WHY I PUT MY TRUST IN WARM-UPS
Photos by Justin Tran-Huy Ha
You know how starting is always the hardest part of doing something?
That’s warm-ups. That’s why we all hate warm-ups.
Hate is a strong word but how real is this: you’re in rehearsal and the people around you treat warming up like a chore. Or you’re in your room going over lines and you skipped it altogether. Sometimes we check out because…..What even are the benefits of these seemingly arbitrary physical motions? When no one’s looking, should I bother?
i’ll never forget when it finally clicked for me: when did i land the roles i wanted, and when did i miss?
I was preparing concepts instead of preparing my instrument.
I realized no amount of imagined data about your character psychology emotions motivations — all the cerebral shit I was spending way too much time on (this you?) — could lead to compelling performance if I was not present, energized and IN my body to express it as vividly as I had pictured in my head, in my bed.
In order for us to innovate in those high stakes performances, whether that be in front of a camera or in an audition room, in order for us to go up there and really “do something”, our bodies need the attention and preparation. Needs all the freedom, relaxation, and embodied confidence.
And the incredible part of it all is….
this radical superhuman transformation can take place through a simple, focused 10-minute warm up.
In 10 minutes, we can walk into a room or show up on camera in a completely different mind-body space. And that’s the readiness our audience deserves all the time.
Before you utter your first lines, is your instrument ready?
Or are you still stiff from your work week?
Tense from the everything-else stress? (Or from the pressure on this very opportunity!)
Is your blood warm? Is your breath working for you in the deepest ways possible?
Our audience wants to see us be free, and play.
You can’t do that without warming up. Your mind might fly Peter Pan across all sorts of interesting dimensions on your character, your back story, your given circumstances, the themes, the stakes, the motivations, and all those desires! But the body is locked, blocked and energetically constipated.
You tell me how the wild imagination is supposed to express itself through a body that hasn’t been prepared.
By magic?
No. (well kinda. warm ups are kinda magic.)
By holding at least ten minutes of sanctuary for our bodies.
Begin with the breath and just check-in.
Two feet on the ground, feel the feet take root. Enjoy what it means to be on this earth.
Take as much time as you need as you deepen the breath with each cycle of inhale/exhale.
Inhale through the nose; exhale through the mouth.
Start from the top of your head and take inventory of all your joints. Give them rotations, clockwise and counter-clockwise. Literally loosening up! Which literally improves your circulation.
At it’s core, it’s time for us to just be in our bodies, love on it, activate it, get all the way sensitive and feel everything.
For me now, warming up has become intentional time to appreciate what I am, where I am, that I am!
So maybe you don’t do a bunch of complex stretches today.
Maybe your warm-up today is a little dance. A deeply breath-ful and loosened up dance.
Come into your body to come into the space.
Come into the space to move through it with your universe-given presence.
You breathing deeply and harmoniously with your presence while doing all that? Energy. Electric.
(Don’t forget to love on your specific articulators too~ The tongue, the jaw, the eyes).
When I warm-up, I refuse to roll the dice with my performances.
When I warm-up, I bring my most energized, present self to every opportunity,
and that’s all I really need to walk away feeling like I truly gave my best.
I put my trust in warming up.
Thanks for reading this week.
xxx
rose kim
art rat theatre
AND THIS IS FOR YOU!
I made a cheat sheet with some of my favorite warm-ups to help you specifically pin point and attack some of the blockage! Feeling stiff? Weighed down? Zero Energy? I’ve paired an exercise for it :)
