"Everyone is an athlete. The only difference is that some of us are in training, and some are not."

It's been difficult for me to keep up with this, my schedule having been so bumpy. It's not my day, but heck! I'm sure you won't mind.

Brown, House Master: They certainly drive themselves hard on the playing fields.
Ruxton Towers Reformatory governor: They're high-spirited Mr Brown.
Brown, House Master: If they weren't, they wouldn't be here.

~The Loneliness of the Long Distance of the Runner

Have been running more and more, at least in terms of adding time. I ran for about an hour and twenty minutes last Saturday, and then today I took about 15 minutes off that route by changing the streets a bit and running almost all of the hills. It's Oakland and Berkeley, and there are hills galore here. As Jon always tells me, hill work is speed work in disguise.

Am I trying to get faster? It's thrilling to run fast, and when all of my muscles are resting where they should be and I'm not tensing my shoulders or shortening my stride I know that this is flying. Maybe not objectively, Maybe objectively I look slow, maybe I am as earth-bound as a boulder. Still, it is a kind of power, but not a stingy one, not one that is hoarded and tight. Rather I feel the expansiveness of something that doesn't belong to me but that is of me, that I don't have to own because it is not separate from me and cannot be divorced from me.

That sounds crazy. What am I trying to say? I'm trying to explain how sometimes I do experience the sublime, through a combination of both effort and surrender. I don't have to think too much, at least not in a language of words. I just have to surface and dive and then surface again, rhythmically. No explanations or justifications, no criticism. Meeting myself, in a way, on the roads, on the trail. Recognizing what is possible in the moment it manifests.

Alexander on the Rocks (and Lakes)

Last week, I spent 6 days canoeing, hiking and camping at the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness in northern Minnesota. I went with Tyler and Soren Olsen and Tyler's friend, Jason. We traveled approximately 30 miles in those 6 days.

When I was in the wilderness, my well-being depended on good self-use. If I wanted to avoid lingering aches and pains, I had to become more aware. Adding a huge metal object helped. Here are two brief examples:

Example #1:

I've never canoed before. (I take that back - I think I paddled around a lake once when I was 14.) Well, I've never canoed with purpose for long periods of time before. It became painful very quickly, so from my Tai Chi and Alexander training, it was glaringly obvious to me that I wasn't using myself well at all. Tyler gave me some pointers on efficient ways to paddle. It didn't make any sense to me at first. But the more I paddled, the more pain I was in, and the more I had to adapt my use.

Eventually, I came to a shift in my thinking: I realized that when I thought about grounding the paddle in the water and moving the canoe forward, rather than simply moving the paddle in the water, I found myself paddling from my core, rather than just my arms. By the 6th day, my stamina sky-rocketed and consequently, my canoe moved much faster than the other canoe in our group.

Example #2:

There's a lot to learn from carrying a canoe on your shoulders for a mile and a half (with breaks.) I learned quickly that I have a solid sense of balance. I also learned how important it is to be aware of every step on a narrow, rocky path with a canoe overhead because that balance is easily lost.

****

And now a tangential rant:

We're turning into robots. All of us. With cell phones and GPS and Ipads and Ipods and every other doo dad and gadget we can get our hands on, we're becoming dependent on our technological/mechanical parts. So we HAVE to get away. We have to remind ourselves of where we come from and that we're just fine without all of it. We can get around okay. Our instincts are strong enough. If we keep adapting to a technological world, we'll become completely desensitized and lose our connection to our ground, our foundation, our earth. And for the actor, if we lose that connection, we lose our life force. We might as well be dead.

****

If anyone's interested in going to the Boundary Waters, feel free to talk to me. I'd be happy to show you pictures from my trip and tell you all about it. I HIGHLY recommend going. And Tyler's guided trips are SUPER cheap, so there's no excuse!

Babel-ing

Hello, friends and loved ones,

I’m sorry that I disappeared from this electronic meeting
room roughly the shape of a spider’s web. I was out having adventures. What
kind of adventures you might ask?

Wells,

This blog is being written in the University of Toronto
Library, a fine place to be if you have PhD work to do (or are with people who
do PhD – style work) It is also great place to work on errant research papers.
Outside of the library (which resembles a concrete turkey) the yard is a fine
spot for spontaneous partner acro. Torontonians of many-a-kind smile when
bowler-hatted couples lift each other with their well-placed feets.

