Stuttering and Swimming(4)
(2007-09-24 14:10:03)
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At first to talk about the similarities of unskilled swimmer and a person who stutters
There are so many similarities between an unskilled swimmer and a PWS. I just list a few of them:
1. FEAR
When a person who could not swim was asked to jump into a swimming pool, the person will definitely hesitate. He will think of the worst results. He will be timid of going into water, even just thinking about it, even though it might be shallow water. This fear will tension his mussles. He will try hard to get above water. However, the struggle is just meaningless. The force for going up is offset by the force going down. Although he was trying so hard, the net effect is just zero.
When a person who stutters facing a speaking situation, he will experiece the similar fear. Before he open his mouth, he is imaging that he will stuck in certain words. He will be timid of speaking. He will try hard to speak the word out. Before he open his mouth, he might rehearse the words many times. However, when he opens his mouth, he just could not get the word out because the incorrect tension of the mussles and breath.
BREATH IRREGULARITIES
Both swimming and speaking has very close relationship with breathing. Correct breathing can release fear, release tension in both swimming and speaking. I can swim when I was a little kid. I just could not improve my swimming skills because I did not know how to breath when swim. The breath irregularity will cause more fear. This is the reason that I felt exausted by just swimming for a short distance.
Speaking is directly related with breathing. A person need to use breath to make sounds. If a person want to speak while he does not have any air to exhale, it is impossible to make a sound, so it is impossible to speak. A person who stutters often speak without enough air. He may try hard to use the last bit of air in his lung. This will increase tension and fear. He may breathing air in sometimes; however, the tesion and fear just made him hold the air tight and trigger the Valsava mechanism, the fighting spirity, the try hard metaphore, leading to locked vocal cords and disfluency in speech.