The Fire in My Heart

I wanted to write a post about this past weekend, and the emotions and ponderings I have had since.

This past weekend, I went to the Virginia Beach Bash. Jon Rubin had been trying to convince me to go for a while. I was reluctant because I felt that all the people who would be there would be so much better than me, and that I would not be able to keep up. But I signed up, and then later learned that my friend Ryan would be coming along as well!

We carpooled together. We had been in shows together before, but in shows we are usually either working or we are other people, so it is hard to really get to talk to someone. The drive that was supposed to take 3 1/2 hours ended up taking 5 1/2 due to traffic, so we had plenty of time. We talked about our families, and books, and personal struggles and philosophies. The conversation came and went in waves. Sometimes we focused on the music, sometimes on the silence, sometimes on the landscape. But it was never awkward, like I worry long car rides might be.

Our phones died a few hours into the trip, so we couldn't contact Jon to let him know we were going to be late. We found out later that he was certain we had died. When we arrived, we knew we needed food and a place to charge our phones, so we found an Irish bar in a shopping center.

As soon as we turned into the parking lot the rain, that had been off and on through out our trip, began to batter us so much we couldn't see. Then there was a thunk. Then another. And another. Hail the size of mothballs were hitting our car by the bucketload. I was worried the glass would shatter. We drive around blindly until we found a tree and sat under it for a minute or two until it lessened.

We then parked and booked it into Kelly's. It was just what we needed. Beer, burgers, good music, people watching. We plugged in our phones, contacted Jon and told him we were not dead, and chilled. After that, we went to the hotel, unpacked, and watched terrible TV until Jon came home and we all prepared for the days ahead.

The next morning I woke up ready. I was a little groggy at first, but post shower, I was pumped and prepped. We suited and padded up, grabbed a quick breakfast in the lobby, and headed out to our first day of the Bash. We had been told to get there early to guarantee our first choices of classes, so there were few people around when we arrived. We entered into the lobby of the theatre building and were awestruck. It was gorgeous. It matched the beautifully reasoned colonial structures that made up most of the campus.

We ran up those stairs and explored and met a very nice person named Paul. He was our first friend and we kept connecting all throughout the workshop. When the time came, we pounced on the class registration and I got my first choices for everything. We gathered in the theater, had an orientation, then it was off to the races.

My first class was Shaolin Staff Fighting with Mikey Chin. I took it for two reasons. One: I wanted a non-western weapon class. I tend towards western and I wanted to break out of my comfort zone. Two, because I both love and am afraid of Mikey Chin. When he adjudicated my Unarmed, he said that he almost failed me because there was no real acting in the scene. I told myself that next time, I would do better. When he adjudicated my Broadsword, I was terrified, but he gave me a Recommended Pass. But, being me, I have this problem where when I succeed, there are now expectations that I succeed every time. So I worried about that going into the workshop, but I knew I had to breathe, and face it, and focus, and just do the work. And I did. Mikey would correct me, and assist me, and tell me when I got it right. And it was good. I loved Shaolin Staff. I loved the circles and twisting. I have discovered throughout this weekend that I really like circles. Mikey told us that in eastern thought, the soul was two inches below the belly button. I started thinking like that, and it made a lot of sense. It is a well of power that helps you move and lift more than if you just used your limbs. It is your power center. At the end of the class, we circled up and we sat and breathed. It was a great button. Centering. Mikey taught us the kung fu bow, a closed fist surrounded by an open hand. It symbolizes the moon encircling the sun, everything in balance. The right hand was strength and hardness, and the left hand was knowledge and softness. I really loved that.

My second class was Introduction to Theatrical Firearms with Darrell Rushton. Most of it I knew already, but I wanted to take it again because theatrical firearms make me nervous. They rarely go off when you want them to, and might go off when you don't. It was more of a comfort thing, to get me used to doing it again. I also delved a little more into revolver versus semi-automatics.

Then, Ryan and I met up again and we had lunch out on the lawn in the beautiful sunshine. It was lovely! We then explored a little bit, finding beautiful pockets of campus, including this fountain which had some delightful lions on it that were getting hit in the face with water and looked very unhappy about it.

Next we had a fire demonstration! It was very exciting. We had multiple cameras rolling, and we got to see filming procedure for a stunt. It started out with a gun shoot out, and then Dale Geriard's son stumbled out of the bushes on fire. We learned that stunt men are more in danger of getting hypothermia rather than burning because they slather them with cold gel and put a rubber suit on them, ice the clothes, and put fireproof gel on their hands and in their hair. If they have to sit too long like that, it gets dangerous. The once the cameras are rolling, the stunt man has control of when he is ready to start, and when he is done. He waves his arms around and then when he knows he can't do  any more, he lies down on the ground. The team then comes and puts him out. If he has any hot spots on him afterwards, he needs to tell the team immediately. It was pretty neat. :-)

