Proprioception

What's So Important About Proprioception?

March 6, 2024

Over the years, I have fallen in love with body work. I enjoy learning the nuances of alignment, learning to drop the pelvis, discovering how to release the psoas and illiacus muscles, learning to find freedom in the hinge of the jaw, discovering how to release the diaphragm into its natural function of supporting and energizing the acceptance and release of breath and so much more.

I enjoy it because I have built a practice of proprioception.

Your body has receptors built into the skin, muscles and tendons to help you balance. These receptors allow you to feel your body moving through space. Areas of the body that are key for balance, such as the feet, are very proprioceptive.

Let's do an easy exercise . . .

Okay. So now let's do another exercise. 

Your diaphragm—the key muscle for deep breathing—attaches to the lumbar spine and the bottom ribs. Can you contract and release your diaphragm right now? Can you lift that muscle and then drop it? 

I assume the answer is no. 

That is because this is a subconscious muscle. You work on this muscle through relaxation and alignment. You can develop an ability to 'feel' it working, but on its own the diaphragm is not a muscle "that can see for itself." 

This is where work with a vocal coach—one who understands proprioception and the muscles and skeletal structure of the body—can help you learn to breathe deeply and to allow the diaphragm to do its supportive work in the production of sound.

There are a lot of subconscious areas of the body for which you can gain a feeling. You can get in touch with your movement, your muscles, and your mindful mapping of the body's place in space. But just as you would not expect to be able to run a marathon without training, to play the cello without practice, you would only expect to improve your proprioceptive ability and your voice through the repetition of exercises that enhance these skills.

Let's try one more exercise.

Open your mouth wide and move your tongue to a position in your mouth without touching it to the teeth or the inside of the mouth. See if you can move it in the center of the mouth somehow and then pinpoint in your mind exactly where the tongue is in your mouth and what parts of the muscle are more active and which way it is pointing, etc...

This is probably really difficult or nearly impossible if you do not have a regular practice at focusing on this muscle.

Open your mouth wide and move your tongue to a position in your mouth without touching it to the teeth or the inside of the mouth. See if you can move it in the center of the mouth somehow and then pinpoint in your mind exactly where the tongue is in your mouth and what parts of the muscle are more active and which way it is pointing, etc...

This is probably really difficult or nearly impossible if you do not have a regular practice at focusing on this muscle.

In dialect training for the actor, students work on building the proprioceptivity of the tongue. This is not so that the student would become self conscious of there tongue at all times. Rather it is so that they can have a sensory experience of making muscle changes in order to transform their own sounds into the sounds of another person.

If the tongue is tense and lacks sensitivity, there are a series of exercises you can do with a dialect coach to improve its articulative ability.

If you are interested in reading about how tongue tension affects the voice based upon vocal anatomy, read here.