Flow: Order of Operations
I like to hand sew complex things. When this is your hobby, you tend to spend a significant amount of time planning the steps in a project. If you try to skip this part, you end up spending a lot…
Perform: Reps
Nothing will prepare you for excellence in a task more than just doing it. Focused practice with some stakes, such as practicing a speech or song in front of friends is great for this. But at some point, you just…
Perform: Activate the Net
The net I am referring to is the elastic net of air we are surrounded by all the time. The fact is that even when we are breathing ineffectively, we are breathing. Survival wins. So what does it mean to…
Perform: The Stories We Tell
Brené Brown (Dr of Social Work, author, speaker, and kickass human) talks about "the story we tell ourselves." In essence, how we are responding to a given situation based on our internal story. When we get up to speak or…
Performance: Just Not Feeling It
Somedays you would rather just stay in bed, with Netflix, and forget the outside world is there. Somedays you are actually feeling ill. Some of these days you still have to get out there and speak to humans, sometimes lots…
Performance – Play to Your Strengths
We are circus people. By that I mean, I am suddenly spending time in a circus school while my child learns circus things. While observing a particularly graceful and terrifying maneuver on aerial silks, I stated, "I don't think I'd…
Performance: Stop the Lean (In)
Presentation is an interesting craft -- You are sending information and intention out into a room, hopefully with enough energy and flair that it has the desired impact. It is difficult even for those of us with years of acting…
Articulate: Make Music
I talk about individual components of articulation a lot. Making sure the vowels are centered and the consonants present and complete. Addressing cadence, melody, and meaning in Voicing to make sure phrases have Purpose. Still, I haven't written enough about…
Perform: You Gotta Have a Gimmick
In the musical Gypsy by Jule Styne, Stephen Sondheim, and Arthur Laurents, the title character Rose finds herself in a Burlesque company and is advised by three of the dancers that "You Gotta Have A Gimmick!" It is a fun…
Perform: The You-est You
I recently saw a speaker enter the room with a set of tools so specialized that there was no possible way for anyone else to have given that talk. It wasn't that he was speaking about ideas that had never…