Speaking

I had a good turn with Jenny, working on my habit of 'checking in' or 'feeling out'. It seems like I start conceptualising when I become aware of new sensations, instead of continuing to inhibit and direct my movement. Somehow, Ann's idea of the freedom of the neck as gauge, got stuck in my thinking.

We explored the 'whispered ahhh' in prone. When I'm close enough to a student, the 'non-moving' parts become salient even without any optical clarity. My hands picked up a lot of Tristans movements, and I could see how much of his neck was involved in raising the head.

Bronwyn changed the performation session a bit, and experimented with voice projection. No chance to premier my new song, heaps of interesting new information nevertheless. I was surprised about the amount of pre-tension I build up to enter the stage... hmm do I associate a certain head position or jaw tension as 'right feeling' for starting to speak?

I still need to investigate different strategies for habits arising from imprints, conditioning and learning. I wonder whether trauma applies to all three layers, most likely.

Singing

The idea of singing on this performance day made me a bit apprehensive. Although I felt quite good and thought to have understood the idea of releasing into the teachers hands yesterday, I was relatively stiff when I had my turn with Jenny.

It took me until the performance session, which started around 12 to notice that a lot of today's holding came from this apprehension to perform in public, and although our group had only four members (Tristan, Jose, Rossi and me), I felt really nervous.

Jenny managed to free me up a lot before I even started. I directed myself as good as I could, but still in my breath overly in preparation for my performance. Like Jose, I pulled my head back and stiffened my legs, and now I still feel a bit sore on the outside of the top of the femur, where I pulled my legs together.

But after I got into singing, while Jenny worked with me, I could let go of the tension and surprised myself with the sounds that appeared. I wonder whether I should keep with Hans Albers for the performance, or rather choose another song. However, I learned much more by trying to sing than by reciting. It nails down to a pattern of nervousness due to standing in front of others and perform, another good bit to work on.