The big yellow book…
Linklater Designation Training Week 2, Alfred University, New York
“No matter how secure I feel in the work, while teaching today all I could see was that big ass yellow book walking to me from the corner of the room… and it took me a minute to recover from that image!”
- Caroline Clay.
The room erupted into laughter. Our fellow trainee Caroline had hilariously put into words the pressure we are all feeling to live up to Kristin’s famous “big ass yellow book”: Freeing The Natural Voice. We were at the start of our second week and had been taking turns to lead our peers in a 45 minute warm-up following the Linklater progression while at the side of room two Master Linklater teachers and seven Designated Linklater teachers are judiciously taking notes on all aspects of our teaching, presence and leadership of the room.
Inspirational quotes and that book…
This is a room of highly experienced teachers and performers being inspired and challenged by the depth and intricacies of this work. Caroline for example is an acclaimed actor who has appeared in Tony award-winning Broadway productions and Grey’s Anatomy and currently teaches at the University of Iowa. Other teacher trainees are teaching/ vocal coaching for LAMDA (The London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art), The Royal Shakespeare Company, Berklee College of Music, Emerson College, Centro del Actor de Madrid, Voz Genius Academia de Doblaje y Locución in Mexico, The American Academy for Dramatic Arts and Georgia State University. It’s a humbling and exciting experience to be sharing this journey with such an experienced, diverse and open-hearted gang.
The peer warm-ups have been one of my highlights - each teacher trainee sharing their own personal version of the Linklater warm-up with their own cultural references, warmth and comedy: we’ve had an articulation exercise based on an Outkast song, visited Spanish lakes, Mexican rivers, a village in Switzerland and explored archetypes inspired by Afro-Caribbean gods.
The most repeated piece of feedback from our teachers Andrea and Judy, is to ensure we connect to our own ‘Sigh of relief’ in order to fully embody the work - it’s often more easily said than done. In Kristin’s words:
“Recovery of voice begins with recovery of breathing. If I am interested in rediscovering the authenticity of my voice and thereby a deeper authentic self, I must start with an awareness of my breathing habits … The language of breath awareness replaces control verbs with release messages. "Allow the breath to enter," "let the breath drop in," "feed in a sigh impulse and then let it release out," "open inside for the breath to come in—then let it escape." This vocabulary gradually builds mental freedom, dissolving protective habits in the mind and the body. We are getting out of the way, and beginning to see the way.” *
I feel incredibly lucky and relieved to be sharing this journey with this particular group of trainees. Here we go for week 3!
*from The Alchemy of Breathing see https://www.linklatervoice.com/resources/articles-essays/39-the-alchemy-of-breathing