"What could this be?": A 14-hour acting intensive with one Theatre Studies major from NUS

What is it about acting that draws me back to it no matter how demanding, cruel, frustrating, painful it gets? Why exactly, for lack of a better expression, do self-professed masochists choose to torture themselves like this? 

As my spirit staggered out of each training session hungry and tired, I found it easy to lapse into momentary bouts of self-doubt. Am I cut out for this at all? My muscles are dying, my brain is debraining and the information is overloading itself in. And yet through all the confusion and the fog, the shining center of my love for this craft leads me back to this journey. Learning a new approach to acting is as rewarding as it is challenging, and this is a look into what happens into the room where the magic is learnt.

I arrived at the Bitesize Kampung, an unassuming little studio carefully hidden away in the outskirts of Kallang, just off the city center. I was early by 10 minutes, having rushed over by bus from Haw Par Villa, but Vignesh Singh, my acting coach for the week, was already there. I had no idea what to expect given that our lesson structure had been so drastically altered at the last minute, and I clearly did not take the physical activity warning seriously. I regret that lack of foresight, but I suppose - and I'm sure my core muscles would agree - that I regret nothing about the decision or the experience.

Before I continue, I should clear some things up. I can not afford 14 hours of private actor training. That's nuts. This entire experience was pure insanity for every reason possible. It started because Vignesh was running an ad for his course called Acting for Realism. It was a course modelled on post-Stanislavski acting techniques as devised by Beto Ruiz and Rahul Serrano which ran for 45 hours across 3 weeks, for the low, low price of S$500 (US$355 at current exchange rates). I was ready to open my wallet for that, and so I signed up and paid the deposit. That was in the summer of 2022.

Then just three days before the intensive was supposed to start, everyone dropped out. There were two of us left, and then the other person left too. It was just me. And so... I was offered a deal I could not resist: 14 hours of private coaching. For S$500.

Oh yeah. I totally signed up for this. Only I did not know what I was in for.

Day One

It started out tamely enough. Walk around the room. Any rhythm and movement I like. Just move, step, jump, dance, move. A piece of cloth, damp. Feel the floor with it. Move around the room, forward, backward.

I was getting comfortable and that would not do. Floorwork time.

I was introduced to a pair of floorwork exercises - legato and staccato.

The former was a slow spine articulation, a wave of energy coursing from the feet all the way up and culminating in a tidal wave that crashes slowly downwards - almost like a spinal roll, but I settle in a half-squat. Then in a singular burst of movement, I slide my bare palms out on the wood floor using my core strength into a full plank. I pull my legs in and lightly jump back into a squat. And I roll back up again, feeling the structure of the spinal articulation before returning to the preparatory position for the continuation of the exercise. (That's the perfect version. My first day, I was crashing on the floor every five seconds.)

The latter began with something like an Échappé on demi pointe, or a French ballet term where I go from neutral to second position on the balls of my feet. I then snap into a squat position, push out into the plank, leap back into the squat, and stand right back up like a soldier. My core and thighs BURNED after that exercise. We go for about fifteen to twenty repetitions before I'm finally spared from the torture. Interestingly, it got easier with every passing day of training.

We then worked on my core strength - by sitting with my legs parallel and walking on my glutes. Yes, exactly. I was asked to focus on the upward movement, and to keep pulling my core together. With enough body conditioning for the day, we proceeded to take the sticks out to the open air carpark. They were about a meter long, perhaps more, and they were the perfect weight and circumference. I was reminded to get to know the stick before I begin - feel it, connect with it, befriend it.

My first task was to balance the stick on two fingers. Simple enough, I thought. I set the wooden rod on my fingers and... in quick succession, the stick began wobbling, I ambled forward to keep it still, it strayed further from my control and at the last moment, my hand acted on autopilot and grasped the falling rod just before it hit the floor. I turned to look at Vignesh. He told me to continue. The stick was back on my two fingers. I tried again. I always caught the stick just before it fell.

"Why wouldn't you let the stick fall? Just let it fall." I was midway through my fifth attempt when Vignesh finally spoke up. The stick wobbled, and for the first time, I let go. The stick hit the ground with a resounding clang that reverberated across the open space. "Now you've heard it fall. You can do it again." So I went again. This time, I did not save the stick. I let it fall.

