Being Present

It’s just so easy, isn’t it?

You have the time set aside for a good voice/movement session.

Water. Check.

Yoga mat. Check.

Text. Check.

But did you forget to bring the most important thing to your practice?

I’m talking about YOU.

Are you really here, in this space, at this time, in this body?

It’s so easy for the mind to wander: to lose our mindfulness. 

How are you going to stay present?

Recently I’ve blogged about curiosity - and this is one way to keep yourself switched on. find new things, a new movement, a new muscle in everything you do....even that old spinal roll - I’ve been doing them for 20 years now, and I still manage to find a new tidbit every day.

Give yourself an intention for every session - something you can come back to if you switch onto auto-pilot. It could be something as simple as making sure all the breaths are silent and unrestricted, focusing on your weight distribution or the movement of your top lip.

Give yourself a ritual focus at the start of your session. In my studio we go for multi-sensory stimulus, but it could be simply listening to your space for one minute.

Get rid of distractions. You know: the phone, the dog, the TV in the background (get rid of that all together!). Clear your space of interruption. At the opposite end of the spectrum, you might choose to welcome these things into your space and use their ambience as a focus for your voice to play with....... that’s another blog all together.

Don’t go for whopping great chunks of time. A half-hour to whole hour session for the serious actor should be enough to tune in, without tuning out.

Just like everything else in your voice-body work, it will take repetition and patience to achieve this - so don't expect a super focus from day one. Allow outside thoughts to skim over the top of your mind like a stone - why waste energy trying to block them out all together?

And whatever you do WATCH THIS CLIP of Patsy Rodenberg explaining the true meaning of presence (or Second Circle) so you can assess and adjust accordingly at any time......

Love your work, keep it up.