A new kind of angst

So far, every day of class has been wonderful. I already feel like old friends with my classmates in this very weird way. We are all very different from one another, and this will be a good thing. Today, however, I left class feeling angsty, but also with a new realization about myself and my work. The thing I have not realized is how much I care about Viewpoints and how all of the work that we have been doing for the last 6 years has really revolved around an exploration and study of Viewpoints in some way. Without setting out to, I have become a kind of authority on the topic, at least as compared to the other people in my class. Today Wendell began the discussion of Viewpoints. Without getting too far into this here, Wendell was married to Mary Overlie, who is credited with developing the idea of Viewpoints, and Anne Bogart was her student. Anne Bogart went on to continue to develop and change the Viewpoints into the language that I was taught, and the same one that I have worked with for so long. I have stars in my eyes for Anne Bogart--the way that she talks about theater, and the world, really resonates with me and inspires me. I feel that her work with Viewpoints has articulated it to a new level. I want to be open to Wendell's approach to Viewpoints, but after today's class I couldn't help but feel that Anne's version is more articulate, more specific, an evolution of what his work is, and ultimately more interesting to me. I knew from the get-go that this might be a challenge for me--to let go of what I know enough that I might learn from scratch, in a new way. But the truth is I want to study Viewpoints with Anne--I feel that she has taken his work to a new level and I want to be her successor in that. Perhaps this itch will be scratched if I go to her summer intensive workshop. In any case, it is frustrating to have to start from scratch with the study of something that I am ready to go deeper into, alongside the other students who have had very little training in this realm.
I have had a similar frustration with the contemplative practice that we are learning here. There was a time in my life when Buddhism intrigued me and I studied it a bit, but I chose yoga as the contemplative practice that fulfilled me, and I want to go so much deeper down that path that I feel frustrated at having to give my time to somebody else's path.
I suppose this is the nature of school--you do not make your own curriculum (unless you go to Evergreen!) and there will be times when you will have to learn something that doesn't interest you as much as what you would have chosen for yourself. I must respect that our ensemble needs this common base in order to work together, but I know today was not the first of my obnoxious hand-raising in Viewpoints workshop. Sometimes the student must challenge the teacher, and this seems to be my calling in life.
The exciting discovery is that I feel myself more and more ready to teach what I know, to understand the difference between what I am taught and what I actually believe when it comes to these crazy theater practices.
I have been so swamped with school and socializing with my classmates after school that I have not yet gone hiking, but I plan to take advantage of Labor Day weekend to do so. My body has been wrecked from an increase in biking and dancing and moving, but I love it.