The Chewing Gum Hum
by Jess Henderson
For this warmup the following things are required. If you don’t have them all it’s okay, be creative to find alternatives!
- Chewing gum (alternatives could be fresh ginger, gummi sweets, or cardamom seeds)
- Outdoor space, or if not possible, and indoor area with enough space to shake your arms and legs.
- Music and headphones. If you can be somewhere and play music without headphones through a speaker – feel free!
o A note on the music: We are going to be humming, making oral noises, and if one feels like it, singing.
A recommended playlist to draw from is Jazz Scatting with many beautiful additions from Queen Ella Fitzgerald. For another fun song, try Dreadlock Holiday by 10cc.
- Head outside with all your necessary equipment. Find a nice spot where you feel comfortable to hum and move freely. If indoors, clear some space to move around in.
- Put in your headphones or prepare the speaker with your chosen song.
- Pop the chewing gum in your mouth and push play.
- Chew the gum and hum, make sounds, sing, experiment with your vocals along to the song.
- Let the chewing motion and minty freshness cleanse the mouth and release any tension held in the jaw. Imagine the fun sounds, menthol mouth sensations and wild body swaying as a way to leave behind the day and any unwanted feelings – letting go of any of the day’s retention, ready to enter a new space and state.
- Continue to chew, hum, dance and move for the duration of the song. Let it enter your body. Try closing your eyes and releasing any reservations of looking or feeling silly. Be free.
- If it feels good, put on another song or repeat the same one for a second time.
- When this warmup ritual is over. Spit out the gum and bury it outside. Let behind those tensions outdoors as you return to the task you’ve now warmed up (or let lose) for.