I know that I am not alone in how much I’ve been enjoying watching the Olympics in Paris this Summer.
Singing has long been compared to athleticism and in marveling at the Olympians these past few weeks, I have found myself drawing so many parallels between musicianship and these athletes’ work - the hours of practice, robotic requirements of the tasks, level of flexible focus, and the list goes on.
Among these athletes, Simone Biles shines.
However, apart from her awe-inspiring physical ability and the afore-mentioned similarities that I drew between athletes and singers, there is something unique about Biles that I don’t often see vocalists doing…
enjoying her work as she’s doing it.
Though her focus is steely and her precision nearly perfect, Biles’ ability to sink into a moment after she nails a move, even if she’s in the middle of a routine, is a wonder to me. She breaks out into a smile, her chin held high, and without missing a beat, moves seamlessly into the next segment.
It makes me wonder about her training and how she gained that feeling of being safe enough to grin in the middle of a performance.
I have a hunch.
Based on my work with the Meisner technique and singers, I feel that Biles has been taught to value the dexterity that can be found when we incorporate play into performing a difficult task.
Playing in the moment is a significant component to motor learning that is too often left out of vocal training. For years, I felt that drilling consistent vocal results with rigidity - even anger toward myself, and certainly little enjoyment - was the way to achieve Biles’ level of dependable physical execution.
While there is a crucial cognitive stage in motor learning, many singers never let go of the feeling that we’re still functioning at this novice level, clinging to the idea that we should actively be thinking of the mechanics of what we’re doing as we’re doing it.
Incorporating enjoyment and play into motor learning and performance is paramount to the automation of an action like singing. One of my biggest takeaways in working with Dr. Heidi Moss on Neuroscience and the Voice last Fall was that varied inputs through playful practice are incredibly efficient in producing automated results.
When Biles beams from ear to ear,
marinates in a moment of her performance,
and takes in the joy of what’s happening before she moves onto her next task, she’s embodying play and trusting that her skills are automated enough to enjoy her mission while she carries it out.
This principle is entirely where the Meisner technique rests.
The guiding premise of Sanford Meisner’s work, as the renowned Meisner pedagogue William Esper says, is that
“the actor…trains himself to pay attention to all moments and to live each one as if each moment were his last…For the actor knows that there is never an outcome and never an ending. There is only the ride."
Like the Olympians whom I’ve been watching, the robotic, monotonous nature of the first exercises in Meisner like repetition, a knock at the door, and the independent activity, all help us with the idea that the task at hand doesn’t need over-analyzation, it only needs our present focus.
Next, Meisner expert Larry Silverberg expresses that we layer on the idea that “there is nowhere to get to so you might as well be there.”
While I'm singing, I'm so often worried about making it to the next move, and then the next, and then the next, that if I ever allow myself to enjoy what I’m doing, it's only when the piece is nearly over. Contrastingly, in Biles’ stunning performances, we see her worry about the moves as they come and lean into her joy in the moments in between.
As Silverberg goes on to say, “acting must always be right now, right now, right now…each ‘right now’ taking us forward. How magnificent when we can stand fully in right now!”
I haven’t seen someone “stand fully in right now” at as high of a level as Biles does in a long time. If Simone Biles, arguably the greatest gymnast in the history of the world, can smile and live in the moment with the weight of that title on her shoulders, doesn’t it feel like singers are owed a little more permission to enjoy ourselves while we sing a little ditty?
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