Later during the lesson, Vignesh told me that I needed to learn that letting go does not mean giving up, but chasing the stick all the way to the last consequence. I needed to accept that the stick must fall, the script demands it, gravity demands it, and still choose to defy _______ until it is no longer possible. Go ahead, fill in the blank.

My second task was to hold one end of the stick with two fingers, with Vignesh on the other end. At first, I watched the stick intently, careful not to let it fall out of my grasp. "Why do you have to watch the stick? Look at your surroundings. Be aware of what is around you. Your sense of touch is enough." I let my gaze wander, and now my sense of touch was doing the work. It was a scene, with a little push so I stepped back, a little pull so I adjusted the pressure I was placing on the stick. I noticed the full moon and I bent down, low to the ground, up, turned the stick around, took the lead, followed. We repeated the same activity blindfolded. After I went home to research on this exercise, I discovered that it was an object work exercise that came from Meyerhold's Biomechanics.

We went back indoors, and started on our voicework for the day. We started with the Maori Warrior exercise, which involved stretching our jaw all the way down with out hands before shaking it off. I had to keep my eyes open in order to lift the soft palate, according to Vignesh, although my singing training with Joel had taught me how to isolate my soft palate according to Jo Estill. My jaw was quite tense because I tie them together with rubber bands for most of the day, no thanks to my braces. Consequently, voicework and singing lessons can be quite unproductive as my time is spent working on relieving jaw tension rather than working on new concepts.

After running through a few vowels, doing retracted breaths, and reciting Macbeth's "Tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow", we proceeded to do Strasberg's Song and Dance. Song and Dance was a simple singing exercise with a twist: I choose my favorite song and sing it the way I always do, but I do it syllable by syllable. Then I add movement to it - once again, syllable by syllable, moment by moment. With nothing else in my mind but Defying Gravity and The Wizard And I, I started singing. Okay, I won't lie, it was a great singing day! But singing syllable by syllable felt disorienting. I was not used to breaking up my words, and when Vignesh told me to add movements, I completely lost track of my coordination.

Rhythm and Repeat was an exercise meant to increase my movement vocabulary, but I must spontaneously change my speed, direction or force at random intervals. I gravitated towards the float and glide Laban efforts, and Vignesh tried to pry me away from my natural directions. We did some choreography where he told me to move in different directions on command. This enabled me to release energy towards different directions without holding back, and to observe if I am letting tension or hesitation get in the way. Finally, we concluded with a trust exercise where I leaned forward, backward, and sideways to move away from my center of gravity.

Some of my habits include tensing up unnecessarily when exerting energy in other parts of my body, especially at my toes. I also tend to rise upwards while neglecting other directions and using the floor, which boxes up my acting as it is limited to just a few natural movements. Hence, one area which I would be working on is to expand my movement vocabulary and to acclimatize myself to the other possibilities which I have yet to explore.

Day Two

I was now aware of what to expect from this class in terms of rigor, and I was bracing myself for "Okay let's go run around the Sports Hub". Well, for better or for worse, we were staying in the studio. (Dear Vignesh, if you are reading this, please don't get any ideas. The poor children.)

After the same legato and staccato exercises as the day before, as well as the core "walking" exercise, I was supposed to do a butterfly stretch. Except, I had to do it with his full body weight on me until I literally tapped out. That was... not fun. We then did some floorwork to isolate the hips, abs and chest in that order, did some fluttering leg raises (NOT fun), before working on handstands. I, of course, failed miserably. The solution was to make me do it in some way anyway - by making me walk with my hands while my legs were carried. Chinese dance memories flooded back as I struggled my way across the room. Yes I faceplanted the first attempt. It got better but ouch.

We went through the Maori Warrior exercises, the vowels, the consonants, the tongue twisters and Macbeth. Then we went outdoors again. I was handed a blindfold. "You have the whole lot to walk around in. I will be right beside you," I was told. I was to move around, blind, unsure, but still in motion. Ready to leap into the fire. And I did. At first, my hands were rigidly in front of me. It was eerily silent. I knew the coffee shop was closed, and there was no one left at The Cage. Light filtered in from the bottom of my blindfolds and I stole a peek at the ground. Nothing but grey cement. I shut my eyes and kept walking, and I thoroughly expected to kick the kerb at some point. I picked up the pace. At some point, I realized that my legs were not shaking. I expected to be scared, but somehow I found this fun, therapeutic even. And eventually, I dropped my hands and stopped feeling for nonexistent walls. Finally, I got redirected from the roadside twice or so before Vignesh decided that it was time to go back inside, and he led me up the steps before removing my blindfolds.

