Training Exercises

Balm Reader Training Exercises

· Emotional Words

• • confused, ecstatic, depressed, surprised, stressed, betrayed, angry, cheerful, hopeful, horrified, terrified, excruciating

· Tongue Twisters

• • • As I was in Arkansas I saw a saw that could out saw any saw I ever saw saw. If you happen to be in Arkansas and see a saw that can out saw the saw I saw saw I'd like to see the saw you saw saw.

    • Through three cheese trees three free fleas flew.

    • While these fleas flew, freezy breeze blew.

    • Freezy breeze made these three trees freeze.

    • Freezy trees made these trees' cheese freeze.

    • That's what made these three free fleas sneeze.

    • Luke Luck likes lakes.

    • Luke's duck likes lakes.

    • Luke Luck licks lakes.

    • Luck's duck licks lakes.

    • Duck takes licks in lakes Luke Luck likes.

    • Luke Luck takes licks in lakes duck likes.

    • To sit in solemn silence in a dull, dark dock,

    • In a pestilential prison, with a life-long lock,

    • Awaiting the sensation of a short, sharp shock,

    • From a cheap and chippy chopper on a big black block!

    • A dull, dark dock, a life-long lock,

    • A short, sharp shock, a big black block!

    • Mo mi mo me send me a toe,

    • Me me mo mi get me a mole,

    • Mo mi mo me send me a toe,

    • Fe me mo mi get me a mole,

    • Mister kister feet so sweet,

    • Mister kister where will I eat !?

· Cold Reading in front of others

To the Evening Star- William Blake

THOU fair-hair'd angel of the evening,

Now, whilst the sun rests on the mountains, light

Thy bright torch of love; thy radiant crown

Put on, and smile upon our evening bed!

Smile on our loves, and while thou drawest the

Blue curtains of the sky, scatter thy silver dew

On every flower that shuts its sweet eyes

In timely sleep. Let thy west wind sleep on

The lake; speak silence with thy glimmering eyes,

And wash the dusk with silver. Soon, full soon,

Dost thou withdraw; then the wolf rages wide,

And then the lion glares through the dun forest:

The fleeces of our flocks are cover'd with

Thy sacred dew: protect them with thine influence!

All Is Well - Henry Scott Holland

Death is nothing at all,

I have only slipped into the next room

I am I and you are you

Whatever we were to each other, that we are still.

Call me by my old familiar name,

Speak to me in the easy way which you always used

Put no difference in your tone,

Wear no forced air of solemnity or sorrow

Laugh as we always laughed at the little jokes we enjoyed together.

Play, smile, think of me, pray for me.

Let my name be ever the household world that it always was,

Let it be spoken without effect, without the trace of shadow on it.

Life means all that it ever meant.

It it the same as it ever was, there is unbroken continuity.

Why should I be out of mind because I am out of sight?

I am waiting for you, for an interval, somewhere very near,

Just around the corner.

All is well.

The Road Not Taken - Robert Frost

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,

And sorry I could not travel both

And be one traveler, long I stood

And looked down one as far as I could

To where it bent in the undergrowth;

Then took the other, as just as fair,

And having perhaps the better claim,

Because it was grassy and wanted wear;

Though as for that the passing there

Had worn them really about the same,

And both that morning equally lay

In leaves no step had trodden black.

Oh, I kept the first for another day!

Yet knowing how way leads on to way,

I doubted if I should ever come back.

I shall be telling this with a sigh

Somewhere ages and ages hence:

Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—

I took the one less traveled by,

And that has made all the difference.

How Still, How Happy! - Emily Bronte

How still, how happy! Those are words

That once would scarce agree together;

I loved the plashing of the surge -

The changing heaven the breezy weather,

More than smooth seas and cloudless skies

And solemn, soothing, softened airs

That in the forest woke no sighs

And from the green spray shook no tears.

How still, how happy! now I feel

Where silence dwells is sweeter far

Than laughing mirth's most joyous swell

However pure its raptures are.

Come, sit down on this sunny stone:

'Tis wintry light o'er flowerless moors -

But sit - for we are all alone

And clear expand heaven's breathless shores.

I could think in the withered grass

Spring's budding wreaths we might discern;

The violet's eye might shyly flash

And young leaves shoot among the fern.

It is but thought - full many a night

The snow shall clothe those hills afar

And storms shall add a drearier blight

And winds shall wage a wilder war,

Before the lark may herald in

Fresh foliage twined with blossoms fair

And summer days again begin

Their glory - haloed crown to wear.

Yet my heart loves December's smile

As much as July's golden beam;

Then let us sit and watch the while

The blue ice curdling on the stream –

The Daffodils - William Wordsworth

I wander'd lonely as a cloud

That floats on high o'er vales and hills,

When all at once I saw a crowd,

A host of golden daffodils,

Beside the lake, beneath the trees,

Fluttering and dancing in the breeze.

Continuous as the stars that shine

And twinkle on the Milky Way,

They stretch'd in never-ending line

Along the margin of a bay:

Ten thousand saw I at a glance,

Tossing their heads in sprightly dance.

The waves beside them danced, but they

Outdid the sparkling waves in glee:—

A poet could not but be gay

In such a jocund company!

I gazed, and gazed, but little thought

What wealth the show to me had brought:

For oft, when on my couch I lie

In vacant or in pensive mood,

They flash upon that inward eye

Which is the bliss of solitude;

And then my heart with pleasure fills,

And dances with the daffodils.