
Amanda Brennan
#15: Transforming Emotional Awareness: Insights into Mental Fitness with Amanda Brennan
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Amanda Brennan delves into the role of emotional intelligence in shaping personal and professional outcomes. She emphasizes the importance of becoming aware of emotional patterns and their impact on decision-making and relationships. Amanda shares actionable strategies to build emotional resilience, overcome stress, and foster mental clarity. Her insights combine years of experience in emotional intelligence training with practical approaches for real-world challenges. Access the show notes for this episode at: https://www.cameronnorsworthy.com/flow-unleashed
ABOUT THE GUEST
Amanda Brennan
Amanda Brennan is an acting coach specializing in screen acting, with extensive experience in film and television. She serves as a Principal Lecturer at The Royal Central School of Speech and Drama, leading the MA in Acting for Screen program. Formerly, she was the Director of Studies at Webber Douglas Academy of Dramatic Art. Amanda has taught internationally, including in Chile, Colombia, and the United States, and has collaborated with institutions such as the London Film School and the British Council. As a producer, her films have been featured at festivals like Sundance and the London Film Festival, earning accolades such as Best Ensemble Cast at Monaco (2017) and Best Short Film at Raindance (2018). Her coaching approach integrates physical techniques, including Qigong, to enhance actors' performances. Notable clients include Riz Ahmed, Johnny Flynn, Asa Butterfield, and Hannah New.
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SHOW NOTES / RESOURCES
Emotional Intelligence by Daniel Goleman
The Art of Possibility by Rosamund Stone Zander and Benjamin Zander
TRANSCRIPT
00:00:00:00 - 00:00:30:22
Unknown
Flow. Unleashed, unleashed, unleashed. Have you ever tried to perform as an energetic being, or seen yourself primarily as an energetic being, using your energy as a primary focal point for your keynote coaching session or sporting performance? For example?
00:00:31:00 - 00:00:58:12
Unknown
Welcome to Flow unleashed. I'm Doctor Cameron Norsworthy, scientist and High-Performance coach to multiple world champions. In this show, we unpack key insights and specific topics so that you are kept up to date with the latest science and practice of human performance.
00:00:58:14 - 00:01:04:08
Unknown
First of a little bit about a group.
00:01:04:10 - 00:01:25:11
Unknown
When you walk into a room full of people, do you get a sense of what is happening? Perhaps you pick up on the mood or how people are feeling. Sure. We all do. But have you ever wondered how we do this? For instance, much of this information we are sensing is picked up before our brain even has time to process it.
00:01:25:13 - 00:01:56:01
Unknown
But how is this possible? Put simply, our brain, whilst it is our biggest command center, is affected by a number of other receiving systems in our body. Most primal of all is our energetic systems. Our energetics are continuously working behind the scenes, transmitting and receiving all the time to assist our communication and interaction with the environment. In fact, we rely on this information for more than we think.
00:01:56:03 - 00:02:28:03
Unknown
For example, in flow we seem to go beyond the restraints of technique, pain, fatigue, time, and self. All these modes of operating fade away when we are deeply engaged in a task in flow. It is as if every cell and atom work cohesively towards one aim, and we seemingly tap into an abundance of energy, channeling it perfectly as if we are turning on the tap that we have kept hidden for special occasions.
00:02:28:05 - 00:03:03:19
Unknown
We may reflect in awe of how our body executed with such precision and power, or how we worked for so long without a break. Unsure how to explain how our body applied itself in such an extraordinary manner. As a result, we often stop trying to understand it and quickly move on to something more tangible, more explainable. Physicist and electrical inventor Nikola Tesla once stated, if you want to find the secrets of the universe, think in terms of energy, frequency and vibration.
00:03:03:21 - 00:03:32:04
Unknown
My experience is that when we do, when we think in terms of energy and take the time to sense the situation, we think and feel differently. We react and act differently. Like the electricity that runs through our houses, or the love we feel for our partner or family member, we cannot see this energy that is buzzing around and within our bodies with our own eyes.
00:03:32:06 - 00:04:09:01
Unknown
Yet it is undeniable. Energy runs through our bodies like water, through bathroom pipes. And when this energy is harnessed and concentrated, it can increase our ability and performance. For example, Doctor Kira Seto and his team of scientists from Yokohama, Japan, reported in the journal Electro Therapeutics Research that martial arts experts have measured significantly higher pulsating magnetic fields from their palms of their hands when preparing for an energetic punch.
00:04:09:03 - 00:04:44:18
Unknown
Seto studies revealed that the emitted key from the subject's palms produced a magnetic field a thousand times stronger than a human's normal by a magnetic field. This act also created significant changes in measures of infrasound, electromagnetism, static electricity, infrared radiation, gamma rays, particle and wave flows, organic ion flows, and light, suggesting that there was a lot happening when the mind and body are focused on harnessing and releasing energy.
00:04:44:20 - 00:05:16:02
Unknown
This energetic movement, which we typically take for granted and don't harness consciously, is seemingly measurable in a multitude of markers. One person who spent their career helping actors and performers see themselves as energetic beings and energetic performers to enhance their performance is Amanda Brennan. Amanda is an author, award winning producer, judge at several film festivals, and coached actors on many films, including Aliens and The Crown.
00:05:16:04 - 00:05:48:19
Unknown
Amanda works as an acting coach to help actors on skill development and preparation for their productions. As a practitioner, Amanda has worked in theater, film, television and conservatoire institutions nationally and internationally, and lectures at multiple universities. I'm excited to chat with Amanda as she's studied a wide variety of specialisms, which she integrates into her coaching practices, from somatic psychology to energetics physiology to method acting.
00:05:48:21 - 00:06:16:14
Unknown
Amanda has a holistic approach to help performers get into their zone. Hey, Amanda, welcome to the show. Thank you. So what is an energetic performer? What does that mean? Okay, so for me, it means somebody who is really connected and in touch with their internal life. So in acting, you talk about being internal. And the internal is composed of your show.
00:06:16:14 - 00:06:53:03
Unknown
So your emotions, your sensations, your flow, your energy flow, your chief flow and the energetic performer is somebody who really has a connected relationship with their inner life. How does it help to think of things in terms of energy? Like often when I'm working with someone and I help them to kind of see what they're doing from an energetic perspective, it it removes those mental barriers, those physical hurdles, or with strengths that we often put upon ourselves.
00:06:53:05 - 00:07:18:11
Unknown
How do you find when you work with someone and you help them see themselves as an energetic performer? How does it help them? It places them in their body. So my go to is not to talk about what do you think it's what do you feel or what do you sense? And as soon as you say that, it does limit the thinking because you're traveling into a different place, you're not.
00:07:18:11 - 00:07:45:21
Unknown
What do you think? Oh, I'm thinking, what do you feel? Where are the sensations in your body? Where is your breath? Do you feel it in your heart or your gut? What's happening with your feet? So you guide them away from your habit to make something of a complex and. And to bring it to life. Because thinking is only part of the story.
00:07:45:23 - 00:08:13:16
Unknown
The more interesting part is what you feel. I love that question. What do you sense? You know, we're so often asked, what do you think about that? What do you feel about that which is evokes? It's quite a linear response. When you say to someone, what do you sense or say? What you sense might not be in your body, might be in the atmosphere, because that's all the time we're looking at is atmospheres and environments, and our environments change us.
