OHM

I thought I'd take a moment and talk about one of my favorite acting disciplines. It's not directly found in any (American, at least) acting methodologies, and yet it has been a cornerstone in my training and development for the past few years. It's been admittedly my a secret weapon. So what, in my mind, is the main ingredient to good actor training? The practice of meditation.

Meditation is easy to learn, challenging to practice, and near impossible to master. Reminds me a bit of acting, or any other form of artistry to which one dedicates themselves. Now, there is no shortage of books on techniques and traditions, but I'll simply suggest two general practices that I use as consistently as my inconsistent human nature allows.

Any seated position will do, really, and you can explore all sorts of yogic poses, and benefits of each pose on your own if interested. But, for our purposes it is simple enough to sit up straight in a chair.

The first is a meditation that focuses on the breath, bringing awareness to the inhalation and exhalation. And if (or when) your mind becomes distracted by thoughts or sensations, you bring your mind gently back to the breath. This nurtures that one-pointed, laser-like focus that you see or perhaps sense from the really great actors on stage and in film.

Another method, which I find myself doing most often is a broader type of focus, or rather an opening of focus. You just sit and allow everything to 'be as it is', or, in other words, you allow your awareness to rest, or at first, jump to whatever or wherever it feels most engaged. Sometimes you awareness will rest on a bodily sensation...a sore foot or a knot in your back. Other times, the awareness will jump to a thought or pattern playing out in your mind. You simply allow all of it to be A-OK. This type of meditation seems to facilitate an aliveness and spontaneity to whatever happens in life, and on the stage.

At first the tendency is to get lost in the thought or sensation. Each little thought has an inherent stickiness, and once a thought gets sticky, it attracts other thoughts until it becomes of whirling, uncontrollable gob of glue.

The more you just allow yourself to sit and, well, do nothing really, your mind may begin to slow down. Our mind is most like a glass of water with some type of sediment, and it's constantly being shaken, so the water remains murky, cloudy. This type of meditation brings your awareness to the shaking glass and just by watching it, the glass begins to slow down a bit, allowing the sediment to settle on the bottom. Voila! Clear and clean water...and a taste of clarity.

The personal benefits of meditation are countless, but for me, it has also has increased that ability to maintain a fullness of presence on stage. And gets me closer to experiencing that 'actor' behind the costume that is 'me'. The me before any thought has a chance to define it.

Best to all.