Kinesthetic Response
being moved....
Kinesthetic Response.
This is the act of movement, or being moved, in response to someone or something. Kinesthetic, simply meaning your senses are engaged, your physically active in your experience.
A response, the reply.
The ouch to the pinch. The pull to the push.
A true indicator if you are listening, if you are engaged.
This ViewPoint lives in the realm of time, as it can only be experienced in the moment that is happening.
You cannot force or manufacture a true kinesthetic response.
And the beauty of this in acting is you CAN USE EVERYTHING that is happening to you.
Meaning, are you nervous? Put that energy into the moment. Find some way of making that realtime experience as an artist make sense for the world your character is in and use it.
Did someone step on your line? Are you frustrated because they were not listening? USE it, can you let your actual response to not being taken in live inside the words of the script? As opposed to ignoring what is happening within you as a human, can you let it exsist without fighting and turn it into creative kindling?
The most honest thing an actor can do is be present to what is and respond to what is actually happening. Everything else is just tricks. tricks and unneeded effort.
Sounds simple. It is. But it is not easy.
Not when:
We spend most of our time in the day to day suppressing and redirecting our truest impulses as a way to be polite, palatable and function in certain environments. Which is absolutely necessary for some moments.
We have so many thoughts spinning and stimuli swirling that to focus and listen to one person or to be present in one situation feels like an impossible ask.
We have been conditioned that humor will win favor, or piousness will save us… when it would be more honest to show how embarrassed we were and say “fuck” a little.
So when asked to respond honestly in a moment for the sake of being present, Without a role to play or an objective to achieve?
It can take some practice allowing. Listening and allowing…. then listening… and allowing…
However, it can be really inconvenient if I allow for myself to be an open channel all the time. I can’t be honestly responding to all the things that cross my doorway. There are social norms. I may have other things to do with my time that require me to swallow my natural impulse and choose a reaction that more closely fits with what is expected so we may carry on carrying on. I may be required to dettach and not really be present because “I just can’t right now”.
In art, however, if my muscle for swallowing my natural impulses is stronger than my muscle for allowing them, I can find myself in an uninspired lull.
I can make conventional choices as opposed to honest choices and wonder why my character choices are boring, or I am just bored in the process.
In just the last few years I have seen how my own muscle for swallowing my impulses has been wildly left unchecked, leaving me feeling abandoned (by myself). Over time, I have had to reevaluate what brings me joy, what excites me, even what my own opinions ARE.
I surrender to the burnout that wasn’t only exhausting me, it was taking away all the parts of me that helped me define myself as a stand alone individual. I didn’t even know how far away I got from myself until I started the very awkward process of walking back the path to find me. Who I am in this moment, with my own needs and opinions in this unraveled world?
I think at times it felt unsafe to have my own goals…. it felt unsafe to enjoy things in my preferred pace or pattern… somewhere along the way I told myself that that wasn’t good enough to live a “well lived life”… I told myself I should play along so I can belong.
And slowly slowly slowly as I buried my own responses to the world around me. I found myself in a life I did not quite understand because it was built through a series of inauthentic choices. Which is heartbreaking to admit. And while I didnt know quite how to start finding my way back. I hear the voice of my friend Collette say “teaspoon by teaspoon we move the mountain”.
So this writing, these practices, are my little commitments to making more authentic choices. My little teaspoons moving the mountain of “protection” in the name of play, curiosity and kindness with the hopes of honoring my own experience.
And not everyone has issues accessing their own points of view.
Some folks have very strong connections to their opinions and preferences. So this ViewPoint may be easy to access, but from the opposite end, we can explore how those responses arise.
Are they coming from presence, or protection? Is there coherence between my internal world and my external expression, or am I trying to control the situation?
How much of my reactions to life are conditioned responses, and can I take the space to choose not just what comes naturally but what is honestly true in the moment, beyond what the world expects from me, or what I expect from myself.
This brings me back to the beauty of practicing Kinesthetic response.
As a human giving me relationship to my impulse and responses.
As an actor to nurture my capacity for listening and being present with what is.
It is a gift to explore these things, however, it is not exactly healthy to walk around so open to everything all of the time allowing everything to effect you.
I have seen empathy turn in a toxic fashion, and the very beautiful intent of connection devolves into a co-dependant confusion.
Every person needs to know their own apeture for taking in the world around them, and the company that it is safe to do so in….
We all need tools for grounding and coming back into center so we do not get lost.
Taking time to mindfully explore Kinesthetic Response can be a powerful practice, especially in a social structure that is often desensitized, hidden behind screens and handles, in service to remembering that we do not live nor do we create art in a vacuum.
And while I may not be able to control how others will take me in, or the responses I get while expressing myself, it is the only way for me to learn how my actions and my intentions actually land outside of myself.
To have the courage to be responsible for the consequences, even when they are good.
To cultivate the humility and stamina to continue to show up open and honest and remember, like a chain reaction…. we are all just results of the kinesthetic responses of those who just left our presence… and we carry forward the imprint of those moments to those who are just stepping in.
Until soon….
See you at the next threshold,
Kirstin