Toronto is also a fine place to rise above your fears, so to
speak, and stilt around in self-same bowler hats, umbrellas and bowties Magritte-ing
children at a local busker fest, if you are so inclined. If inclines are your
inclination, Toronto has hills! Unnoticeable in a vehicle, those who ped about
the town lugging computers and stilts to a library might come to appreciate the
subtleties of places like Nebraska. My companion, guide and host might have
said, “Up ahead is the Hill of Doom”. At that moment, I might have looked at a
road sign we were passing by that said “No Exit”.

If Hell is other people, Toronto is a barbeque of Biblical
proportions. Not a barbeque, a bistro – a multicultural fusion of ethnicities
that brings life to the tower of Babel. Never before have I encountered such a
MIX of diversities as I have in this city. By appearance the only thing that
seems to unify this city is a propensity for men to wear shorts, women to wear
hats and dogs seem less common that bicyclists.

Compare this to my location last week, the lovely Twin
Cities, where it seemed every lady under the age of 35 had a tattoo artist for
a best friend. Let it be said that I have no problem with people who make use
of their flesh as canvas, but goodness gracious, the ladies of the land of 1000
lakes love their ink. It almost makes my
un-needled naked body a fringe member of society…

Ah, the Minnesota Fringe Festival. If I am around in August,
I make sure to head up to the cities to watch my college buddies show off at
the nation’s largest un-juried Fringe Festival. It’s a pleasure to see your
friends work, and with the fringe, you can see many of your buddies within a
couple day period. This year to add
benefit to bad-*%%ery, the NET conference and the BOSTON RED SOX were in town
all in the same week!

I missed out on the baseball, kind of. (I ended up in Des
Moines; saw an Iowa Cubs game and built some sets for an evening with friends.
Baseball and building with buddies? Win.)

BUT>>>

I got to fringe it up with my friends, and I attended the
NET summit!

What is NET? A Network of Ensemble Theatres.

What does NET stand for? A Network of Ensemble Theatres.

What does NET discuss? Ensemble Theatre, and Networking, and
a few other things.

NET is a place for Ensemble-style theatres to meet and
discuss life in this art. There is no unifying theme to the companies aside
from their identity of process. In some ways, this gathering was like the tower
of Babel, everyone committed to the same purpose, but using different language
to describe their craft. Because of this, everyone had to listen to the other’s
entire sentence rather than jumping on to key words. It seemed to me like this
allowed us to understand one another better. The thoughts we shared became the
medium of exchange, not our skill in using a shared lexicon.

This being said, creating a universal vocabulary was at the
heart of this gathering. This summit was a capstone for the previous year’s
three conferences on the topics of Race, Process and Genre. These previous
meetings made it clear that many of the companies in attendance were using the
same words, but meaning completely different things with them. How can one
speak about culture when what I call culture, you call ethnicity? Even more
hidden is the fact that we are probably unaware that we mean two different
things. Part of the genius of NET is that it put people in the same room and
through discussion, got them to realize that these fundamental words don’t
necessarily adhere to the same fundamental processes. I’m unsure if it’s NET’s
place to impose a universal vocabulary upon the artists of the nation (and that
doing so might be an exercise in futility) but it sure gives my brain a lot of
thought jerky to chew on.

I was surrounded for three days by some of the most
brilliant minds in the theatre. These people’s passion and vision was inspiring
to behold. More than once it felt like being at the convention where the
Declaration of Independence was penned. I am no Jefferson, nor Franklin. A
minor representative, perhaps from the hills of western Massachusetts, but
still proud and honored to be included in such a noble gathering.

Zita has walked in, read what I’ve written, asked what it
had to do with physical training and how work on previously mentioned errant
paper is coming along. As always, the lady has a point.

Waffles!

Biomechanics and Tai Chi

This past week has been a major focus on Prospective Development for me, as I've been at the NET micro-fest USA in Minneapolis (Myque was there too!). There's so much to write about, but I won't go into it all in this particular blog. I'm going to hone in on the Biomechanics workshop I took last Thursday.

Meyerhold Biomechanics. It was Meyerhold's response to Stanislavsky and Naturalism. According to our instructors, he is a grandfather of Lecoq, Grotovsky, etc. (Not sure if that's true or if they were just proud. They said it, so I'm assuming there's some truth in it.)

In the workshop, we threw and caught sticks in a particular physical form and then we learned a short phrase of movements, or "etude," that is created to help develop balance, coordination and focus for the actor. We were encouraged to move with economy. The movements/postures were slightly awkward (i.e. knees turned inward, body 2-dimensional, as inspired by Greek sculptures), but when I actually found myself in a "correct" posture, I found that I could hold it for a while. I wouldn't say it was comfortable, but it was surprisingly easeful.

