An eye-opening exercise in Modern Physical today. We played with personal status, makeing a scale of 1-10 (1 being lowest), and had someone choose a number randomly then walk around the space as that status. A 10 was to exude confidence, make everyone in the room notice them immediately and say "wow", and move in their own time and rhythem.
Basically, not me. So what number do I choose? Of course.
On the other side, for a different exercise with the same scalle a I drew number 3, and I was shocked to realize that I wasn't acting - I was just giving in to all the inner temptations to cringe in the corner, and actively showed the nervousness I feel anyway. To be honest, I didn't do anything out of the ordinary - and people knwe right away what number I was.
After class, I was talking to someone who essentially made me feel as though I'd made a decent-sized faux pas - and I realized why I couldn't play a 10. It's hard to play a 10 when you're only a 4 yourself. If that.
Further evidence of my lack of confidence in voice class. We had to read a passage of prose aloud. I chose the ending passage of a fairly twisted mystery story, which was fun. But apparently not only does my body language betry my shyness, but even my voice and the way I form words. I did what she told me to do to send the voice to the audience, and realized my heart was pounding and I was beginning to sweat a bit out of fear.
Everyone who performed a 3 or 4 today did something that I do naturally. I'm beginning to wonder how much my lack of confidence will affect any possibility of an acting career. It makes me think I may not be able to cut it. I don't know how to change! I don't even know how I managed to go this long without realizing what a problem this is. Maybe it's just seeming worse now that I'm in a strange environement surrounded by people who do exude confidence.
When I was in the sixth grade, in our DARE class the teacher asked who we thought had high self-esteem. Someone said my name - "she seems so confident." What a change eight years makes.
