Ren Faire: Acting: Physical Warmups

Warm Up Your Body

eady to hit the streets! Name and profession firmly in mind, you're set to play. Whoops, watch out for those rocks beneath your feet! Feeling sorta stiff? Ugh, hurting in the morning? You need to warm up your body! Faire can be an intense physical workout, and thats before racing to the ale stand!

Eat Heartily

Breakfast the most important meal of the day? Absolutely. You could be walking several miles in the hot sun over the course of the day, projecting energy at anyone and everyone.

Drink More Water Than You Want To

Hot sun + activity == sweat & dehydration. Drink up! A cup of water an hour, every hour, or even more. Many of us are accustomed to low-level dehydration; we drink a little at lunch and maybe a little at dinner. At faire this just will not do. Vary water with lemonade, eat pickles to replenish salt levels, drink pickle juice even -- mmmmm! Watch out for the signs of overheating or sunstroke:

Don't feel thirsty
Stop sweating
Feel dizzy or ill
Feel irritable or listless

Warm Yourself Up

Be careful with these stretches! Move smoothly, don't bounce, and if it hurts, STOP! Don't try to make up for a year of inactivity in a few weekends of faire.

Face

Stretch out your facial muscles. Yawn as widely as you can. Skrunch your face tightly. Expand to the biggest surprise yawn you can. Skrunch. Expand.

Neck

Roll your neck from side to side. Roll your chin down to your chest. Lift your chin straight up into the air. Turn your head to look over either shoulder. Roll your head in a gentle circle.

Spine

Starting at your head and tipping each vertebra as independantly as possible, nod your chin to your chest and then roll forwards down the spine, arms loose, until you reach the hips and drop into a toe touch. Hang for a moment and then reverse the motion, pulling each vertebra back into place as if they were threaded like beads on a string.

Arms

Windmills

Wrists

Forward and back bends.

Ankles

Ankle Alphabets: Point your toe and "write" out each letter of the alphabet in the air with your big toe. This will make you rotate your ankle in all directions. Do once on each foot, gradually build up reps.
Toe lifts: Rest your heel on the ground. With your heel still on the floor, lift your toes up towards your shin. If you have weak ankles, you may not be able to lift the ball of your foot very much off the floor. Lift as high as you can, 10 reps. Repeat with other foot. This exercise also helps prevent shin splints.
Laterals: Point your toe as sharply as you can, rest your big toe lightly on the floor. You heel should not touch the floor. _Gently_ rock your heel from the left to right, extending as far as possible with your toe still pointed foward. Rock back from right to left, again extending as far as possible. This is a *very slow*, gentle movement. Don't bounce, and don't force it. Do 5 reps on each foot.
Lifts: Stand normally, toes pointed slightly out. Slowly lift up to the balls of your feet, then _slowly_ lower back down. This works both the calf muscles and the muscles immediately around the ankle. Try 10 reps to start. If you have a barre or your balance is good, do this exercise one-footed. You'll see why it's an ankle exercise.

You can gradually build up reps on all of these exercises, but it will cause you great pain if you overwork the toe lifts, laterals, and lifts. The normal stretching out exercises for the calf and arch will probably also help. End with those.

Legs

Hurdlers stretch. Groin stretch.

Hips

Wiggle

Many other stretching exercises detailed at yoga.com