Wednesday, March 26, 2008

Substance Exercise

Last class, when we had the substance exercise, I enjoyed it because it made me feel relaxed. I took yoga in high school and the breathing part of the exercise somewhat reminded me of that. It was similar in the way that I wasn't thinking about anything. The only disturbance, I believe ,was the standing. In yoga we were lying down. At one point, I was almost swaying. On the other side, although I wasn't thinking about anything specific, I imagined the color of the substance....it was yellow. I don't really know why.

THE SUBSTANCE

The substance was a great exercise. I had a really good and challenging time with the idea. It was nice to actually focus on my body moving through space. Everything was very delibrate without ever really thinking about it. I could almost feel the substance around my whole body when I moved.
I would really like to comment on fabio's thought that the things that are truly important to us we dont use reason. It is especially interesting because in almost all of my other classes reason over passion is stressed so much. Everything we read, Machiavelli, Locke, Hobbes, Lincoln, Aristotle, the Founders, anything, reason is stressed as the most important thing. Then when you actually think as an individual as to what is truly important to you, chances are you did not reason to that conclusion. My favorite example of this is love. Love of God, love of brothers, and love of one's significant other are all things that make no sense. Love is the most illogical and bizarre thing I can think of. What would possess someone to be willing to place someone else's preservation above their own? Love does, but why do we love, why do we allow ourselves to fall into such a trap? Love is certainly passion over reason, and the things we love are the things that are most important to us, so do we really reason, or do we just think or feel as though we reason?
i dunno about other people but i found myself getting kinda dizzy and light headed when we were doing the substance activity...but it was a good exercise, definitly the longest and one that required the most thought

Learning

I really do believe that we learn more through doing and living than any other way. I have lived it my entire life. Not only through sports and school, but also with family, friendships, and just life in general. The best example I can think of is my senior year in high school. Everyone told me the year before that my senior year would fly by faster than i could imagine. In a way I knew and understood this, but not to the full extent. No matter how many times someone told me, preached to me, and no matter how hard I tried to wrap my head around it I was not prepared for what I finally learned what everyone truly meant.
I truly believe that living and doing allow us to fully comprehend what we truly need to understand. I could ramble off countless situations where i am living proof, but I'm sure we all have better things to do.

Moving the Substance

Today in class there were several important acting techniques that I believe in the future will help me to further improve my acting abilities. Although I believe it was difficult today; It was also useful in terms of creating successful acting through "being"instead of thinking. Although it is difficult, to effectively create acting that is realistic, I believe that with more practice I will become better accustomed to the idea of simply "being." Another revolutionary idea the was displayed in class today involves the use of a technique in which a substance is displaced in order to allow each person to concentrate less on the meaning of each exercise and more on the "moment."