I felt like I had just passed some test.

Now that we were back in the room and my eyes were recovering from the sudden glare of the studio lights, Vignesh told me to take my writing materials out. He led me through a rapid fire checklist of actor jargon. Did I know what a super-objective was? An objective? A tactic? Action verbs? I had learned what those were from my past training, so he did not need to elaborate much. He handed me a script - Cat, Lost and Found by Oliver Chong. The script was dated from 2009. I was holding an ancient artefact from Vignesh's school days. I looked at the monologue in question, a completely vulgar affair with the character violating every code of morality possible, and raised an eyebrow. Vignesh seemed mildly amused by my reaction for he quipped, "She's the complete opposite of you in almost every way. This will be interesting to watch."

I was asked to read through the monologue once over. It sounded flat and boring to myself, and I could tell that Vignesh was bored too. He gave me fifteen minutes to quickly fill in verbs for every sentence. I was certainly rusty with my acting - the last time I worked with a proper script was Small Town Carousel! - and it took me a long time to settle on the appropriate verbs. I was then asked to finish reading the script by the next day and to answer three pivotal questions:

    "What does my character think of herself?"

    "What does my character think of other people?"

    "How do other people view my character?"

I did not know it yet, but I was an intense overthinker who loves to intellectualize, the exact type of student that Vignesh was meant to teach, and I would soon discover how I was going to solve that issue that everyone seems to be stuck with. 

Day Three

It was a long day that began with my parents dropping me off at Yong Siew Toh Conservatory of Music, where I spent an hour and a half trying to figure out how cadences worked. I had practically no break between music and translation class, and straight after that I was onboard bus 10 towards Nicoll Highway. I grabbed an egg mayo sandwich from the convenience store outside the MRT, then wolfed it up on the run-walk to the Bitesize Kampung. I was, to my surprise, on time.

After the usual floorwork, object work - we did balancing today! - and voicework, we moved on to what is probably the highlight of this intensive: The Acting.

For acting on this occasion, I was told to devise a quick and singular abstract movement that is modelled on the Stanislavski action verbs I had chosen for my text such that there is a clear beginning, middle and end for every movement. I would then create a sound that adheres to the form of the movement before I applied it to the text. The movement was easy enough - Create something I actually like, that feels natural to me. I spun on the ground in a faux heroine sweep-kick, and looked to Vignesh for his commentary. "Don't drop your form until I tell you to. And don't shuffle on your feet. Try again." I recalled my movements and realized that I had indeed shuffled. He told me to repeat the action. Again. And again. And then he said, great, now add a voice that connects with this movement.

I was lost. "Any voice?" I asked, unsure of where to start.

"Yes, any voice."

Tentatively, I began thinking about what voice would fit this swift sweep-kick movement. My first attempt was about as neat as a pile of bricks, only less defined. Connect it, Vignesh said. My mind was racing to understand what "connect" meant. It needs a start, a middle and an end. If the movement lasts two seconds, the voice must last two seconds too. Start clean and finish clean. I tried again, and this time I let my voice fly free. It reached a sharp crescendo I could only dream of in my singing, and then I stumbled.

"Try again." Oh no. I stumbled many more times, until I finally began to find the right muscles to keep that voice-action form aloft and supported. "This is why we need body conditioning," Vignesh said as he watched me struggle on the floor. I'm definitely getting my fitness up from now on. And at long last, my voice and body had reached some form of connection - and so I was allowed to proceed to the next line.

At first, my voice dipped, but Vignesh told me to let go and allow the text to manifest with the melody and rhythm of the form. Do not intellectualize, I was told. Let the voice emerge with the original sound and movement, we can put the realism in later. Once my movement was finally aligned - body, sound and text, we began to work on reducing the movement.

There was little sign of humanity with the original form. It was animalistic, almost Avatar-ish, made of shrieks and high energy abstractions. But as I began to scale the movements and my voice down, Vignesh asked me repeatedly, "What could this be?" The spin, the defensive battle-ready stance that I had launched myself into - gradually took shape. At 50%, the movement was a rapid attempt to get away from someone's chokehold. At 25%, it became a startle, as if someone unwelcome had invaded into her personal space and she was reacting on instinct. At 10%, 5% and even 1%, the movements were almost imperceptible, a slight inkling that she did not want to be there perhaps. But I was reminded, time and again, that no matter how small my voice or movements were, the spirit is always, always 100%.

