{"id":2149,"date":"2025-04-23T18:29:14","date_gmt":"2025-04-23T16:29:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/inner.start-smart.co.za\/?post_type=resource-hub&p=2149"},"modified":"2025-04-23T18:29:17","modified_gmt":"2025-04-23T16:29:17","slug":"one-word-spontaneity","status":"publish","type":"resource-hub","link":"https:\/\/inner.start-smart.co.za\/th\/resource-hub\/one-word-spontaneity\/","title":{"rendered":"One Word \u201cSpontaneity\u201d"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

I was reading Truth in Action<\/em> by Mark Westbrook, the founder of Acting Coach Scotland when I stumbled across this one page full of lessons. The section on this page is titled \u201cSpontaneity\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What is spontaneity? Well, according to Cambridge dictionary it is \u201cthe quality<\/a> of being natural<\/a> rather<\/a> than planned<\/a> in advance<\/a>:\u201d Interestingly enough, this single word describes pretty much what acting is!!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Westbrook encourages us to think of acting as a game of table tennis rather than chess. The reason being? With chess, we plan our moves in advance. But table tennis, it’s more of a reaction-action game and therefore, cannot be planned. This unplanned nature is exactly what \u2018being in the moment\u2019 is all about.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cActors must learn to come alive in these moments, by allowing their instincts and their intuition to triumph over thought and self-criticism\u201d said Westbrook. Self-criticism plays such an important part in our society. In a not so good way, that is.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Why do we criticise ourselves? Westbrook says that the fear of doing something wrong and look stupid has been instilled in us since childhood. We do it because our community teaches us to. Unfortunately, that is one of the actor’s biggest demons.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

How to defeat the demon? Stop using your brain for a minute. Westbrook suggests blurting, stop thinking and stop analysing. Now, that comes with a head up \u201cIt won’t be nice, it will feel awkward, painful and wrong most of the time\u201d he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

 Acting is all about getting comfortable being uncomfortable. You need to learn it earlier on to strive in the art. But what soothing is, nobody is perfect, we all will make mistakes\u2026 A LOT of mistakes \u201cso often that it will no longer be a problem, they will get to like it.\u201d as Westbrook puts it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And to close it off, Westbrook leave us with a quote by Joseph Campbell \u201cWhere you stumble, there you shall find your treasure\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The only way is to stumble, be uncomfortable, make mistakes and keep going. Get comfortable being uncomfortable.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

            What are you currently stumbling with?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I was reading Truth […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"featured_media":188,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"","ast-site-content-layout":"","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"default","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ast-content-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}}},"resource-category":[],"target-audience":[],"class_list":["post-2149","resource-hub","type-resource-hub","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/inner.start-smart.co.za\/th\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/resource-hub\/2149","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/inner.start-smart.co.za\/th\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/resource-hub"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/inner.start-smart.co.za\/th\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/resource-hub"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inner.start-smart.co.za\/th\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/188"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/inner.start-smart.co.za\/th\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2149"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"resource-category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inner.start-smart.co.za\/th\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/resource-category?post=2149"},{"taxonomy":"target-audience","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inner.start-smart.co.za\/th\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/target-audience?post=2149"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}