if I look up a little bit.
It's just helpful to see what's happening.
Because what's happening is a lot of interoception.
We're focusing a lot on sensations in the body.
And so when you can have a physical view of what that looks like,
It's helpful for our memories.
It helps us remember the placement better.
All right,
So when we're in that position.
What we're going to do is we're going to just exhale.
Out the mouth.
So instead of exhaling out the nose,
We're going to exhale out the mouth.
And you might spit everywhere if you have a very moist mouth and so that's okay.
Just know that that's okay.
Not making any sound.
I just always go to sound because I love making the sound,
But just exhaling.
And you might only get that little bit to start with.
And that's okay.
Eventually you get to the place where you can do it with your whole exhale.
And what is helping me get there.
So this is part one is the facial relaxation,
But part two is,
Okay,
Because all of this is relaxed.
I can't use it to propel my voice,
Propel my breath out anymore.
Oh no,
What do I do?
I use my core.
So this is the essential thing,
The essential practice for using our core.
So I'm going to actually get up and I'll just show you my belly because that's the easiest.
Way to learn this.
I have my little thing here.
Okay,
So as I'm exhaling,
I can't show you both at the same time,
But this is what's happening.
So my low belly is coming up and in.
So I really recommend placing a hand on your low belly.
And I was doing it fast.
But what we want to be able to get to eventually is a very slow exhale.
So this very slow activation of the belly.
And I could go on and on.
And so how we get this slowness is just practice over time.
If this is your first time doing it,
Focusing on the facial relaxation is enough.
Part two is really connecting to that breath.
And then part three is saying,
How slowly can I exhale?
How slowly can I exhale and maintain this surrender in my face?
And see how I'm doing this with my hands?
You can do that as well.
Reaching my hands in behind my ears here and I'm just I'm not yanking my face down,
I'm just.
.
.
Surrendering my hands and it's just reminding the muscles that they can stop holding.
So just seeing what you can do there.
And then if you,
If this is,
If you've caught on and you're like,
Oh,
It's a breeze.
Great job.
And you can start to add in the sounding now.
So I'm going,
Ah,
Just a little,
Ah,
And you might do it at a lower,
Ah,
Whatever pitch you're at is fine.
Just doing this.
BLBLBLBLBLBLBLBL raspberry trill while you make the sound.
Just trying it out.
Staying open.
Thanks for watching!
The world.
And this is like I've said,
Number one practice.
It does so many things.
It helps us get our power from our.
Horror from our.
Diaphragm instead of holding tension all up here in these muscles.
It helps us to relax everything,
Our jaws,
Our tongues,
Our throats.
Repatterning all of this musculature to say we can be calm,
We can relax and be powerful at the same time.
And we're just relaxing the tongue and what that does on an energetic level on an emotional level is it releases the holding,
All the words that you've held back,
All the things that you wish you said but you didn't say,
All the things that you couldn't say.
When you have that experience,
Your tongue is like,
The fascia is literally like,
It's pulling back.
You're holding back your emotions and your body is physically holding them back with the tongue.
And so when you're able to release the tongue like that.
You're repatterning and saying,
I can do this.
I can breathe and be in a calm state and have my tongue relaxed.
And then when you start to make sound with it.
You can also re-pattern that part of the brain.
I can make sound.
I can speak.
And have my tongue relaxed,
I can have my fascial body respond in an optimal way.
To life.
And that is very powerful.
It's something that takes time.
Like I said,
I do this every single day.
But you'll notice over weeks and maybe even months of doing it that you start to be able to notice when you're holding your tongue back.
And if you don't want to do that,
You can practice this.
Maybe you're in a situation where you feel like you can't say what you want and just like take a moment.
And then come back to the conversation,
See how it could be different.
Thanks for watching!
So if you're getting it,
That is wonderful.
I'm so happy for you.
If you're not getting it,
All good.
Like I said,
It took me months to figure it out and I had a lot of tension.
I am a person who struggles with struggled and still struggles with speaking their truth all the time.
It's a practice for me to speak my truth and not hold it all up inside.
Just give me yourself grace.
Giving yourself the patience that you deserve to figure this out.
It's a huge thing.
It's a huge thing to do.
So if you want to,
You can continue playing with that.
I'm going to add on one extra layer for those who are coming back to this practice,
And that is to kind of rev it up like you're revving an engine.
And this is just a little bit extra fire for the core.
Little bit extra ab workout.
So it sounds like this.
BLBLBLBLBLBLBLBLBLBL so you can hear how it starts soft.
And then it gets harder.
So this is like advanced level of the raspberry trail because you don't want to be pushing from your throat at all.
This is really just your course.
You can feel like,
Like I actually like to do this.
So I imagine,
You know,
I'm on a motorcycle and I'm at a stoplight and I'm getting ready and I'm revving it up.
And doing that with the hand is helpful because it reminds you,
Oh yeah,
I'm doing this with my body,
With my core,
Not with my throat,
Because my throat can't do that.
