Demanding more and more of myself

I’ve now been on tour with “The King and I” for 9 months. That’s over 150 shows (I think) and there are still things to learn every single day. The show is a beautiful, living tapestry of human emotion that demands full commitment for every single moment. It has been a journey of finding new motivation, new reserves and new ways to tell stories. No matter which part of the world we are, no matter how many people are in the audience and no matter whether it’s the first or the ninth show of the week, the story demands to be told.

Only I know how much I can push myself. Everytime I think I’ve found that limit, I step over it and continue until I find the next line. I step over that one and find the next. I do it at my own pace, but I keep pushing. I make sure I rest, but I don’t stop - because guess what? The things that I am worried about - I can only hide from them for so long. If I don’t face up to them, they will come back and demand I face them when I am the least prepared.

My own natural instinct and training is to simply keep working harder and harder, and while that has served me in some instances, it isn’t always useful and it has been a painful journey of having to learn how to stop slamming my head against the wall.

So demanding more of myself has meant knowing what “pushing myself” means in each circumstance. Not everything can be accomplished by brute force.

I am learning to fIgure out what that means to me physically, mentally, intellectually, spiritually, emotionally … because they ALL mean different things and it has been vitally important to be able to distinguish what I need for each facet of my life.

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My name is Eu Jin. I embarked on a career as a professional actor after 20 years in the corporate world. I am a big advocate of personal growth in the performing arts. I dedicate time and energy in performing arts education, specifically in the arena of practical approaches to inner health because I believe that this lays the groundwork for a sustainable career as an artiste.

If you would like to engage in a conversation about a healthy inner life practice, please leave me a message on the "Contact" page of my website and a way to contact you. Thank you.

Three weeks as the Kralahome

I was recently given the tremendous opportunity to step into one of my cover roles in “The King and I” for a three week period over the Christmas and New Year period. Prior to this, I had gone on as the Kralahome only four times since the start of the tour.

It has been an exercise in presence, trust, nerve, joy and gratitude.

Presence because I reminded myself every single day to stay in the awareness of the moment - regardless of what I was feeling or what was happening.

Trust because I reminded myself every day to believe in the work I had done, to believe in my own process, to believe in what I was capable of without condition and to believe in the trust the producers and creatives were putting in me

Nerve because fear and doubt reared its ugly head at every opportune moment; nerve because I told myself I had to be as good as everyone else on stage who had performed their roles at least 150 time more than I had; nerve because my ego would take one good show and demand that every subsequent show be better than the last one; nerve because my parents, agent and dear ones were in the audience and nerve because my ego kept placing the future of my entire career on these three weeks.

Joy because of the moments of release I felt constantly throughout these last three weeks; joy because of the moments of clarity and acceptance that embraced me between moments of doubt and joy because I got to tell the story of this enigmatic man in my own way.

Gratitude because there is nothing in the world like knowing that the entire cast and crew were right there to support me at every moment; gratitude for the ability to see and feel everything so deeply; gratitude for the words of encouragement and for the lady who grabbed my hand after the show to thank me through tears for the work; gratitude for the courage to have stepped up, to keep playing and the courage to have kept going, kept evolving and kept telling his story.

This is another step in my journey, and rather than place a condition of success on what happens next, I will allow myself - simply - to enjoy this moment.

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My name is Eu Jin. I embarked on a career as a professional actor after 20 years in the corporate world. I am a big advocate of personal growth in the performing arts. I dedicate time and energy in performing arts education, specifically in the arena of practical approaches to inner health because I believe that this lays the groundwork for a sustainable career as an artiste.

If you would like to engage in a conversation about a healthy inner life practice, please leave me a message on the "Contact" page of my website and a way to contact you. Thank you.

Swings and covers : the backbone of The King and I

Over the last few months, I have witnessed resilience and adaptability at a level and a consistency that surpasses anything I ever saw in the corporate world. The cast and crew of ‘The King and I’ have weathered countless injuries, bumps, illnesses, physical, intellectual, spiritual and emotional strain and challenge - and yet at every single show - 8 shows a week, we go out there and tell a story that moves audiences to tears.

In more than a few instances, our swing team (these are actors hired to cover multiple other tracks within the show) have been called on to learn new choreography and go on stage within the hour. Swings and covers have stepped in for injured colleagues at a moment’s notice, switched entire tracks (including costume, props, etc.), gone on stage in a different role and and have still blown the audience away. They have held their nerve, stood singularly under the intense glare of the theatre spotlight and knocked it out of the park.

I would like you to understand just how difficult that is - in the corporate world, it would be akin to joining a new company and within the first week, be given the responsibility of negotiating a business with a client who generates 60% of your revenue and who is threatening to walk away. That is the level of pressure on our swings and covers.

“It must cost you something,” a wise mentor once told me.

And it does. And still they do it, wholeheartedly with zero hesitation once they step onto the stage. They are the backbone of this production. They stand ready every single show, never knowing what will be asked of them and they deserve all the respect in the world.

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My name is Eu Jin. I embarked on a career as a professional actor after 20 years in the corporate world. I am a big advocate of personal growth in the performing arts. I dedicate time and energy in performing arts education, specifically in the arena of practical approaches to inner health because I believe that this lays the groundwork for a sustainable career as an artiste.

If you would like to engage in a conversation about a healthy inner life practice, please leave me a message on the "Contact" page of my website and a way to contact you. Thank you.

Spreading my wings

My ultimate goal with ‘Healthy Inner Life Practices’ is to have this be available to all performing arts students and educators. For this to happen, I want to put the material through the rigour of a Masters of Education. It is a difficult ask while I am on tour. So what I have decided to do is to maximize my time on tour by reaching out to performing arts institutes and educators in the cities and countries I visit to speak to them about this and ascertain if and what the needs are.

I recently had the opportunity to speak to performing arts educators and students in Glasgow and Leeds. I am extremely fortunate that the educators at the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland and the Leeds College of Music were willing to let me have - not only their time - but also the time of their students.

I prepared meticulously - tailoring the sessions for both a Masters cohort as well as a Bachelors cohort.

I was incredibly relieved when both educators and students responded so well to the work - not just intellectually but emotionally and spiritually as well. We spoke in as much depth as time allowed, and I can only hope that I have brought an old - yet much needed - conversation to the fore. I hope that I have opened up that can of worms, opened up Pandora’s Box so that we can start to learn how to have a mature conversation about building emotionally-balanced and sustainable careers in the arts.

I am fortunate to have the opportunity to re-visit the conversation in Glasgow in January when the tour goes back to Scotland.

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My name is Eu Jin. I embarked on a career as a professional actor after 20 years in the corporate world. I am a big advocate of personal growth in the performing arts. I dedicate time and energy in performing arts education, specifically in the arena of practical approaches to inner health because I believe that this lays the groundwork for a sustainable career as an artiste.

If you would like to engage in a conversation about a healthy inner life practice, please leave me a message on the "Contact" page of my website and a way to contact you. Thank you.