THE ART OF BREATHING

RESPIRATORY RE-EDUCATION / THE ALEXANDER TECHNIQUE

How do you breathe? Do you belly breathe? Do you lift your chest to breathe? Have you been taught to breathe? Do you hold your breath? Of course you do! We all do from time to time. Let’s learn to take note of our breathing. We begin breathing the moment we are born. We are not taught. We are born and we breathe. It’s a beautiful thing to observe a baby breathing. But what happens to us as we go through life? What do we do that interferes with our natural rhythm of the breath?

Pamela does not teach you how to breath but rather helps you discover how your excessive tension and poor coordination is interfering with your own natural breathing rhythm. The ribcage is a misnomer; it is meant to move. Thoracic/Rib mobility is essential to free and easy breathing.

Pamela Blanc is the Senior Teacher of Jessica Wolf’s Art of Breathing and has assisted Ms. Wolf in teaching this course of study to other Alexander Technique Teachers since 2006 in New York City, Los Angeles, and Galway, Ireland. Let Pamela inspire you to learn more about your habitual breathing patterns and how you may be interfering with the natural movement of your own breath. The process is not one of learning a better way to breathe; the process is one of stopping what is interfering with the breath moving. Your entire torso is available to respond to breathing. Rigidity of arms or legs can interfere with the movement of the breath.

The Art of Breathing, a phrase used by F.M. Alexander in an article published in The Auckland Star, New Zealand, July 20, 1895, and more recently used by Jessica Wolf, an Alexander Technique teacher in New York City and Assistant Professor at Yale School of Drama, describes the process she now teaches. There are currently over 80 Alexander Teachers trained in Jessica Wolf’s Art of Breathing.

Pamela, intrigued with the similarities found in F.M. Alexander’s writings in the early 1900s concerning breathing and Carl Stough’s writings over 60 years later, began her own in depth study of the breath with Jessica Wolf in 1998.

Breathing Coordination is a term coined by Carl Stough to reflect his discovery revealing the consistent synergistic operation of the muscles of respiration at maximum efficiency with minimum effort.

F.M. Alexander said, as early as 1906, there is a need for Respiratory Re-Education. He defined this Re-Education as eradicating defects and coordinating the use of the muscles of respiration.

Both Carl Stough and F.M. Alexander recognized mal-coordination of the muscles of respiration as contributing to unnecessary tension and rigidity of the thorax resulting in poor breathing and compromising one’s health.

Jessica Wolf’s Art of Breathing developed through more than thirty years of teaching the Alexander Technique and a twenty years association with Carl Stough, brings the pioneering efforts of these two men to a new refined level. Her Art of Breathing brings the principles of the Alexander Technique to the knowledge of Breathing Coordination.

Jessica Wolf introduced Pamela Blanc to the principles of Breathing Coordination in 1998 and encouraged Pamela to have lessons with Carl Stough. In April 2000 Pamela traveled from Los Angeles to NYC to have a series of five private lessons with Mr. Stough. More lessons were scheduled but, sadly, Carl passed away in October 2000.

Pamela continued her private studies with Jessica Wolf over the years and enrolled in the first Post-Graduate Training Program in Jessica Wolf’s Art of Breathing at the American Center for the Alexander Technique in New York City (2002-2003).

The Art of Breathing is Breathing Coordination taught within the context of the principles of the Alexander Technique and is aimed to re-educate the respiratory system for maximum efficiency with minimum effort. Pamela has witnessed huge leaps in artistic performance with her private students who are Opera singers, Pop/Rock singers, wind players, and actors. Anyone can benefit from an efficient respiratory system that allows for an easy turn over of air.

For lessons in the Alexander Technique and The Art of Breathing: