Warming Up for Large Class Teaching Leslie ODell As part of your preparation for teaching, I recommend a simple, gentle

warm-up. Learn to identify where your body stores tension, and develop a personal regimen of stretching that unlocks that tension. It should feel GOOD. 1. Stretching. raise your arms, one at a time, leading with your elbow. Stretch up and arch your arm over your head so that you feel a stretch through your rib cage. after each stretch, roll your shoulders in circles, first one direction, then the other. raise your shoulders up to your ears, then let them drop into a more relaxed position. pull your shoulder blades together at back, without raising your shoulders! Then push forward with one arm and then the other at shoulder level, as if pushing the tension out of your back. roll your head gently around in a small circle, first one direction, then the other. WARNING - be very careful about letting your head fall to one side or to the back. The head is very heavy and the muscles of the neck are easily strained by any sort of whipping motion. with your legs slightly apart and knees slightly bent, pivot your upper body to the right and left, stretching through your waist. in the same position, do a few bump and grind movements with your hips, as if creating a figure 8 have some fun! stretch out your calf muscles like a runner limbering up for a jog - put your heel to the ground in front of you, then put your toe to the ground to flex your foot. 2. Aligning the head on the spine. bend over from the waist, making sure that your knees are unlocked and that your shoulders and head hang freely off the top of your spine. Slowly rise up as if lifted by your spine, one vertebra at a time. Be sure not to lead with your head by lifting your chin. As your spine straightens, your shoulders should fall naturally into their proper resting place, at which time your chin should still rest on your chest. Slowly raise your head until it falls into place at the top of the spine. place your thumbs under your chin and your hands spread under your skull by your ears. Very, very gently, lift up your skull, taking a tiny bit of the weight off your spine. Then, very gently, lower the skull again. You should feel a slight increase of weight on your spine. WARNING: do this very gently, and dont attempt to lift the head any great distance. 3. Warming up the facial muscles. massage your face, paying particular attention to the area around the mouth and jaw. make funny faces, the more extreme the better. stick your tongue out and wiggle it around. smack your lips, open your mouth wide, wiggle your jaw with some big chewing motions. WARNING - be gentle with the delicate mechanism of the jaw. Dont go for extreme movement, but rather unlock tension if you have a tendency to clenched teeth.

gently massage the spot where your jaw meets your skull. recite a pair of tongue twisters, one that works the tongue, another that works the lips: Red leather, yellow leather. Rubber baby buggy bumpers. buss your lips - creating a buzzing, humming sound, like a horse.

4. Warming up the vocal chords. yawn, several times, freely and without shame. The bigger the better! make a relaxed ah sound as you exhale during the yawn. Use whatever pitch your voice wants. Keep doing the yawning exhaled ah but start as high as you can, making the sound come high out the top of your head and then falling down the scale into the basement. Now place your hands just below your shoulders on your chest, and do a yawning ah that is pitched in your basement see if you can feel a slight vibration with your hands. Tips for saving your voice during lectures give yourself vocal breaks moments of silence during which you should focus on exhaling completely and dropping your shoulders and swallowing to moisten your throat. Ideally, take a few sips of water. (Avoid caffeine as it dries out the vocal chords.) watch out for locked knees, which throw the spine out of proper alignment and also cause muscle ache. Move around or, if youre at a lectern, shift your weight onto one leg so you can bend and extend the other leg, then switch. use full, large gestures of the arms, combined with a twist of the upper body to relax shoulders and muscle tension around the waist. Bibliography Donaldson, E.L., ed. Caring for Your Voice. Calgary: Detselig Enterprises, Ltd., 1995. An excellent collection of articles, but see in particular Janine Pearson and Kelly McEvenues Working to Develop the Voice, pp. 59-90. Linklater, Kristin. Freeing the Natural Voice. New York: Drama Book Publishers, 1976. Rodenburg, Patsy. The Need for Words: Voice and the Text. London: Methuen, 1993. Note in particular her excellent warm up, pp. 87-95. Skinner, Edith. Speak with Distinction. New York: Applause Theatre Books, 1990. Her warm up, plus an exhaustive list of tongue twisters, can be found on pp. 30-38.