00:08:13:18 - 00:08:37:16
Unknown
So you go from a public place to a private space. We go to an environment and you kind of sense something's happening. And that's the wisdom of the body, the wisdom, the body is somehow informing you that something's not right. And that often happens either very quickly, at the same time as a thought, or it appears that it can precede the thought.
00:08:37:18 - 00:09:03:12
Unknown
And that's really interesting, that sense, like not in the sense who's danger, whether or not they think about it, but you sense it in the atmosphere. You read somebody and somebody walks in the space and you immediately can clock before they've spoken. They're not happy. Something's happening. It's a sense. And that's really important to develop that skill. Well that awareness.
00:09:03:14 - 00:09:35:08
Unknown
And how did you get into this? I'm hear he started young because of an injury. And then you appreciated the impact I had on how you felt and how it reduced your overthinking. Is that correct? Yeah, that is correct, yeah I do, I've always been trained physically, so I, I would say that I was aware of my body, but yeah, I had an injury who'd had a problem with my lower back.
00:09:35:10 - 00:10:07:09
Unknown
And I had developed a thesis which is with my L5 and L3 and somebody said said I was going through physio, this fairly standard physician. Somebody said to me, you should try qigong and see what happens, and I didn't. I knew about teaching because I'd done some teaching, but I went along and tried it and I was absolutely stunned by its capacity, the capacity to feel and to really direct my attention into my body.
00:10:07:09 - 00:10:31:23
Unknown
So to me, is the tea leaves, the overthinking. And that's part of the training I did elemental qigong. There's all sorts of different strands of qigong, but I and that's really fascinating. This is this obviously goes to a lot of it has the same principle and it all has the same principles, but a lot of the movements and the postures are the same, but there's some slightly different versions.
00:10:31:23 - 00:11:00:05
Unknown
So elemental really draws on the five elements in Chinese traditional medicine, and it just immediately, somehow connected me with the idea of upper body. So yin and yang, upper energy, no energy, and just the observation of we are very good. Most of us of communicating with upper yang energy because it's forward, it's up when we look at people all the time, then what happens to back energy?
00:11:00:07 - 00:11:22:16
Unknown
What happens to lower energy? And I just then started to translate that into teaching and looking at the challenges, the repeated challenges of what I find when I teach and most of the time it was about physicality. It was this why are they so stiff? What's happening? Why is those words so clunky? And as soon as you put a camera on someone, the body goes stiff.
00:11:22:16 - 00:11:51:03
Unknown
What's happening there? And then I started to apply some of my discoveries, some of the postures, and include some of the postures into the training, and found that eventually, and it does take a time, people became more aware of how they use their bodies. So where they place their weight, where the tensions are classically locking the knees and the position of the pelvis.
00:11:51:05 - 00:12:13:12
Unknown
I mean, it took me, I had to say it took me quite a while to notice that I lifted in my diaphragm and I lifted in. When you lift in your diaphragm, your breath, therefore obviously your breath changes and your emotional expression is a little bit limited. I'm conscious of that. I'd done a fair amount of dancing, a lot of dance particularly.
00:12:13:12 - 00:12:35:00
Unknown
It's classical. They train you to lift. And I suddenly thought, oh, that's really interesting. That really inhibits the feeling. And I'd worked with a lot of dancers that wanted to add to became actors. And then I suddenly clocked that, actually, let's work with the diaphragm and we work the dive. And oft often the dancers found it difficult to speak.
00:12:35:00 - 00:12:53:14
Unknown
I mean, obviously could speak, but they found when they feel very good expressing themselves physically and the assumption is, oh, they're going to be great actors. But as soon as I said any lines, it just sounded really strange. So as soon as I started to realign the body, things fell into place. So all of that came from exploring with Chico.
00:12:53:17 - 00:13:28:08
Unknown
And I'm working with fire as well, working with different timing and different rhythms and just a softness to the body, and through just repeated patterns of just basically waving your arms around in different ways. It was just amazing how it settles people's tempo. So instead of being really over, you know, panicked or anxious, as soon as you start to ground, as soon as you take the breath down, as soon as you work from a lower place, it's almost instantaneous.
00:13:28:10 - 00:13:44:14
Unknown
And it's something changes in the whole demeanor of the individual.
00:13:44:16 - 00:14:28:20
Unknown
Energetic scientist would argue that energy channels are the most fundamental systems in our body, and give rise to and regulate all other innate systems. Yoga describes a network of 72,000 Nadia's, or energy channels throughout the body. Ancient Chinese practices outlined 12 meridians, or energy highways that facilitate energetic movement. These ancient nations have well sprung an array of scientific avenues, such as the examination of magnetic fields, electro photonic emission, brainwave frequencies, bio electromagnetics, and energetic psychology.
00:14:28:22 - 00:14:58:11
Unknown
Why is this important? Well, biologist, research and president of Nature's Own Research Association, Doctor James Osman, suggests that communication within energy fields can travel at speeds near that of speed of light around 180,000 miles per second. This is much faster than we typically measure communication in the body, such as the communication through to feasible gases. Neurochemical exchanges are a nervous system.
00:14:58:13 - 00:15:25:18
Unknown
He suggests that the whole body is deeply connected by a living matrix of energy, like a spider's web, linking all aspects of our being. And almost every scientist can agree that energy underpins all that we are at the most basic level. Our body is made up of matter, or billions of vibrating atoms in the form of protons, neutrons and electrons and direct line.
00:15:25:18 - 00:16:12:09
Unknown
Weber, a quantum physicist who featured in professor Will six, 2004 physics Nobel Prize lecture, suggests that these atomic structures are composed of mostly empty space. For example, in the case of a hydrogen atom, 99.99999999999996% empty space and 0.0000000004% hydrogen. And this empty space, which seems to account for the vast majority within an atom, is not actually vacant, but instead is made up of invisible vibrating energy, electrostatic fields.
00:16:12:11 - 00:16:48:00
Unknown
Meaning the 99.99999999 nanometers percent of all that we are is actually energy. In truth, we are not human beings transmitting energy. We are energetic beings integrated into atoms, matter and into physical form. The realization of seeing ourselves as primarily as an energetic being can be somewhat mind boggling, but nevertheless, it can be extremely helpful when we wrap our minds around it.
00:16:48:02 - 00:17:17:04
Unknown
When connecting with your bodily energy is often easier than one might first assume, you only have to rub a balloon against your head to see how a small electrical charge can make the balloon stick to your Upside-Down hand, or cause the strands of hair on your head to stand upright without the balloon even touching it. I imagine some listeners thinking, you know, do you need to understand Qi or feel it in order to engage in your work?
00:17:17:04 - 00:17:49:02
Unknown
Like when you work with someone, I imagine you don't necessarily go through that front door. You go to a side door and and help them where the struggles they're facing at the time. I've learned a few things about when to introduce, because I have learned that I work with someone, and I will know immediately that the if I work with the body, if I worked to work on trying to increase their flow, on their energy, that's the solution.
00:17:49:02 - 00:18:23:23
Unknown
I know that's the solution. But sometimes the concepts a little alien and a little bit scary in a way. So working with the body, it can alarm people. As much as that sounds odd, because different sensations and different, different feelings arrive. And often as soon as you start to work, particularly with the diaphragm, it releases. And when it releases, then, an individual might feel something that has been locked and stored there for a long time.
