Barba on training

" Let us understand each other, however: it is not by killing oneself with exhaustion that one becomes creative. It is not on command, by forcing, that one opens ones self to others. Training is not a form of personal asceticism, a malevolent harshness against oneself, a persecuting of the body. Training puts one's own intentions to the test, how far one is prepared to pay with one's own person for all that one believes and declares. It is the possibility of brisging the gap between intention and realization. This daily task, obstinate, patient, often in darkness, sometimes even searching for a meaning for it, is a concrete factor in the transformation of the actor as a man and as a member of the group. This imperceptible daily transformation of one's own way of seeing, approaching and judging the problems of one's own existence and that of others, this sifting of one's own prejudices, one's own doubts- not through gestures and grandiloquent phrases but through the silent daily activity- is reflected in one's work which finds new justifications, new reactions: thus one's north is displaced"
Eugenio Barba ' Words or Presence'

Of course, he is speaking of actor training.

But hey, if corporate training types are allowed to lecture us about training and development, why not a director?

Especially on the role of disciplined practice (so here I'm thinking especially meditation on the scriptures and prayer) "thus one's north is displaced"!