1. Take a deep breath and roll your head around while exhaling.
2. Relax everything. Think about a lovely quiet meadows with birds, a light wind, and a totally peaceful countryside.
3. There's a house in the meadows. There's a party going on inside. You go inside, you get totally lit! You have absolutely no strains whatsoever.
4. They give you the mic! You sing fabulously. You're the famous star you always wanted to be. And you know what? You're having a blast! (Now doesn't that feel better?)

1. Correct your posture - Stand with your feet about a foot apart with left slightly forward, straighten up your spine, keep your chest and head up, NOT high.
2. Keeping the posture, Bend over at the hips and just flop your hands down. Imagine you're a floppy ragdoll or an overcooked noodle.
3. Just shake off all the stress.

Big Breath

1. Roll your head around to release neck tension. Keep your breathing regular.
2. Hold your head up. Take a good deep breath - not fast, not too slow, just regular AND deep. Pour the breath low - way down into your abdomen, filling up your back and sides and belly - and fill up into the lower ribs and right on up into the upper chest. You should be so full of air that you feel like you're gonna pop and you can't take even a microscopic sip.
3. Close your mouth and just sit on the breath for a couple of seconds, relaxing everything.
4. Now let it out. Just let everything flop. (What a relief, right? That's exactly how it should feel.)

Contents Under Pressure

1. Take a comfortably large breath - you should be feeling this 360 degrees around the abdomen. (I caution you here not to take too large of a breath.)
2. Begin immediately to exhale on an [s] sound: "sssssss"
3. Emit "sssss" very intensely (that doesn't necessarily mean hard). It should be like steam leaking from a pipe.
4. Notice the feeling in your abdominal muscles. You should not be "pushing" the air out - you should feel it being pressed out.
5. Make sure to squeeze out the last drop of air.

Hah, Hah!

1. Check your posture and take a comfortable 360 breath.
2. Put one hand on your diaphragm (the spot in the middle of your torso below your ribs) and the other on your abdomen, just below the navel.
3. Speak an energetic "Hah!" ten times, about one second between each, completely relaxing the muscles between each. It should seem spontaneous.
4. Repeat this exercise, this time on a pitch - any pitch that is comfortable!

Controlled Pressure

1. Take a deep, quiet, slow breath - pull that air as far down as you can into the abdomen - you should feel 360 expansion around the middle.
2. Once you feel the lower expansion, inhale just a little faster - filling it up through the middle, into the lungs. Keep filling right on up under the shoulder blades. (your chest should be high to begin with so that your chest doesn't lift)
3. Stop. Cut off the breath and just "sit on it," letting the air settle for about a second.
4. Without "stressing," gently purse your lips together and begin a gentle exhale.
5. You want to hold back - only press a little of the air out of the abdomen - you want to imagine and feel like you're still inhaling.
6. Keep blowing until you run out of air. - For beginners, about 20-30 seconds is the lung capacity. As you advance as a student, however, you want to work your way up to about a minute.

Do NOT expect this to happen in two weeks! - this increase generally happens over an extended period of time, about three months, sometimes more, sometimes less - HAVE PATIENCE!

Long Note

1. Take a deep, full breath - only, for this exercise, be careful not to overfill the lungs.
2. Cut off the breath and just "sit on it" for about a second, letting the air settle.
3. Relax and sing [ma]: "maaaaaaaaah" as in Mamma, on a comfortable, middle-of-your-range, medium to medium-loud (m to mf) note. (You must not "push" the tone. You must not strain. And do not overblow - squeeze out the air from the belly gently.
4. Sing through your last drop of air - try for 30 seconds. (As you advance in your singing, start aiming higher by say five seconds every few weeks until you reach one minute - and, as always, this takes time.