I have a very rich and layered internal world. I am a keen observer. I have thoughts. Lots of them. And they are often sharp and witty. My grandmother and my youngest daughter are the same.
But I, the bridge between them, lack one specific skill that both these women possess.
I am devastating in writing but utterly useless in the moment.
If my youngest daughter is confronted by an abhorrent bore or rude simplton, she will look them dead in the eye and deliver one devastating line (much to my horror), but me? I will look at my shoes and dribble out a string of words that sound like an apology.
As much as my daughter vexes me, I envy her.
It is summer holidays here, and we have been watching The Marvellous Mrs Maisel as a family. Midge Maisel is hilarious and crushing in her comedy. In one episode, she is perfecting her act; the scene shows her telling the same joke over and over to mixed responses until she gets the desired response.
And it clicked.
This is a skill. And skill can be developed. And taught.
In my 4th book, I Don’t See Colour: Everything My Body Learned to Hide, I let you, the reader, into my head - my internal dialogue. In one chapter, I recall a scene where I did not say what I wanted to say; instead, I have written it on the page for you to see. It’s funny and true, and I WISH I had said it to his face.
But I didn’t. I stayed quiet in that room for the same reason I stay quiet at the bakery counter when they ask me (in Portuguese) anything other than “do you want that sliced?”
A sea of chemicals floods my brain, takes my language centres offline, and I am left with my mouth flapping like a goldfish.
10 minutes later, though, I am composing the perfect sentences and reciting them to my windscreen.
You’re the same, aren’t you?
So let’s get better at it together.
Let me be clear that I am teaching this and putting it together because I understand the mechanics of it, but have no real idea how to do it in practice. So we are going to get good at it together, like a rage room fight club.
And like every good dojo, there are rules:
No profanities - a rule my family has had over the summer: you reach for a profanity when you have no word; it is lazy and makes you less articulate in the long run.
No personal attacks - because we are building a bank you can retrieve from when your language centres go offline due to the stress of the moment. Too specific, and it fails.
No recordings - because no one can practice or experiment if they are being watched.
And of course, we start with the most basic of lines - Say That Again. Simple, devastating and guaranteed to make the mediocre white men squirm.
The Details
What you get
No recordings of the drills; what happens in the room stays there.
Roughly a third teaching, two-thirds on your feet with some nervous system tools.
We build four things:
Time. First you need to buy yourself some time; a line like “Say That Again” makes a person say the ugly thing they just said again. Sometimes, this is enough. We drill four or so of these until they’re reflex.
The bank. Five to seven portable lines that fit most ambushes. Memorised.
The throat. Sometimes that perfect line does arrive, but it stops; here we will open the throat, give you some nervous system tools to help you stay in the room and say the thing.
The exit. Land it, stop, leave. No extra words to make sure everyone is comfortable.
Every session has a hot seat. Bring a real-life situation, and we can workshop it together. Part play, part creation, no cruelty, all catharsis.
Between sessions: the autopsy. You log every ambush that week and write the line you didn’t say. That’s how the bank gets built. That’s how you get the confidence to stay in the room, say the thing and change the room.
Honestly, I built this because the rooms we are in are not getting better. Every day I have women telling me how they are dealing with racism and sexism and all the other bullshit conditions of Empire. I want to help them, help you make the fuckers uncomfortable when they spew their ugly comments.
8 spots were available; 5 remain. Payment plans are available.
Tell me if you want to be in the room where it happens.
Leandra xxx