Well. Here it is, October, and despite my best intentions, it has been over a month since my last post. Life has been busy...and I have been rather lazy about getting round to writing about it.
To summarize:
Have started classes at The New School.
Boxes from California have finally arrived, thought still unpacked in the living room.
Am contemplating donating them because I've been able to survive with out them for the past five months.
Have joined a climbing gym, and experienced the immense pleasure of sore climbing muscles after a month's respite.
Am re-learning how to be human.
It's true. The classwork I do and the homework I'm assigned all falls under the existential title of "Learning How To Be A Human."
I will take you through it, because it really has consumed my life and I think most of you will find it most interesting, even perhaps ridiculous, but mostly you will envy it.
A typical day at school. (Grab something to drink while you read. I'll wait.)
You ready?
Okay....
8:30am. We arrive at the building and go upstairs to learn Neutral American Speech. NAS, as we commonly refer to it, consists of a new alphabet (called the International Phonetic Alphabet) and very specific, and detailed instruction in the use of articulators and breath control. Ever wonder how we make sounds? That's our area of study. If you are holding a drink at the moment, take a sip. What happens? You swallow it. Yes, and the liquid also passes through several different areas of your mouth, which we refer to as articulators: the lips, teeth, alveolar ridge, tip, blade, front, middle, and back of tongue (yes, your tongue has five areas), the soft palate, the hard palate, and finally past your uvula down into your esophagus and past your larynx. Wave hello to your vocal folds on the way to the stomach. Don't forget to let out a nasal "mmmmm" that will reverberate in your turbinates as you enjoy the sensation of quenching your thirst.
Armed with the knowledge of how each sound is placed in the mouth, we learn how to speak in a neutral pattern and how to write out words as they sound so that we can imitate any speech pattern of any person in the world. Ask me to write you a secret note in IPA sometime. Not only will I write one, I'll write it out in an Australian dialect.
10:00am. We change into movement clothes and head downstairs for Alexander Technique. This class consists of the study of how your body moves and whether or not you should trust how you move. The primary area of study is the spine, and how we can prevent compression. Imagine coming into this class and learning that you've been creating lower back pain for yourself for years without knowing it. When you inquire about how you can correct it, there is no simple solution, because one of the tenants of this area of study is to not focus on the end result. The answer lies in a three-fold tier of awareness: sensory appreciation, directing, and primary control. I could get into it, but then you would be worrying about the cup in your hand and how it's creating compression in the thoracic region of the spine when you lift it to your lips to take that next sip.
11:35am. We float out of Alexander class and across the hall into Vocal Production. Let us not confuse this class with the earlier sound-as-speech class (NAS). Vocal Production is the study of how to maximize your vocal registers. Everyone has two registers: chest voice, and head voice. Those high notes that come out of Mariah Carey's vocal chords? Head voice. The rumbling bass voice of James Earl Jones? Chest register. And by the year's end, we will all be able to imitate both to an exciting and terrifying degree of accuracy. Currently, we are working on developing strength in the registers, which involves a daily ritual of intimating sirens and emitting primal calling. We make so much vibrational noise that were I in the room with you now and demonstrated a warm-up, the liquid in your cup would start sloshing around.
1:00pm. Lunch. A well needed break from the physical rigors we've worked on all morning. Lately, we've been eating outside, but the fall is beginning in New York, and soon it will be soup and scarf weather.
4:00pm. After an afternoon of practicing spelling in IPA and calling out to each other in low rumbling tones while staying relaxed through the cervic region of the spine, we travel upstairs yet again for the motherload of the day: Stanislavski Technique. Stan-iz-lav-ski, properly pronounced, was the father of acting who lived in Russia in the early 20th/late 19th century and developed a logic path of study which we all know and love and recognize today as "acting technique". His followers went on to develop many different branches of acting based on certain tenants of their own fused with his, which comprise the wide range of acting styles we have in America (and somewhat abroad) to this day. In this class, however, we are concerned with Stanislavski and one of his followers, Lee Strasberg. Strasberg is credited with founding what is referred to as "The Method" or "Method Acting", and the difference between Stan and Strasberg is not a topic I intend to visit today. Just know that Strasberg's technique involves an area we will refer to as "sense memory".
We take our seats in class and immediately assume "relaxation position" - sitting in the chair in such a way as to promote total relaxation of the body without falling asleep. This is somewhat difficult, given the comfort level of the chairs themselves, but our teacher assures us that we will not often have the luxury of even a chair, so we must plough through with the given circumstances.
Relaxation is harder than you imagine. The effect is stunning. Everyone holds tension in their bodies in different areas, and when we actually achieve a state of total relaxation, those tensions escape in varied ways. It is not uncommon to hear the person next to you start crying because she has relaxed her forehead, or the guy on your left let out a long scream because his jaw was clenched too tightly. Our instructor calls these effects "general emotion" - and he reminds us that not only is it okay to release these sentiments, but also that everyone carries general emotion around and we would all be better off if people learned to relax more often with deeper intention. I am inclined to agree with this. I am not suggesting that we go about screaming at random times, nor crying over our lunchtime bento box, but rather noticing in your day where and why and when you feel tense...and gently asking the tension to leave as you take a deep, satisfying breath.
Once we have achieved an acceptable level of relaxation, we begin the sense memory work. Take the cup in your hands, for example. Take your time in examining it. How does it feel? What is the texture? Weight, color? Temperature of the container? Is it hard, soft? Plastic, glass, metal? Does it smell? If you tap on it, does it make a sound? What about the perspiration on the outside of the cup? Is there a handle? What does it feel like to hold it in your left hand compared with your right hand? If you set it down near you, does it make a sound? Can you smell what's inside it? What does it taste like? What happens when you hold the liquid in your mouth without swallowing it? Can you feel anything leftover on your lips? What about the sensation in your chest as the liquid travels to your stomach? How about the tension in your arm or shoulder or back as you lift the cup to your face? Does the rim touch your forehead when you drink? How does your breath feel inside the cup?
These, and even more questions, are the questions we ask when we sit down to recall something from our memory within the sensory realm. Visual, visceral, aural, oral, tactile, pungency...they all are contained in any experience you have in your day. However, we rarely take the time to process the full sensation of any moment or any object. Can you imagine what would happen if you did? Can you imagine firing up every sense to its fullest capacity?
We concentrate on sense memory for over an hour during class. Just sitting there, recalling the senses and trying to feel what it's like to be in the shower, drinking coffee, feeling sunshine on your body. Putting on a sock, a shoe, taking off your coat. Little things. By the time we are finished, we have to take a mental break. We continue with this after the break even more, so that by the time we are finished at 7:00pm that evening, we're exercised our minds, bodies, and souls to exhaustion during the course of our day of studies.
And that's what it's like...at least on Tuesdays and Thursdays. Fridays are a whole bevy of three other, new classes. But that's another entry altogether. Right now, I'm going to go journal a little bit about the feeling of the keys under my fingers and the clackety-clack of the keyboard keys, while recalling the sounds of the park below my apartment and the slight chill incoming from the cracked window reminding me that the fall is coming and the light is fading into evening.
I hope you're enjoyed your cup of whatever it was as you read...and I hope that maybe you'll start paying more attention to relaxing and experiencing the moments of your day.
It's such a gift, learning to be human again.