00:18:23:23 - 00:19:04:14
Unknown
And so there's a gentleness and there's a care. So from a teaching perspective, you have to be mindful of the individual and their history or who they are and how they feel. But also just I don't just not saying too much about where the origins of the work is. At first it's let's see if it's comfortable for someone because it's usual to come to the text first, will come to the text first, and then I'll say something about, oh, let's explore the idea that mine is not in their head, it's in their seat, or it's in their it's in their gut.
00:19:04:19 - 00:19:24:09
Unknown
So it's coming from their gut. So it's coming from a different place in their body. And as soon as you start to explore that then it'll instigate usually on interest. Oh that's interesting. Yeah. Not felt different okay. So now let's hone in on that feeling. What is that feeling. What did it feel like. Now let's work on the breath.
00:19:24:11 - 00:19:44:06
Unknown
So let's see what happens if we change your breath. So I do go in quite gently with people that are new to it, mainly because it's still a little bit of an alien concept. And when you're working with someone's body, you're working with the fragility, you're working with their history in their past. And so I don't know that house.
00:19:44:07 - 00:20:05:20
Unknown
I can look at the body and sort of say that, ooh, that looks like there's something going on there. But I don't know for sure what it means because I don't know them. So yeah, it's being careful. And I work with a lot of young people as well. I like I mean, my youngest professional actor is eight and then so I still do the same.
00:20:05:20 - 00:20:31:13
Unknown
Let's work with let's work with your breath or let's work with your feet or let's work. We do an exercise where we're just playing with just, you know, throwing even if it's throwing a ball, you're throwing the ball, but you're using your whole body just to get them, to invite them to express in a different way. So no matter who I work with, somehow the concepts and the ideas of working with energy is introduced.
00:20:31:15 - 00:20:55:13
Unknown
And when they are ready and they are curious, how do you tend to open that door? You know, often I go back to time and time again of the rubbing the hands, and you don't even need to rub your hands, but just sort of focus your mind and your perspective on the energy between your hands. And eventually you start to feel a sort of repelling magnet in between.
00:20:55:13 - 00:21:15:01
Unknown
And then you can from there, I can kind of create a conversation of going, well, what do you think that is? And how do you think your cells vibrate? How do you think all these beautiful tissues and move is one cohesively all the time, and it sprouts from there? How do you open that door with them when they're curious?
00:21:15:03 - 00:21:45:00
Unknown
When they're curious? We might work more intensely. So we work might work for a longer period of time on, say, for example, the feeling, the energy between the hands or doing a particular, routine. We might, instead of doing it for two minutes, you might do it for five, or we might do it for ten. I might say in order to e to really allow the energy to settle in, to work with this idea of flowing, because I sometimes talk to them about slowing.
00:21:45:03 - 00:22:13:21
Unknown
How does your energy flow? What does it feel like to. I'm when I use myself as an example, I might say I finish uneven it. For some reason I feel like my right side is very my left side feels depleted today, I feel is a little bit, but it might be very buoyant on my right side or I can get I've got the sensation, so I often use myself as a way in for them to think, oh, okay, what's maybe I feel that or what's happening to me, but I don't.
00:22:13:21 - 00:22:38:01
Unknown
It's interesting that you've just said cells vibrate and the tissues. That's something that I possibly wouldn't say because I don't. I know that, but I probably wouldn't say I might use the word vibration, but unless they're people that have been working me for a long time, I don't get too detailed on what is anatomically or or really happening within the body.
00:22:38:02 - 00:23:04:16
Unknown
I say, let's see if you can feel it, because I still think there's a potential in. Sometimes I've got 1 or 2 people that have been working with me for many years, and they they don't do qigong outside of working with me. So my work is geared towards actors. I've taught qigong for people that are not actors before, and it's very different because actors, the very nature of the craft is that you are instruments.
00:23:04:16 - 00:23:30:13
Unknown
Our body, the you haven't got anything else, you haven't got like as a musician, it's got the piano, the violin. We have, we've got our bodies. So your body has to be your main focus. So we, we know that the body is trained. You train your breath, you train to reduce tension. You become aware of your body. You're able to move your body in different ways to try to make that transition into different physicality.
00:23:30:15 - 00:23:52:08
Unknown
But I still make you that something I should do, actually. Maybe I should talk a little bit more about it. I sometimes will guide people to articles on the course. I teach their masters program and they the students do a they have a 3000 word essay, part of their masters at the end. And very often like this year as far as I'm supervising all their works about energy.
00:23:52:08 - 00:24:25:22
Unknown
So in that case, I will say lead me or or go and look at this one that's on that. Look at Peter Levine. Okay, look at Baba Rothschild, look at these people who really are at the forefront of understanding what is trauma in the body. But generally with people in the classroom, I it's not something that I would say too much because I suppose what I don't want them to do is to go into thinking, and I might throw an article out, I might say, read this article and see what you think and come back and let's just have a chat about it and tell me any questions or any thoughts.
00:24:26:00 - 00:25:10:01
Unknown
Yeah, interesting. If connecting with our energy is one way to kind of sensitize ourself to it is to work with our body. And you mentioned that the control my there. And when we do that we tend to unlock stored emotion. We tend to unlock things that have been stagnant for a little while. Does that have an into play with performance in the sense that the more someone has done their personal work and release those stored emotions and done their emotional, you know, either psychodynamic work or reduced trauma within that body from the past, does that help them to become a better actor?
00:25:10:03 - 00:25:30:06
Unknown
It gives them more accessibility to the whole of their bodies. So the kind of work I do is called psychophysical, which you might argue everything's psychophysical, but as a kind of a method of, of acting, it's psychophysical, which means we work with the mind body, but we also say the mind body connected there one, there's not a separation.
00:25:30:08 - 00:25:59:08
Unknown
Yes. Very much. Those people, primarily aware of how much their their own history and their own emotional language or events that have happened that have created some traumatic response. Those people that are aware of that and have dealt with that very much have more connection, I would say. But it's not unusual to come across an actor to.
00:25:59:10 - 00:26:29:20
Unknown
But the earlier stages of their training, where you can see that there's a lot of reluctance to to go into emotional places or complex emotions, and very often that's obviously connected with themselves. And there is the danger of being triggered to to become over distressed. And the fear, a fear of connecting, seeing to an emotion, being, anger, sexuality we're dealing with, we're dealing with that.
00:26:29:20 - 00:26:54:19
Unknown
If your role needs it and you're not able to get to that place then possible, you probably won't get the moment. You won't get well. But yeah, very much. And that's why there is a as I said earlier, there's a fragility about about what you're working means and you have to work safely. I wouldn't say everybody does do this, but you have to work with nobody should leave a space in my sessions anyway.
00:26:54:19 - 00:27:20:04
Unknown
Nobody leaves the space unless I feel that they are safe to leave that space. And what I mean by that is if we've gone through a scene which is required violence, or which is required sadness, or in any form of emotion or even elation, you know, the balance in emotion. They leave the space in a balanced way. And the end of the session very much.
00:27:20:04 - 00:27:41:03
Unknown
It might be an either it's always coming together in a discussion. If it's not discussion, it's about grounding. So we're trying to I'm trying to make sure that they that there is a return to some kind of state within that mind and body where they feel okay to go back into the world. And if somebody doesn't, then they stay behind.
00:27:41:08 - 00:28:08:02
Unknown
I feel very strongly about that. But I don't think that's everybody's practice. But it's certainly mine. Yeah. Well done creating that safe space. I feel it's essential for sustained performance, you know, so the processing can be consolidated rather than negative. I imagine that's quite a complex area. You know, when I look at people finding their flow and doing a great performance, there's an emotionality to it.
