I saw the e-mail about Meisner classes being offered at Fusion Studio in Bryanston and without thinking about it, I e-mailed, paid, and signed up.

And I showed up on my first day with my notebook and pencil, and started taking notes, enjoying the fact that I’m a ’student’ again.

I got up to do the repetition, the bedrock of the Sanford Mesiner acting method. And as I did it and got feedback from the instructor Lauren, I improved.

Third or fourth class in, I went to a dark place during a repetition. Lauren had been speaking to us about truly being the moment, not thinking, reacting, listening, and staying in the moment. With my partner JT, he made an observation about my weight, then how I looked. And I erupted in a hot, bilious anger. And I went to that dark place from high school, a place of humiliation and constant adequacy. Lauren gasped when I erupted. And I stepped back, covered my mouth, and turned around to have a moment to compose myself again.

Like when I swim, when I act, I’m home. As much as that moment was dark and suffocating, it was home – to be in the moment so open to how I really feel.

With subsequent classes, I’ve been improving and I’ve been getting good feedback from Lauren. I’ve been getting more and more into it. I spend time before every class to prepare, going through notes from the previous class, and doing any exercise that Lauren would have asked us to complete.

My main building area is the same one from high school and even, my own life. The Joker complex. Lauren picked up on it very early on. I know I need to work on it. I had felt and resolved before that it’s simply the way I am and I won’t be able to change it. However, class prep has helped me a lot in digging deep (as my friend Didi says) and understanding why I still hold on it to that complex. At the last class, I avoided the impulse to joke … and found how my repetition improved markedly.

Will share my prep notes from class as I go along, especially those pertaining to the subject of the Joker complex – always cracking a joke or being funny.