Chapter 28: Tongue Exercise for Throat Strengthening

  "What's this 'Tongue-Twisting Throat Exercise'? Such a curious name." Upon hearing the name of this exercise, Li Qiu was taken aback for a moment, but still let out a sigh of relief. At least from the name alone, it didn't sound as painful as that "Self-Mutilation Style" lung capacity exercise...

  "Don't think that this name is strange, it's good for practice. This training method was only discovered by me after ten years, and it has a special effect on exercising the throat muscles. When exercising the throat muscles, it also exercises the vocal cord muscles at the same time." Fujiwara Katsu rubbed Li Qiu's throat and said, "Follow my way of doing it!"

  Li Qiu still looks forward to this exercise method. In the past, I've heard of exercising abdominal muscles, chest muscles, and biceps, even exercising thigh muscles, but I've never heard of exercising throat muscles.

  "The human vocal cords are located below the larynx, at the entrance of the trachea, and are separated from the esophagus. Generally, it is difficult to touch this part, let alone exercise these muscles. However, based on my research on various animals, I found that the rotation of the tongue root can drive a portion of the pharyngeal muscles to move, so this training method mainly focuses on the tongue root."

  "This 'rapping' means moving the tongue, I thought it was hippop's rapping." Li Qiu smiled, don't know why, in these six months, he gradually started to like smiling. Maybe it's because the environment here is really too beautiful, living in this mountain and water scenery, people can't help but become open-minded, and he is also a student of an equally open-minded old man.

  "Now you can still laugh, don't say it's hard later! Start now, close your mouth, bite your teeth tightly, and turn your tongue as far to the left as possible. I mean, try your best until you feel pain at the root of your tongue, not in the jaw area, but at the root of your tongue, there is a feeling of being supported up in the throat area, when you feel pain, nod your head."

  Li Qiu tried his best to move his tongue to the left, but his tightly closed mouth gave too little space for his tongue to move. No matter how he moved it, he couldn't get past a certain point and had to give up. He shook his head at Tengmu Sheng and said: "Grandfather Tengmu, my tongue can't get past that point. Just now I only felt some pain in the jawbone, but there was no pain in the throat, nor did I feel like it was being blocked as you said."

  "If this exercise were that simple, I wouldn't have had to research it for so many years. Bite your teeth tightly and get ready. First, roll your tongue up, then circle around."

  Li Qiu curled up his tongue, and indeed, he could wrap it around to the left side. Accompanied by a dull ache in the jaw, throat, and root of the tongue, some pain emerged. The entire throat seemed to be propped up from below as if something was supporting it. This pain didn't make Li Qiu feel uncomfortable; on the contrary, after feeling this pain, he became excited! His mouth corners curved upwards, and he nodded at Tengmu Sheng, indicating that he had succeeded.

  "Alright, this is just the basics. As you gradually learn to roll your tongue, you'll also feel pain at the root of your tongue. Next, hold for about five seconds, then switch to the right side and hold again for five seconds. Repeat this cycle to achieve the effect of exercising your throat muscles. This exercise should accompany you throughout your voice change period, and you should do it every moment."

  Tong Wei said it was easy, but Li Qiu found it wasn't that simple. She rolled her tongue from left to right, and still couldn't find the feeling of slight throat pain. After trying several times, she still didn't succeed.

  "Is it difficult? Hehe, take your time, this tongue-twisting exercise isn't that simple. We'll stop here for today's morning lesson, let's have breakfast first, and then follow Grandma Yamaguchi to cultural class. This afternoon there's another project, so all the cultural classes will be postponed until tonight."

  "Oh, this afternoon..."

  "Continue to practice the tongue-twisting exercises, except for eating and sleeping, you are practicing every moment, this is not only beneficial for your throat, but also a great help when I teach you singing methods later!"

  "What singing method?" Bel canto? Popular singing method? Li Qiu was confused, and wondered if practicing tongue-twisters would be helpful for learning singing methods later on.

  "Vocal mimicry!"

  "What is this 'imitation tone method'? Is it imitating someone else's voice?" Li Qiu was confused, and anyone would be too. He had also studied singing techniques with Yu Zhuoxin, and most of the methods he had heard of, but he had never heard of one called "imitation tone method".

  "The tongue is also a vocal organ, don't underestimate the impact of the tongue on sound. Every animal has a different tongue, and although birds' vocal cords are similar, they have many different calls, mainly due to differences in their tongues. Most singing methods control breathing, but mimicry singing is a method that controls both the vocal cords and the tongue. In theory, if you can control your vocal cords and tongue as freely as your arms, then whatever sound you want to make, you can make it, and imitating any sound wouldn't be difficult at all. Don't think too much about it, I'll teach you slowly later, for now just practice the rap and throat exercises."

  "Yes!" he responded, and for this short distance, Li Qiu also needed to practice this somewhat painful tongue-twisting exercise. However, what he was worried about now was whether the project in the afternoon would be like this tongue-twisting exercise as well. "Grandpa Tongmu's strange training methods are really numerous, hopefully this afternoon will be normal..."

  After lunch, Li Qiu was taken by Tengmu Sheng to a small grove behind the house. Li Qiu had been living here for more than half a year, but he had never walked to this place. On the one hand, it was because of his intense studying every day, and on the other hand, it was because there was only a small grove behind the house, and further back was a small hill. In just a moment, Li Qiu saw a small wooden hut that wasn't very big or very small. Standing beside the hut, he could see the house behind him through the trees, which was covered in green vines. As he walked into the hut, he found a small stone pool that he had never expected to be there. The pool was surrounded by some smooth stones, just like those found in Japanese hot spring resorts. The water in the pool was steaming, and the mist rose gently, adding a mysterious veil to the small hut, just like the fairy maidens flying around in the heavenly realm, with white silk ribbons fluttering everywhere.

  "Grandfather Teng, is this a hot spring?" Japan has many volcanoes due to its location at the intersection of the Pacific and Asian tectonic plates, which also results in numerous hot springs. Seeing this small pool, Li Qiu's first thought was that it was a hot spring.

  "No, it's not artificial, the water is diverted from the mountain. The water we usually drink and this water come from the same source. See that controller over there? That's an electric heater. Put it in the water, plug it in, and it can boil a pool of water in an hour. I've already heated some for you this morning, and I've controlled the temperature just right. Try it."

  It turned out to be artificial, and Li Qiu originally thought it was natural, which made Li Qiu a little disappointed. She squatted down, standing by the pool, her palm lightly touching the hot water in the pool. As soon as her hand touched the steaming pool water, she immediately pulled it out, this water temperature is a bit scalding!

  "Really?" Li Qiu turned her head and looked at Fujiki Shou, feeling a bit desolate in her heart. It shouldn't be what he thought it was, should it? The water is so hot...

  "Don't look at me, it's like this. The water temperature is probably around 60 degrees. Don't worry, the human body can withstand it. This temperature can penetrate the skin and reach the bone marrow. A hot spring of this temperature is the best for treating rheumatism. Although the water in this pool is not as good as a natural hot spring, it's not too bad either. Next, I'll teach you something called 'false vocal cord' humming exercises!"

  "False vocal cords? Closed air training?"

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