Impulse work and Milling

How do you perform impulse work and what is it beneficial for it?

We perform impulse work by reacting and living in the real moment. Performing impulse work is all bout being able to switch of the sub concious mind and ignoring social insecurities, leading you to not construct a reaction or movement from our minds but from a natural instinct or in other words an impulse of emotion.

Impulse work is important because performing using your mind can often be unbelievable and not natural. When you live in the moment and react from with in it creates a truthful and interesting piece of theatre, therefore impulse work is beneficial for naturalism and truthful acting.

Impulse work also allows you to react to your fellow actors thoughts and feelings more tentatively. Your reaction to your partner may change and develop as there feelings change, impulse work forces you to connect with your partner on a different level and again creates a truthful piece.

What is milling and what is it beneficial for?

Milling is moving around the space using parts of your body that we don't normally use when walking, so using your elbows, sides of our hands and feet, heads etc. Milling is allowing your body to be free in movement and feeling the energy between two people. Milling allows you to stop thinking about your movements but let your body carry your weight.

I have learnt that we have confirmed to this idea we have to walk in one way yet there are so many other parts of our body and muscles that can be used to travel. I have learnt how important it is to get in touch with your body and the energy between people.

Capoeira is a good example of allowing your body to be free and move in ways we don't normally. It builds strength and confidence in your body and allows you to express feelings using your body.

Process of a sun salutation

1.) First you put your feet together and bend your knees slightly so you have a a bounce. Place your hands on your thighs by your side. Then inhale and rise your hands above your head.

2.) Next exhale and bring your head towards your knees. Inhale look up and slide your hands forward, stepping back into the plank position.

3.) Then push your weight forward into the upward dog position (seen in position 7) hold that position and take an out breath.

4.) Roll your feet over until flat and fold yourself into downward dog position (seen in position 8) 

5.) After 5 out breaths in downward dog, jump forward, bringing your knees to your chest. Have your feet about a £5 note's length apart.

6.) Finally roll your back up, your head being the last part of your body to be level and repeat.

A sun salutation is a form of yoga which allows you to open up your airways and focus. Stanislavsky often used yoga teachings in his methods and would often warm up with a sun salutation.

Performing a sun salutation has helped me to gain focus and control over my body and breathing. It has also helped me get past the mental block that makes you think you can't remain in a position for a certain amount of time. For example (step 4) where you have to stay in downward dog for 5 breaths can be physically challenging, but the more you practice and the more you stop thinking about not being able to do it, the easier it gets.

Introduction

In this weeks lesson we began by finding neutral, some of the key things i learnt in order to be able to find netrual are:

• Stand with knees slightly bent in order to have a bounce rather than have your knees locked which hinders certain movement

• Have your back straight and shoulders rolled back

• Tilt your head slightly up and look to the horizon

• Imagine a rope is going through your core all the way up out of your head and it is pulling you against gravity, this allows your body to feel slightly lighter and causes your back to be stretched and lengthened

• Chest forward rather than inwards in order to show a confidence and readiness

Finding neutral and taking deep breathes enabled me to feel focused, ready and almost a blank canvas. Developing your alignment opens up your back, your neck and your chest allowing you to be able to breathe properly and fully. When you are able to get oxygen into your lungs and take deep breaths your automatically start to relax and focus. Doing this enables you to feel ready and prepared.

Developing your alignment as an actor is key because you need your body to be free for movement. If your body was uncomfortable or out of alignment you may find it harder to move around, this would hinder your performance as an actor so making sure your body is aligned, comfortable and free is really important.

Finding neutral is also a starting point for an actor. It's the stage where you can stop, forget about your surroundings and become a blank canvas in order to take on your character. If you didn’t have this starting point and went straight from being you into someone else, you would probably find you would lose the sense of who you are and who your character is and it wouldn’t feel like you are in the mind of your character because you haven’t taken the time to ground your self and focus. Therefor having this 'starting point' (finding neutral) is a really basic, important tool.

We warmed up by learning how to do a sundance. I learnt that sundance is a form of yoga and that yoga isn't a strength exercise but a breathing exercise therefor i discovered it was a good way for actors to warm up and use to focus. I also learnt that Stanislavsky was very much influenced by the teachings of yoga and used the sundance as a warm up. 

When we began the sundance i learnt that my upper body strength and flexibility is worse of than i thought however i noticed that as we continued to work our bodies and do the sundance more it became easier for me and i felt more confident. Before i learnt the sundance i was doubting myself and was thinking that perhaps i wouldn't be good at it or would look stupid, it was interesting to see that when i did know how to do it and felt more confident i began to get better at it and actually focused on my breathing, as suppose to what people thought of me. It made me realise how much your mind set can stop you from doing something or in fact hinder what you do, so doing this warm up helped me to see how important it is to be aware of your negative continence.

This then helped me in the next exercise where we learnt about milling. We began moving around the space using more than just how we would normally use our hands and feet so, using the sides of our feet, the back of our hands, elbows, heads and so on. This allowed us to be free in movement. For me at first i was a bit rigid and would construct from my head what moments i would do however as we went on i began to stop listening to my brain and started to listen to my body and its energy. Doing so enabled me to move around in ways i didn't know i could more this was really interesting as in today's society we all conform to this one way of living, the idea that we all have to walk in a certain way using just our feet, when in fact there are so many other parts of our body that could be used. In fact, to me, it felt more natural to mill freely and as a non believer in evolution this made me question wether were once animals before and think about how our bodies may have been.

We then began to interact with others as we milled past them, either making eye contact or sharing a moment of movement.The energy then connected one person to another. This lead us to paring up with someone and interacting with one another. I was pared with Sky and loved how we just completely forgot about the other people in the room or the fact that people were watching us, we were justing living in the moment. I think this was really special as today people are so caught up in where they've got to be or whats happened previously, rushing and never really living in the moment.

I defiantly felt a presence in the room. The energy then connected one person to another as we began interacting. It was fun to share a moment with someone in movement rather than speech and let your body, your energy do the talking. During the lesson Tyler made a comment about how it was weird and interesting to know that you can speak without speaking, i agree with his comment and think its very true as it was kind of weird to feel like you are communicating with someone without speaking at all.