Feb 12
12
Beware the Demo Art
In my comments on the staff video, observing how the guy on stage was making large, uneconomical movements that couldn’t be performed with a weapon of true weight, I realized that my demo would suck. On the video, people in the audience saw the staff flying all over the place, but how many recognized that there was extra, unnecessary movement? When I first watched the video I sensed something fishy, but had to watch the video several times to clearly identify the wasted movement.
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But it’s the big, wasted movement that makes for exciting demos.
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In my staff demo, with the tip on the ground, I block the opponent’s lowline strike with almost no movement, except a shift to face the strike. My counter moves to the opponent’s nearest target, traveling a foot or two off the ground. There isn’t much to see, and the audience would be bored.
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A person in the audience might think, “Hey, I could do that! What’s the big deal?” Which is exactly the point –every technique should be something that almost anyone in the audience could do. Once you get into techniques that the average person can’t do, such as spinning kicks, backflips, complicated series of moves, you have moved into the realm of impractical techniques. Just as the person in the audience can’t do that backflip kick, you won’t be able to do it when you get older and your knees are giving you trouble, or when you’re on an icy sidewalk, or aren’t wearing your loose-fitting gi.
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I love this quote from Master Nidar Singh: ““This art is the most boring art to look at, but the end result is where all the excitement is.” Master Singh points out that the show styles use lightweight “weapons” not because of their effectiveness in combat, but because they are easier and flashier to swing around. The show arts also emphasize hitting stick on stick. The constant smashing and clacking of sticks is noisy and exciting –the downside is that your aim is to hit the opponent and drop him, not hit his stick. Constantly blocking and clacking sticks is a bad habit to get into.
I’ve always recognized this as a problem faced by GM Estalilla and Kabaroan. The short stick styles move blindingly fast, clack, clack, clack, which makes for an exciting demo. The long stick, though, seeks to evade, merge with, or blast through the opponent’s weapon, and targets the head. How do you demonstrate that safely?
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Similarly, Tapado has few techniques. It doesn’t look like anything. What the guy in the bleachers doesn’t see is the body mechanics, the subtle positioning of the feet, the careful placement of the contact point and angle of the stick, the unseen movement of the wrist.
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So what is the martial artist to do? The irony is that the poorer styles will always look better in demos. The most effective moves, because of their economy, will lack the larger motions that the audience can detect. Is the answer to have a demo art and demo techniques, but actually teach the real deal to students?
