A young man referred to me presents:
- Inflexible voice
- Emotional armor
- Pain when singing
- Pitch matching issues
- Decreased vocal range
- Husky to hoarse speaking voice
- Lack of exhalation when speaking
I suspected anxiety, asthma and/or trauma as I could see (and hear) the rigidity in his anterior body and flaccidity in his posterior trunk as soon as he walked through the door. I began my gentle under-the-bare-swinging-lightbulb questioning process.
Turns out he has years of Karate training, including what is known as “Iron Shirt”. Having taken martial arts (Shaolin Kung Fu), I know this technique. When taught or learned incorrectly, it involves hyper-tonicizing one’s surface rectus abdominis and having others punch and kick the crap out of your six-pack until rock-hard scar tissue forms. Great if you are going into battle - absolutely debilitating if you wish to express yourself on stage.
Iron Shirt, when taught and learned correctly, is about your deep core muscles - just like proper singing support. The effect when you punch is like hammering a tire - the blow bounces back. In other words... when implemented properly, there is flexibility - it is NOT a brick wall. The problem is, in western society, Iron Shirt is usually NOT taught properly, and all we get a wound-up, wrapped tight little balls of anxiety and hardness running around.
Physical and emotional armour has created immense rigidity in this young man’s fascial SFL (superficial front line) and anterior muscles. He has locked up his entire respiratory and vocal mechanism (from pelvic floor to soft palate) to the point that he can’t even hear properly to match pirch, much less talk, sing or act with any power, ease or flow.
Luckily, there is a way out - it involves restorative yoga, myo-fascial massage, breath therapy, and movement re-education.
The RA is one of our two Primary Fight or Flight muscles (the other being the psoas). We misuse and overuse: Many are activating the Unconscious Chronic Valsalva Maneuver due to anxiety and body vanity: this RA action is creating artistic harm and emotional disservice - and at worst, ruining health.
Please relax your tummies unless you are actually going into battle...
Martial Arts and Creative Expression: Enemies or Friends?
We are strangling ourselves from the upper abdominals.
