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Breathwork

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Simple ways to discover how your character breathes

Posted on April 13, 2022
breathe

How does your character breathe?

How we breathe can say a lot about us.

If we’re in distress, we tend to breathe faster or harder.

If we’re relaxed, our breathing slows and softens.

Breathwork has become quite the buzzword recently, and rightly so.

Learning how to tune into our breath can help bring about a lot of self-awareness, which is crucial for any actor at any stage of their craft.

Going further than that, incorporating breathing exercises can also benefit our bodies and minds in so many ways.

As actors, part of our job is to encompass aspects of our world. 

Or, to put it another way: to be an actor is to be a student of the human condition and share it through storytelling. 

There’s a great deal to be said about the importance of breathwork for the actor.

Projecting to the back row of a 500 seat theatre every night without damaging your voice takes skill. 

Harnessing your breath and voice is a significant pillar in an actor’s toolbox.

But what if you were to take it a step further and think about how any given character might breathe in comparison to you?

Add it to your character’s baseline movement signature or psychological makeup?

This post will take you through some things to ponder and some examples of different ways you or your character might breathe.

Breathing normally

Firstly, as with constructing any character physically, you start with yourself. 

This is why it’s so important to understand how your body works, to have body awareness, and to know your tendencies and habits to either amplify or minimize them for a character or performance.

So, what is normal breathing for you?

Perhaps you breathe quickly or slowly through your nose or mouth, into your chest, or diaphragm. 

Or somewhere in-between all or one of these extremes of the spectrum. 

So, take a moment and sit.

Closing your eyes can help, and focus on your breathing. 

Where do you breathe from?

There’s no right or wrong answers here. Simply facts. A fact about yourself that is really good to know. 

Do you breathe from your diaphragm?

Your chest?

A combo between the two?

If you’re a notetaker, like me, it might be helpful to jot this down. 

It will help you compare to the other types of breathing I’ll mention below. 

(A QUICK AND IMPORTANT NOTE: BE AWARE OF YOUR BODY AND BREATH AS YOU GO THROUGH THESE SHORT EXERCISES. NEVER PUSH YOUR BODY TO DO ANYTHING IT’S NOT WANTING TO DO. YOU KNOW YOUR BODY BEST. PLEASE STOP ANY BREATHING PATTERN THAT CAUSES YOU TO FEEL LIGHT-HEADED OR ANY OTHER SYMPTOMS.)

Breathing from your chest

If you don’t naturally breathe from your chest, go ahead a give it a try. 

Breathe in your normal rhythm, in and out through your nose or mouth, whichever is normal for you.

The only variable I want you to focus on changing is concentrate on breathing into your chest.

How does this feel vs. your norm?

Breathing from your diaphragm

Now, let’s switch it up and have you focus on breathing from your diaphragm. 

It can be helpful to place a hand on your belly, just above your belly button, and focus on inflating it like a balloon. 

Again, breathe in your normal rhythm through your nose or mouth, whichever is normal for you.

The only variable I want you to focus on changing is concentrate on breathing into your diaphragm.

How does this feel vs. your norm?

Breathing shallow

Next, let’s look at breathing shallowly. 

Just take a few breaths in and out, making your inhale short and exhale quickly. 

Try it a few times by breathing in and out through your mouth. 

Note how this feels.

Try it again, this time by breathing in and out through your nose.

Does this feel different?

How does breathing in this way make you feel physically?

Did either shift your emotional state?

Perhaps you felt more anxious or rushed?

Breathing deep

Now, let’s try deep breaths. 

Long inhale, long exhale. 

As long as you’re comfortable with it.

Again, try a few rounds breathing through your mouth, then try another set through your nose.

How do these make you feel physically?

Did it shift your emotional state?

Did you feel more relaxed?

Holding breath

One other piece I wanted to share is the awareness of holding our breath.

If done intentionally and safely, it can have benefits.

However, unconsciously, it can lead to problems long term.

The writer and consultant Linda Stone writes, “I’ve just opened my email and there’s nothing out of the ordinary there. It’s the usual daily flood of schedule, project, travel, information, and junk mail. Then I notice… I’m holding my breath.”

It’s called Email apnea, which Linda coined as “a temporary absence or suspension of breathing or shallow breathing while doing email” (Linda Stone, February 2008), and it’s relatively common now in our modern world. 

I felt this important to share for character work or even just your daily life. 

As I’ve found myself, unconsciously, during intense scene work specifically, to be holding my breath. 

Not exactly great for projection, and not feeling light-headed under lights, etc.

So, even if this may be appropriate for a character at the moment, it’s not one I recommend unless you’re hyper-aware and use it incredibly sparingly.

Experiment!

So, now that you have some new tools play around with these different ways of breathing. 

Try different combinations and see how you feel. 

Think about what kind of character might breathe this way. 

Pause a moment and jot down anything that comes to mind. 

This, like acting in general, really, when one’s in the experimenting and playing phase, you’re conducting your own science experiment. 

It’s the best way to expand our capabilities as actors, and hey, this may be a new way to literally breathe new life into your characters.  

