JAW RELAXATION EXERCISES 2 of 6 Vocal Exercises American English

In this American English pronunciation video,
we’re going to go over jaw relaxation.

Hello and Welcome to Rachel’s English.  Today,
we’re going to talk about ways to relax the

jaw.

Ow.

Yeah, that looked painful!
Yeah. That was painful.

Many of our students have a tendency to hold
a bunch of tension in the jaw, whether as

a habit from their native language, or because
they are focusing on learning a bunch of new

sounds.  In American English, we want a relaxed
face and throat, and body if possible.  But

today, we’re going to focus on relaxing the
jaw.  Here are a few exercises you can use

before you practice or in the middle of your
practice when you feel tension creeping in.

First off, you may have heard from teachers
in the past that you need to drop your jaw

more.  More Jaw Drop!!  This instruction
can create tension as you work on vowel and

diphthong sounds that need a bunch of space

• like AH, AW, and AI, and others.  Instead

of thinking about using your muscles to hold
the jaw open, which can add tension to the

face, think of releasing the jaw.  Let the
jaw drop down using gravity, rather than muscle.

If you put your fingers just under your ears
and open and close your mouth, you’ll feel

movement of the jaw bone, we’ll call this
spot the “jaw hinge”.  Think of releasing

your jaw from back here, rather than forcing
the chin down.  By doing this, we lose the

tension that can affect the sound, and we
have a fuller more open sound.  We’ll come

back to the hinge.  But first, let’s start
some jaw relaxation exercises.

Let’s start by just easily massaging the jaw
with your fingertips.  As you begin freeing

the jaw, you may start to yawn more - awesome!
 Keep yawning!  It’s a great stretch and

provides you with wonderful deep breaths that
encourage support. When you yawn, make sure

you yawn both vertically and horizontally.
Really get a great stretch for the jaw, and

the lips actually with that one.

Now, using the heel of your hand, drag the
hand down the jaw bone on the face towards

your chin, really thinking about releasing
that jaw hinge and letting the face muscles

relax.

I look silly. But it is relaxing.
Totally ok to look silly. It’s great, actually.

Oh, that feels so good.

Now, let’s go back to that hinge we spoke
about earlier, back here.  Allow your newly

relaxed jaw to release down for a moment and
feel that space that opens up under your ear

as the hinge releases down.  This is a great
pressure point on our face, by pressing in

to it we can release the jaw even more.  Now,
this can feel quite painful, so don’t hurt

yourself, but it will feel great when you
let go!

Now, take your chin between thumb and index
finger and move the jaw up and down.

Whoa. Oh, that’s hard.
Don’t hurt yourself on this one, either.

You gotta watch your tongue!
It can be very difficult! Yeah, make sure

your tongue’s not in the way.

Really let your hand control your jaw, you’ll
feel the jaw kind of want to fight back a

little bit. See if you can relax it, and just
let your hand be in control.

Yeah, my jaw definitely does not want to
give up control.

Yeah. So, lots, lots to work on.

Now, if you haven’t felt silly already, prepare
to. And if you’re really relaxed, prepare

to let a little saliva fly around.  Now,
clasp your hands together and shake your body

and face, keeping that jaw released.

I don’t know if I’m willing to do that
on camera.

Come on Rachel.
Ok. Do it again?

Let’s use this newly released jaw a bit and
practice on some vowel sounds, some vowel

sounds that use some jaw drop. So AH and AW.
Now, let’s go from OO, which has a tight lip

rounding here, OO, and move into AW

OO-AW, OO-AW

Now, let’s move from OO into AH: OO-AH, OO-AW

You can practice going back and forth, and
this may help you hear the difference between

those two sounds.

All right!  Hopefully your jaw feels more
relaxed.  Remember to do this whenever you

feel tension creep in as you practice and
drill, and when you’re having trouble finding

the difference between vowel sounds. It may
just be that you want more space - and the

best way to create space - is to release that
jaw!

This video is part of a series on relaxation
and placement. If you liked this video, check

out the first one on the Path of the Voice,
or the next one on Tongue Exercises and Tongue

Relaxation. If you have any questions, feel
free to write a comment below.

That’s it, and thanks so much for using Rachel’s
English.