7A. Body Parts Move on Out-Breath I

• Everyone, stand still in a comfortable position. Watch your breath. The air cols i bounces out, and then there's a pause. Put your mmd on a por "a ^ace in your body that relates to your breath, a small place, a the base of your nose, your diaphragm, or your abdomen. Expenence e movement breath creates as it comes in, bounces out and pauses. Watch the sensation of breath for the next five, or six, breaths.

• Begin to move just on each exhalation of each breath When you inhale be stni Start with your head. As you exhale, move your head on y. The rest of you your neck your shoulders, etc., remain st I. As you inhale, on Lve at all .. Add your left arm. Only on the exhalation. Move your ead L yo r left arm. Add your right arm. Add your torso. And, now your leg. Every time you exhale, your whole body is in motion, and you re changing location.

• Play with re-ordering your breath. Make it percussive. Prolonged. Pants. Swirls. Etc.

• Get involved with what you're doing. Feel it. Be it. . Now within the next few minutes, become aware of somebody else in the room. Slowly begin to connect with them. Continue to move on only the out-breath in relation to one another.n unvoiced exhalation has a vastness: a breath may be long or short ALavy or light, and be exhaled in varions textures. An unvoiced exha-t^ nTy shde, gag, rasp, and sputter. It may sound ho o. or mighty. Since language rides on the out-breath it, like breath, has possibilities for design. The longer your out-breath exhalation is, heTore space you will have to work with this Practice making your out-breath last as long as possible before you take a breath in.

Present Pause

Whether we move or speak, we pause. "Pause" is different than "freeze." When a student freezes, he becomes immobile, static, both physically and psychically. When a performer pauses, he becomes physically immo­bile. Psychically, he is moving along, experiencing the ever-changing events inside and around him.

We're afraid to stop producing material. We think that not doing any­thing is "not being anything." We misinterpret a pause as dead space and, so, once within in it, we tend to panic, become inert: we leave the present and we leave our bodies. We lose track of what's going on around us, and just stand around, observe, think we're invisible, mouth the words someone else is saying (unconsciously), and may get more and more tense without being aware if it. We suffer.

The alternative is to experience a pause as an expression of present that transmits information through its deta alters or inhibits the actions of the other. he slams the door in my face and 1 ^f^ _r * _my face. Would you call this a connection?

particulars about the person who slammed the door. She was blinded by her personal agenda. In this scenario, no connection was made.

But, if the knocker had no expectations, and made no judgments that would throw her into blinding emotion, she would have been able to notice the person slamming the door. After all, she had three opportunities. She would experience the reality of the person being annoyed by answering the door. She would, then, also feel her connection to his condition and understand the occurrence.

Suppose I am connecting to my partner and I become aware of myself judging my partners actions. This is only a problem if I judge the judgment: if I feel shame, or am angry at her, or worry that the improvisation's not working. Alternately, I can recognize my judg­ing as simply an OK thought, not better or worse than anything else. I can either let it go, or enter into it directly, become that judge, and bring that judgment into the action. If there's no judgments about judgments, I've remained connected to myself and to my partner.

Countering or Blocking

Countering or Blocking is when one performers actions prevent, inhibit or attempt to control the actions of another. The most common exam­ples in language are: "No," or "Stop," "Calm down," or "Shh or You don't mean that." Physically restraining somebody or stopping their movement is blocking.

Countering is a substitute for connecting to yourself. Its a manipu­lative action; "I don't have anything going on with myself, so I m going to mess with what you have going on," or, "What you're doing scares me, so I'm going to stop it."

Some other countering methods are:

Using given names: When we call a person by his real name, it pulls him out of his fantasy and out of the improvisation. Instead, generate a name that s appropriate for the situation.

Using questions: Questions shift the attention and responsibility onto others It's more constructive, and less alienating, to say the statement behind the question, or makeup the information the question seeks. In that way, you're promoting the improvisation, instead of draining it.

Commenting on the experience of self or partner: Objective, analyt­ical descriptive statements that come from outside of experience and carry with them no feeling, nor image, halt the lively flow of an impro­visation. The problem isn't with the information, it's where it's coming from. The speaker is not involved in the experience. Instead, they re observing it. Their energy is flat and self-conscious.

Jon is sitting in the middle of the room, rocking back and forth on his feet, singing to himself. James walks over and says, "Looks like you're having fun."

If James' intention is solely to remark on John's situation, then he's commenting. If his intention is to indicate his inner condi­tion and his presentation does so, then it's not commenting.

Students are instructed to avoid all countering devices. They must accept everything their partner says or does. This challenges their self-imposed limits and forces them to be flexible. Later, when students have learned to not expect or depend on results, they may experiment with countering or blocking actions. Then countering or blocking actions are inroads and expressions of their own psyches.

Now, we approach language. Students build a narrative together being careful to accept everything each other has said.