00:28:08:02 - 00:28:51:09
Unknown
This whole almost neutral where we're just it's just intuitive action. But with acting, they I'm assuming actors have to really harness that emotion or harness the power information from that particular role, from that particular individual. And by being emotional, that typically triggers our emotions or detached emotions or emotions that are connected to it. So I imagine there's a lot of triggering for actors that they might need to be emotional to be good at their role, but there's a double edged sword where it's probably not helping them to perform at their role.
00:28:51:11 - 00:29:20:19
Unknown
How do you navigate that space? But then saying one of the things is about understanding how to tune your body and to know your body and to find that place where you feel safe, grounded, secure, balanced. So that's the training which not everybody does feel that in life. And in fact, I would say probably quite a lot of people don't.
00:29:20:21 - 00:29:53:11
Unknown
So first of all, and part of the training is to get to understand your physicality and your emotionality. And who are you and how do you feel and what are your emotions and what things are difficult for you and what things are not difficult for you, but also to? I work with the stance, the piece, dancing, qigong and encouragement, qigong in watching and which is where theoretically the energy, the yin and yang like a balance in the channels are balance and channels open.
00:29:53:11 - 00:30:17:05
Unknown
And so we work. I work on that repeatedly. So everybody who trains with me understands what we're trees we spend time in, that we don't spend time working on ways to and exercises and routines that balance. We spend time on grounding and spend time on getting the breath abdominal back. So you're aware of the fact of your breath starts to rise.
00:30:17:07 - 00:30:42:06
Unknown
Usually if you go into, a state of anxiety or overwhelmed, your breath will rise so you notice the sensations of what might happen. So if you like, there is a won't can't call it neutral, but there is a base point to return to. Now you're going off into play a scene where it requires an emotional journey, and the emotional journey might be somewhat turbulent.
00:30:42:08 - 00:31:16:21
Unknown
So we obviously work in a rehearsal Luna practice environment where you're playing around with that. But then we come back to it, then we come back to that neutrality at different places in the session. So you might I might take somebody to some other place and then I'll say, okay, let's step out of that. Let's walk. So even if it's just something like walking into the emotional state in stages and then let's walk out of it and let's take a breath and let's have a shake out and let's just come, let's have a drink of water.
00:31:16:21 - 00:31:43:18
Unknown
Let's change the temperature if you like. And I do know actors that, you know, have their own ways, be it cleansing, be it like water, be a shower, be it something, but often. So I also teach strategies that if you feel that your body is becoming overwhelmed, you have some resources, and those resources will help you to get back into what feels safe here.
00:31:43:20 - 00:32:07:05
Unknown
And that's usually connected with breath and routine and grounding. Sending everything down. Don't let everything come up, because as soon as everything starts to rise, then you're still working with fire. You're working with people's tendency to get a little overwhelmed. Yeah, those resources become crucial. And it's interesting because in trauma training, that's exactly what people like living in Boston talk about.
00:32:07:07 - 00:32:29:12
Unknown
You have to have resources when you're working with your emotions. Yeah, potential to get triggered. You have to have resources. But first of all, you have to have an awareness and receptivity to you. Understand what it is, what's going on in my body. And another time when people come to me, they don't necessarily have that. So the awareness is that, oh, I can feel tightness here.
00:32:29:12 - 00:32:57:18
Unknown
Oh, right. Warm. That's what we got. What's happening here. Yeah. And I imagine for a lot of people that they're learning on the spot, you know that emotional intelligence as well as how to harness that emotion and that energy for the role is a very, you know, learning through doing. And you wrote an article on learning three doing and training, which prioritizes the exploration and discovery as a foundation for craft and artistic freedom.
00:32:57:20 - 00:33:27:00
Unknown
How does that differ from the concept of an active learning? And can you give us the, the cliff notes of that article? Yeah, to remember the article first. But yes, learning through doing is for me. You're continually working on playing around, discovering as soon as an actor makes a choice, they limit himself to that choice. And in a way, the brain quite nice to make choices.
00:33:27:02 - 00:33:42:19
Unknown
You read it and you say you read a line and you think, okay, yeah, I've got that, I've got it. I've got up here, but you might not have it in here, might not have it in your body. And so you might sound fine, but your body might not, might be doing something totally different to what the line is.
00:33:42:19 - 00:34:14:17
Unknown
So the line might be, you know, something very welcoming and hey, how are you? Great. You know, like, I'm feeling fantastic. And then all of a sudden you look at the body, body's full of tension and that's committed with them saying the line, but it's not being, it's not really it's not absorbed into the body. So that notion of doing is that you're playing, you're exploring, you're being like that imaginative child that as we grow, we somehow leave behind, you know, you're able to go into the other space, which is not your own reality.
00:34:14:19 - 00:34:34:20
Unknown
And also, I'll often say to people, you, since you pick up a script, get up and walk. Right now, the script doesn't require you to walk, but it's about you engaging your body. Said the doing is about involving everything, because if you give someone an opportunity to think, they will think. So it's like, let's get up and let's do and let's take some options.
00:34:34:21 - 00:35:08:18
Unknown
So that's and then through learning you make discoveries. You discover, oh, that's interesting. Could be this or it could be that or I feel different now because I've done it in that way that the experimentation is just taking yourself through options. Now there's also the the imaginative. So the imaginative, your imagination is obviously based on what you've experienced, what you've seen, what your you know, your imagination is partially also about your perceptions, but you can all of a sudden start to flavor that without the things, which is what I encourage people to do.
00:35:08:18 - 00:35:24:22
Unknown
So you know that you if I say a beach, you're probably going to go to the beach that you know, but then you might add something different. As you're talking to them, you might say, oh no, this beach has got a different color. Sand. What is it? This beach. It's got a different type of water. What's the water?
00:35:25:00 - 00:35:42:19
Unknown
What's that? What's the feel of the water? Is it kind of like very kind of the waves crashing or is it just really gentle? This seems got some creatures on it. What are the creatures? And you start to then bring in other elements and they. And there's something about the imagination which makes it in a way safe as well.
00:35:43:00 - 00:36:08:17
Unknown
Because you're not you've left you suited, left your own experiences. Now, I suppose if you talk about an active learning, you could also be talking about experiences that you have primarily experience, say, then talking about a role which requires mourning because of a death. Someone's died now. Yes, it's fact. I will draw on people that I know that have passed away.
00:36:08:17 - 00:36:33:12
Unknown
I will draw on my own experiences. But how safe is that to do it identically and to repeat that, and so to go into the imagination actually means that somehow I then you can't help but not draw on yourself. But to go into the imagination in some ways also flavors the work gives it something slightly different. However, having said that, you know there are many roles where you might do where you have to experience.
00:36:33:12 - 00:36:47:20
Unknown
If you're playing a chef, you know it's not unlikely that someone will go and experience what it's like to be in a kitchen, you know, for you to come, to get a real sense of the atmosphere. And that's a good thing. That's a good thing, that whatever, if you're going to play a teacher, then you should observe teachers.
00:36:47:20 - 00:37:08:16
Unknown
If you're going to be a doctor, you can't become a doctor. You can't go and do an operation, but you can observe them and look at and try to get a grasp on their knowledge. So in some ways, both of them are pretty essential, I would say, for for convincing the audience that you are who you're supposed to be.