I was reminded of the three questions I had to prepare for my character before we ended for the evening.

Day Four

This was a special session as Vignesh felt that his intensive simply could not be completed without at least some pair work, so he called his former student JM down for the class. JM, I learned, was a tutor for HSS1000 in NUS. That broke the ice for me and I was like, "Oh." I contemplated my existence, and then I stuttered, "And I am an NUS student."

Not just any NUS student, but a student from first batch of CHS. This was getting awkward, and I bet I was not the only one feeling that way. The class began with the same things, with body conditioning and voicework. I was exhausted by the staccato floorwork, having spent the day trekking across Singapore to obtain my passport. I have to say that having the chance to observe another student visually helped me to better understand what I was doing! We did the Maori Warrior, tried 

We headed out for object work. Vignesh told us to pick a song, any song, and sing it while balancing the stick. I thought I had done quite enough of the Wicked trio, so I began sifting through my ballad repertoire mainly because self-consciousness was creeping in and I did not want to belt in front of a TA whom I have just met. I went through "Sun and Moon" from Miss Saigon, "Another Day" from RENT, "I'm Not That Girl" from... fine, Wicked.

Without realizing it at first, I had settled into a rather predictable pattern: I sang until I lost control, safely sidestepping the song every time my stick went haywire. "Don't stop singing!" Vignesh yelled over our frenzy, "The moment where the stick begins to fall is precisely where you are supposed to sing!" JM felt a lot more sturdy with the stick than I was, and I felt like I was constantly running after my stick as I got thrown off body and voice. Come to think of it, even this. Even this links back to connecting the voice and body. But eventually, I was feeling it. The flow state, where I am just not thinking and intellectualizing about when to sing. I was letting a stick bring my body to places, and I was letting my body guide my voice, and my voice guide the song.

We went back into the studio and Vignesh handed us the angry little octopus plushie sitting by the side of the room. "The stakes would be higher if we had to throw a slipper," he grinned as he caught my horrified look, "But the octopus will do." I stood in front of JM. My task was simple, all I had to do was catch the octopus plushie spontaneously without being able to watch her throw it. She threw it ten times. I failed ten times. How's that for simple?

I employed a slightly different method, and I adjusted my trajectory each time. I eventually figured out that this was not working, so with my final attempt, I tried aiming for her head instead. JM felt it land on her head, fumbled for a brief moment, and then she caught it! Vignesh put the octopus back on top of the piano, but he was not done with us yet. From his haversack he pulled a squishy little ball out and handed it to us. We were to throw it around and catch it, while counting from one to ten.

Once again, I underestimated my clumsiness and coordination skills, and JM rightfully pointed out that I missed my cues a few times because I was focused on catching the ball. I needed a way to train my instincts and to do things on cue without missing a beat especially when things go wrong, and I hope that the ability would come with practice and awareness. I eventually settled into a chaotic kind of rhythm and awareness. I (almost) always knew where the ball was, and I was focused on its trajectory as well as the continuous redirection of energy in the room.

We concluded the session with a trust exercise where I placed my hand on various parts of my partners body and got used to the sensation. We repeated the exercise and said the first word that came to mind as our partner delivered variations of touch at different consensual body parts. Finally, we sat down and Vignesh explained that we were going to try a Meisner exercise. I had done Meisner before with Steven Ditmyer, but this was the first time I got to do it with another person and with the instruction of a private coach. We began with simple statements.

"You have dark eyebrows."

"You said I have dark eyebrows."

"You wear spectacles."

"You said I wear spectacles."

Then Vignesh told us that the floor was now open to opinions.

JM started first. "Your eyebrows are fake." I actually started laughing. Vignesh said, "Yes, let the laugh happen! That means you are receiving the information and letting it affect you emotionally." Well I was laughing because she was so wrong.

"You have white hair." I looked down. It was a habit I had and I knew it - but of course, Vignesh stopped us right there. I needed to assert dominance and keep my eyes intent. JM needed to let up a little. The power dynamic restored, we continued the exercise.

