(Continued from page 1 - Practice)

A. ROLE MODELS

The most difficult thing about growing older is that I don't have enough time to practice all of the things I want to practice. Yet, I know we must share with our students what our practice is, how we practice now, how we have practiced in the past, how others we have known have practiced; who are the good role models in the community, the arts community, and on the national and international stage. There are many different kinds of role models.

B. PLATEAUS

It was a wonderful moment of discovery for me when I realized that the plateaus were not dead places and that I was not falling backwards, but in fact they were the times where I needed to "catch my breath" and integrate the previous discoveries. We do need a time to integrate previous work into our system. We also need to make sure that the plateau does not become a place of escape. On the plateau, in the holding pattern, in that time that we need to catch our figurative breath, we must stay present, we must continue a full commitment to our practice.

C. UNEVEN PRACTICE

If I don't get it quickly then I will move on to something else and come back to the problem in a few minutes. If I don't get it, I let it sit on the back burner until it screams to be addressed. If I don't get it, I teach it, I try to explain the problem to other people.

A vocal warm up in the morning before an early morning audition has rarely worked for me. Too often it remains technical and efficient. I only arrive at the readiness to be alive. The missing part of the practice is human confrontation, in person or on the telephone, it works every time. I know now that I need to create a confrontation in order to give the practice life, to make it work.

In my professional classes it frustrates me that the majority of people who attend them come to me with clearly defined goals, and impatience. They expect their voices to change in six weeks or they give up. Too often they are not prepared to make the investment even when they see and hear and feel the changes. And then I am always shocked and surprised by who it is that stays the course and really asks the questions and takes the risks and makes a commitment.

Learning is continual steps. In the theatre we work to opening night. Opening night is a blip on the road. Studying in India -- a step in a four thousand year old tradition. Studying in Japan -- a modern version of an ancient training. Voice traditions, acting traditions-- traditions to be honored, to be tested, to be broken and to be re-defined.

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D. THE WAVE SYNDROME

The WAVE syndrome, I observe this in both my teaching and in my practice. I experience waves of despair, waves of boredom, waves of exultation, waves of excitement, waves of challenge, waves of anger, waves of desperation, waves of ambition, waves of seeking of perfection, waves of fear. As with any oceanic activity the waves can be gentle, be nourishing, rolling, threatening and too often they are eight and ten foot troughs of storm ridden fury.

Occasionally, there is the long sought place of being present and totally engaged in the activity which I have set out as my task. Most of the time it is learning how to ride the waves.

George Leonard in his excellent little book MASTERY puts the "boredom" wave into perspective, "Actually, the essence of boredom is to be found in the obsessive search for novelty. Satisfaction lies in the mindful repetition, the discovery of endless richness in subtle variations on familiar themes." (Plume Books. 1992, p 83)

E. EXERCISE MENTALITY

To make changes we need to accept, to hear what the problem is and make a commitment. Not too long ago, I was telephoned by a woman who had studied with me five or six years earlier. She had recently made a new voice over tape and was unhappy with it. When in stress, she would go back to her childhood upper middle class British accent and occasionally into lisp mode. Both patterns were inconsistent. Her state of anxiety would not allow her to hear my help but could only allow her to spout every negative, or what she perceived as a negative, from every encounter she had ever had with a voice teacher. What she needed to do, more than anything else, was listen to her protective babble and return to her body to apply the practice she was capable of doing.

I have always found it difficult to talk about what we do in a studio as an "exercise." It is probably only about ten years ago that I found that I no longer referred to what I do when I get up early in the morning as my "morning exercise" but as my "morning practice." I am no longer "practicing" but I am "doing a practice." Practice is what I do. When I go to an audition, I try to do my practice, when I attend a meeting, I attempt "to do my practice."

F. DISCOVERING THE PROBLEMS:

Fear of Success. Fear of Failure
Too often students just give up when they are made aware of their "errors." They may be in terror of their anticipated failure, or that they are succeeding in failure and if they change their habit they might experience success and success might be even a greater danger.

Uncovering mistakes and errors in practicing is a key tool to learning. Only through uncovering the

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