How to Breathe and Stretch for Improv

You never know how your body will need to move during improv, or how your voice will need to sound. To be as prepared as possible, breathe and stretch for improv with the simple exercises described below. The more warmed up your body and voice, the more natural your performance will look at sound.

Difficulty: Easy

Instructions

1. Start to breathe and stretch for improv in a standing position, your body as relaxed as possible. Breathe in deeply through your nose and out through your mouth. Repeat several times.

2. Close your eyes, drop your chin to your chest and slowly roll your body forward until you’re touching your toes (or as far as you can bend). Let your upper body hang loosely, your arms swaying gently. Keep a little bend in your knees to keep from hyperextending.

3. Slowly roll your body back up to a standing position.

4. Repeat the breathing exercise in Step One.

5. Say your vowels – A, E, I, O, U – exaggerating the movement of your mouth as much as possible. Repeat several times.

6. Hold your lips together loosely and blow out through your mouth. Your lips should make a vibrating sound, like the engine of a tugboat or a motorcycle. Repeat several times.

7. Hum into a smile, then into a frown, then into a smile, then into a frown, exaggerating your expressions as much as possible. Hold the hum for as long as you can, moving in and out of the smile-frown expressions. Repeat several times.

8. Exhale as much air out of your lungs as possible. Hold it for a couple of moments, then relax, allowing the air to naturally rush back into your lungs. Repeat several times.

9. Jump around, shaking out your body in all directions.

10. Repeat the breathing exercise in Step One.

Tips & Warnings

• Play around with other physical and vocal variations of your own–anything to loosen you up and get your blood pumping. Just don't do anything that's going to get you out of breath right before your performance.
• Don’t worry how you sound or what you look like when you breathe and stretch for improv. If you don’t look and sound silly, you’re not doing it right.