Stanislavski: Relaxation of Muscles

The 6th chapter of An Actor Prepares is about relaxation techniques for actors and the importance behind them. This chapter was interesting to me in the way that it was written. At the start, Stanislavski injures himself during an acting exercise (because he is so nervous) and becomes unable to attend class for a few days. He gains his knowledge on the subject through classmates coming to visit him after every day’s lesson. The way they describe muscle relaxation in this chapter is that the actor must have an extra amount of concentration while performing and focus on staying relaxed until this relaxation begins to happen subconsciously. I found the exercise of lying on the floor and practicing relaxing all of your muscles to be very realistic and easy to do. I think that maybe we should start doing this before each rehearsal. It might help our actors out a lot!