00:37:08:18 - 00:37:43:21
Unknown
Thanks for listening. If you enjoyed this episode, please hit the subscribe or follow button. Every subscription helps me to spend more time making this show even more valuable for you, so please hit the subscribe button now! Okay, let's dive back in. And how do you connect the qigong knowledge with somatic psychology in your work? You've talked about connecting with person's body and and seeing that is an energetic expression.
00:37:43:23 - 00:38:20:12
Unknown
How do you engage with the client? I encountered somatic psychology through therapy that I personally have had, and also can share a piece that I know. And one particular person suggested that I need Sandy Kellyman quite a long time ago. And there's this book called The Emotional Anatomy, which I think is an absolute brilliant book. It's composed of diagrams of the body and the diagrams, show what you might call archetypal postures that are familiar and in different states.
00:38:20:14 - 00:38:50:06
Unknown
So they might be something, they might be bloated, there might be collapse, they might be rigid and I suppose they're archetypal because they're recognizable body shapes that the human being gets into when it's experiencing something. So fear typically we might go rigid when we're boasting about something, we might get a little bloated when we're somewhat distressed or depressed.
00:38:50:12 - 00:39:14:12
Unknown
Often the body kind of collapses. So these are shakes that the body creates which express our emotional truths. So someone might say to you, you might say, hi, how are you? And you might say, I'm great. I'm good. Great. Thank you. Look at the body. Really? You know, there's a little collapsible or there's a tight breath. So say the body is very truthful.
00:39:14:12 - 00:39:41:06
Unknown
We're body really finds it difficult to to nice. So that working with Kelly means work largely. I became very fascinated with that and then started to look at when applying characters to look at if you like the architecture of the body. So to work in quite an enlarged way, so to say, okay, we've got this person and this these are all the descriptions, this is the behavior of this individual, this is the history of this individual.
00:39:41:06 - 00:40:04:18
Unknown
What kind of body do we think? And let's use these archetypal shapes as a starting point or as maisonette vocabulary. So you might say this a particular point where someone might just even if it's just a bit, just slightly collapse at the prospect of not getting what they want or, you know, the world has come crashing down, you know, you're not buoyant.
00:40:04:20 - 00:40:31:18
Unknown
And it's very few people are buoyant when everything's gone wrong. There's a kind of a typical response to that. And so somatic psychology helped me or gave me, again, a resource to explore and to play with. And then how you add that qigong to that. You think like what happens? So we worked with Ritchie, which is this position where the body can throw slow, the breath knows you're connecting him with the meridian channels.
00:40:31:18 - 00:40:52:03
Unknown
Everything feels great. And then all of a sudden say, okay, let's collapse and you collapse and use the diaphragm as the point of collapse. So the diaphragm goes in a little bit. When the diaphragm goes in, then the organs will be seriously affected, of course, and the flow of the breath will be affected. And then that sensation, it's just like, what does that feel like?
00:40:52:05 - 00:41:16:03
Unknown
Oh, it feels a challenge. It feels difficult. It what does it feel like is, you know, you're very rigid and some people live in a rigid state. But if you're an actor, you can't live in a state because the idea is at a basic level that you're working to have the physicality, that you can transform. And I mean change.
00:41:16:03 - 00:41:41:13
Unknown
Like not every every body, every character you have will have the same actions and same gestures, the same overall shape of their body. Of course they won't, because every individual is different. So you're translating the information on the page into a physicality. And so working words okay, this is a person obviously needs a very tense life. So their body might be different to yours.
00:41:41:13 - 00:42:03:18
Unknown
Work to experience what it feels like. So we play with that. And then with the Chiko we look at this is what the changes are. But now you're using the qigong to return here, using the return the qigong to return back to something which is slightly more stable and more pleasant for the body to experience. Then the collapsed state, or the rigidity or the bloated nets.
00:42:03:20 - 00:42:35:02
Unknown
So let's say we have a performer. They're on stage. They've suddenly gone into their head a little bit too much. They've become self-conscious, perhaps gone a bit wooden, a bit rigid, and they're struggling to really connect to that role. What are you doing, and do you work with your energy in transmitting that to them? As many therapies, Reiki or something else engage in to sort of facilitate that?
00:42:35:05 - 00:42:59:02
Unknown
Or do you really work on helping them understand their energy and the relationship that they have with how they're connecting in that moment? What I often say to them, if you feel are scared, for if you feel anxious, then don't hide that work. Quit it, because as soon as you understand my body is anxious, it will start to link.
00:42:59:04 - 00:43:20:05
Unknown
Whereas if you work and act with anxiety, then where is it? It would be. Maybe it would basically go to port because you won't be. You won't be able to reach where that character is meant to go and you somehow got this inner struggle. So if you feel anxious, recognize it. I feel anxious and anxious. Breathe into the anxiety.
00:43:20:06 - 00:43:39:10
Unknown
Just use your breath. I mean your breath. The breath is the solution to most things, to be honest. It's just bring in abdominal breath and feel the feel the power of your breath and stop. Because what will happen? What will the chances are what's happened in that situation is that breath is got nights a move to the upper night lighting quick.
00:43:39:12 - 00:44:02:10
Unknown
The breath will have change. The breath will be automatically kind of disrupting or joining in the chaos. The breath will be part of that. So channel the breath start to to. So I might if someone starts and they start a monologue or whatever, or a scene and they feeling anxious, I might stop and say, okay, what's happening?
00:44:02:10 - 00:44:30:21
Unknown
What are you feeling? I'm noticing your breath feels a bit high. Let's move your breath down. Let's give it a go and see or my classic thing is to work with the feet. So acknowledge your feet. Unlock your. Because if you're in again, if you've lost your sense of where you're supposed to be in a scene, your body going back to those archetypal shapes of standing can and then your body is probably gone.
00:44:30:22 - 00:44:53:06
Unknown
Time might not have gone rigid, but it would. It got held because it's almost automatic. It will have done that. So do the opposite. Loosen off, you know, recognize. So one of my solutions is when the body and this works quite well on camera actually if you're often on camera on tight shots kind of it's quite common for the upper body.
00:44:53:09 - 00:45:12:00
Unknown
You know, look, I know half your body. I can tell on your face if your knees and your body lower half your body is locked. Why? Because there's tension usually not to your knees. Then your facial muscles will be affected by that. And people think that's ridiculous. Of course it's not ridiculous. It makes sense if this tension in one part of the body will be shown.
00:45:12:00 - 00:45:31:15
Unknown
If you own a close up and your body is locked, we can see on your face what's happening. So I often say move your weight when we are normal, normally communicate with each other. We move our way through our feet even if we're sitting down. I'm talking to you now. I move that my weight goes to my heels, I move forward, my weight goes forward.
00:45:31:16 - 00:45:50:17
Unknown
So I say, poke into your feet at all times. And if you do in a scene and you just notice, you go in tight, go into your feet because you go into your feet, it somehow offers a little bit more. The body starts to relax a little bit more. It connects, it remembers you've got a lower half rather than actually I've just got my head in my chest.
00:45:50:22 - 00:46:13:18
Unknown
Oh, hang on, but I've also got some legs and that's almost like an instant on camera. It's instantly changes things on stage. If you're an experienced actor, by the time you you've worked on the play, you know the flow. You know the slug of the coffee, this scene. But yeah, of course there are moments when people come out that's almost going to happen.
