12
Directors…
•
Even though the
WindMaster
will help young players to
become more breath-conscious and take in more air, it can’t
dictate
how
they take the breath. It is only a
tool
for teaching
proper
breathing. I’ve watched students with the
WindMaster
–
with no instruction – take a big breath, but they were extremely
tense. In fact, the more air they tried to take in, the more tense
they got! Trying to blow over 25 pegs without working up to it,
may likely cause this tension. While working with the
WindMaster
, students should simultaneously be guided on
taking relaxed, tension-free, diaphragmatic breaths.
•
The approach of
occasionally
picking up the
WindMaster
to
see how many pegs one can blow over in one breath is fine, but
its most effective use is to teach the students new breathing
habits by incorporating a
WindMaster
routine into your program
(a few ideas to follow)
.
An effective way to demonstrate the relaxed breath is to push
all the pegs away from the student except the first one. Ask
the student to simply blow over that one peg. (Even though it is
just one peg, make sure the student takes a fairly full inhalation
and exhalation, as opposed to a little blast or puff of air). The
breath should go past the peg once it has flipped over.
The perceived difficulty in blowing over just one peg is so
minimal that the student will likely be effortless in this exercise.
That is the starting point for the relaxed breath
. Have the
student blow over all the pegs, one at a time (see exercises in
Section 5
). Then try 2 pegs; 3 pegs; etc., always maintaining
that same feeling of being relaxed and effortless. As one blows
over more pegs, the breath simply deepens.
Many people blow harder than is necessary and in so doing,
run out of air when trying to blow over all the pegs. Have the
student blow gently as if playing
p
or
mp
.
