Category: Parkinson’s

THE VOICE….I Can’t Hear You!!!

(‘wearethemighty.com’)

For any soldier who put on government issue white boxer shorts or had his head shaved to the skin in the first few days of Basic Training, these words are forever etched in your mind…

“I CAN’T HEAR YOU, TRAINEE!”

Whether inches from your face or in front of the assembled company, be it a Drill Sergeant or Officer, regardless if we were already at the high end of a decibel scale, our replies were never loud enough, hence…

“I CAN’T HEAR YOU, TRAINEE!”

Why? Harassment? No, the military trains young men and women to be soldiers, and soldiers need to respond with certainty, confidence and INTENT.

Following months of training, we became soldiers, found our voices and took on our missions with INTENT

Fast forward decades later, and the drill sergeant has been replaced with a speech pathologist who sends the same message but with a softer tone…

“I can’t hear you, Steve.”

I have Parkinson’s Disease and one mark of many Parkinson’s patients is a softening of the voice associated with an expressionless face. Thankfully, there’s help, speech therapy.

I suspected there was an issue with my voice and it festered until I found the right people to help me. After a month of therapy sessions, I’m happy to report that I’m on the right track to returning my voice to appropriate audible levels. I understand the importance of ‘speaking with INTENT’ and, if I waiver, I have a ‘toolbox’ to correct myself.

Just as I exercised my body in Basic Training to build strength and endurance, now I’m exercising my voice box to strengthen my speech. Instead of daily runs, countless push-ups, jumping jacks and the rest of the army’s ‘daily dozen’, I’m exercising my voice with ‘speak out exercises’ and reaching decibel levels that heretofore were routine and automatic

It’s challenging

And, like the physical military exercise, if I don’t make my vocal exercises a regular routine, the voice will soften, again. The program is ‘SPEAK OUT, Speaking With Intent’ and the local effort is part of a nationwide practice to teach Parkinson patients how to fight back.

The challenge is to be aware of my speech and apply vocal exercises on a daily basis to improve and maintain voice quality.

Parkinson is a slowly progressive neurological disease that afflicts each patient differently. It can impact speech, motor skills and memory over time. Other than a pill, a recommended course of action is to ‘fight back’ with rigorous physical exercise for the body and voice.

Big movements! Big voices! Big rewards!

And there’s no need to yell, “YES, DRILL SERGEANT”, a simple “thank you, Jaime and Heather” will suffice.

Steve

080124

To my two speech pathologists, Heather and Jaime (URMC), who guided me without intimidation, just INTENT.

To Box Is To Dance

Slip right-Slip left… Jab-Cross

Slow-Slow… Quick-Quick (Foxtrot)

Can you sense it?

Duck right… Cross-Jab

Duck left… Jab-Cross

Slow, Quick-Quick

Slow, Quick-Quick (Waltz)

Do you feel it, the rhythm, the flow, the choreography?

Yes, it’s there, the melding of two precision athletic disciplines, boxing and dancing.

Jackie Chan, martial arts actor, cites iconic dancers, Fred Astaire and Gene Kelly, in an interview for Kung Fu Magazine, as two of the primary influences on his fight choreography. * Now, Chan was not a boxer but the correlation is the same. (* mentalfloss.com, Anna Green, 5/10/2017)

World heavyweight boxing champion Muhammad Ali once quipped that he “floats like a butterfly..,”. The same can be said for dance, good dancers glide on their feet, on their toes, flowing through moves, ‘like a butterfly’.

A boxing match might look like a wild affair with fast flying fists, but, like dancers, boxers use all their upper and lower body, arms and legs, in well disciplined moves, changing positions, moving their opponent (partner) while repositioning themself, back and forth, left and right, preparing for the next move, a punch combination, or for a dancer, a twinkle or turn.

Like a dancer’s steps that move to a count, the boxer’s punches have numbers, one thru six, and names to match. Watching a match with an understanding of the names, one can easily see the choreography of the punches, the combinations, the head fakes, the ‘dance’, regardless the speed.

Boxing has its ring, dancing, a floor, the arenas where boxers and dancers ply their craft with music to stimulate the action and accompany the performer.

I’ve danced socially for enough years to appreciate the athleticism of the art of dancing. an activity that is cognitively and physically challenging. The same for boxing. Both keep you thinking and moving continuously with varying changes in tempos.

My dancing was undertaken for fun and exercise, the boxing I do now is to stay fit, strong, alert, have fun, a prescription for better health.

The medical community looks approvingly on boxing as one component in a toolbox of physical activities to fend off the travails of certain ailments.

“Boxing’s varied and high-intensity workouts offer a blend of strength and cardiovascular conditioning that improves agility, coordination and balance, and which may be especially beneficial for people with neurological disorders such as Parkinson’s disease.” (NY Times, 5/23/22, Rachel Fairbank)

My punching is improving as I learn new combinations, but my footwork is sloppy. I’m not at the butterfly stage…yet.

Steve (050124)

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