Cara Winterbottom

[This article is part of a series about how to craft an intentional life using ideas and tools from Constantin Stanislavski’s acting system for working on our inner motive forces. Previous article: Tempo & Rhythm Part 1: Awareness ] In the previous article, I described movement as a sensory activity. For Stanislavski, tempo-rhythm is the mechanism through which movement affects our emotions. He considered it to have a direct effect on our feelings and vice versa. He showed that we have both external tempo-rhythms, relating to the movement of our limbs and the quality of our interactions, and internal tempo-rhythms, which relate to the agitation of our feelings and thoughts. The observation exercise described in that article is about increasing our awareness of our own inner and outer tempo-rhythms, and those of others. The breathing exercise showed how just changing the tempo-rhythm of breathing could effect one’s emotional state. In this article, I describe a few exercises taken f...

[This article is part of a series about how to craft an intentional life using ideas and tools from Constantin Stanislavski’s acting system for working on our inner motive forces. Previous article: Emotion Memory Part 2: Shaping ] In previous articles, I discussed our senses and how they bring to life our emotions. Here, I explore how movement and action do the same. Movement has sensory components. Many theorists consider kinaesthesia and equilibrioception as additional senses to hearing, vision, smell, taste and touch. Kinaesthetic or proprioceptive sense is how we feel our bodies: the position and movement of our limbs and muscles, our sense of effort or force applied in any action. Equilibrioception is our sense of balance and spatial orientation, so is a combination of a sense of ourselves and our environment. Stanislavski felt strongly that movement and action were crucial tools in accessing and shaping emotions and other psychological experiences. He spoke of tempo-rhythm as the...