My throat doesn't want to do that.
My throat just wants to be an open flute receiving and letting the air flow through.
So this is all happening in my core.
So I'll show you what it looks like again with my belly.
Thanks for watching!
And you can play with that at whatever speed you want.
Thanks for watching!
Blblblblblblbl And just notice how it thins out and changes at the top.
And often for me,
Like that's the place where I start to use my throat again and feel tension and yours might be somewhere else in that range of your voice.
So just noticing where it is and seeing over time,
You know,
As you practice this,
How can I soften?
Rrrrrrrrrr.
Bye!
Thanks for watching!
And then finally what we'll do is we'll move from the lip trill,
The raspberry trill into sounding and then just seeing how much easier it is.
So what we'll do is we'll make it,
We'll do a sound practice and then we'll do that same practice with the raspberry and then we will do it again and just compare how it feels.
So this is.
Again,
What I do next is I start to go,
Ah,
So I'm going up and down,
Lowest part of my range to the highest part of my range and then back down.
And you can do it on an ah,
Or you can start wah.
And make sure your mouth is opening like that.
Rawr!
Just really playing with those shapes.
Mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm Mmm,
Feels so good.
You're kind of stretching while you're making these sounds.
So because I've been doing the raspberry trill so much,
That feels great.
And yours might also feel great.
But what we're going to do is we're going to do that and then we're going to do the raspberry trill and then we'll do it again and we'll compare.
Bye.
Thanks for watching!
Rawr!
Mmm.
So noticing how that felt different for you.
For me,
It felt less gravelly.
It felt like I had some crackles going up the first time,
And then the second time,
My voice was placed much more forward for me,
And it just felt much easier to do.
Like my voice just knew where it needed to go.
Hmm.
So those are the practices that I do every day.
It starts off with that breath,
The expansion.
Feeling the breath as full as it can be in my body.
And then doing three experiences of the shrinking down to exhale all the air out and then letting it come back in,
So the rebound breath.
And then I do these raspberry trills.
First without any sound,
Then with sound,
Then playing around with different pitch play exercises.
And you can be really creative with that and feel what your body wants to do or you can follow along what I just did and that's all you really need.
So then I begin humming and humming is just the sweetest way to connect in with the voice.
So you can hum like a hum,
H-U-M,
Or you can do a mm-ah.
So it starts on a hum,
And then it opens up into the sound.
So I like to pick a pitch.
You So just tuning in to what feels good.
Find something in there that you like.
Or something else,
It doesn't matter.
And then just really enjoying the hum.
So I'll just increase the sound of the music here a little bit.
And we'll hum for about five minutes or so together.
And you can hum the same pitch as me or something different.
Enjoying your voice.
Home.
Um and I'll just say some guidance words and you can keep humming.
Home.
Letting the practices that you just learned fall away.
Centering on this present moment,
You and your voice and the hum.
Um.
.
.
Noticing if you move your tongue around in your mouth.
Especially the back of the tongue,
Lifting it up or dropping it down,
How that changes your experience.
Um.
.
.
You can place your hands over your face and just relax your jaw.
Reminding it to soften.
How does that change the richness of your tone?
Home.
You home.
When you change pitch or the note that you're singing.
Where does the vibration move in your body?
Map it.
Mmmmm.
When I sing lower,
I can feel it pouring out of my heart.
When I sing high,
I feel it pouring out of my third eye.
Spiraling out.
Remembering that as you hum,
You're vibrating all these tissues,
You're moving the lymph around,
Clearing and detoxifying.
Vibrating your brain,
Shaking it up,
Shaking up your eyeballs.
Earwax,
All of it's just getting moved.
Jiggle so you can feel fresh and renewed.
Home.
Bye!
If you feel like it opening up to that mwah.
And singing for something here so bringing an intention to your hum now not just curiosity but a focal point i want to sing for maybe coming back to that feeling that you held at the beginning,
I am brave,
I am courageous.
What is the sound of that?
Feelings.
What is the sound of that state?
Can you sing it into being?
MAAAAAAA you Know that you're doing such good work to take care of yourself here.
Just enjoying about another couple breaths.
And these breaths and sounds,
I'd like you to just place a hand over your heart and really sing to yourself a loving song,
Just something really sweet.
Know how mean necessary,
But you can if you want.
Something like this.
I'll just give you an example.
Hi.
Uh huh.
Like you're singing to your inner child.
I feel like you're singing to a baby.
So loving.
Hmm?
Oh.
Okay,
Beautiful,
Beautiful,
Beautiful,
Everyone.
Taking a deep breath and just sighing it out.
Thank you for showing up for yourself today.
That is the end of our practice.
So let's close with three breaths.
Inhaling through the nose and then exhaling through the mouth.
Placing a hand over your heart.
Taking this next breath.
For the whole world,
Just feeling what you feel in the world and letting it out.
Ahhhh.
And then this breath taking it just for you.
The most juicy breath you've taken so far today.
Ah,
We're letting it all out.