00:46:13:20 - 00:46:40:07
Unknown
And what is the Michael Chekhov technique if I've pronounced that correctly? Yeah. Michael check. Well, Michael Chekhov was seen the nephew of the playwright, Russian playwright Anton Chekhov. So they're two very different. But Michael Chekhov became an actor and he worked with Stanislavsky, who was a very famous Russian actor trainer in the early part of the 20th century.
00:46:40:07 - 00:47:06:16
Unknown
So you're in Russia, and he was part of Moscow Art theater around 1910. And so he at that time, so he was training with Stanislavsky, and then he developed his own system working, and he worked. He became very interested in Rudolf Steiner. So that kind of Rudolf Steiner concept of the physicality in the physical, you agree with me, was something that he did on it.
00:47:06:16 - 00:47:39:10
Unknown
And he also became interested in eastern philosophy. Did Michael Chekhov isolate Stanislavsky? Actually, yoga was taught in Moscow art theater in 1910, you know, so it was quite kind of revolutionary in a way. So he developed his system, which is holistic. So it's working with the whole of the body. And he developed a series of exercises which work was a whole process, a whole methodology, which was to encourage the actor to get expressive and also to work with the imagination.
00:47:39:12 - 00:48:08:01
Unknown
So he's quite a famous story about Michael Chekhov. He did a scene and and he was also playing someone whose father died and afterwards senselessly ill. Whoever it was, I don't ask you to said, all right, so I'm so sorry that your father is not that I was imagining it was acting. Was it real? And so his his approach is not necessarily to dwell on your personal experiences, but to go into the imagination.
00:48:08:02 - 00:48:41:19
Unknown
And I trained it. Chekhov had to leave Russia when in the style emerging around nine 2728, and he came to York, travel to New York, and he ended up quite strangely in Dartington in Devon, Dartington College of Arts in 1936, again with Rudolf Lobb and with the host ballet with loads of experimental people. Chris was this Dorothy Elmhurst had set up this, fairly alternative environment at this enormous house at Dartington Hall, and he played around and developed his work there with Norman.
00:48:41:21 - 00:49:06:10
Unknown
So there's a real crossover in their work, and it's very playful, very open. Psychological gesture is his main thing, which again draws into Somatics psychology that your one gesture can can be this summative expression of what's going on in your mind. And that's true. We gesture all the time and we gesture. What we do with the gesture is actually expressing what we're thinking.
00:49:06:12 - 00:49:38:17
Unknown
And so psychological gesture was one of his massive things. And then I landed Dartington. I trained at Dartington myself so obviously much later. And it's an amazing place, which just at that time it's closed down now and trained creatives. So it just trained people to be expressive and creative and playful and an imaginative and slightly wacky because it wasn't traditional, which might have been why in he had a real spiritual connection as well.
00:49:38:19 - 00:50:03:23
Unknown
He's very much into the notion of the spirit, which is why I think the Russian regime decided that he should be exiled or censored. What he has at Dartington, the house only couple of weeks ago. Beautiful, beautiful grounds and a beautiful place, and still doing some storytelling courses and still active in some things. And they got a beautiful little cinema.
00:50:03:23 - 00:50:23:17
Unknown
There it is. It changed. Yeah. Oh, that cinema and the bond centers. And it was amazing there. I've seen many a film in. It's in we did very different kind of training to what you would do if you went to at that time, or Lander or Rada row when it's at all central, which is where I work now.
00:50:23:23 - 00:50:45:06
Unknown
What they did very different. We went walk walking on the moors. We went watching the sunrise. We went for running round the dance. We laid on the floor in the in in those gardens and looked at the sky. And you think like, what was I doing? And I did think that at the time when I was 19 and understand what any of this is about, but I'm just going to go with it and see.
00:50:45:06 - 00:51:06:23
Unknown
And much later and we did do loads of physical experimentation, which was, you know, for 19, 20, 21 year old. This is madness. Later on, I appreciated it, understand what it was. But I often say to people at work with now you might this might not make sense now, but it will later. It's trust. It will later.
00:51:07:01 - 00:51:28:22
Unknown
And I think that Chekhov would have been died in 1955, in America, went over to America after he finished at Dartington. I think he very much would have been interested in energy. I think that's where he would moved, because he his idea of radiation, that's his concept, this idea of radiation. He was very what is radiation? What does it do?
00:51:28:22 - 00:51:48:16
Unknown
You know, the sort of like a river of energy, which is a really nice concept, meaning that the thoughts go from here into your body like a river, like water. And so the imagery I thought I think was is really beautiful. He uses this exercise called Imaginary Body, where you imagine the body of the character and that body can be different to you.
00:51:48:16 - 00:52:16:03
Unknown
It can be fatter, thinner, longer notes, long fingers, it can be completely different. And you kind of step into this imaginative body and somehow something happens. It kind of transforms. And then you work with different energies to to sort of see what fits the character. So I think he was very much before his time. I got fascinated with energy and how we can connect with it, harness it and so forth.
00:52:16:03 - 00:52:47:04
Unknown
When I originally studied Reiki many moons ago, now maybe ten years or 15 years ago. And how has James Osmond's work influenced you? I discovered James Osmond around the time when I was doing training to teach qigong, and I also did a course called when I was writing the Energetic Performer. I did a course called Living Anatomy, which is the course that people who train to be cranial psychotherapists do.
00:52:47:06 - 00:53:23:13
Unknown
So it's really working on understanding the anatomy, and it's the fundamental course you have to do. But it obviously because it's cranial psychotherapy, it's working with energy. And Osmond was somebody that they asked us to read and I bought his book on energy medicine. And again my eyes just opened. This is really fascinating. And on that course in Living Anatomy, we looked at embryology and Newton's sense, the movement of the cells and the development of the cells and and the shapes that the, the cells make.
00:53:23:13 - 00:53:46:20
Unknown
When the fetus is growing or at conception. And, and it was really interesting talking about figures and I and talk about flutters and talk about the movement of the cells within that initial stage of one stage of embryology. And in qigong, we talk a lot about figures tonight, about she, about being existing in the environment, figures about in the body.
00:53:46:20 - 00:54:02:21
Unknown
And and often I will just get people to move in a figure of eight just moving the figure of eight and then moves the other way in. If I go away, I know I say that idea of there are sensations in the body, the very the body really knows because it knows because. And this is what I got from that course.
00:54:02:21 - 00:54:23:07
Unknown
And reading Ocean's book, they it knows because it's always been with it. So that flutters, that kind of slight movement that we get, that we feel in our stomach where we feel a bit anxious or nervous or apprehensive. Body knows that because the formative movement of the cell structures. And so all of that I really found absolutely amazing.
00:54:23:09 - 00:54:44:22
Unknown
And then from ocean started to read other people as well. And I came across the biologist May 1st home and and her she talks about quantum cohesion and and I think what I do is I translate I actually do find the pure science a bit quite complex and difficult, but I persevered through, read quite a lot of books, and I think I translated it in my own way.
00:54:44:22 - 00:55:08:21
Unknown
Whether or not it's correct is another matter, but more that that idea of cohesion for me is about things moving in the same way, moving that there's some, you know, there's it like the cells are talking to each other and everything is communicating in a cohesive way. And I think we all know the sensations of when the cells are not cohesive.
00:55:08:23 - 00:55:34:02
Unknown
We might not use that language. All my cells are one cohesive at the moment. But you know, when you feel a bit chaotic or a bit unsure or an obvious thing, what's happening in a movement down to the cells, the movement of the cells is moving, is vibrating, and that I got from reading Osman and all of the people he suggested is fascinated me because I never really got that from school.
