Right from childhood there is something that attracts me to acting. As an actor, I will not only get a chance to present the emotions of a
common man but also entertain people in this modern frustrated lifestyle.

Being a true SRKian, I always wanted to be like my idol. It happened after the release of Don (2006), and I got into the process of
becoming an actor. The movie was so impactful that I used to dress up like Don and recite the movie dialogues. While I growing up and
after attending a few acting workshops I realized that being an actor is not so easy and that too a method actor requires a lot of effort to
understand the basic lessons of acting. To know more about this, I thought of taking acting classes but it was really difficult to manage
with my ongoing college that’s when I came to know about Anamya’sActing Workshop. Here is what I learnt –

1- Facial Expressions:

On day 1st we were asked to do some facial exercises. These included stretching and contracting our cheeks, eyebrows, and
mouth, widening our eyes, lifting our eyebrows, etc.

Initially, I didn’t have an idea what is going on, but later on, we were told that these exercises will help to give an impactful
expression according to the scenes. Sometimes our Facial expressions add more essence to the dialogue, which helps the
actor to establish connection with the audience.

2. Voice modulation and Breathing Technique:

Voice modulation is the technique of controlling, adjusting, and making necessary changes in your voice while speaking, like
moving from high pitch to low or fast to slow, etc. A versatile actor should know how to play with his voice and also make sure that his
voice is clear enough so that the audience gets every word of his dialogue. This can be mainly achieved through some breathing
techniques.

During the breathing sessions, we were asked to focus on sending the air into our bellies. When we breathe in, the diaphragm drops
down, tenses, and flattens as the lungs inflate and the chest cavity expands. When we breathe out, the diaphragm relaxes, then
stretches as it rises back up.

3- Working on Speech:

Working on a speech session was more or less like a speech therapy session. In the first exercise we were asked to take a
deep breath in, then hum while slowly releasing our breath. We did this 5–10 times.
Next was the “Ha” exercise.
In this, we were asked to stand and place our hands on our abdomen. Breathe in by expanding your stomach outward; we were now breathing from our diaphragm. We repeated “ha” with each exhale, pushing in our abdomen with every syllable.
I also learned simplest thing to improve the clarity of our speech is to make sure our mouth is open wide enough for the sound to
come out clearly.
Tongue twisters are a good way to practice clear articulation. Start slowly and build up speed. Thus, we were asked to speak
tongue twisters as many times as we can.

4- Working on body Language:

Our body language plays an important role as an actor, especially when auditioning for a role or while performing. Actors should make a point about holding their posture, moving and walking around the room with a reason, not making too much eye movement, giving proper expression, etc. Our body is tuned by various factors, the most essential of which is body language. There weren’t any specific exercises for this. We were mostly asked to observe the body language of different actors like what all changes they have done in themselves to play a particular character.