Week 4- Communicating Without Words

I didn't shake my booty or pole dance but with the confidence that I am building with this class I am sure I could do both and do well at it!

This was really mime week. The thing that struck me this week is how much this class is helping my writing. What is lacking in my writing is detail and when we were doing some mime exercises last night it was the detail in the acting that brought that home!

The first couple of exercises were pole exercises. Imagine it and believe it are the keys to mime. Twenty six people in class last night. Everyone stood a safe distance apart. You then closed your eyes and imagined a pole in front of you that was attached to both the ceiling and the floor. When you opened your eyes you grabbed on to the imaginary pole with both hands. Then you were to move from pole to pole throughout the room. At the end there were only twelve poles left! People didn't properly move from pole to pole because they didn't really imagine that it existed. I was one of the twelve that had a pole left! I imagined it and believed it. After a couple of rounds of that exercise until everyone ended with a pole they then put a real challenge on it. Now you had to move from pole to pole but with your eyes closed! This required amazing non-verbal communication with others in the room. You had to reach out and guide the person's hand to your pole and they had to guide your hand to their pole. Then you moved on to the next pole/person. The thing that was interesting about this is that the class did better with their eyes closed!

The next exercise everyone sat in a circle around the room. Without words but with hands and body movements the instructor crafted an object with his hand. Once he started crafting an object there was no verbal communication allowed until the game was complete. Once he completed the object he then handed it to the person on his right, she then had to use the object as it was meant to be used and then remold it into a new object. Once the new object was crafted she then handed to the person on her right whom had to use the new object the way it was meant to be used and remold it into another new object handing that object to the person on the right. This continued all the way around the room until the object got back to the instructor. OK a couple of things, one detail is important, it can't just be a bottle of beer that you are molding it has to be a bottle of Coors Light. Second, I got the biggest laugh for the second week in a row! You can't really plan ahead because the object the instructor molded will be nothing like the object that you get. So it really is on the fly thinking. What was handed off to me was an imaginary Old Spice shaving kit, wtih razor, after shave, and a rollon underarm scent. I immediately refreshed my arm pits with the rollon which caused howls of laughter. Then I molded the object into a very dirty hair brush. I love this exercise because it taught me how important detail is, how you can communicate without talking, how you can make anything out of physical space, and how well you can understand what people are telling you even when they are talking to you without words.

The last exercise was where we were divided into teams of four. Then we had to go on stage and act out a four panel cartoon. Again without words. We were allowed to plan the cartoon before getting on stage. Each person represented one panel. The thing that amazed me is that I didn't have any stage fright. None. We did a nice cartoon where a young women was teaching me about retail when a crooked fellow stole the merchandise we were working on and then was caught by the store security guard.

Next week is character development. I'm loving this class!

May you all have a day full of verbal and non-verbal communication with those that you love!