Connecting breathing and the ASL experience.

ASL poem and essay.

Time: 5:55

Translation: "Breathe" ASL poem (no English text at this time) --

Today I'm thinking about breathing and the ASL Deaf experience. Taking a breath is one of the most essential things in life. No breath, we collapse.

I remember going to speech therapy as a child. One of the things that the speech therapist did was to write the letter "S" down in a notebook with a trail leading from it. She told me to inhale and then upon exhaling, say "sssss" for as long as I followed the trail with my index finger. If I ran out of breath, I had to start over again until I could last the entire trail.

I remember reading about Bernard Bragg's experience -- he wanted to study under Marcel Marceau, so he gave a brief performance to prove himself. Marcel was impressed with Bernard, but commented that his breathing was an audible issue, that he would need to learn to control it. Bernard accepted Marcel's advice and went on to study under him.

Society wants to control how ASL Deaf people breathe. They expect us to hold our breath and exhale where they deem appropriate. No breath, we collapse.

What is the natural way for an ASL Deaf person to breathe? I thought about that, still thinking on it.

I've been making videos for a long while. Some people criticize me for puffing my cheeks too often when I speak. When I got that criticism, it was new to me as I hadn't noticed it before. But after some thought, it does make sense considering the speech training I had as a child. That gives me pause...

For now I will be observing and doing the inner analysis to figure this out. It's important to watch other ASL speakers in action, to see how breathing works for us as a community. It will take time to figure this out.

What do you all think?

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