00:55:34:03 - 00:55:57:19
Unknown
I never got that from biology at school. I never really understood. Well, I think what I understand now would have been really useful, but that didn't come from school and came from later learning. And that's very much what I feel. You know, that certainly as a practitioner who's working with a body that you have to know about it, you have to train your own body and you have to understand it and you have to keep understanding it.
00:55:57:20 - 00:56:19:10
Unknown
So I'm still I'm about to encounter a little bit. Do come to that trauma. I'm really fascinated in the playing of trauma for the actor. What does that mean for the playing trauma for the actor's body? Where do they take themselves? You know, how safe is that? How can we do that safely? Water what is happening. So next my next thing that I'm somehow going to launch myself into it.
00:56:19:12 - 00:56:53:04
Unknown
But yeah. Ashman and all of those early pioneers of energy work, a really instrumental, I think, in certainly for me, yeah, he gives a great rundown of the science and the biology of how energy affects our body and, is integral to it. And his idea of the living matrix underpinning he all our systems that are operating, I found absolutely fascinating and really help my eyes to open towards things like Reiki.
00:56:53:04 - 00:57:39:13
Unknown
You mentioned cranio psychotherapy. There had some cranial psychotherapy when I was quite young. I didn't know much about it at the time and kind of went in quite green and ignorance about the whole thing, but found the whole process absolutely incredible in terms of intuitively sitting with my body, you know, and asking myself quite specific questions and seeing how the body would respond, obviously facilitated through someone at the time, you know, and I ended up curled up in a corner crying and releasing energy and releasing this kind of locked, stored energy and coming out as as raw emotion and do you ever do that with any of your clients in terms of helping them to
00:57:39:13 - 00:58:01:19
Unknown
become more aware of connecting with their body and how energy is stored in different parts of the body? I do, I mean, I tell you about training like I, I do. I have cranial psychotherapy every months. I have a session every month, even if my body's not needing it, I habit. So I have the same person I've been working with for literally 25 years.
00:58:01:21 - 00:58:39:23
Unknown
So she knows my body and she and it's pretty amazing stuff. And often I recommend people to go saying go or acquaintance everything but therapist. But what I'm really clear about is what I'm not a therapist. I'm not a psychotherapist. I have done a fair amount of training in in therapy, but I'm not a psychotherapist. Obviously. I'm trained in some areas of body work, but it's really clear to say, I'll do what I think I can do, but I'm not going to go into territories that are not my expertise.
00:58:40:01 - 00:59:11:00
Unknown
So at this moment in time, working with people's traumas is not my expertise. And so I'm not going to sit of I will know when I feel something safe and that comes from doing the practice myself. And that I think is important as a practitioner. I work on myself. I don't just, you know, talk from a book. This is something that I do and I practice, but I and therefore I can get a sense of what I think might be happening in the other person.
00:59:11:02 - 00:59:35:14
Unknown
So if someone is distressed, yes, I will work with them, but I will only go as safe as I feel. I know my knowledge base goes from and because I think that's right, particularly in acting, there aren't quite there has been, you know, the record is not great for some acting training about how, you know, people can become over distressed and you go back to your childhood traumas.
00:59:35:16 - 00:59:54:08
Unknown
I'm not taking anyone back to my childhood traumas because I don't know how to get them out of it. I have some tools, but I'm not a trauma therapist, and I'm not a psychotherapist. And and I will facilitate what I know. And I know a lot, and I know how to do it, but I'm certainly not going to go off my own expertise.
00:59:54:10 - 01:00:28:12
Unknown
I wouldn't announce myself as a psychotherapist or trauma carapace. And to get a bit more practical again, so you've worked with someone they've emotionally aware, they're energetically aware. They have the go to areas for when they get distracted, or they feel conflicts and they're able to kind of recenter. Harshman describe flow. Is this as if every single cell in the body was moving towards one aim?
01:00:28:14 - 01:00:57:19
Unknown
How do you help people go from that state of presence and awareness into that effortlessness and that intuitive action and flow? Well, so the act two might be in flow. The thing about acting is you're taking on a role, so you have to flow into that role. So I often talk about three circles where you have a statue standing in it, and that's you.
01:00:57:20 - 01:01:20:01
Unknown
Then there's a middle circle, which is, if you like, it's a liminal, it's a transitionary phase. And then you have the third circle, which is the character. So you have to go through that liminal, that in-between stage, that space where you're exploring in order to get to that third circle. You can if you like to go from first to second in, that means that you've got first to third choice.
01:01:20:06 - 01:01:49:22
Unknown
And that means in that middle circle, you haven't done that kind of embodying, if you like, for acting. You know, in theory, if you have a physicality that which is easy, you know, how to control, your body is loose. You can you're aware of your tensions, you're receptive to other people. You can just flow in there. But actually taking on other taking on the story, I feel I'm I, I've never worked anybody that doesn't have to go through a process, a journey, a journey that gets.
01:01:50:01 - 01:02:14:21
Unknown
Then eventually, once you understand and you can step into the shoes and you can step into the imaginative circumstances, then you can flow. So you can flow as the individual, but then you're taking on the behavior of somebody else. It's a slightly different thing from, you know, you're training to be, I know, run on your body, you understands flow and you understand where you need to go, and you have visuals in you.
01:02:14:21 - 01:02:40:17
Unknown
I mean, I think with acting it's because you're taking on different circumstances. In those circumstances are not your own. So you have to flow into those. So you go through a journey sometimes. I had somebody I was working with a couple of weeks ago, and there was an aspect to a character which was difficult for him because the character is quite confront, confrontational, or this person is not confrontational in his own life.
01:02:40:17 - 01:03:03:12
Unknown
He can he flows very easily and he's not confrontational and confrontational. It's not necessarily easy if you don't know it. And so that's what we explored. How do you become comfortable in the confrontation? Because that is that character confronts everybody. You know, something in a cafe and orders a coffee. It's like, what is this? Why did you order this?
01:03:03:12 - 01:03:31:20
Unknown
Why did you bring this in? Everything is confrontational about this individual. So he needed to flow in. He needed to learn how to flow into that discomfort of the confrontation. So so it's taking your body into different places. But once you and also especially when you're filming, if your body's not relaxed and you're not focused on where you need to go, then your mind might think you've got it, but your body might not get it, you know?
01:03:31:20 - 01:04:00:15
Unknown
So for him, what was happening is he understood the lines his body just couldn't look like it was confrontational. So somehow there was something going on there. So we did some work that moved him into that. Fascinating. Yeah. So it's a transitional phase. It's a it's a journey into. Yeah. Am I right in saying that the mastery of acting or the ideal is where they believe they are, you know, method acting where they believe that they are that role?
01:04:00:17 - 01:04:22:16
Unknown
Or is that is it always good to, I guess, have a complexity there where they can see both worlds? I think you do have to see both worlds because you have to return to your own reality. But for the moment you're acting. You are that person who is conducting an orchestra, and you do, and that's it. You are that person.
01:04:22:18 - 01:04:40:05
Unknown
And because that's when you'll flow into it. The minute you believe you're not, you know, they have to believe it. For us to believe that, for the viewer to believe it, they have to believe. So you do have to enter into that. And I say cited with that example for Michael Chekhov, he had to believe that he was at a funeral.
