When you go into a session, be it online or in the room, you need to have some kind of burning question, which initially can be quite amorphous but needs, by the end of the session at least, to be there in your consciousness. Sometimes this question reveals itself as you go along, or perhaps what you thought was the question is jostled out by an interesting more fascinating question or area of enquiry. The Question makes me feel like an explorer. It gives me a focus and action to perform through my teaching, thereby giving a stronger weight and potency to my teaching; as Michael Chekhov would call it, “a spine”. In addition we need to provide, as best we can in the time allotted, the prerequisite skills to the participants to enable them to explore.
When Declan Drohan and I were preparing our recent in-the room weekend workshop Be Here Now, I felt initially very comfortable with the subject matter and then a little challenged. Of course there are strong and obvious Chekhov areas to explore and develop to working in the moment, most noticeably radiating and receiving and concentration but i didn’t feel wholly satisfied with the usual route.
Thanks to Dawn Arnold and others in our Thursday discussion group, I have been encouraged more and more to look into the Chekhov Archives held online by the University of Windsor . These records of many classes and lectures given by Michael Chekhov himself are an absolutely invaluable resource. There is a good search engine and you can enter a keyword and topic and locate all mentions/explorations of this area. there’s the link!
University of Windsor
https://collections.uwindsor.ca/chekhov/about
Our subject was about being present in the moment. So I typed in, “presence’ ; I found a class from June 9th 1939. Declan and I both read it and we decided it must at least form part of our sessions.
Chekhov’s three areas of emphasis were Presence, Radiating, and Significance.In the lesson he states, “you can’t radiate without being present , and you cannot be present without radiating”. On the surface, Presence is one of those words in acting like ‘Ensemble’ ; it has many different meanings and is bandied about. I would define Presence as a state of Being which we understand and know (whereas ‘Radiating’ is about sending your energy out into the space.)
Why this was such a key moment in our planning was because in his lesson, Chekhov did not lead with the Body. This is almost unheard of. The body and Imagination are the twin keys to the work. His emphasis was that the body stayed free and did not lead the exercise in the way so much of his practise does. If anything, the body had to stay out of the way of the other elements; at the most merely follow them.
“ We, as actors, are showing on the stage, not only our bodies….If we have not developed our psychology, we are compelled to show only our bodies , our make-up, costumes etc which are not important.”
He encourages us in this exercise to actually detach the body and really let it follow.
This idea felt very foreign and exciting and it wasn’t until we got people to act their scenes with Presence and Significance that this consciously not leading with the body became absolutely riveting to watch. The body like all parts of our instrument can often be stereotypical and move into default. Having what Chekhov called “Free Bodies” liberated the elements of Presence, Radiation and Significance to reach us, the audience.
Max Hafler - Radiating /Receiving 
I discussed what follows with Max and he insisted I comment on the point here: I think he agrees with me but is anxious to create dialogue:
It occurred to me that if you are at least a little skilled in Chekhov Technique when you detach from the body in the way Max suggests above, the body will “follow”.
If you are really in your body and spirit/soul (whatever you want to call it), if there is a unity, then the body nearly always follows through. In fact when it doesn’t there is a danger of neurosis. And of course on other occasions we give away our mental state through unconscious body language. Watch a rugby player kick a penalty or convert a Try: he places the ball and then goes through a series of very individual psychological gestures (my interpretation). He looks at the goal space as though imagining the path of the ball he intends to kick and then back at the ball, he often moves his arm as he will when he actually kicks and maybe his upper body rotates a little as it must when his leg muscles propel the ball. Then he composes himself and kicks! When jack Crowley, the Ireland Fly-half, kicks I think his body is following through in that kind of way…it fulfils his willed intention.
Having said that I guess he has spent a lot of time training it to do just that!
I love the way that artistic discipline goes through sport, skills and life itself… so much of these disciplines are easily transferable. I wanted to add a picture here of the said Crawley kicking for goal but i do not think the Great God Widget will allow me!