Apart from the therapy sessions there is an awful lot of work to do in between. From the first session, I worked steadily on my posture exercises,the jaw deconstruction exercises, my breathing and the massage. I am lucky that I can do posture exercises with the children before each lesson and breathing comes quite naturally to me. (A flautists curse - other people can breathe without thinking about it while we control every ounce of air that flows in and out) but the massage has to be performed twice a day and you should massage until the muscles go soft. I have stopped massaging after 5 -10 minutes because soft muscles and I don't seem to be compatible.
This week we have been given even more breathing exercises, tongue deconstruction exercises, pharyngeal deconstruction exercises, flow and resonance exercises that need to be practised as often as is possible and I found out that I should be steaming 4 times a day. Add to that the amount of time I'm spending in the loo because I am now drinking at least 2 litres of water a day and there really isn't time for much else.
It's not all bad though. The flow and resonance exercises have you chanting MA PA MA PA MA PA, ME PEE ME PEE ME PEE AND MOO POO MOO POO MOO POO. We were told that the American Speech Therapist who invented these exercises chose those particular words because 'she could'. There is also a lot of tongue poking.
As I already have a job I may be doing these exercises as warm ups with the children tomorrow so if anyone passes my room and finds children pretending to be a cat, liking their arm acting like a stary-eyed Chinese lion with a sticking out tongue and chanting ME PEE MOO POO don't be too surprised.
I would write more but I have to go ME PEE and boil my head.
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