Reprinted from Feldenkrais Australia, the journal of the Australian Feldenkrais Guild Inc.
Voice, Breath, Posture
Two Methods: Feldenkrais and Linklater
by Arlyn Zones, MA Theatre Arts
Arlyn (Amherst 1983) is a Trainer (1994) based in the United States. She has taught extensively throughout the world, including many visits to Australia. Prior to her involvement with the Feldenkrais Method Arlyn studied acting, voice and mime and taught Movement for Actors.
In 1981 Dr. Moshe Feldenkrais travelled throughout the United States offering a series of five day workshops which were sponsored by an organization named Quest.1 When asked to write about what he would teach, he listed nine ideas or intentions behind the movement sequences he would present. Included in the list was:
To experience making one feel taller and lighter.
To train the voice-breathing as our nervous system would like it to be (Feldenkrais Voice Training).
AND: To become aware of the many different parts of one’s self image and how to complete it-in ten different situations or lessons…
As far as I know he didn’t include any direct examples of voice lessons in these workshops although the year before he did start to work with the theme in the Amherst training. If you look, however, at what he wrote in the text above, you will find some of the ideas or principles that I have been investigating in a series of lessons from the Feldenkrais Method® and the Linklater Voice Method.
But before going further let me introduce you to some of Kristin Linklater’s philosophy of vocal training. Ms. Linklater’s work focuses predominately on actor training and therefore more on speaking than on singing. She refers to her approach as Freeing the Natural Voice2 and wrote a book by the same title.
As this title suggests, the work to free the voice is not one where the person tries to add something on to the way they speak but instead learns to take away what interferes.
In her book she says that real spontaneity depends on reflex action and most people have lost the ability and perhaps the desire, to behave reflexively. The animal instinct level of emotional response to stimulus, deep in the unconscious mind, is largely conditioned out of us as we grow up …Throughout the nervous system impulses have been blocked, rerouted or crisscrossed with countermanding impulses3. To all those familiar with Dr. Feldenkrais’ ideas the parallels become clear. In Feldenkrais language we could say that our voices are the freest when we allow ourselves to express what we want, what we intend, without any cross motivation.
Linklater also says that as long as we are emotionally protective our breathing will not be free. When the breathing is not free the throat, jaw, lips and tongue work twice as hard to compensate for the lack of breath power. Anyone who has closely observed themselves while speaking can verify the number of habits that interfere with a really free sound coming out thru the mouth.
Another strong resemblance of Linklater’s approach to that of Dr. Feldenkrais is the strong emphasis on making sensory distinctions. All the Linklater exercises are designed to help one experience the vibration of sound rather than judging it as good or bad.
My own work in exploring how to combine the two systems has evolved over many years of bringing the voice work into Feldenkrais Professional Training Programs.
What began as a one hour vocal class in 1989 has gradually grown into a week long curriculum. Recently I have also begun to work with Corinna May, a designated Linklater teacher who has many years experience teaching voice and is also an actress and a Feldenkrais Practioner. 4
In beginning the work with the voice, the first question that I usually ask the group is:” How many of you have a good self image around the way you use your voice.? On average one third of the group will have a good self image, one third of the group will say they have a medium image, and one third of the group will say theirs is poor. Of those that have a good self image nearly all of them have previously had some special training in singing or speaking. So the first order of business is to decouple the business of sound making from previous associations about oneself.
For Kristin Linklater the place to begin is the spine. The first exercise in her Method is a spinal drop in which you are asked from a standing position to drop down the spine one vertebrae at a time and then build back up. The chapter is entitled: The spine: the support of breath. In this chapter Ms. Linklater actually offers us a quote from Dr. Feldenkrais in which he says that the muscles should not have to carry out the job of the skeleton but should be free for movement.5 As one gradually learns to think of the spinal column from the inside, the vertebral bodies become linked to the image of a channel for sound. The vibrations which begin in the belly pass upward along this channel and unimpeded out thru the front of the mouth.
In my curriculum of ATMs I also begin with the spine. The ATM focus on the sensing of the inside of the spine and the realization that the vertebral bodies are large supporting structures helps to create a sturdy feeling of the skeletal support when the students return to the work in standing.
I next move to the awareness of the space inside the mouth and the abdomen. In the lesson on the mouth and palette Dr. Feldenkrais shows very clearly how eliminating unnecessary contractions of the tongue has immediate beneficial effects on the breathing. He also utilizes what I call a back door approach to the work with breath in that he uses imagery to influence awareness and awareness to invoke the change in musculature.
