Get Out of Your Own Way

I know, I haven’t blogged for a while, life is complex, but here’s one about something that’s been on my mind.

For the past few months, it seems that I’ve been saying the same thing to many of my students. That the fundamental learning change that they need to make is not one of acquiring new skills, but of getting out of their own ways. But what does this actually mean?

Once they have some basic elementary technique, the real change that must occur with the actor (the most vital task) is to remove the barriers of internal resistance between impulse and action. And so our task becomes to nurture the instant relationship between inner impulse and external reaction, to remove the time delay, and this requires not belief in the imaginary, nor supplication to a technique, or genuflection to a teacher, but the dissolution of our own inner resistance.

So, alongside our skills training, we also work for the removal of those personal blocks that impede the spontaneous impulse, to reduce the time between reaction and action, action and reaction. This is not a new idea in any form, it is expressed by Mamet as ‘Getting Out of Our Own Way’ and by Grotowski as working via Negativa.

The actor that works to destroy the internal resistance will be able to show the tiniest, the least impulse as it flashes through the body.

This requires an exceptionally brave actor, one who is willing without bullshit to reveal themselves, their most intimate moments to the audience for their pleasure and entertainment. It not only requires that the actors knows themselves, but that they learn their own tricks and brutally dismantle them. It demands the actor discover their boundaries and their barriers and bulldozes them. It necessitates the actor to trust their teacher, because none of us go easily into this state. We must also learn that criticism is not our enemy, good criticism, criticism that can be acted upon is the very best kind of help. Trust your teacher, but do not make him/her your friend. It is impossible for your friend to help you get out of your own way, they have too much invested in not upsetting you. Sometimes when working to remove these internal blocks, the teacher must be harsh or brutal to you, they may also try sensitively talking to you as well, but the chances are that you will respond to this with defenses and excuses.

To work this way often requires the circumvention of thought, as least introspective and reflective thought. This is often where the resistance lies. The little voice in your head. Self-image and the self-consciousness are the seat of internal resistance. At our pinnacle, training must be, what the Zen practitioner calls ‘No Thought and No Image’. Action and Reaction exist in us as a spontaneous and impulsive energy ready to ebb and flow with the impulses, unimpeded by barriers, blocks and walls of resistance.

Those that are interested in the idea of Via Negativa in Performance Training, might like to read Jerzy Grotowski’sTowards A Poor Theatre.