9/22/11

I didn’t write yesterday. Well, there went my commitment to write every day. I did write something on a yellow pad, which is in the bedroom. At least I think it’s there. And I can recommit. Wednesday, I audited a bit of Blue Belt. A lot has changed since Carlos left, new ways of doing things, not necessarily better or worse, just different. We were doing an exercise related to Principle eight, where we were dancing an emotion. I was having a good time with it, when Debbie came over and tapped me on the abdomen and said, “Emotion comes from the core, not from the extremities.” My first reaction was annoyance. After all, I’m a trained actor. I was sure I was doing it right. Then I realized she was absolutely right on target. I wasn’t dancing from the core. Damn. You’d think I’d remember such a basic thing. Maybe that’s what Salome meant when she’d tell me to stop “Acting” and be. I would feel frustrated, because I thought was being authentic, that I was really feeling the emotion I was expressing. I wonder what it would have been like if she’d told me to sense the emotion from the core instead of my arms and face. Debbie noted that as we age, we tend to stiffen from the core. I’ve heard (and repeated) the phrase, “you’re as young as your spine.” Thursday, when I taught a class, I noted the flexibility of the spine. I used sound and to get people to breathe more deeply. Wake up the core! I’m thinking that when I get this one-woman piece together, it would be great to have Debbie direct me. I suspect she’d be a brilliant director.