How do you stack up?

The diaphragm is not only the primary muscle of respiration. It is also a hidden driver of our posture. With its location in the body and its asymmetrical structure, the diaphragm’s 20,000 contractions a day literally shape our body from the inside out. 

Due to the continuous link of connective tissues, the diaphragm, the pelvic floor and the larynx are all interdependent. When the head and neck, ribcage and pelvis are not well aligned, our voices are not as easy to produce as they could be and we don’t manage pressure as well as we could.

If the diaphragm is driving our posture and we further adapt our posture to facilitate breathing, what’s a singer to do?

In your singing, have you ever experienced…

• Shoulders and neck get tighter as you sing higher?
• Ribs swing forward, like a bell, on inhale?
• Your sound feels effortful?
• Vocal fatigue, lessened stamina and even issues like Muscle Tension Dysphonia?
• Running out of air and the ribcage compressing down as you get to the end of a phrase?
• Pelvic floor issues get worse with singing?
• Loss of abdominal connection post-partum?

When you look at the singing body do you see…

• One shoulder higher than the other?
• A dropped sternum?
• Flared Ribs?
• Ribcage that doesn’t expand well in all directions?
• Tilted or Tucked Pelvis?
• Weight resting more in one leg?
• One foot turned out or one foot in front of the other when standing?

If you answered yes to any of those statements about your body or voice, you need to learn how to improve how to stack your body up!

Discover the patterns of your body and work on solutions.

Inside this 2 hour you will learn about fundamental asymmetries in the body, how those show up in your posture and impact the voice. With an understanding of your baseline patterns you can develop strategies to work with them. Through breathing and movement we will explore supple alignment in the torso and apply, with curiosity, elements of the work to your singing.

• We will begin the workshop with vocalizing a bit to establish a baseline for our voices.
• Next, we will look in depth at the diaphragm’s size, shape and function as well as its relationship to the pelvic floor and larynx.
• Then we will do some physical assessments to understand how the diaphragm is influencing our posture.
• We’ll learn a few positional breathing exercises to begin to address our adaptations.
• Throughout the workshop we will check in with our voices and bodies to see what we notice.
• There will be time at the end for Q & A.

**Workshop participants will need to dress in clothing they can move well in, have a mat, and a coregeous ball. Have a section or phrase of a song you want to use as your before and after.