"Not Extremely Bad...Surprising!"

We played the scarf game again today. This time just in pairs. You are assigned to be either on the attack for the scarf, or the person trying to get away. Once the scarf has been caught, the winner then has to tease their partner, and the partner has to continue to try and get the scarf. Then if they do, the teasing continues from the new winner. And so on. Philippe explained it really well as an exercise in playing Major and Minor. The person who a) is on the attack, or b) has already won and is teasing, is MAJOR and the person who is c) trying to get away or d) trying to grab the teasing scarf is (i.e. "looking for the game") is MINOR.

Starting to get it today! I did much better in terms of not trying too hard to be good at the exercise. I just tried to have fun, play, and discover.

I play with Rothio, from Spain. "Good complicité. Good fun." I was exhausted as I played this game. Really running around and throwing my body about! I just gave in to the game and had a lot of fun. It's so simple! So why think so much? I wasn't nasty today either. Teased in a fun friendly way. And when I'm in this state, in which I can do this, I feel like I am just enjoying the game with my partner, and not caring about winning anything.

Then...the same exercise, yet not the same...

This time the person that is in major has to have fun using their voice whilst playing the game. Text, or singing, or sounds. Whatever. But voice, over the pleasure of the game. I played with Ling Tao ('Monster girl') from Malaysia. She's the one that has been teasing me about being nasty. She's very playful and a lot of fun. We have quite a good complicité already because we tease each other in and outside of class. When I started speaking (I talked about what I did on the weekend) I had a good 'riding' of my voice over the pleasure - for the note I was feeling real pleasure - so he let me go a bit longer than those before us who he'd killed very quickly. But I spoke too much. And he kept on stopping me. Reminding me not to talk too much. He helped me out today. Reminding me that I need to keep looking at my partner. I need to share the game. Sometimes he'd get me to just tease with my voice and not by playing the game. Just standing still. And he'd remind me to remember to tease with the scarf. But just subtly. There's the game! Right in my hand. Ling Tao helped me a bit too. When it was her time in major she kind of showed me how to do it. Teasing in a connected gentle way. We had fun together. "Good complicité. Not extremely bad...Surprising!" He reminded me that "text must always be on a game, otherwise it's boring."

For me, it's keeping focussed on the game, and more importantly, the fun of the game. Enjoy the tease. Let my pleasure feed my voice. And don't play the game by myself! Play with my scene partner.

Noticed Philippe sneakily gives us opportunities to discover speaking with pleasure when he kills us and then gets us to apologise to our scene partner. "I'm sorry my friend. My voice is horrible. As usual. It's your turn now." Some take this too seriously, but if it makes us giggle it can trick us into speaking with pleasure!

At question time trusty Mike asked the question that helped clarify a bit of confusion for me. He asked, in relation to talking too much, "What if you have lots of text?" It seems that when Gaulier says "you talk too much" he really means "you talk too much by yourself" - there is no complicité. You can talk fast and say a lot, but only if you are playing with your partner. I tend to forget about my partner when I'm in major. Typical actor. It's all about me...

Philippe also announced he's bought a new building for the school in Étamps, which is a 50 minute train ride out of Paris. He said it's very charming. And just 14 km away from his house. It's much cheaper to live in Étamps too apparently. It won't really affect me as we won't work there whilst I am at the school, unless I do a second year. So that's good. Because I don't want to add another 30 mins to my 1.5hr trip to school already!

A word on boredom:

"Is it boring? Or is it not boring? ...That is the question."

A word on complicité (relating to Zoe and Maria, but articulates what it is):

"Their complicité is not good. We don't say 'Ah! They are good friends. They want to have fun with each other'."

A word on feeling like you're heading towards the shit:

"Don't doubt. It kills your pleasure. Go on ahead. Don't hesitate. Discover...The flop could be fantastic!"

As it was a French public holiday, 'Chiquito's' was closed. So we had to go somewhere else. Betrayal!

Funky little outdoors Go Kart ride in La Chapelle just on the street a block away from my place.