Day 3

I was VERY impressed with everyone's impromtu definitions that turned into great stories. What a fun activity! As for the morning stretching activities.... I will post the Brain gym information in a couple of days. Right now I am DEEP into my last linquistics paper and my neither my desk or room can handle me pulling out anymore books and papers. But you are all welcome to come and do A.M. Yogi with me around 7:00 every morning. Besides the stretches, it works wonders for focusing on everything ( even Linguistic papers)!!!!
In our reading of the book, "Suddenly They Heard Footsteps", I see what Danny meant when he commented, in reference to the book, on moving the furniture. Yashinsky tells us moving furniture is one of the two extremely important skills a storyteller must learn. He goes on to say you may have to put the storytelling space in order. We experienced the importance of that in class on the second day.
One of Dan Yashinsky's mentors is Alice Kane. He quotes her often. One quote tells us of Alice's belief that storytelling is so intensely individual, as the storyteller chooses her own story, and tells it as she sees it and feels it. Carmen touched on this today also as she talked about ( as did Elizabeth Ellis) reading many versions and picking one that finds you and adding your own touches.

Yashinsky often comments on his mentors and I agree with Saundra, that it would be wonderful to have a storytelling mentor. I would even appreciate a guild or another storyteller that didn't live across the state 6 hours away. Even Carmen often mentioned other tellers and something they had discussed or having someone to toss your ideas out to... Yes, a mentor would be a wonderful gift.
I found Alice Kane's ideas that you must always know how to speak a second language interesting. She considers story as a second language. She says "Storytellers are the custodians of this language made of stories. They have the dual responsibliity of sustaining and enriching the community's body of narratives, and of reminding their fellow citizens that it is to their benefit to speak Story as fluently as possible." Thanks to all of you for being my mentor for 3 weeks as I work on my second language....story.