Learning our Strength

Well, its only Tuesday and I am already shattered. Goodness this course is going to run us all into the ground. Either that or I'll be as fit as superwoman by the time Christmas rolls around. I got home last night and my roommates sent me to bed because they thought I was going to fall asleep at the dinner table.

Mondays consist of choir first thing in the morning, followed by performance practice and then fitness in the afternoon. And our fitness teacher is hard core! She currently is involved with the west end production of the Lion King, I think basically beating the cast into shape. And this is what she is doing for us too. Dont get me wrong it is amazing, and I feel great when I leave class. Its when we get to the morning after when all of the muscles in my legs are sore.... Actually I am less sore this week than last which is a good sign. I just need to get better at doing all of this outside of class. I think there is a gym near the school, it might be a good investment to join, especially as I am a student now. Gotta love those student discounts.

Tuesday on the surface seem less rigorous. Voice in the morning, singing lesson and then acting. Ah but that would be deceiving. We spent a large part of voice today running and hopping around the room while humming. Much harder than you would thing. Try it. Oh wait I forgot to tell you you can only breathe when you get back to your home base. Very difficult. My singing teacher also inflicted similar exercises on me. They are really hammering home just how much you use your whole body for all of this stuff.

Now the real exertion today came in my acting class. Right now we are working a Helena/Demetrius scene from A Midsummer Nights Dream. You know the one 'get you gone and follow me no more', 'I am your spaniel' etc etc. Its a fun scene. My partner is this amazing Greek guy. If you look back at the class picture he is the one with the umbrella. (Notice the highly muscled arms, they come into play later). He is a really sweet guy, great at working on impulse. We had gotten together on Monday to work the scene, lots of running around, me grabbing onto his feet to prevent him from going etc. We had a lot of fun stuff to work with today in class. Now when we get to class our teacher is having us focus on action and need. For example Helena's need is to get Demetrius. To achieve this she can try several actions: Coerce, seduce and so on. And Demetrius's need could be to escape from Helena, or to try and get her to leave. Now my partner is a very strong guy. And when he tried to get me to leave, well things got a little out of control. Its a little frightening when a very strong guy grabs you by the shoulders and shakes you. I was a little rattled. However we stopped, and got things back on track. And actually after that moment I thin I sort of came into my own a bit. Our teacher actually said one of my choices was brilliant! (his word not mine) The rest of the scene went well, but looking back I spent a lot of that class falling to the floor. I think I will try and make sure that doesn't happen quite so much in the future. Well at least they cant say that I'm not giving the class my all.

Tomorrow should be a little bit of a break physically. Our afternoon class is basically a lecture class prepping us for writing our dissertation, which doesn't require any running around or full contact improv. I think now though what I need is a cup of tea and a bath!