Let What You See, See You

Space Walk Commentary (from the Theater Game File Handbook by Viola Spolin: published by Northwestern University Press)

Space Walks and Feeling Self with Self, more than just physical sensory and perception exercises, are organic ways of perceiving/sensing/experiencing the environment (space) around us as an actual dimension in which all can enter, communicate, live and be free. Distractions are removed, and players are helped to enter the moment with self, with other players, and with forms and objects. Each player becomes a receiving sending instrument capable of reaching out beyond the physical self and the immediate environment. A spacewalk invariably creates elation, alertness, and a developing feeling of belonging and real connection (part of the whole) …. The players will intuitively grasp this. “Come out! Come out! Wherever you are!”

In reviewing the side-coaching phrases in the book, Improvisation for the Theater and The Theater Game File (Northwestern University Press), I could not find the phrase, “Let what you see, see you!”
Viola Spolin may have developed this concept later in her work and I feel it is worth noting.

I include this side-coach phrase in every spacewalk I coach. It is a seemingly minor prompt in the wonderful warm-up exercises that Viola Spolin created, but its impact is powerful.

You’ll hear it on the recording Viola Spolin Conducts Spacewalks published by Intuitive Learning Systems and available for download at http://www.spolingamesonline.org.  She remarks after speaking it “You might get a little ping…”

I smile when I hear her say that. I got that little ping she referred to. And the more I use it, the more I understand something very profound about her work in general.

Originally, she used it in conjunction with seeing objects. Seeing without labeling. “Try to see unlabeled” she’d ask. Then she’d comment, “Notice how quickly your mind wants to label it. When you do, find a new object and try again.” She is reminding us how quickly we rush to label everything (and everybody). We’re trained to identify things, know it and store it away for later. But when we do, we stop and do not bother to see further – what Viola called penetrating the object.

Then she adds “When you feel you are really seeing something, let what you see, SEE YOU!”

The first time I heard that I got an actual physical sensation, as well as an “Ah-ha!” moment.  I unhooked from the one-way street I normally look out at the world. It put me in true relation with what I was seeing. Not only did I feel I saw what I saw, but I also realized what I was seeing had as much a right to be there as I did.  Let me repeat that: The object had as much of a right to be there as did I.

I was there in the space and so was what I was seeing. I was part of the space and not some ego, looking out for how I could define, label, use or manipulate what I perceived or felt about what I was seeing. It momentarily stopped my ego, cold.

That is a helluva PING!

In improvisational training, this is a critical point and incredibly valuable. It instantly makes you “Part of the Whole”. You are simply one object in space – in true relation with everything else. And if you can see your fellow players in this manner and more importantly, let them see you, you will have achieved a state of true peerage. You will see them without your personal agenda or the agenda of the game or the scene and you will emerge into the space as part of a larger whole.

Extrapolate this out from just playing a game or creating a scene. If you constantly remind yourself to let what you see, see you – your life will change drastically and you will find enlightenment.

Ah, but who will be there to constantly coach this phrase to you in your everyday life? No one. Only you; and if you’re like me, you’re too busy to keep reminding yourself. There are blogs to write, TV to watch, news to fret over and dinners to plan. Let’s face it we are not the Buddha.  But, if you include it in every improv warm-up, you will get one helluva Ping.

Try it!