The Ear is the Spine 5

I am on the rowing machine at the gym, halfway through my 20 minute workout, when an elderly lady comes into the room with a balance trainer (a half-ball with a flat surface), and spends the next 10 minutes on it—standing on one leg, then the other.

The extraordinary thing is that she looks decades younger while on it: spine elongated, face lifted with ribcage open—a really beautiful figure and stunning transformation.

Then the most curious thing happens. She steps off the trainer and turns back into an old lady—the posture slumps, and the ribcage closes along with the face. Bam. Just like that. It's like someone waved a magic wand. First a young woman of 40 is before my eyes. Then an old lady of 80.

My god, I think, as I get up from the rower. Why doesn't she keep the posture? Why does she let it go? What would it take to make it a part of her life? Does she have any idea what she has attained during the last 10 minutes?

Of course, only she can answer these questions. Or maybe not. Maybe she is totally oblivious to the feeling of her body in space—much like the young voice student.

(Lift? What do you mean lift?)

Mind you, the Old Italian School voice teachers insisted on an elongated/straight spine. Instead of saying—like Tomatis did—that the ear is the spine, and the spine is the ear, they understood that the spine was the voice, and the voice the spine.

All this to say: The youth of the voice is expressed in the attitude of the spine, which originates in the ear.