Ballet and Martial Arts

I have been involved in Ballet training for almost 2 years now and have now come to a surprising realization of how similar it is to serious Martial Arts training on many levels. Perhaps because the desired use of the body (and mind) while within the possibilities of what is possible to do, requires constant training to progress or to just to simply maintain.

In martial arts training I have felt it. When trained up a special type of acuity becomes woven into you. Your body/mind is different and the manifestation of the training shows itself in surprising ways. Miss a few days training, or train for a few days 'without intent' and the ability is gone. You don't know that its gone until you realize that some things that used to happen spontaneously just don't seem to happen anymore. It just slipped away from you. Ballet dancers have a saying about training 'miss a day or 2 and you know it', 'miss more than than that and the audience knows it'.
I believe that this is because we train up specialized abilities, but 'everyday life' conspires to take it all away. As Sun Si-Quan, the author of the book pictured above mentioned within: 'Martial Artist s are different from other people. The way that we stand, walk and move is different'.

One thing special about Ballet training is the emphasis on training 'at the Barre'. These are the basic exercises that train up the special things that make Ballet what it is. These are the things that have the body do the things that are not done in normal life. In true martial arts (as opposed to pretend martial arts that don't train up any 'special' abilities) there is an emphasis on 'basic' or 'foundation' training. These are the special things that make Martial Arts what it is. There is a martial arts saying about basic training: 'If you just practice forms (kicking, punching routines and sparring) and don't practice the foundation, even if you practice into old age, you'll end up with nothing'. This is because without it you'll just be kicking and punching 'like a regular person'. Fast and accurate perhaps, but without that 'extra something' that only the specialized art can get you.

The Ballet Barre is the dancers 'foundation'. The training that yields the special flavor.

I'm of the impression that foundation training is often overlooked because it doesn't seem like the activity that one originally set out to do. Training at the Ballet Barre doesn't look like 'dancing'. As far as Martial Arts goes, I went through a period of 'floundering'. It was rather frustrating spending years of training and knowing that I was not really progressing. After about 8 years of this I finally stumbled on a teacher that had 'the secrets'. Progress was fast after that. A year of training was more than the entire decade that preceded it. The 'secret' was an emphasis on foundation training. His particular foundation consisted of standing still for an hour, every day at the beginning of class. Breathing, nothing but natural breathing. Standing around, not moving for an hour seems as far from doing 'Martial Art' as it's possible to do, but paradoxically my skill levels jumped up to the next level after investing in that practice. It was the beginning of being able to do things that 'regular people' can't do. As I mentioned earlier, skip a few days practice though and it's lost (!).

In Ballet as in Martial Arts, every moment spent training the 'foundation' must be with intent, start to finish. In mechanical terms, the mind is being trained to perform. What one does in training is what one will do when the heat is on. Habitually doing sloppy endings or 'not doing it for real' is how one will internalize the practice.

In more serious pursuits improper training can have deadly results. There is a famous incident in the annals of Law Enforcement which is known as 'The Newhall Massacre'. In this incident a group of law enforcement officers lost their lives in a shootout against armed fugitives. One fact that came out in the post event investigation was the finding of empty shell casings in the pockets of at least one of the slain officers. The presence of the casings was interpreted as the result of the repeated habit of emptying the revolver's spent cylinder casings and placing them in the pocket so as not to have to pick them up later. It was surmised that this ingrained habit learned from constant rehearsal at the shooting range became the way that they performed the task of shooting when under pressure. Further, the time taken to perform this action, rather than just dumping the spent casings straight to the ground may have cost them their lives !

Training is serious time. It is the time that we use to make ourselves what we want to be. Ballet and Martial Arts. :-)

German Gems 2011

Bummed that I've missed 2 years of the San Francisco 'Berlin and Beyond' German Film Festival

http://www.goethe.de/ins/us/saf/prj/bby/enindex.htm

I was excited to see that another film festival 'German Gems' was on screen this weekend in SF.

http://germangems.com/

I caught a film each on Saturday and Sunday.

Saturday's film 'The Architect' was the unfolding over a disasterous weekend of a highly dysfunctional family coming to terms with itself. The sordid details of the situation would have made for an hour plus of grimacing and squirming if not for the liberal application of humor throughout. Recommended viewing !

Sunday's film 'Celebration of Flight' is a documentary centered around a (then) 78 year old retired pilot's dream of building and flying his own airplane. On the surface, not an unusual story. What makes this case so special is the magnetic personality of David (the pilot), and the fact that he was building this plane in the garage of the house that he built on a hill in the middle of the tropics of the Dominican Republic. His friendships with the people of the Island are quite an uplifting affirmation of life. During the Q&A, it came up that the filmaker sacrificed quite a bit the making of her self-financed film which took many years to complete. Happily, she reported that she got Clint Eastwood to see the film and as a result may get some backing to create another feature film about the life of David. From the glimpses of that life that we got this afternoon from the film and the Q&A session, a film about his life adventures would make an engrossing movie indeed.

TSA: Tough Shizzle for All

Edit Update: I've just had clarified that the TSA requires either the Full Body Scan OR the Pat Down but not both. So all of the below was my personal delusion. It was fun while it lasted even if it wasn't based in any kind of reality !


This past week I flew out to see my nephew in his school's production of West Side Story. Aware that the airports were now host to the latest round of more stringent 'TSA Quality (of the passenger) Assurance' tests I arrived at the airport at what I assumed was a ridiculously long 1.75 hours before my flight was scheduled to take off. I was right and I was wrong. I was right to arrive that early, and I was wrong that arriving that early was crazy. By the time I got through security my plane was in line to take off in 5 minutes.

While waiting in line I mused at how progression of TSA procedures seems to have been totally and only reactive..

