Day 2.
I rise at 10. A little later than I wanted but after a lovely meal followed by Francois thrashing me at chess for the fourth time since Sunday, writing up my notes from class and several cigarettes I eventually climbed into bed around 1:30 a.m. so the extra hour was justified.

My shoulders feel tight after yesterdays movement class, note to self, make sure you stretch before and after class. It's going to be a challenge, we are learning rope and silk work, our teacher whose name I can't recall (He's french, could it be Claude?) is moving at quite a pace and has assured us that strength is not what we need to tackle this. Nope apparently it is down to weight distribution, well I have a lot of weight to distribute and my body reckons that a forklift truck might come in handy.

Movement; 34 of us begin by lying on the floor going through a short routine that will help us better understand how to shift our weight appropriately. I'm not sure that I grasp it yet though I do have a fairly decent understanding of my neighbours hands and feet as the studio is a bit too cosy for all of us to try the routine without knocking into each other.
The routine moves faster than a high speed train and if we are not quick enough we will surely be running to try and catch up.

No sooner have I half understood than we are moving on to the silks, with cat like grace and monkey like agility our instructor (Francois?) shimmy'sup the silk and glides effortlessly back down again. "à seconds of explanation and it is our go.
I watch a couple of my classmates do okay then my turn, I wrestle with the silk my body working, convinced it is making progress but my eyes tell it different after 60 seconds of straining, muscles tensing, blood pumping and arms shaking I hava managed to climb the sum total of 1.5 feet off the floor, and that's a pretty generous estimation.
Can we back the fork_lift in please?
After we all have 1 attempt the tutor (Jean Jacques?) shows us the next move which basically consists of climbing up switching the silk around, doing a yogic move with the legs and finally hanging from the silk like a parrot on a perch, again several colleagues nail it.
Use less strength I say to myself.
I hang on the silk, flail my legs around enough to get them wrapped in the silk, get very confused, thrash them around to get it off again and fall the full - inches back to solid ground.
The final demonstration of the day the monkey/cat (Louis ?) kick his legs over his head then defy gravity to spin up the silk and tie himself off hanging there like a human mobile. I'll settle for managing to kick my legs over my head, which I do, on the 7th attempt.
Pierre? reminds us to stretch and it's lesson over.

A quick cigarette then into studio 1 for le jeu.
Monsieur Gaulier looks great, red braces  denim jacket huge hat  and that ever present twinkle, he says it is good to see me and I believe him, he really does seem to like his students. A world away from the cynicism towards them that can so often run through other teachers.
Le Jeu; right now due to time and that  to list all te exercises would probably prove a little boring I'll sum up my learning as seen in others and sort of experienced myself.
Compicity seems to start in the eyes of your partner and you but for the first time yesterday I saw it in the body too. & couple ( in a ball game between 2 foreheads) had it not only in the eyes, so much so that the text of Romeo and Juliet could have worked, but also in their soft open bodies, bodies that were light and responsive, as monsieur G said they took care of each other.
The voice, the voice is a tricky one for us actors here, monsieur would have us play with a loud voice full of colour and jokes but the pressure to speak without a text can make us dry up, our throats to choke us and nothing but the sound of a tiny cat fart escapes when we try to speak.
Here we must have joy to speak, real joy to say my text because I am in major and the audience are looking at me.
Tres dificil.
And yet this is what we must learn to do.
Somehow, some way. I found a little something with my partner but I also mocked her, not on stage, non an actor must have joy to be with his fellow actor not be sarcastic or cutting, the character ma but the actor, non. This is a big lesson for me about Le Jeu, it its there to help the actor find something for it is te actor who must breathe life into the character, not the other way around, and so it follows that the actor must find his or her pleasure and channel it through the character. Hemust love being on the stage, not like it, LOVE IT.

Clowns
Very quickly now as I have 5 minutes before I need to leave.
You want to know how to play clown with a text? Then watch Philippe.
When he tells the story of the birth of clown, and I guess he has told the story thousands of times, his radar are tuned his comic antennae are feeling for the laughs of the audience, if we laugh at one of his accents or a face he pulls he gives us more of this, playing with the audience response, it really is great to see.
What did I learn today, a big lesson for me, and I have done 3 week lond workshops with Philippe and every time I go back to basics,
" Wen you ontur , you onteer wiv ze feeleeng of bad student, you con't ontur as olympic champion. Ze clown is bad but he is appy too be bad."
This just about sums it up, for me I need to remember with the feeling of a bad student someone who shouldn't really be there but is happy to be on stage and also to have the fun to pretend.
Remember Monsieur Marcel's advice to the clown who wanted to play Romeo and Juliet; " You want to play Shakespeare? Shakespeare is not easy. A love story? You mean  Romeo and Juliet? Well my little one if you want to play Romeo and Juliet you need a balcony."
So for é hours é clowns build a balcony thinking they are doing Romeo and Juliet.
The dream of the idiot who wants to make great art.
"But zees is beautiful, non?"