In Search of Common Terms

If I were writing a book, I would save these next few concepts until the end. If I were teaching a class I would want to build the foundation for these concepts, before I put the last shingle metaphorically on top of the house. I'm not.


Before I got into theatre, I was a very good wrestler, if I do say so myself. Got into college on my physical prowess, not my SAT's. 


As it turns out, what I was so good at was training my body to do an action, without thinking. As an athlete, when the race starts, you run. When the starting pistol fires you don't think about the definition of running, you run. When the environment was right, the action happened. The required dance was performed. In wrestling, you and your opponent write the script in unison. The rules and mat are the context.


I was easily able to make the transition to theatre from wrestling because very little was different. The physical context changed, but, there were still performers and audience. Words were added to the performance and the opponent became the playwright.


From the first time I walked on stage, I was confounded at how similar were the two experiences. After performing at a high level in wrestling, I had no words to describe why. I didn't need them to perform. When I went into theatre, the word stream in my head wanted to know how and why. "I" wanted to control "Me." My first several plays, I tried to consciously control the performance and I sucked. I discovered it was uncontrollable. If I was thinking about what I should be doing, that means I am not doing the character I was supposed to be doing. At the time, I did not know the audience could see the lost wanna be actor and not the character intended by the playwright. One cannot count steps and dance at the same time.


The only path to a positive outcome was to prepare really well, show up and keep "I" out of the way to let "Me" do my job. The question became; "Why is this true and how does this process work?"


As I said earlier, if we are going to have a fruitful discussion, we must speak a common language. Today's post would like to introduce into the discussion: bandwidth, consciousness vs. sub-consciousness and timing.

Bandwidth:

As a unit of measure, a bit can be thought of like the top of a sine wave. As an example, consciousness  has a frequency capacity of occurring 50 times or bits in one second. A bit is measurable and observable. Knowing this is a powerful tool.


Consciousness vs. Sub-consciousness:

At the risk of sounding like Donald Rumsfeld:

From "Psycho" by Alfred Hitchcock

No one was harmed in the making of this last slide. Much more on this down the road.

Timing:

How often have you heard that in a theatre? Well, truer words were never spoken. Common knowledge would have you believe that the moving picture we see in our head as here/now is just that; a linear cumulative progression to which we are constant witness to it's passing. We don't appear to work that way. 


A line of fascinating brain research indicates that there is a half second delay between the time of an event and the individual becoming conscious of that event.

The significance of this to the actor, musician, athlete, teacher, lawyer; really, anyone performing the act of, can hardly be measured.


I am going to go into these issues in much greater depth in another posting. I want to get the cards on the table, then we can play with them.