A final note on safety

If you’ve decided you’re going to experiment with breathwork for the construction of your characters, please make sure you have a character exit strategy

As actors, our bodies are our instruments, and therefore we need to take care of them as best we can. 

Here’s a blog post from a while ago that can offer some guidance: 3 free and easy ways to aid your body.

If you’re interested in a few other resources, check these out:

In choosing a breathing pattern for a character and having an exit strategy, please make sure that what you’re working with is sustainable for the amount of time you’re portraying that character.

Discoveries!

Did you try the mini exercises above?

Comment and let me know how you got on! 

What did you learn?

Any challenges?

Would love to hear your thoughts.

Happy breathing (and moving)!

Acting toolbox Breathwork Character Movement Work

Why acting warm ups are better as your character

Posted on March 4, 2022
acting warm ups

Warming up your body before a performance is critical for the actor. 

There are acting warm ups aplenty out there and each teacher will have their own spin on the classics.

So, whether you warm up with the rest of your cast or solo, chances are you’ve used a myriad of different exercises.

Physical warm ups like spinal rolls and shaking your whole body.

Vocal warm ups like tongue twisters and ambulance wails.

These can get boring and old after a while.

But, have you ever done them as your character?

It can be a great way to leave the issues and stressors of your life outside of the performance space.

Plus, it’s a great way to remind your body of how this character moves and speaks differently from you before you step out on stage or in front of a camera.

The fun thing about this, too, is finding ways to engage your body when you play a character who has a challenging movement signature, such as a limp, or does everything quickly.

Perhaps you’re playing a sedentary character who wouldn’t in their right mind participate in such warm ups. 

So, put them through their paces, and try them. How would they react?

Here’s five acting warm ups that you can use to switch up or add to your pre-show ritual. 

Plating

Plating is an odd warm up but is great for a variety of things. 

It helps with balance and hand-eye coordination and getting a good stretch in.

You want to start in a wide stance and turn the palms of your hands up. 

Imagine one hand is balancing a plate on it. 

Now, keeping your feet firmly on the ground, stretch and explore the space without letting that plate slide to the floor. 

Silent scream

It’s all in the name. 

You want to scream, using your body as much as you can to express all those emotions-

Without making a sound. 

Body scan

This is a great warm up to help you tune into your body and can be a great transitioning point of taking on your character physically. 

Take a moment (or two or three) to yourself, or queitly if you’re in a group, either laying down or sitting, eyes closed or open, and turn your focus on your body. 

How you’re breathing? Is it shallow and in your chest? Or relaxed, deep breaths from your diaphragm? 

Where is the tension in your body? 

As you start to notice where your tension is how your breathing is, begin to think and shift how these things would be for your character. 

Do you breathe in different ways?

Hold tension in different spots?

Shake it out

Again, it’s all in the name. 

However this character would shake away their stress: give it a go.

I would advise easing into this one, especially if it’s the first warm-up you do.  

It can be easy to tweak your body, even throw your back out if you thrash about too quickly. 

Character walk

Although this one works best if you’re warming up as an entire cast, it can totally be done solo and imitating another character in the cast from memory.

Start walking around your space as your character, sinking into their movement signature. 

Try daily simple tasks like sitting down and standing up. 

Then, switch it up and imitate another character’s walk in the show. 

See how it feels different. 

Does it shed any light on the relationships these characters have?

Bonus

If your cast likes to warm up together, consider building a machine with the twist of doing it as your characters.

One person starts by planting themselves and beginning a simple repetitive gesture. 

This can be with or without a sound. 

The next person joins in and adds to the machine to connect to the first. 

You continue to add people until everyone is a part of the machine.

Aside from warming up your bodies, you’re also revisiting the relationships between these characters. 

And who knows, you could discover something you hadn’t in rehearsals. 

Here’s a few other acting warm ups from Masterclass.

Have you got a favorite warm up not mentioned in this post? 

I’d love to hear about it! Shoot me a comment below. 

Happy moving!

Breathwork

Actors: 3 free & easy ways to aid your body

Posted on February 13, 2021
breathwork

Our bodies are oh so smart. Our brains are too smart for their own good too sometimes. They like to talk to each other and make decisions that we’ve got no real awareness of. 

I’d say this is usually a really good thing. 

We don’t want to have to remind our body to digest our food or tell our heart to beat, right? A lot of things we can’t really be bothered with. We really haven’t got time for that.

Breathing comes pretty naturally too. Usually. Right?

This is where for actors, I’ve found, things can get a little tricky. 

Take flight-or-fight as an example. Which is basically where our body kicks into survival mode during moments of acute stress. Don’t get me wrong, it’s a very good thing we evolved with it, but in some moments it’s an unfortunate byproduct.

Acting requires us to experience a range of intense emotions. End of. No questions. Fact. 

Now, that being said, have you ever played a character who goes through an intense moment? A stressful scene or encounter of heightened emotions be it anger, grief, fear, despair, etc?

If so…how did YOU feel once the moment was over?

Stressed? Heart racing? Exhausted?

I know I can personally speak to all three of these and more.