Reflecting on the workshop later, I most closely related the class to studying Tai Chi. Another participant made the same connection. I was studying a very particular form and, as one of our instructors said, in the "focus" sense, it becomes a meditation.

Because of my experience with Tai Chi, I was surprisingly gentle with myself every time I dropped the stick (which was almost every time we threw it) and every time I made the same mistake in the "etude" (which was often.) Of course, I heard that nagging voice saying, "Come on, Nicholette. You're a dancer and a Tai Chi-er. Get it together!" But I told it to bug off and just had fun. I learned to drop the stick with "economy" and make mistakes with a bubble of joy behind them.

Besides, when the instructor actually showed us the full etude, he made tons of mistakes (as narrated to us by the second instructor). And he was, supposedly, a protege and master teacher of this form. I don't know what conclusion to make of that. I guess that we're all still learning. And that Biomechanics is out-dated. And dumb.

Okay, not really. The history is actually quite moving. Meyerhold was executed by Stalin for taking risks in the theatre. And the practical applications of the training build awareness, focus, clarity of movement, etc. So it's good, just not for me.

shifting

"I'm not interested in how people move, I'm interested in what makes them move." ~Pina Bausch. Intention. Direction. Motivation. Obstacle. Rhythm. Pace. Stasis. Stillness. Silence. All of these things in my body, in the memory of my muscles and my blood. Available to access, or to be denied.

But why deny? I feel like that's what I mostly do. Deny the immediate access I have to these qualities, deny myself the birthright of every living creature to experience the indelible joy of having a body and putting it to use. Pain, too, and risk. But so much sublime joy.

Getting stuck. "Although it is embarrassing and painful, it is very healing to stop hiding from yourself. It is healing to know all the ways that you’re sneaky, all the ways that you hide out, all the ways that you shut down, deny, close off, criticize people, all your weird little ways. You can know all of that with some sense of humor and kindness. By knowing yourself, you’re coming to know humanness altogether. We are all up against

these things. We are all in this together." ~Pema Chodron. Allowing myself to be stuck. Allowing...

Dell'Artians!

I have lost internet access and so have been unable to post. I have been wanting to, though. When I get back online I want to talk about sleep, and about stress, and about age. Maybe...

oxo

Pa-Push It Real Good! (Not this week...)

Well, I have to admit - I fell off the training wagon for about a week or so. I blame stress. Of course, it's obvious: exercise is a great way to release and relieve stress, but, instead, I chose to curl up on my couch and watch the "Bachelorette" on Hulu.

So as of today, I've gotten through all of the "Bachelorette" episodes, I've processed and released some of the things that were causing me stress, and I've mustered up the energy to climb back on the wagon. And I wheel on....

So far this week I've been on a 2-hour walk through the Trinidad trails and I've been to a yoga class. And here's a realization I'd like to share:

During the right-side pigeon pose tonight, my yoga instructor said, "Deepen. Not by pushing or forcing it, but by releasing into it - becoming more receptive." This articulated something I've been drawn towards in my own training practice over the last few weeks. In my last yoga class two weeks ago, I practiced being where I was, which required me to back-off most of the time. And I found that by being where I was, I was actually more balanced, focused, and "alive" than the times when I try to muster through a pose. Today, I practiced the same kind of attention and I was more balanced than I've ever been. I was nervous about being "out of shape," but by really being honest with myself, I felt more strength, balance and flexibility in my poses than I've ever felt before....my downward dogs tonight felt effortless. I've never experienced that before.

And during my walk through the trails in Trinidad, I decided that I wouldn't set a goal for myself, as I have in the past (i.e. complete a specific path in a set amount of time), but allow my curiosity to guide me, so I wandered down one trail until I reached the end or was dissuaded by poison oak and then I'd turn and take a new trail. I discovered all kinds of beautiful spots. My favorite was a clearing on a cliffside that overlooked the expanse of College Cove. It was breathtaking! And then I'd play a bit - run along this trail, skip or jump along this one, focus on my breath on this one, release the desire to look down on that one. And then I took a constructive rest on the beach before heading home.

So this thing about deepening by becoming more receptive and releasing my impulse to force or push myself has, surprisingly, become a motivator for me. Joy bubbles up with this sense of childlike curiosity - discovering my limits, rather than pushing to find them.

I'm going to continue playing with this in an Alexanderly fashion. Allow this to inspire me throughout the week.