What ? people used box cutters as weapons ? OK, from now on no more blades.
What ? someone got explosive liquids on the plane ? OK, from now on restrict and inspect the liquids.
What ? someone had shoe bomb ? OK, from now on off come the shoes
What ? someone stuffed explosives in their underwear ? OK, from now on 'enhanced' search.

Now, what would the future hold if someone makes use of a 'false eye bomb' ? 'OK, from now on an opthamologist's inspection ?'

One poor woman waited her hour+ in line only to have her CA driver's license ID rejected because it had expired a few months ago.. So despite the facts that it likely was a valid license until recently AND the picture looked like the (maybe) passenger: REQUEST DENIED. Seriously, if I were to make a fake ID in order to slip past security, wouldn't I be careful to make the counterfeit appear to be valid ? I wished that I could have stuck around to see the outcome, but I was getting close to missing my own plane so I didn't.

I knew that I'd be in for the full body scan but I wondered if there was anything I could do that would decrease my chances of getting the 'pat down' treatment. We don't know (and shouldn't know) the methodology by which the TSA agents decide who gets it and who doesn't. It might be a blind sequencing algorithm or it might be up to the agent's discretion or a combination of both. Since I can't influence any machine like algorithm, the best I can to is to look as much as possible as the opposite of a threat. One would think that this would mean to look as ordinary as possible, but isn't that exactly what a 'threat' would do ? To try and be inconspicuous ? So I decided that since most of the people flying will probably be dressed in every day drab clothing or in business attire, I would be conspicuous but not over the top.. to look like I'm on vacation (which I was) and obviously NOT trying to hide something that I don't want people to see.

I wore the bright clothing seen in the photo above.

Yes, after going through the scanner, the man in the three piece suit ahead me got the pat down. When I stepped up after him, the TSA agent barely looked at me gave me the weary wave 'go on your way'.

Frog Dog, Dog Frog, Frog Dog, Dog Frog, ...

I usually don't respond much to attempts to turn our pet dogs into quasi-humans.. but Halloween is a case for which I'll make an exception. This cute doggie may not know what's going on here, but for us humans, it great !

Chairless Society Awareness

I first became aware of it a few decades ago. Walking downtown to school one morning I saw a man in a three piece suit waiting for the bus. Nothing unusual about that except that he was soles of his feet flat on the ground squatting waiting for the bus the way people from a society without chairs would do. The juxtaposition of a person dressed in formal western clothing squatting on the sidewalk in a non-western way was a bit of a jolt.

Yesterday morning I saw the person in the photos above (video stills, please pardon the low resolution) squatting on a bench and it reminded me about how 'obvious' things in our culture may not be so obvious after all. Here is provided a bench for sitting on so naturally the girl sits on it, but something isn't quite 'right' about the picture.

I recall a local story from the 80's in which a group of people who had risked everything to aid the US cause during the SouthEast Asian undeclared war were given asylum and allowed to settle in the US. Cultural assumptions by those charged with getting the people settled here led to some initial problems... The people were shown the kitchens of their new abodes and were told that the stove is where the food is cooked. Very good. Upon later visits though it was clear that the new settlers were piling wood on top of the stove burners and lighting the wood on fire to cook. No one had thought that they would not automatically know how a stove was designed to be used. After a (few) brush(es) with law enforcement, the same group of people had to be informed that hunting small game in Golden Gate park for dinner was not allowed. Too bad they were such early settlers.. If they had waited a few decades they'd be hailed as the ultimate 'eat locally sourced food' pioneers.

So, seeing the girl squatting on the 'sit' bench reminded me to question my natural assumptions.

I think I tended to buy too readily the idea that in a certain country in the middle east, after coming in and deposing a dictator, the people would welcome their given opportunity to have 'freedom' and embrace it eagerly as we in the US do. The reality may be that the majority have no concept of 'freedom' as we understand it and even if they did, they wouldn't want it.

Fuzzy Bike Supreme

Now I've seen some Fuzz Bikes, but this one that I spotted a few nights ago is the Fuzziest so far. Yowie.

Kathakali, Bharatanatyam and the Wagner experience

This past Saturday I treated myself to take in some Indian Classical Dancing by attending a performance that was part the Festival of Indian Classical Dance in SF. That evening was one of 3 performance days held at the Yerba Buena over the weekend. The 2 styles that I saw: Kathak and Bharatanatyam place heavy emphasis on stylized gesture to convey emotions and tell their story.

The Kathak piece 'Sita Haran' was a full-length saga of 3 exiles and their adventures along their path through central India. With a help of a narrator whom opened each movement/scene with a description of the circumstances surrounding the scene (in English) it was easy to grasp what was unfolding on stage as the dancers acted out the drama. The entire dance was performed by women, apparently an ironic twist as historically many such dances were performed by troupes consisting entirely of men.

The Bharatanatyam pieces were performed by a husband wife duo V.P. Dhananjayan and C.P. Shanta (their pictures above). Here I was a little lost. The dance form clearly contains a repertoire of gestures representing a set of actions/emotions. Amongst the live band (with an absolutely masterful percussion/tabla guy) was a vocalist who I assume was narrating each of the dances. Unfortunately (for me), the singing was not in English so I could not really
understand what was happening.
The experience was not unlike going to a Wagner opera before the advent of 'super titles' to narrate the goings on on stage. Beautiful singing with orchestral leitmotifs that signify certain actions, but if you can't understand German being sung, you're pretty much in dark about what in the world is going on on stage.
So while I appreciated the Dancing and Music in the abstract, I missed the stories completely due to the linguistic barrier.

All in all, the evening was an enriching experience that I would welcome again !

update: here's the SFGate Review