Instinctive Changes: The Next Brick in the Meisner Repetition Exercise

In Part 1, I walked you through the foundation. Two people sitting across from each other, repeating exactly what they hear, exactly how they hear it. Most people learn very quickly how little they were listening.

That’s the parrot phase. It lasts about an hour in class, but the foundation it lays lasts forever. Everything that follows is built on top of it. So let’s build.

Eight Keys on the Piano

The early repetition is very limiting. It’s like lifting the lid on a piano and finding eight keys. That’s it. There isn’t much variety, and there isn’t supposed to be.

Every class, someone wants to spice it up. The class clown. The one who’s bored. The one who thinks it’s their job to keep us entertained. Sure, you could bang around on eight keys and have some fun. But you’d miss what they’re there for.

Eight keys is a forcing function. With nowhere to hide, you start to really hear how one note relates to the next. Where each one lives on the keyboard.

That’s the repetition. The words barely change, so you can focus on what you’re supposed to be doing. Listening. What your partner just did. How it landed on you. What it made you do back.

That’s the first brick. A real understanding of the instrument. Once it’s solid, the next one goes on top. We call it instinctive changes. Your partner’s behavior changes the repetition. You don’t decide to change it. You’re made to. It’s one of the biggest leaps in the entire two-year Formal Training.

What Does “Made to Do It” Mean?

When Sanford Meisner introduced it, he told us that what he was about to share would change everything in our time together. And in our careers. It would hold true whether we stayed with the Meisner technique or not, no matter how we chose to work. If we cared about truthful, believable acting, this was it:

• Don’t do anything unless you’re made to do it.
• What you do doesn’t depend on you. It depends on your partner.

Here’s what that means at this stage. Don’t manipulate your behavior. Don’t give more than you received. Everything that comes out of you comes from what was just done to you.

Sandy used to say he wanted us to be a leaf in the wind. So relaxed and so open that the smallest thing your partner did would move you. And so would the biggest.

Listening Underneath the Words

So what changes? Until now, the repetition only went back and forth. Now we start listening to the life underneath it.

I look across at you and say, “You look tired.” That’s what I see. But you’re not tired at all. It surprises you. So your reply comes out as a question. “I look tired?”

Before, I’d have to keep repeating, “You look tired,” no matter what I heard. Not anymore. You just gave me behavior. And the behavior is clear. You disagree. You’re surprised. So now I’m made to change the repetition.

“That surprised you.”

“That did surprise me.”

“That did surprise you.”

“That did surprise me.”

It keeps going until something new happens. Sometimes the new thing is boredom. The repetition starts to wear on your partner, and that changes it too.

The Words Are the Last Thing

Sandy once said an ounce of behavior is worth a pound of words. He understood something about people. The words are the last thing that comes out of us. What gives them meaning is how we feel about what we’re saying, or what we’re reacting to.

Picture a scene where you’re one of two siblings. You say, “You need to go apologize to Mom.” Your sibling says, “I should apologize to Mom?”

Those are the words. But the meaning is, “Are you kidding? She should be apologizing to me.” The words are a question. The behavior is disbelief. And the behavior is what you react to.

The same thing happens in class. A student makes a mistake and puts their hands to their forehead. Their partner says, “You put your hands to your forehead.” True. But that’s the obvious moment. What’s really going on? They’re frustrated. They know they messed up. That’s the moment.

And now their partner has something real to respond to. Maybe it makes them sympathetic. Maybe the frustration frustrates them. Maybe it throws them completely. They don’t pick. It depends on how it lands. Instinctive changes train you to go past the obvious and get to what’s real.

Recently I watched two Session 1 students, five or six classes in, do exactly this. Nobody was just repeating. They were picking up on barely-there moments, one after another. It was a clinic. Every moment wasn’t fabulous. But as Sandy used to say, every moment can be human. And theirs were.

Where It Goes Wrong

This is the most delicate part of the foundation. It’s where you find out whether someone received this work cleanly or not.

The most common mistake is adding and dropping words. Your partner says, “That surprised you.” You say, “It did surprise me.” You just added two words. Now I’m watching your partner. Do they pick it up? If they do, good. They’re listening. If they don’t, you’re in two different worlds. Either way, the one adding words is the one veering.

I tell students to picture a two-lane highway. We’re trying to drive straight down the white line in the middle. Every word you add is a veer.

It’s understandable. We’re used to communicating. We add more. We’re not used to being in a straitjacket. But this is brick by brick. If this brick is wobbly, the next one will be too.

What Is the Pinch and the Ouch?

Adding words is one way to veer. Acting is the other. When a student starts giving more than they received, I stop and teach the pinch and the ouch. I learned it from Sandy.

Recently in a class, I had just mentioned that if the repetition gets boring, that boredom can change it. Sure enough, the next pair starts the exercise. She says, “You have brown hair.” He says, “I have brown hair,” and right away there’s an edge on it. One second in. He’d grabbed the seed I planted.

I let it go a few more rounds, then stopped it. “Were you really that frustrated with her?”

I stood him up and gave him one line: “Stop that.” Whatever I did to him, the moment I did it, he’d say his line.

I barely touched his shoulder. “Stop that.” Unperturbed. I blew in his ear. “Stop that.” A chuckle. I gave his hand a small pinch. “Stop that.” He pulled his hand back. Then I pinched his arm hard. “Stop that!” He shouted it.

He was starting to get it. What you give back should be the size of what you were given. That’s congruence.

Then I whispered to him. I’m going to barely touch you, and when I do, fall on the floor like you’ve been shot. I touched him. He hit the floor, full drama. The room laughed.

That’s the opposite of what we’re doing. That’s acting. That’s doing what you think you should do, instead of responding to what’s being done to you.

I don’t teach it on day one. I wait until someone starts to act. That’s when it lands.

You Can’t Learn This From a Page

I’m doing my best to put this into words, and I know it doesn’t come close. Sandy was against trying to teach the technique in a book. I understand why.

The parrot phase is easy to explain. If you repeat exactly what you hear, you’re doing it right. This is different. A few weeks in, you need someone with an experienced eye on you. Someone who can see your eyes flicker before the pause, and bring you back to your partner before you drift.

You can read about it. But you won’t grow until you do it.

Here’s a class clip from our archive of the repetition evolving into responding to behavior. It’ll teach you more than I can write.

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