In other fitness pursuits, you may have learned to go through the motions first and perfect your form second. In Pilates, it's the other way around. You learn to control your abs first and then proceed through a series of more progressive movements. At all times, you should feel in control of your body.
On stage, everyone stays put; the vantage point is always the vantage point, and you have to play to the size of the house. And of course, on film, there's different angles, different shots, so that determines how animated or how still you must be.
When I dance, I picture myself and the floor in my head.
Prussia: freedom of movement with a muzzle. Austria: an isolation cell in which screaming is allowed.
I don't think I've ever been as humbled as I have been in Pilates. It's incredible how much body control and how much isolated strength you have to have to complete these movements successfully.
There's one thing about weights with action movies: Once your muscles get that tight, it's sometimes hard to stop your movement, especially if you're trying to move with some strength, and with the swords in the film.
The rock's easy, but the roll is another thing.
I think overall body awareness and knowing exactly where I need to be makes a big difference. Knowing how much weight to put on each foot or where I need to put my hands are things I'm very good at. Obviously with the wrestling background those are things that come naturally.
The dance, just as the performance of the actor, is kinesthetic art, art of the muscle sense. The awareness of tension and relaxation within his own body, the sense of balance that distinguishes the proud stability of the vertical from the risky adventures of thrusting and falling--these are the tools of the dancer.
I could throw the ball hard, but at this level if you're not accurate, it's easy for batters to light you up with home runs. That's when I started concentrating on making my movements more compact. It just seemed to me that smaller movements would produce the kind of pitching I desired.
What makes screenplays difficult are the things that require the most discipline and care and are just not seen by most people. I'm talking about movement - screenwriting is related to math and music, and if you zig here, you know you have to zag there. It's like the descriptions for a piece of music - you go fast or slow or with feeling. It's the same.
I didn't study dance. I had some ballet lessons because I needed it for posture and for my arms, mostly. My skating coach said I really needed it, from the belly button up, as opposed to the footwork. In skating, the shoes don't move.
I realize that once I stopped fighting the technical process of how to move my body, I made it choreography.
With dancing, you have to know spatial movement with somebody. It is steps. It's literally steps and knowing how close to be or how far away. You have to have the beat in the right place with the camera.
Now he must not go the wrong way round the circuit, and unless he can spin himself stationary through 360 degrees I fail to see how he can avoid doing so.
One must do the same subject over again ten times, a hundred times. In art nothing must resemble an accident, not even movement.
I can gallop, I can trot, I can move sideways and turn around. I can do everything I need to do on a horse.
When I played the game, you played with your feet. And the game was about finesse. Movement.
