Expanding Resonance

Hi, welcome to this amazing breath that I call the Core Transformer Breath. Now this breath will not only help you to support your voice when singing or chanting in a yoga class singing your om, or even just speaking in conversation. But it will really help you to get access to the deeper abdominal space. That's really important because so often we breathe up here into the chest all the time. When we do that, we can lock the rib cage down so easily.

When we do that, we tend to knit up the breathing diaphragm, the liver, our filter organs. We can get more toxic and definitely less breath, less energy. So what I wanna do today with you is teach you how to really access this internal area and go deeper into your core, transforming it, opening it, strengthening it, and getting a more resonant U sound in your breath. Alright, so to do it place your hands on the side of your rib-cage. Instead of breathing up and out, so I do not want you to lift up your shoulders or to lift up the collarbones, constrict the throat at all.

This entire area needs to be totally relaxed. So relax all of that, bring your hands to the ribs and on the inhale, inhale out to the sides so your ribs press out into your hands with the inhale but you don't do that. Alright so let's try it together. Inhale here, (inhales in) through the nose, and let the rib-cage expand. Good, you can exhale through the nose or the mouth, (exhales out) and just gently let the ribs press back in.

Alright, so nothing hard or forcing. To inhale again, you allow the ribs to open. (inhales) And on the exhale allow the ribs to close. (exhales) You can pause this and practice that a few times until you really get it down. Now the next part we're gonna add onto that.

Bring your hands around to the belly area, just below the ribs and the soft place here under the sternum and the lower rib-cage. So on your inhale, inhale down and see if you can press the hands open, not because you push out the abdominal wall, but because you allow the breath to drop down deeper. (inhales) And on the exhale through the nose or mouth. (exhales) You can just let the navel move back towards the spine and maybe even lift up a little bit. So the inhale is a real expanse of allowing a softening and a release. (inhales)

Buddha belly you can rub it for good luck if you wanted to. (tongue clicks) Alright so, exhale, draw the navel back and in. That's the more active place. The more passive is to inhale again and expand, so you can practice that a few times. Now, see if you can add those two together.

You're inhaling allowing an expansion of the side ribs and of the belly as well. (inhales) See if you can get all that to kind of open like half a moon in the front of your body. On the exhale, just gather that breath back in and help to detoxify and press the breath out. Alright, can practice that a few times as well and the last part of this Core Transformer Breath, is a secret space that a lot of people except for singers, never really even think about. The back of your lungs are much bigger in the back of the rib-cage.

So we wanna think about dropping that area down too. Back by your kidneys where the low rib-cage meets the kind of fleshy part of your back muscles. Put your hands there. On your inhale now, expand not only the side ribs and the belly, but that back body as well. (inhales) You can release back tension that way, you can really give yourself some nice opening and some relief of all that holding gripping tension back there.

To put all of that together now means that I want you to envision that you're dropping the breath straight down through the nose, straight down through a more still upper rib-cage, chest, neck, shoulders, all that stuff. And I want you to think of breathing in a 360 degree circle as you drop down and wide, almost like a water balloon dropping down and getting heavier. So it will anchor you down to the earth and expand you in all directions from the center outward. Try it, you can put your hands anywhere you want or just sit in your easy seat. Drop the breath down, warm and widen everything, relax and expand, (inhales) in all the directions.

And on the exhale you can allow that navel to draw in, the ribs to draw in, even that kidney area, even the back ribs to draw in and out. Again inhale with me, (inhales) through the nose or mouth, expand in all directions. Exhale through the nose or mouth. (exhales) Good. So for your yoga practice you can breathe like this sometimes, really get into that belly area.

Aids in digestion, detox as I said and metabolism. And for singing you wanna do it through the mouth. So inhaling and exhaling. â?« Om That's gonna give you a nice rich tone, for some of the things that you sing in yoga and speak in life. So practice the breath as much as you want until you get really comfortable with it.

Do it in your yoga practice and I hope you enjoy. Namaste.