Day 1 of the Gaulier course over…

… and how was it? What have I learned?

I’m the sort of person who takes a fair while to work out what I’ve learned from any particular teaching, so it’s basically too early to tell. You catch me today at the transition point – I’ve just got back from the class, I’m eating some lunch, and preparing myself to get some work done.

One thing that does come to mind though…

The days are split into 2 parts – physical warm-up (which is run by alumni) and “improvisation” (which is the class with Gaulier himself).

A lot of the time in the Gaulier class is spent “waiting”… or at least seems that way. There are about 30-odd people in the class. So, if there’s 2 or even 10 people up on stage, the audience is most of the class and, by extension, not getting a chance to be on stage. Which means in the 2.5 hour class, you only get up once.

But, of course, it’s not waiting…

As with any workshop or course, you often learn the most when you are watching other people being taught.

When you are onstage, you’re a bit like a rabbit in the headlights. You do whatever the exercise is, but you can only really react in the moment. You don’t necessarily learn when you are the one with the spotlight on you.

In the audience, you see things more clearly. You learn more when you watch other people being rabbits in the headlights.

But then there’s a conundrum.

How do you put into practice the things you’ve learned when you only get the chance to do it once?

The answer is, you can’t.

This is something I’ve wondered a few times in relation to all workshops and courses.

Earlier this year, I attended a 2-day clown course that I had taken in the past. So I was able to go through the same exercises and learning a second time.

And although there was a certain repetitive nature to it, the experience was useful. Because it gave me an opportunity to assuage that common feeling of “I just want to try that learning again, now that I ‘get it'”.

When I say to people I am going on a 6-week 5-day-per-week course, they sometimes think that it’s a huge long course… which it is. But also I can see that I will only get an introduction in these weeks.

And, like all courses, I might come away from it feeling that I really need to come back to “actually learn” the things that I’m being taught.

A summary of a few of my learning points from today:

• Hold “the game” (the spotlight, the audience’s attention, the ball) for a time before throwing it elsewhere so that you fully relish the fact that the spotlight is pointed on you.
• When delivering a line or piece of text, throw the ball (pass the game) and then speak, as it’s in the air. Don’t say the text at the same time (or what is usually slightly before) you pass it. Why? From my audience’s perspective, perhaps because it allows the words their rightful space rather than flinging them to the other person.
• In the audience, we can see who you are better than you can see who you are yourself. You might say a line or stand in a particular way and it makes us see you as an angry matron. You can’t see that. When you’re told how you appear, it seems strange to you because you don’t see yourself in that way.
• The audience gets bored quickly. What stops them getting bored? There seems to be an intangible force that stops you being boring. And it’s hard to say exactly what it is. Maybe it’s to do with being fully present… but it’s more than that. I will have to explore which of the people Gaulier keeps up on stage longer and which he puts down quickly. Given the long “waiting” time, it probably makes sense to do this sort of exploratory learning at this course. In other courses, I try to switch off and just experience the course. But I think here working to understand actively while others are up is going to be useful.