Linklater also says that when working with the breathing we need to develop the ability to “observe without controlling…Conscious control of the breath will destroy its sensitivity to changing inner states, and severely curtail the reflex connection of breathing and emotional impulse.”6
In the next phase we influence the breath by taking away the unnecessary parasitic work of the intercostals so that the ribs and diaphragm can be free to respond to the natural inflow and outflow of the breath. Awareness Through Movement® lessons which involve twisting of the spine can be linked to the experience of the breath gradually being able to expand in multiple directions: from lower down spreading upward, from the center spreading outward and from the center spreading forward and back.
Gradually as one continues through the Awareness Through Movement lessons which are chosen for their ability to make the Linklater work more accessible one can expect the following to occur:
1. The inner space expands in all directions
2. The breath expands in all directions
3. The skeleton fulfills its supporting purpose
4. Posture and acture improve
Going thru the Awareness Through Movement lessons in conjunction with the voice exercises makes it possible to focus on the details and the whole simultaneously. Shifting between the foreground of vocal production and the background of the support of the entire skeleton allows unnecessary efforts to fall away.
One can now begin to explore the resonators with a better chance of keeping habits of the tongue, jaw, lips and throat from interfering. The work with resonators can be great fun when properly prepared for.
Vibrations of sound are sent into various parts of the face and high up into the palette and are clearly sensed. At this point one’s relationship to the voice begins to shift to the experience of the pleasure of feeling sounds. The sound has an energizing or re-vitalizing effect on the whole self.
In my recent collaboration with Corinna May in a training segment in San Diego she was invited to teach the students the Linklater portion of the curriculum. Her comment as the week came to a close was as follows:
As I’d anticipated, the group as a whole and individually had found much more resonance than they’d begun with, but what was arresting was the quality of the resonance- we say in the Linklater work that we are looking for a transparent voice, that is, we want to hear the person, not the person’s voice. In the end I was hearing not “good voices,” but strikingly richer, suppler, brighter more expressive voices that came unforced, without pushing or reaching or crafting, just releasing vibrations with ease from their whole selves.
When Corinna works with actors using Feldenkrais as an adjunct to the voice she also finds that the process is enhanced.
For the work in trainings the final task is to ask the students to give each other a scan. The students are asked to couple their words with an inner image and also to send their voice into the bones of their partner. I like to refer to this as skeleton to skeleton contact in the teaching of ATM. The vibrations of sound carry with them all the intentions of the teacher as he guides and focuses the students’ attention to new domains of perception. Over time one can include the physical sensation of one’s own voice while teaching and this helps to deepen the pathways of communication between the teacher and the group.
In closing, I would note that in my own work I have found that the inclusion of the vibration of sound of my voice while teaching creates a strong effect on my entire organism. There is usually a movement downward in myself that becomes more and more available as a lesson progresses. This downward movement both influences the deepening of the breath and the whole breathing mechanism regulates itself into a steady pulsation of air becoming sound. The improvement of the breathing and the sensory experience of the sound is felt as a kind of tonic for my entire system. The connection with an image of what I am asking the students to feel further improves my contact with my own skeleton. So for myself and for those I teach I think that the issue of self organization and self awareness is just as pertinent to the teaching of ATM as it is in the giving of an Functional Integration® lesson. And certainly it is possible to give a whole group a lesson in Functional Integration® thru the medium of one’s voice alone.
Footnotes:
1. Brochure for Workshops with Moshe Feldenkrais sponsored by QUEST: Dallas, San Francisco, New York, 1981. Check with www.feldenkraisresources.com for available recordings of these workshops.
2. Freeing the Natural Voice by Kristin Linklater. Quotes are from first edition published by Drama Book Specialists 1976. The first edition is known as the Blue Book and the 2nd Edition published in 2006 is known as the Yellow Book. Both are carried on Amazon.com
3. Ibid. pg. 12
4. Corrina May, teacher of Voice and Speech at Pace University, New York City, NY.
Corinna is also the teacher for the Linklater work for the CD/DVD series published by Feldenkrais Resources. See www.feldenkraisresources.com
The series is entitled: Voice, Breath and Posture by Arlyn Zones with Corinna May
5. For exact quote refer to Freeing the Natural Voice by Kristin Linklater, p. 20.
Kristin Linklater was in contact with Dr. Feldenkrais and they observed each other’s work. She also wrote an article about his Method entitled: The Body Training of Moshe Feldenkrais. After her exposure to his lessons she began to use the Pelvic Clock in her own teaching.
6. Ibid. pg. 25
