Breathe Deep, and Enunciate!
Forgot to mention the homework from last week. When we split into two groups and my group did the ball game, the other group brushed their teeth. So that was our homework - observe ourselves brushing our teeth. What do we do first, how do we hold the brush, which hand do we squeeze the tube with, how do we handle the taps, and one burning question that seemed to come up: what do we do with the left hand while we're brushing? First couple of times it was weird, cuz I kinda got the giggles. It was amazing how self-conscious I got just standing alone in my bathroom, brushing my teeth.
After talking about that for awhile, we jumped into a breathing exercise. I think the idea here is to pull in as much air as possible, so there'll always be enough for whatever you're doing. I couldn't do much more than usual, I think because I did something like that during my radio days and so already am able to inhale to the necessary depth.
Once we got the breathing down, we started using it to make noises, playing with sounds, particularly voiced and unvoiced consonants: "fa-va, va-fa" and "ga-ca, ca-ga". We also felt up our sinuses as we made weird humming noises. This showed where the resonances in our heads were that make up the timbre of our voices. It was interesting to find what caused the most vibration where, while making strange humming noises and messing with the position of our jaws and the shape of our closed mouths. Interesting enough, even, to not notice how totally silly we looked. I could imagine someone walking by and looking in the window, thinking that we were part of some wierd cult practicing strange rites. We're in a church after all.
Then we went on to tongue twisters. Dan had a couple of pages of them, and we chose a few, said them together three times, then practiced for awhile on our own. This was bad enough just trying to be able to repeat them several times, but hearing everyone else doing it just messed me up more. And Dan sat there doing them rapid-fire, and it was hard to ignore all that. Once we thought we were up to it, one of use would volunteer to say it three times as quick as possible. Try it with "black bug's blood" or "big B-52 bombers".
One more exercise before saying goodnight: we sat in a circle around a small table. Dan handed out pencils and paper, and we turned our backs on the table. Then he arranged several objects on it. We got fifteen seconds to have a look, then we had to turn our backs and write down as many as we could remember. The idea was not only to practice observing and remembering, but also to become aware of how you remember things. I impressed myself by coming up with eleven out of thirteen objects. I seem to remember by grouping things, where if I can remember one object in the group, I can pull up the rest.
And that defined our homework: to practice with observing a scene, closing our eyes and seeing how much we can remember of it. And continuing observing ourselves brushing our teeth.
After talking about that for awhile, we jumped into a breathing exercise. I think the idea here is to pull in as much air as possible, so there'll always be enough for whatever you're doing. I couldn't do much more than usual, I think because I did something like that during my radio days and so already am able to inhale to the necessary depth.
Once we got the breathing down, we started using it to make noises, playing with sounds, particularly voiced and unvoiced consonants: "fa-va, va-fa" and "ga-ca, ca-ga". We also felt up our sinuses as we made weird humming noises. This showed where the resonances in our heads were that make up the timbre of our voices. It was interesting to find what caused the most vibration where, while making strange humming noises and messing with the position of our jaws and the shape of our closed mouths. Interesting enough, even, to not notice how totally silly we looked. I could imagine someone walking by and looking in the window, thinking that we were part of some wierd cult practicing strange rites. We're in a church after all.
Then we went on to tongue twisters. Dan had a couple of pages of them, and we chose a few, said them together three times, then practiced for awhile on our own. This was bad enough just trying to be able to repeat them several times, but hearing everyone else doing it just messed me up more. And Dan sat there doing them rapid-fire, and it was hard to ignore all that. Once we thought we were up to it, one of use would volunteer to say it three times as quick as possible. Try it with "black bug's blood" or "big B-52 bombers".
One more exercise before saying goodnight: we sat in a circle around a small table. Dan handed out pencils and paper, and we turned our backs on the table. Then he arranged several objects on it. We got fifteen seconds to have a look, then we had to turn our backs and write down as many as we could remember. The idea was not only to practice observing and remembering, but also to become aware of how you remember things. I impressed myself by coming up with eleven out of thirteen objects. I seem to remember by grouping things, where if I can remember one object in the group, I can pull up the rest.
And that defined our homework: to practice with observing a scene, closing our eyes and seeing how much we can remember of it. And continuing observing ourselves brushing our teeth.
posted by Kelly at
9:33 AM
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