Tai Chi - New year New perspective

I missed about a month of Tai Chi, but thankfully I had not missed much. My instructor and I talked about new ways for me to get closer to mastering the form. I focused on my breathing mostly. I originally thought that focusing on my breath as I moved through the form would have no effect, but to my surprise as I paced my breathing my balance improved and I found that moves which had caused me trouble before are now as easy as the first moves I learned when I first started. The hardest part was finding a breathing pattern that made me feel comfortable, but that came with time and practice.

Looking Back on Dino

Learning outcome 1. Perhaps my greatest sign of growth was in my improv skills, which one year ago I couldn't do to save my life. Twice in the performances there was an incident that required me in particular to Improv my way through until the scene could go back on track. My directors commented that in both instances the Improv was fluid enough that the mood of the scene was not broken and no one broke character, which are great assets to have as an actor.

Learning outcome 4. Evan and I had great chemistry on stage, which was largely do to our close friendship off-stage. The mutual trust and collaboration that we had in developing our characters greatly effected our relationship with the other character, but also added an interesting friendship dynamic to the show which was only seen in one other pair of characters, Pat and Sylvia, but their characters were shyer which lead to a more interpretive friendship while ours was more explicit. Thanks to my real life friendship with Evan as well as my high comfort level in the other Actors on stage I was able to work very well with others with no actual incident. This has helped my teamwork skills tremendously since I have struggled in the past with collaboration due to my stubborn desire to be independent. With any other group I would have most likely been uncooperative due to the aforementioned reason.

Waldorf Winter Fair

At the winter fair I was confronted with the new challenge of dealing with young kids. While intimidated at first by the prospect that I would not know how to deal with small children, my fears were put to rest since I was assigned to the Ginger Bread Gnome room. Using my prior knowledge of baking from my job I was able to relax a bit and take some charge when it came to making sure that both kids and volunteers knew what they were doing. There were no problems when dealing with the kids, and I found that I had a somewhat naturally kind reaction to them after a short time with them. Thanks to this I was able to make a small connection with the kids hopefully making them feel more comfortable when making the cookies. None of the children had any forms of breakdowns nor did any of them ruin anyone else's time. With that said I feel like I did my part to ensure that a fun experience was had by all. Towards the end of the day we realized that we did not have enough cookies or decorations to continue through the rest of the day. With some quick thinking I realized that if we could not give them any cookies that we could at least let the people come and use what little we had left to decorate any baked goods that they had previously purchased. Afterwards we had little left thanks to the popularity of the room and my quick suggestion.

STAGE - Off book, getting more in depth

For the last few weeks we have been working without our scripts. Because of this it has freed up our hands and heads allowing for better blocking and character development. Mrs. Botsford has been working with us on our characters so that we have back stories in order to make the characters more believable. This worked well since Evan and I were confused as to who our characters were on a deeper level, but with some prompting of Mrs. Botsford we created two different, but still similar, characters with different traits and mannerisms. Through these exercises I was able to see how I create a character, but also how I need a little motivation to creating them, which I will need to work on in the future.

After we all created our characters our "relationships" took on new meanings which has both tested us and strengthened us as a cast.

SOI - Bake Sale failure and SOI potluck plans.

Last week we had planned to work a "bake" sale of healthy organic foods and tea. We were all assigned to different days to work and different foods to bring in. I was assigned to bring in tea and work on Monday. Since we had plenty of left over tea from our first sale that counted as my contribution. Because of this I forgot about the bake sale completely and when Monday came around I was not there for the sale and i missed out. If I had talked to anyone in SOI, wrote the schedule down, or bought more tea, I would have been able to remember the bake sale.

Today at the meeting I found that overall the sale was a bust, and that we were going to scrap the idea for now so that we can focus on a SOI pot luck for us so that we can see if we can branch it out to the greater Sturgis Community. Through this preparation we hope to be sure that we can work as a "separated group" to create enough food for us so that we know what needs to get done for when we have the Sturgis wide one. Hopefully through these pot lucks we will be able to increase awareness of organic products.

Assistant Instructor?

Today in Tai Chi we had a new student just in for her first lesson. So Maureen spend about half of the class with her while I led the other students in perfecting the form. It was the first time I had ever taken charge in any martial arts class. Thankfully not only was I skilled in the form enough to lead everyone through it, but also still learning so that when confronted with specific questions, such as what move follows which or how a certain move needs to be performed, I had to truly think about what I was telling the others. This hard thought reminded me of how I was beginning to slip in some of the more technical parts of the form and reminded me what i needed to do in order to do the form correctly.
Being an assistant instructor reminded me not only of my own growth, but also how I didn't have everything perfect yet.

Stage - Character Development and Blocking

Over the past few weeks in STAGE we have been working on our character's backstories, interactions, and blocking. As of right now Evan and I have been working very well as a team, and our interactions with the other characters have been great so far. Our flirtatious yet obnoxious character development has been clashing nicely with the sassy and nosey Jackie, while making the character Pat and Sylvia cringe at what our "next move" will be. We have also been playing up the cockiness factor too, making our mutual dislike for Dino feel truly believable. With this great effort along with our mutual support for each character has made the Danny and Steve duo two of the more dynamic characters in the show. Mrs. Botsford has also been impressed by my work. I have received no "negative" notes, only constructive notes. I also have been getting notes praising how well the character is coming along and how natural the movements and blocking seem.