Watch this Video of Diaphragm at work.

The important point for you to understand from this section is your breath drops in and releases out. This is counter intuitive as most students think about sucking air in and pushing it out.

Have you ever been told, "breath with your diaphragm?" I remember when I first heard this. I could not figure out for the life of me what that meant. You may have been confused by a statement like this too. Especially since the diaphragm is an involuntary muscle, meaning you don't consciously control it. Saying breath with your diaphragm makes about as much sense as saying pump blood with your heart. There is no other option. The heart is the only way your body can pump blood through your body and the diaphragm is the only way you can breath.

Your diaphragm is an involuntary muscle that descends down. As it does it creates a vacuum in your chest which causes air to drop in. It then releases and rises up which releases air out.

So when you hear me say, 'let the air drop in' it's not a metaphor. The diaphragm descends down and pushes the stomach and guts out which is why your belly rises. This is important.

If you hold your stomach tight and don't allow the stomach to be displaced then you limit how far the diaphragm can descend down.

The further the diaphragm decends the greater the vacuum created in the thoracic cavity.

The greater the vacuum in the thoracic cavity the more air fills the lungs and the greater breath support you will have.

So the diaphragm descends, creates a vacuum and the air DROPS IN.

Again the diaphragm in its relaxed state is up under the ribs. It must contract to desend down and let air drop in. This means that when the diaphragm relaxes it rises back up toward the lungs and air is RELEASED out of the lungs for speech.

The main thing here is that you do not need to push air out. It really does fall out, drop out, release out.

The breath drops in and releases out.