"You are afraid to tell a lie."

"You are insecure about your teeth."

"You are perceptive."

"You have eyebags because you stay up late at night."

After our reflections and debrief, we spent the walk to Stadium MRT discussing training options and theatre openings. It was quite a fascinating chat as I watched two experienced theatre actors talk about their recent auditions and theatre encounters like they were discussing the items in their cai png lunch.

Day Five

Vignesh was sick, so I had the studio to myself. I fitted action verbs and movements to my monologue, completed some voicework and did more singing than was appropriate for the day. Never leave a theatre kid alone in the studio.

When I was working alone, I got to obsess over the details a lot more than any teacher would have liked. I went as slow as possible with the floorwork, feeling the individual vertebrae glide upwards and outwards, the core working to hold each isolated part as firmly and expressively as I can, and every other muscle in a state of conscious relaxation. I tried my best to zero in on how much I can articulate my lower back, my shoulder blades and my legs without losing control.

With my singing work, I worked on my independent practice on this occasion as Joel was not available this week. After assessing the Maori Warrior exercise and Joel's yawns, I thought that the yawns worked better for me as I am better able to feel my soft palate without the distraction of my hands pulling my jaw down. I was feeling playful on this night and tried to work some of Vignesh's abstracted actioning technique into the song, before realizing that I ought to work on the monologue. Naturally, it was easier to ideate and settle into the character without the pressure of another person watching me work, and I was able to find a series of vocabulary - from going down to the floor and adopting a dangerous low tone, to experimenting with leaps and jumps.

Day Six

Three hours today and tomorrow was the solution to our missed session on Monday. We spent the first hour going through professional development. Most of the things Vignesh talked about, I was already more than aware, but it was heartening to hear that I have been doing the right things that professional actor training programs teach their students. Some of the things we covered include youth theatre groups, podcasts as an educational resource, agencies, social media and branding, various governmental grants as well as scholarships offered by NAC, NYC, as well as sources like the Commonwealth Scholarship, the Chevening Scholarship and so on.

We sped through body conditioning and voicework today, then continued working on the monologue. Vignesh got me to do the same movement-voice form from Day Three, before connecting it to the next five lines. I felt like I had been thrown into the deep end of the pool for near the entirety of today's session. I was lost and way behind Vignesh in coming up with risky and possible choices. He was leagues ahead. "Why can't this-" he took my illegible backwards stagger, "Be this?" and suddenly Vignesh was invading into my personal space, threatening me with his presence as he forced me to take a step back. On some level, I knew that he was trying to get me to commit to the action, and to just go for it and trust that the other actor will know how to move away in time. However, I felt like my synapses were not connecting as I struggled to detach from the Stanislavski system which I was so used to, and all I did was hit a wall.

In some ways, I still felt deeply disconnected, for the abstracted movements scaled themselves down into something that I could hardly feel. As I tried to make Vignesh feel something, and he allowed me to pull and push him around the room like a rag doll, I found myself struggling to give myself permission to go for it. My poor memorization of the lines did not help either, and I was fumbling through the lesson all the way to the end.

After the lesson I wrote a whole Discord text-essay to my friends as I tried to explain how I felt about what I learned (or failed to learn) today. I honestly felt frustrated, and all the stress that was rapidly closing in on me only contributed to my uneasiness. I had been given a tool but I had no idea what to do with it or how to begin from movement - it being a highly foreign discipline to my identity which arranges itself around my voice. Meanwhile, my mentor was already adept at it as he clearly understood the principles of the technique, and I felt like he was acting circles around me as I tried to comprehend what the hell was happening in the scene.

I told every person the same thing - my recount and reflections of this day will sound about as convoluted as what my brain was able to take in. At first, I reasoned that maybe Vignesh's technique was just not for me. I was building a wall for myself to shut out this unfamiliar technique that had torn down my entire understanding of acting as a craft, and even though I knew - not just logically, but practically - that this method was highly beneficial to my acting, my first instinct was to adapt it to my needs rather than to accept that perhaps I need to reframe my thinking. As Kay had previously critiqued during Small Town Carousel, my intentions were clear, but they lacked continuity. I wondered if physicality might be able to help me solve those problems, but as I was hammering out potential solutions on my phone that day, I realized that I was walking myself deeper into the maze and the fog.