The 3 free & easy ways to aid your body I’ve got below all center around the same basic activity: 

Breathing. 

Ie: breathwork.

Cos, breathing is free, right? And usually easy. Well, these exercises are easy at least.

Breathing, it’s kind of important.

Breathwork has definitely sauntered it’s way into a great deal of headlines recently.

Wether it’s meditation, tape on your lips while sleeping, yoga or sports, how we breathe is kind of important.

I mean, if we don’t breathe we don’t do very well, do we?

So, why is breathwork important for actors?

How we breathe informs us of how we’re doing, right?

So, let’s say you’re playing an anxious character. You’ll prob speed up your breathing, intentionally or unintentionally. A character who is calm, cool and collected? Breathing deeper and slower can add to that demeanor. 

I remember playing a character who had asthma years back. Now, mind you, I was only in that role for a few hours. But once I was at home, gig over, minding my own business AND having winded down…out of nowhere my body said to me:

“So, this is how we breathe now, yes?” And I proceeded to unconsciously breathe in a fast and shallow manner.

“No! No, no, no! Body, please don’t do that I can breathe just fine!” was my panicked response.

Acting can be dangerous people, don’t let anyone tell you otherwise. 

Seriously, I had to remind my body that I, in fact, didn’t have asthma. 

And, honestly, that was a little worrying to realize.

Flat out terrifying actually.

Breathwork to the rescue!

I turned to something I learned through meditation that you may have heard of from all sorts of avenues:

Box breathing. 

The goal of it is to get your breathing to return to its normal rhythm.

(Just for knowledge before I dive into this…when I speak of breathing in and/or exhaling, I do so through my nose. Both in and out. It’s what I’d recommend, but do what feels best for you…just fyi.)

Breathwork: box breathing

So, here’s how it’s done…

1: Breathe in deeply for a count of your choice (default tends to be 4)

2: Hold that breath for another count of 4/your chosen number (making sure to not tense your jaw or other parts of your body)

3: Exhale on a count of 4/your number. 

Some add step 4: Of holding another count of 4/your number between breaths. 

By repeating this cycle a few times it can help you shake off that awkward breathing pattern of your character.

Or a characters stressful, anxious or erratic mindset for that matter. 

Life is chaotic enough as it is, stress is everywhere these days with how busy we keep our lives, right?

So, adding characters stresses to my own? Nope, no thank you!

Breathwork: body scan (squeezing version)

The flip side of bringing characters’ stressors home I’ve found also to be true…to bring our stressors and lives into that of our characters. 

If you’ve had a rough day, you don’t want to bring that to your happy go lucky relaxed character you’re playing, do you?

Enter the body scan. 

A body scan is a simple way to check in with your body. See what’s going on and give it some attention.

I use body scans as a tool before and after each performance as a way to help make sure I’m not bringing my daily outside stressors into my performance. It also helps to make sure I’m not bringing the stressors of the role I play back into my actual life. 

A body scan is where you take a moment (or two or three) to yourself, either laying down or sitting, eyes closed or open, and turn your focus on your body.

Ask yourself how you’re breathing. Is it shallow and in your chest? Or is it relaxed, deep breaths from your diaphragm?

Where is the tension in your body? What’s tight, what doesn’t want to breathe, what’s holding you up, got you tied up in knots or refuses to give into the makeshift massage you just tried to give yourself?

Once you’ve located that spot, or two or three or however many, pick one to start.

As you take a deep breath in, squeeze that tension-filled part of your body till you can’t anymore (be mindful of muscle spasms and Charley horses, if you feel one coming on then stop!) hold this squeeze and your breath for a moment. Then as you exhale, release the squeezing tension at the same time. 

You can repeat this as many times as you see fit. Then see how you’re feeling afterwards.

Breathwork: body scan (blue light version)

I like body scans, what can I say.

They’re quick, informative and you can vary em up depending on your needs.

So, I often use body scans for the principle of taking inventory of where my body is at the moment, but instead of using muscle contractions and all the squeezing like the example above, this next one has a gentler way of going about it.

Start off as you would any normal body scan, then find your places of tension. Once you’ve found them focus your attention on them and visualize a little blue ball of light hovering in that space in your body. 

Of course, you can use whatever color light you fancy.

Next, take a deep breath in, and as you do, see that ball of light expand where you’re holding tension. As you exhale, see the light shrink. 

Now, this may feel weird, but once you’ve got the ball of light going, try and breathe into that ball of light, help it expand. 

Yep, try your best to breathe into that part of your body. 

The ball of light is in your left big toe? Your right wrist? Your shoulders?

You’re an actor, right? 🙂 Use that imagination of yours and give it a go! Let your breath and little ball of light give attention to your tension and let it go. (Not now, Elsa, that was not me calling you.)

So, there ya go!

We pick up behaviors and patterns unconsciously all the time. And not just from our own daily lives, but sometimes aspects of the characters we play can travel home with us. 

There are countless breathwork exercises out there. These are just my three easy constant go-to’s. With the focus on body and movement health and awareness, little tricks like these can help keep your body happier while you keep doing the wonderful acting you do!