Have you ever had that feeling when things aren’t working out? You’re working so hard but results refuse to appear? I sure have. It’s frustrating, isn’t it?
It’s like your banging your head against a brick wall. You may experience it in your singing, such as frustration of not reaching those high notes. Or maybe you experience frustration with your finances, health, relationship, career… you name it…. Most of us can relate to the frustrations when things aren’t going well.
It’s like that brick wall is pounding you right back.
Well, here’s what’s interesting. If you hit your fist against a brick wall, the brick wall does in fact hit you back.
This is, in fact, Newton’s third law of motion. The opposing forces are equal in magnitude.
Now, for practical purposes today, we could call that opposing force “resistance”, or why not “tension”.
Those of you who have done the Sing With Freedom program recognize that we already in lesson one did experiments that released tension and resistance. And what happened? That’s right, suddenly the voice became freer and more powerful. (We also reduced mental resistance.) For many, the changes can be immediate and dramatic.
The human tendency is to force more and more when we meet resistance. The bummer is that when we do that we just create more resistance. This can be in communication with others at work or at home, or forcing our bodies with drugs, forcing our minds to come up with ideas, adding force to any problem.
And by pounding that fist into the wall harder and harder out of frustration we just creates more and more resistance, restrictions, tension and stress in our lives.
I believe it is incredibly valuable to become more and more aware of the difference between power and force, and how by reducing resistance you actually achieve greater power – in your voice and in life.
Having said that, a certain amount of resistance is not always bad.
When we work out with weights we call that resistance training. We use resistance to our benefit in order to become stronger. Challenges in life are useful to make us stronger. And challenging our voice is useful for getting a stronger voice.
However, forcing becomes counterproductive when we don’t recognize where the force is and what it is leading to. That is why athletes are exceptionally aware of “good form” so that strength is being built in the desirable muscles. (I illustrated and gave examples of this in the free video that I provide at The Singing Zone.
Unfortunately in singing, people are seldom made aware of this, and when they sing and speak they just create habitual resistance/tension (as I demonstrated in the free video)
(And let’s not forget that much resistance also resides in the emotional area, such as fears.)
But once we become aware and skilled enough to release the habitual tension and restrictions, a newfound power emerges.
Now power is no longer about being loud. You can, in fact, be exceptionally powerful when singing softly. Now it's not about forcing the notes or forcing the audience to like you (which obviously never works). Instead, you can become powerful because you have the ability to empower and positively influence others.
Can you apply the principles of reducing resistance to achieve greater power today?
