Keeping the body extended, the chest well expanded, take a deep,
full breath, hold it a moment and gradually release it, then wait a
second without greatly lessening the expansion of the chest
In this exercise be sure to accentuate the four elemental parts of an
exercise. Taking breath, the active stay of the breath, the gradual
release and then the complete surrender of the direct respiratory
muscles: that is, accentuate the four steps or elements as in most
exercises and avoid the temptation to jerk and to exaggerate minor parts
or actions. Constrictions, inharmonious and unrhythmic jerks are always
out of place in any exercise. The best results can be obtained only by
observance of principles.
Do not force the breath out. Allow it to pass out easily and normally.
Increase the inspiration rather than the expiration. The air will tend
to pass out too quickly, reserve it and allow it to pass out steadily
and regularly.
We find that the taking of breath is associated with the result of
expansion and vitally connected with the conception of impressions and
expression, and so is a necessary part.
The expanding of the chest causes greater room in the thoracic chamber
and breath flows in naturally. This exercise, however, implies that we
should consciously and deliberately accentuate expansion and the taking
of breath. It aids in the realization of life and the diffusion of
activity.
Man breathes over twenty-five thousand times in twenty-four hours. He
can get along very well on two or three meals of food and six or eight
glasses of water, but with as low as fourteen thousand breaths a day, he
is flat on his back and has hardly enough power to move hand or foot.
We live on air. This is one reason why the expansion of the chest is so
important. It gives room for breath. In fact, in breathing we do not
suck breath into the lungs. Air presses fifteen pounds to the square
inch to get into the lungs. Expansion is, therefore, the primary element
in breathing. We should, however, at times not only expand fully but
consciously draw in breath. We can expand the chest while sustaining it
and drink breath into the very depths of our lungs.
Thus the exercise requires us to take as much breath as possible, to
retain it a moment, then slowly give it up and at last to relax
completely the diaphragm, all the time sustaining the chest expansion.
Preserve still the quadruple rhythm. Of course the exercise can be done
with dual rhythm, and it will be helpful, but the accentuation of all
four of the primary actions will accomplish more than double the
beneficial results not only for health but for the voice. It develops
the retental action of the breath. A true use of the voice demands a
full chest. This exercise strengthens the muscles that reserve the
breath and support the tone.
The process of respiration is most directly necessary to all the actions
of the human organs. It is an essential part of circulation. The breath
we take meets the blood. The blood is carried from the heart through the
lungs and back to the heart, then out through every organ of the body
and back again to the heart. The whole circulation is a mighty process
by which the blood receives sustenance, bears this to every organ of the
body and carries back the refuse which is oxidized and given out by the
lungs. The blood, according to the earliest tradition, is the life.
All ancient writers on long life "regard the control of the breath as a
fundamental sign." A person with little control of his breathing is
doomed to a short life.
Nature has so constituted us that at the moment of some excitement, or
the reception of some impression, or the instant we try to do something
unusual, we take a greater amount of breath. In any exercise, always
allow the breathing to act freely. Observe that breathing is the
initiatory act or condition of all human effort. It is a sign of the
reception of an impression and is thus one of the conditional acts of
expression. Breathe deeply and freely at all times. A deliberative
breathing exercise, such as the preceding, strengthens all the
respiratory muscles and corrects abnormal tendencies.