01:04:40:05 - 01:05:03:18
Unknown
And if you knew this father's, he knew it wasn't his father's, but he imagined it. You know, when a child is playing a game about being on space, in space or whatever, we know they're not in space or in the bedroom, but for them, they're in space. And so it's that surrendering to the imagination and freeing up the imagination so you can, for this short period of time.
01:05:03:20 - 01:05:46:12
Unknown
And it's what makes theater different to film some theater. You stay with it for the whole journey of whatever the length of the players. But the film you, we shoot and extracts. And so in some ways you'll some people stay in character and some people don't. It's very difficult to stay in character on the film set. There may be some places, but in you for 5 minutes or 10 minutes or whatever, or for this take, you are that person in that dilemma you are, and you're acting as that character would act not as you would act, not as you would behave, as that character would behave.
01:05:46:14 - 01:06:17:15
Unknown
I feel like I can talk about this and on and on, but we are coming to the end, and we typically end with two questions starting initially with a book or a film that has either changed your life or had a huge impact on you. The anatomy of the script is a book that I mentioned to you by Karen on Lewis, and the reason why this book is so impactful for me is she really talks about how the body picks up and receives things she knows, and it goes through all sorts of things like the chakras.
01:06:17:15 - 01:06:41:20
Unknown
She very informative about body, about eight different cultural perspectives, but she she talks about energy mentioned in a way, and she talks about how we use our bodies. If we use our bodies in a certain way, it will lead to the body being distinct. And I know that concept of we we can use, you know, if you are in a state of permanent we we make a choice.
01:06:41:20 - 01:07:02:03
Unknown
We choose how we use our bodies. We choose how we use our lives and how we live our lives. And if we live our lives where it doesn't suit the body, then the body will react and be that living and working with immense stress, which a lot of us do. And if you don't just suddenly think, hang on, this is just not serving me.
01:07:02:03 - 01:07:25:13
Unknown
I'm not feeling right. If you don't take action, then the body will become distanced and then when the body becomes disease, all sorts of things can happen, obviously. And she gets a lot of case studies of where she's worked with people, and sometimes it's worked and sometimes it's not good. I think her writing's quite phenomenal about really explaining that notion or that truth that we choose how we work with our bodies.
01:07:25:15 - 01:08:05:02
Unknown
Yeah, I love that fantastic. Time to flip the morning. The question for you was, why do you think it is so difficult for people to really believe and understand flow in our world? It's an interesting one that because flow is so intuitively recognizable, you know, if, if after when I describe it, most people, I feel like them. But then when they try to understand it, it's there's this sudden disconnect, you know, it gets put, you know, first of all gets put in this confusing, illusionary, wishy washy basket of I don't really understand it.
01:08:05:02 - 01:08:25:20
Unknown
So it probably doesn't exist. And we confuse it a lot with other things lack or the ego gets involved or whatever. So I think there's a lot of, I guess, ambiguity about the construct, but I think the main reason is because when I look at the science behind it, it's really, I guess, helped me to understand the felt experience of it.
01:08:25:22 - 01:08:53:17
Unknown
And typically when we're in flow, we're in a energetic space right from a cognitive position. We're using that implicit cognition from a sensorial position. We're using our kind of senses, and we're what we're not using is, what I call the thinking brain, right? In that explicit cognition that when people then try to understand flow, we use the thinking brain to try and understand.
01:08:53:21 - 01:09:23:17
Unknown
So we're trying to sort of understand something that we're disconnected from that so becomes even more difficult to really kind of grapple with it and really understand it. And so, you know, so part of what I find bridges that gap is sort of regressing people to flow experiences, understanding when they felt, you know, in the words we're using, every cell is just focused towards one end and everything's moving efforts effortlessly.
01:09:23:17 - 01:09:44:18
Unknown
To that end and then breaking that up with some reflective understanding, coming back to reflective understanding coming back. So we're kind of building intelligence, you know, that innate wisdom is turning into intellectual intelligence. And then we can start mapping that across to what is flow and why is it important and why should I integrate it into my life.
01:09:44:20 - 01:10:10:05
Unknown
So I think that's a huge point. And then secondly, I think flow gets used for everything. You know, whether you're a yoga instructor or I saw, a bank using it for advertising, insurance, telco. So it's kind of, you know, it's sort of it's branded about as so many things that it's a word that, you know, a bit like happiness, I guess, or success.
01:10:10:05 - 01:10:34:09
Unknown
It's a word that people like and desire, but not necessarily, I guess, truly understand. Thank you so much for your time, Amanda. Great to chat to even just on that last sentence of surrendering into the imagination. I feel like we could have a whole pod just on that. Yeah, on the last comment, thank you very much for your time.
01:10:34:11 - 01:11:00:10
Unknown
I really enjoyed my conversation with Amanda. I left feeling that there were many rabbit holes left untouched. Amanda seems to have taken the learnings from the energetic arts such as qigong and Tai Chi, and mixed them with performance psychology and psychophysical logical coaching. I always find it fascinating when someone can achieve a level of mastery in an area that they can creatively integrate with another.
01:11:00:11 - 01:11:27:23
Unknown
When we see ourselves primarily as an energetic being and perform from this perspective, we can begin to free ourselves from many of the mental and physical limitations that often plague our actions. An example of this, which I've been given permission to talk about is my work with Homero Diaz, eight time national champion enduro rider, and he prepares for a competition every single time.
01:11:28:01 - 01:11:55:16
Unknown
Right before he starts, he puts the motorbike in neutral, takes off his gloves, rubs his hands together and works to shift his attention towards the heat between his hands. This is a starting point for him to focus on. The energy between his hands, he says. Well, I feel the energy between my hands. I cannot be sad or nervous, I always smile, I feel energized in a good way.
01:11:55:18 - 01:12:30:10
Unknown
By tuning in to this energetic awareness, we can quickly move beyond doubt, fatigue and distraction. Not only that, through tuning our energetics, we can unleash improved ability time and time again by simply helping my clients to improve their sensitivity to energetics, I've helped elite rugby players kick a ball 10 to 20m. Further, I've helped tennis players hit faster serves and runners let go of the pain from a long run and find the lightness to run further.
01:12:30:12 - 01:13:10:09
Unknown
It's also one of the reasons I like to jump up and down before going out on a stage, before a key night helps me to dislodge any stuck energy and feel the vibrating energy within my body. Harnessing already existing energetic connection is not just about performance improvement, but also about healing connection in our relationships and seeing the world as interactions and a continuous exchange of energy which can help us to get perspective, unlock blockages, make life work for us, or tap into energy streams rather than fight against them.
01:13:10:11 - 01:13:37:21
Unknown
Harnessing your natural flow of energy is not something that you need to think about, but rather something that you need to embody and sense. The more we think about it, the further we go away from feeling. It requires a sensitivity that is foreign to our thinking brain, but central to many of our other systems. It is a sensitivity that we need to train, an awareness that we need to grow.
01:13:37:23 - 01:13:55:07
Unknown
A practice that you can start today by simply seeing the world before you as full of energy and feeling the energy vibrating through your own body.
01:13:55:09 - 01:14:26:07
Unknown
Thank you for listening to Flow Unleashed. If you enjoyed listening, please subscribe to get notified when our next episode drops. The more people that subscribe, the better I can make the show for you. Equally, please leave a review. Your review will go a long way to helping others find this spot. Until the next time, thank you for listening to Flow Unleashed.