Pilotaction follow up activity to the second training “Inner Clown and humour strategies” Germany, Leipzig “The artist within – Applied eMOTION”
Leaders: Elisabeth Blunck, Ana Comes, Sophie Bouchbouk target group: people in helping professions, also open for other professions activity: one-day-clownsworkshop with people from helping professions, different activities that we did in the october training Description of the activity We picked the exercises of the training in Leipzig we liked the most and created an one-day-workshop with a group. The aim was to give an introduction to the inner clown and how this clown can interact with other clowns. For this we did different energizers, exercises for movement and body possibilities, the inner child – meditation, improvisation with the ney clownsfigure and with objects, emotion-exercises, partner- and group-plays like the “cinema” or “two clowns, one chair”.
Results: Sophie: We had a very nice group of ten people that enjoyed the day a lot. My personal goal in the day was to try out new collaborations as I never leaded a workshop together with Eli and Ana. I enjoyed to give up some responsibility and to be able to participate myself in the activities from time to time. As I am the most experienced one in doing clownworkshops I took over some explanation parts about the clown and its nature and also the introduction for the first time putting the red nose. I worked on the improvement of leading this part of the workshop, because I think it is a very tricky part of the whole thing and I had the impression there can be some improvements according to what we did in the october training. One result was the satisfaction in the group. They all expressed gratefullness at the end, they said they had a verygood day discovering their playful being and there was lots of motivation to continue come kind of clownstraining. They said that they never thought that also inside of them there is hidden an inner clown and that they enjoyed very much to discover it and to get an idea of the whole methodology. Eli: I really enjoyed this pilot action, at least because the participants gave really good feedback! Better than I could have imagined. I had the feeling, they were able to get to know their inner clown despite the little time we had together. Of course they said that they will need more time to discover that clown appropriately, but they were very satisfied about the learning income, they achieved. For me personally it was a good occasion to train my “leading skills”. I was kind of concerned about doing the exercises – despite I am teacher, I thought it would challenge me to lead the participants through the exercises in a good (!!) way. But it was not hard at all – so this pilot action really helped me to “re-discover” my confidence in front of groups. Pros and contras: Sophie: I don't have any contras, because I am very much pro the methodology. I think it can be very helpful for people to get into a more playing, joyful mood instead of beeing very serious all the time. The world is very serious, unequal and terrible and it is important to strenghten the own sense of humour and the inner child in a playful way to be able to confront the world. Eli: I can also see no contra within the methodology. Maybe we can think about, in which situations the inner clown might be not useful – but I guess these will not be to much. After the workshop in Leipzig I experienced two really scarry nazi-encounters and I had the feeling that my inner clown, who I found in that week and who is very strict and absolutely sure about herself, helped me to stay strong and fight them with this confidence and serious words. Recommendations: I don't have any recommandations, but I would like to add that I would have liked to try out another pilot activity (I would have wanted to do a humour workshop for ergotherapeuts in a house for elderly – as this is my working area – but it would have needed much more time and preparing and the time line was too short – so it ended up to be more a general pilot action about clowning, because it was easier to realize in a short time.
Personal and professional reflections 1. How did the training in Leipzig support/challenged/altered my professional approach? Ana: The training in Leipzig support my professional approach in a way I didn't expected. This training helped me to understand and handle with humour and a better energie every problem or critical situation in my professional and personal life as well. Eli: The training in Leipzig challenged me since I had the doublerole: Participating and organizing. So the training did not only give me the opportunity to be part of this exciting European project and to discover my inner clown (who really surprised me, because he is incredible serious), but also the opportunity to check out my limits when it comes to energy. And I noticed that these are wide. I think it’s very funny, that I needed a clowns-workshop to learn that I have a deep seriousness inside of me, which I was not aware of. This supports my professional approach, because I teach people who are much older than me and might be professors. Beside this effect for me personally I get to know a really great repertoire of exercises, which I can use in class to ease tension or frustration about hard grammar issues. Altogether the workshop was a wonderful experience for me, not at least because of the interesting people I get to know. 2. What did I get from the training that I can use in my work based on the pilot activity? Ana: What I get from the training that I can use also in my work is the way to deal with some situations with humor and to think positive. I always tried to make things right and I consider myself as a dynamic cheerful person ...but sometimes this ist not enouhg. I really appreciate the methods we learned and experimeted with in the training. I used it sometimes with myself so I can separate also work and my real life. Eli: see question 1 3.What is not fitting my work from the training based on the pilot activity? Ana: I think when you are working with desabled people, more specially with mentally disabled it is not easy to put into practice my acquired knowdlege in every case. Although I just tried the mirror with sombody and it was really interesting to see the reaction. This is something that you always can do when the humor sense is not so developed in order to use it as a resolutor of problems.