The Acting Dojo

The Japanese word “dojo” can be roughly translated as “place of the way, route, or road.” Do comes from the Chinese tao or dao, which carries both the mundane meanings relating to avenues of travel and also a philosophical or spiritual meaning referring to a holistic understanding of existence (e.g. Taoism) and jo refers to a unit of measurement the size of a standard tatami mat, the mats made of woven grass and rushes used as flooring material. One way of understanding or defining the term “dojo” would thus be, “the place where journeying is done,” or “on this spot, in this place, we undertake a practice both mundane and holistic.” A dojo may be a place to study and practice traditional martial arts, and it may also be a place to practice disciplined meditation, such as zazen, and often it is both. 

It is important to understand that there should not be a dualism involved in your notion of “practice” with regard to either martial arts or meditation. That is, you do not engage in a logos centered curriculum, studying from books and considering the lectures of experts, dwelling primarily in an intellectual realm of ideas, and then go off to another place and try to put these ideas into some sort of praxis, embodying in action the lessons learned intellectually. The praxis is the lesson. The praxis is the wisdom. I can spend months trying to explain the zen concept of “no self” to you, or we can spend fifteen minutes in zazen, sitting meditation, and you may experience it first hand. The reality is that the only true way to understand anything about the fundamental reality of our existence is to experience it first hand. I can describe heat, the pleasure of exiting a dark, cool season and into the first day of spring in detailed prose, perhaps even powerful metaphor, but it cannot replicate and replace the full body and spirit (that is, holistic) understanding which immediately comes from feeling the sun on your face for the first time in months. 

In essence, the dojo is the place where we understand by doing. Only the nature of the doing needs more definition. In a Zen Buddhist dojo, sometimes called a zen-do, the doing entails a variety of sitting and walking meditation practices. In an Aikido dojo, the doing is the martial art of aikido. And so on. We engage with, we touch an understanding and experience of something including ourselves but also greater than our individual self, through a specific praxis. Anyone can swing a wooden sword repeatedly anywhere, building strength, coordination, muscle memory, and precision. But if you are swinging the wooden sword in order to understand yourself, the world, the nature of your existence, and so on, then where you are doing that is a dojo. It is useful to have a specific, physical location set aside and made precious to the practitioners of a way where they can practice it. The world is full of distractions. I go to the shore of Lake Michigan in my Chicago neighborhood to practice aikido with a wooden staff sometimes, and if I work very hard and am diligent I can turn that patch of sand into a dojo. It is much, much easier for me to go to my aikido dojo with my peers and practice there. I will not be likely to get distracted by a gull or squirrel, or by someone’s friendly dog trying to play with me, or by the music and scents of a nearby cookout. Sometimes it is necessary to make a space like that your dojo, it allows you to engage in rigorous training of your psychological and physical elements, but it is not always ideal and rarely so for beginners. 

“That’s all great,” you may now be saying, “but what has that got to do with acting?”

If you can have an enlightenment experience by training in sword arts, meditative arts, and the like, then it follows that you can do the same by studying performing arts. Enlightenment experiences are not inherently mystical or otherworldly. In my opinion, enlightenment experiences can simply be “Aha!” moments, where you have a flash of insight into your role in the universe. Art is meant to bind humans to each other through embraces of empathy, imagination, and inspiration. The role of the artist in the world is to create communion experiences between human beings, and between human beings and the greater world. You should not become an actor in order to win fame and fortune. There are simpler ways to worldly success. You are an actor because you cannot help but perform, and you are a good actor if your performances contribute something to those around you. You are a great actor if they contribute something to your own development as well. It is fine if you are studying acting simply because you think it will be fun to perform with your friends. It is a beautiful thing! It is fine if you are studying acting because you have some natural talent at expression and wish to make a career out of it. It is a beautiful thing, though it will be a struggle to make ends meet! It is best, I think, if you are studying acting as a way of deeper understanding of self, of humanity, of all of creation. Then it does not matter if you will be making a living, or practicing for free with friends, or acting in some other fashion. You are acting, you are an actor. You act. That is all that matters. 

After over twenty years of serious study, practice, and teaching in acting and theatre arts I have come to the conclusion that for many people it is the best way to study and train. Acting by definition is praxis, effecting a change in yourself, others, and the environment around you by taking specific actions. “Acting is doing,” you will often hear it said. “Acting is behaving truthfully in imaginary circumstances.” “Behavior” is what we call the response to stimuli. You wink at me, I blush. You strike at me, I cower.

I walk into a forest clearing and see a bear, my heartbeat races, my muscles tighten, my brain produces chemicals, etc, all before I consciously choose an action to take. If I am a Park Ranger and am used to encountering bears, I may already begin engaging in an appropriate action before I realize it consciously, one meant to protect both my own and the bear’s wellbeing. If I’ve never seen a bear before in my life, I may become overwhelmed, lose control of my actions, and make things very bad for both the bear and myself. Audiences can be like bears. So can your fellow actors. It is good to have training to help control how you will behave when meeting them, how you will act. It is better to have a practice that elevates both your own, your fellow actors, and the audience's well being. It is best to have a practice that allows you to freely, openly, immediately behave in the most beautiful way possible regardless of how often you may or may not encounter bears. In order to have such a practice you must have a place to practice. Hence, an actor’s dojo.