Week 9 - Concentration

Week 9 – Concentration

Shortened attention span seems to be something we are hearing about more and more.  Whether or not you agree with the studies or theories about this, I think most of us could benefit from giving some attention to our ability (or lack thereof) to concentrate.  In an age of multi-tasking, we find ourselves increasing our potential to be distracted.  There are more and more things that compete for our attention.  In life we have to concentrate to complete any action fully, how much more do we need to concentrate on stage where we are presenting life in a condensed, intensified, and distilled form to our audience. Richard Boleslavsky begins his book  Acting: the First Six Lessons with a chapter on concentration.  In the chapter he speaks of a particular concentration that any craftsman has.  Each craft has its own medium, its own “material aim.”  For Boleslavsky, the actor’s concentration is on the human soul: first noticing the souls of others, storing up what we notice about the world around us through our senses.  Then, when we continue to study the role we are playing, our concentration moves more specifically to the working of our own soul, emotions, experiences.  The actor needs “a spiritual concentration on emotions which do not exist but are invented or imagined.”  He mentions that this ability is developed by “hard daily exercises of which I can give you thousands… if you think, you will be able to invent another thousand.”  In a sense, the individual exercise is aimed at a process bigger than itself.  The conclusions of any exercise are less important than the process of concentration involved in the doing of the exercise itself.  Yet, we must engage in some form of it daily.  While that sounds daunting, the promise of our being able to invent new exercises for ourselves is the reward.  Concentrate on the process, and you will be able to modify the particulars, use your senses, experience your soul living in a constant state of investigation.

Life story:

One of the things I wanted to be when I was a child was a painter (in addition to a farmer, fireman and Egyptologist!)  My mother painted from time to time and I noticed how quiet and still and cool she got when she played with the paint.  The works of great painters always inspired me and drew me into another space.  A few years ago I was commissioned to paint an image that would celebrate an upcoming event.  I knew that I needed time to do it and I was scheduled to go on a 30 day retreat that summer so I decided to make the painting part of my retreat.  Each part of the process:  composing the image, mixing the colors, the actual painting itself has a unique character, but a common characteristic.  I was totally absorbed.  Hours would go by and it would seem like minutes.  (I needed to start setting an alarm so that I would remember to take breaks!)  The medium itself had such a power of engaging me because I allowed it to make demands upon me.  Yet, each demand had inside of it a promise of the reward of seeing it accomplished.  It was impossible for me to get distracted if I chose something specific and manageable to concentrate on for each session with the painting.  Making those choices about the  “object” of concentration were only starting points that would then open up chains of other objects.  The temptation is to tackle them as they present themselves.  The discipline of concentration is to note what is for now and what is for later, and to find a unique joy in the ability to sustain short periods of absorption into what is right in front of us.

Work Story: 

One of my most inspiring teachers, Priscilla Smith, told our class about a theatre piece she saw about Civil War.  I believe it was one of the sections of Robert Wilson’s “The Civil Wars: A Tree Is Best Measured When It Is Cut Down.”    The piece began with a scene of young soldiers outside their tents doing everyday morning actions, drinking coffee, buttoning shirt, tying shoes etc.  One of the techniques used was to slow everything down, make it exaggeratedly slow to get the audience to enter a different state.  To go that slow demands a specific kind of concentration; taking the particular action and being able to be present to it in all of its component parts, letting go of our daily rush through things. Priscilla said that what she noticed about watching it was that she had different reactions to the piece as it revealed itself.  First it was just noticing the technique in an intellectual sense, but it remained something of an idea. Then with more attention, it became somewhat fascinating, mostly because of the concentration of the actors. Finally when the audience’s concentration was attuned to that of the actors in the scene, it elicited something quite profound and moving from her.  The concentration of their actions and the context of the war created the effect that each of these actions was happening for the last time.  There is something profound about the fleeting nature of our actions and perhaps we can make them vibrant if we consider that we might possibly be doing them for the last time, or perhaps the first time.

Further investigation:

Read Boleslavsky’s chapter on Concentration from Acting: The First Six Lessons.  Over the course of these weeks you’ll be looking at the other chapters too, so avoid the temptation to finish the whole book at one sitting… it’s meant to be sipped.

Suggestions:

1. Sit in a chair and look at a spot on the wall or the floor.  See if you can focus your concentration on just that spot.  After a few minutes, open up the circle of concentration around it gradually:  a few inches, a foot, two feet, going wider and wider until you open up to your entire field of vision (even your peripheral vision) See how much you can bring into your concentration while still maintaining a soft focus on that one spot.  Then bring your concentration back to the spot gradually. 

2.  Focus on your breath.  Notice if you are taking complete breaths or not. Normally we don’t.  Gradually increase the length of your in breath.  Try this for a few minutes each day.

3. On a day when you can truly get lost in time, start working on a drawing or a craft project that will take more than one day to complete.  Note the time when you started.  See if you can continue to work on it until you are “in the zone.”  Afterward, see if you can guess the amount of time you devoted to the project.  Was it more or less than the actual time?

4. Do yoga, real yoga… not just “flatten your abs” yoga.  Be present to the breath and to your own body.

5.  Begin working on a reading a new script.  Make a list of all the distractions that come into your mind as you read it. Keep a list of all the things that potentially distract us. When you’ve made your list, categorize them into things that are easy to let go of, and things that are difficult to let go of.  Sometimes just knowing this is a help.

 6.  Watch a craftsman or an artist at work.  There is a natural focus that has within it a great deal of ease at the same time.  (Notice how infrequently they blink, and how they breathe)

7.   Take 15 minutes at the end of the day and see with what detail you can recall the significant moments of the day.  Avoid having a judgement about it.  Try to focus solely on remembering details and notice what that does to your concentration.