Physically and mentally exhausted, I went home to sleep. I had to get to school by 11AM the next day. I was questioning all of my life choices. Why would anyone do actor training, voice and speech, singing, theatre devising (the whole drama school package!) AND then take three additional classes in data handling, music theory and Chinese translation? Why would anyone do that to themselves?

"Sadist," my last brain cell accused me as it switched itself off for the night.

Day Seven

Final session, time really slips past our fingers like fine sand. I felt a little less defeated from yesterday's session, and I had spent the entire bus journey typing out the personal and professional development essay that Vignesh assigned me the previous night.

With body conditioning and voicework today, it felt like a speed run of everything I have learnt in the last six days. Vignesh pointed out that my core strength, while still too weak to do a leg raise from the bottom up, could now work through the staccato and legato exercises. In time, my body would be able to handle the rigors of even the most physically demanding full-time drama school. We worked on handstands, headstands, butterfly stretches, and other exercises that I would have shuddered at and chickened out of a week ago, and I was surprised to discover that to some degree, I was now able to do them! With voicework, I had some jaw tension today and Vignesh helped me to loosen my jaw and cheek muscles. By manhandling my face, and I'm only half-kidding, but hey, it actually worked. This newfound ability and mindfulness towards my body, both muscularity and physicality, is something that I would keep and maintain throughout my time in NUS Theatre Studies and beyond.

We did the five lines from yesterday, and Vignesh decided he wanted to end off with something new.

I had my second monologue from The Murders At Argos with me, and Vignesh sat me down on the piano seat in the center of the studio. He caught the quizzical look in my eyes and said, "Don't question it for now, just do as I say." I was to breathe in while looking at the words, breathing in as many words in the monologue as my body could take - three, five, or even entire sentences if it made sense to my body. Then I breathed out completely while putting my script down, and I would say the words that I had just taken in after I release the air. I messed up once or twice at first, but I eventually got it. While I could not figure out why it worked, it felt right. From my brain down to the tips of my toes, I was grounding the text in my breath, and it felt like I already knew how to breathe together with those few sentences that I had memorized.

I was then given an accelerated version of the original movement technique - from text, I could gamify the movement and raise the invisible stakes for the character so that attention is given to the physicality of the monologue. Vignesh asked me for an action verb first. I said, "Hmm, question?" and he declared my verb boring, because one simply does not use question as an action verb as a question. I wanted to go with challenge, but challenge was deemed too demanding. Finally, I opted to go for "accuse". Now that I think about it, I could have said "rebuke" or something, but that did not occur to me at the point of time. And so Vignesh said, how do you accuse someone? I tried to force my energy out at him, but he walked away, threatening to sentence my brother to death. In a moment of panic, I skidded in front of him and yelled, "Where is your shame?" and Vignesh stopped. That was it. THAT was it. He wanted that real, palpable panic from me, because the character is genuinely frantic and trying to save her brother's life, and I as an actor must rise to that emotional state before it would be realistic. He did the same for the next few verbs: Beg, Persuade, Shame, (and I did not tell Vignesh this but the last one is) Shock.

And at last, he asked that I presented the monologue in a scaled down version: In full with spirit, voice and movement, before reducing it accordingly - the same way that had been taught to me at the beginning. This completed the method that I had been taught as I now understood what the abstract movement really represents - the uninhabited spirit, when realism and conventions are out of the way. At the very last moment of the class, from the starting point to the end result, everything made sense to me at last.

Final Thoughts

I will always be immensely grateful for this opportunity to train under a teacher who graduated from the Intercultural Theatre Institute, and who truly allowed me to renew my relationship with acting. There is truly no alternative or substitute for an experience as invigorating and challenging as drama school, and I'm glad that I had a chance to have a taste of it at all. At the MRT station before we parted ways for the last time, I playfully asked Vignesh, "Which is harder, NS* or drama school?" Well, if Vignesh's incredulous look at me could say "no shit Sherlock" it would have been blasting in my head like a National Day song. "NS was a breeze. You can just switch your brain off. In drama school you can't do that."

As I begin to consciously plan out my next 2.75 years as an NUS student, drama school is an option that lies on the horizon. Whether I eventually go or not is a question that must be answered in time, but I know, at least, that my training starts now, on my own, with all the tools I have learned in my days as an undergraduate actor.

*NS: National Service, a mandatory two-year military service program for fit Singaporean males.