Dear Steemians!
Stutter
About 5% of people stutter, half of the affected starting between 3 and 4 years, up to 6 years it is already 90% and the rest begins before the 12th year. For many, it disappears before puberty, with the non-disappearing a lifelong duration is predicted. Modern research can not offer therapy that completely eliminates stuttering. There are various approaches to alleviating and restructuring the language, but no cure. In this article I will present my story, my cure and giving an exercise to get the brain in symmetry.
Known stutterers: Marilyn Monroe - or Sergey Karjakin Vice Chess World Champion
My story and the process
My stuttering began at the age of 5 years, I guessed always that it was a shock that triggered it, but after an exact research I am now sure that it was not a trauma conditioned stuttering. I can remember the shock very well. It was one night, the window wide open, when a large grasshopper, about 8 cm long, sat directly on my nose and eyes. The panic and the terrible screaming has deeply penetrated me. It was such an incredibly terrible feeling that accompanied me for a long time.
Therapy
The demand to my parents, however, has shown that the stuttering has begun a longer period of time after this event. From the first class on, I with my mother had to go to Munich every week to get a language course in a special clinic. That was not nice and no fun at all. The exercises were totally pointless and the benefit was zero, quite the opposite, it got worse and worse. Now I was totally fixed on stuttering and the solution approaches brought no improvement.
An exercise was, to assist the emphasis of a word with the foot, by knocking while speaking on the right syllable . It worked out a bit, a little bit. Until the fourth grade we have taken this procedure every week, only to be dismissed as incurable, with the good news that it might stop again on its own. Great! It was getting worse and worse. My friends never let me know about it, and I always had friends; that's great in children, they respect things that we adults can not tolerate easily.
Humiliations
But school was different: one good thing I remember, I was rarely called, at least less than others. At high school, at the final examination came the bad situation, which I absolutely want to get rid of. In English and German I was usually on a 4-5 (which is not good at all), since I could not contribute to much to the lessons and did not show much interest in language. Anyway, I had in English now a 5 after the exam and had to go to the oral.
The teacher asked me in front of the class rather not to come to make it not worse. This was for me the greatest humiliation in my whole life. You can not imagine how I've been learning for the next few days, and then I went and got a 2! In the testimony was then a 3! So it went on until I was 28 years old.
Cure
I started with flute at the age of 6, then guitar and with 14 saxophone. After studying mathematics and computer science in Regensburg and Augsburg, many journeys and lots of music in different groups, I stopped at 27 with music. After 13 years of saxophone I could not hear it anymore and finished it. A whole year without music followed. But at some point I wanted to play again, but not saxophone, something new. In the neighboring city of Ingolstadt, I started with lessons in African drums, Djembe and Dundunba. Of course, I had individual lessons, I wanted to learn quickly and not be slowed down by others.
And I've been practicing 4-6 hours a day, red urine has indicated that the body, especially the hands change. Calluses, blisters, bleeding hands, pain, but all this has not stopped me, and I have progressed very quickly. And then the miracle, which is not possible, according to modern science: my stuttering had suddenly disappeared, after exactly two weeks of drumming it was gone. Only very seldom, every few days a little stumble here and there, but no comparison with before. Since then I have often made a drum break and after one or two days it started again. So I immediately drummed again and it disappeared again.
Conclusion
Today I can say that even after half a year without drumming the stuttering does not show up anymore, rare, but really quite seldom stagnates a word, but I would not speak of stuttering any more. This experience has so firmly burnt into my mind that I since then walked the path of musical healing.
Another thing is the migraine that has accompanied me since my youth. That too is totally gone. For this I will soon describe the corresponding technique, but for me it is a parallel phenomenon which I could eliminate with symmetry of the cerebral hemispheres. When the drum is played, both hands are used equally, it is called "the left and right independence". This symmetry of the hands leads to a symmetry of the brain halves and thus the language can flow again.
Exercise for balancing the brain
For those of you who are struck with the problem of stuttering, i will show now an exercise to initiate this symmetry. You drum with your hands on any kind of pad, always alternately, right and left. You count the punches:
1 - 2 - 3 - 4 - 1 - 2 - 3 - 4 ....
you play: r1 l2 r3 l4 r1 l2 r3 l4 ......(r= right , l= left)
That should not be a problem, a straight beat. And now the same but now you count to 6:
1 - 2 - 3 - 4 - 5 - 6 - 1 - 2 - 3 - 4 - 5 - 6 ....
you play: r1 l2 r3 l4 r5 l6 ......
The 1 and the 4 are played twice as loud, stressed: the 1 on the right, the 4 on the left. You will not succeed in the beginning, you will always confuse your hands and get mixed up. In this case, reduce the speed by half, and try again, very slowly, only when you are sure increase the speed, but not fluent, stay at a speed, stop and then continue faster (Left-handers start both exercises with left!). You may change the hands, so as right-hander start both exercises with left, this will further make the brain symetrical.
You may provide it to people who need it.
Please feel free to report in the comments any problems with the exercises.
See you next time!
Thank you for your attention!
Photos CC0 Public Domain text by @schamangerbert 06/2017
Translated and rewriten from my german article.
SchamanGerbert
You said that after some research you found out it was not a trauma-induced stuttering, then you wrote about the traumatic grasshopper experience and I got confused to what actually caused the stuttering.
I'll share some metaphysical reasons and wonder if you have heard about them. Also I will share my stuttering story. The following psychologists ascribe metaphysical reasons to stuttering - Louise Hay (American), Liz Burbo (Canadian) and Vladimir Zhikarentsev (Russian). The link is in Russian, so I translate to English:
I started stuttering I think after 6, but it came slowly so I don't remember any specific event. I do remember when it felt the worst - in 9th grade (15 y.o.) when I could sit with an aching lump in the throat and a chest pain during the whole class, afraid that the teacher would ask me a question and I'd stutter in front of everybody. I went to a speech therapist who showed me the iceberg - 90% is feelings underneath the surface that nobody notices except you. And he showed me exercises like reciting the alphabet "ap-ap-apple, bo-bo-boat, c-c-cent, ..." that helped.
Later I began to realize that the stuttering is a block which as anything else in life can be circumvented in some way, like a rock doesn't stop the flow of the river. I began letting go of my expectations of how I would sound or would not sound and just talked, whatever happened, letting the flow out. Since then it became much better, although I can still have it sometimes. Ten years ago I would never think of telling this to anyone, but now I feel comfortable sharing because I hope to empower any stutterer out there.
And regarding the music, in my experience it does lower the amount of stuttering, like any action you do where you get into a flow, be that music, painting or skydiving. Just let the energy inside flow freely and it will lift you.
Thank you for this detailed answer!
I was told that the shocking moment was not the reason, but I though it a long time. In real it started years after this moment, so there was anything other than this.
The secret is the flow, here you are 100% right!
And there are a lot of ways to come into that flow. Drumming was my way.
If you look to my videos you will never think that I was stuttering so hard :) It is gone away now.
Amazing article
Thank you!
You are welcome