Then, we had our afternoon classes. I started out with The Music of the Fight with Jacqueline Holloway. It was initially an unarmed class, but when it appeared on the schedule, they had listed it as rapier and dagger, so she adapted. In the first exercise, I could see how it would have been very successful as an unarmed. We were asked to find a partner and make noise with our weapons. Then, we needed to choreograph a brief, repeatable phrase. Everyone then closed their eyes and listened to each fight in turn. We were asked about the circumstances of the fight, the story, who these people were, etc. In unarmed, you would get more of the people (grunts, impacts, steps). With rapier and dagger, we relied on the weapon, rather than ourselves, to make the noise, so in many fights all you had was tings and shings. The exercise still worked, exploring the stories we can tell with sound, but I would have been fascinated to see what it would have been like unarmed. Jax then choreographed a brief phrase that we learned, and then we set it to music. We had 4 songs in various styles (Jazz, rock, lulluby, and...something else). We felt the music and moved the fight with it and around it. Finally, we had to chose one style of music to internalize and fight with that music in our hearts. Instantly, it gave us character physicality, different choices to play with. It was neat tool to put in the tool box. 

Our final class was bananas, and I loved it. It was called Hunter and Hunted with Brimmer, who I want to have with me all the time to softly rumble calming advice in my ear. He is a big man, with a white beard and a black baret, Ryan thought he looked like ex British Special Forces. He walks with a beautiful wooden cane with a spherical top. The class started out with stories about his training with Stella Adler. The first month of classes, Stella sipped tea, and spoke quietly, and looked like a little old lady whose days of glory had passed. Then a month in, she strips the facade and begins to incisively call out their habits and flaws, which she had been silently studying during the first weeks. She was formidable and a strong task master. Brimmer segwayed from that in to an explanation about her Death Exercise, We often learn about how to fight, but rarely do we take time to learn how to die. The fight is great, but the audience paid for that moment of death. When one person takes the life of another. That intimacy, that mystery, that struggle. What is it? What is happening physically and emotionally during it? Too often we skate over it, and do not give it the resonance it deserves. Brimmer has a workshop that delves deeper into this, but this workshop was a little different. 

We lay on the ground and breathed, while Brimmer talked us into a scenario: We were part of an ancient tribe at the dawn of time. It was the night before the hunt. What did our village look like? Who were we? What were we sleeping in? I decided I was a protector. It was my job to make sure the community was safe. I decided I loved this ritual. 

We stood in a circle. One person stepped into the middle and was the hunter. The other stepped in and was the prey. I stepped in first and killed my pray rather easily: a slice across the throat with the knife. I had to stay with him until he died. We laid him down and as a group we picked him up and carried him over to a sacred place (our unspoken choice was by the one light source in the room), and then ritually resurrect him into the hunter. We spoke no words, but were able to grunt and sing and click and hiss and create new words. Sometimes the synchronicity of our sounds was so beautiful, it was like we were creating magic in the room. We saw all kinds of death, with bows, with blades, with hands.

Since I was the first hunter, I was the final prey. A quiet young man who had held back in many of our previous classes stepped forward. Instead of preparing for combat, he sat in the middle of the circle, with his hands in a bowl shape, and closed his eyes. I stepped into the circle tall and graceful, a deer. And then I "yes and-ed." I saw what he was doing and I knew the story we were telling together. I tentatively approached. I touched the bowl of his hands cautiously. I moved slowly around him at a safe distance. Then, carefully, I drank from his hands. I then lay down on his lap, like the Unicorn and the Lady. He stroked my hair and soothed me. Then, gently, he put his hands on my forehead and on my chin. And my brain went "YES! NECK SNAPPAGE!" He waited there for a moment, and then he snapped my neck. My favorite death to portray. I let them move my body and lift me up. When you are moving a person, you worry, are they comfortable? Are my fingers hurting them? But when you are lifted, it is like floating. You don't realy feel the people. You feel a breeze on your face as you move, and areas of light and dark and light and dark. Then you rest on the ground sooner than you expected. They lay hands on you and you all breathe together and you rise from the dead. Its like a collective birth or orgasm. A tension is built through sound and movement, and then there is a release. I stood, powerful, and looked at my fellow tribesmen who I loved, grinning with satisfaction. 

We all moved back to the mat, lay down, and he talked us back to the room. We had a post-mortem afterwards, and at the end of the class, Brimmer said that I had done very well. That made me ridiculously happy. 

Then, we went off to dinner. We went through the drive through at Cook Out, a place that Ryan used to go to, and he was ecstatic to find one across the street from the college. We got burgers and shakes and sat with Casey on the bleachers, watching horses in a nearby paddock and talking about the day. 

We came back after and gathered in the screening room to explore stunts on film. We had a director and cinematographer there, along with Dale Girard who performs and coordinates stunts for film. They took apart several different versions of a high fall. One in the cold from the top of a hotel, one that was aided by CGI from the top of a sky scraper, and the last in an interior lobby with the help of a cable. The first was difficult because they only had a short amount of time to shoot it and they had to make sure the bag didn't get brittle from the cold. They then showed how they integrated it with a shot of her hitting the ground with blood seeping out. The second one, they couldn't do a real fall, so they had a stunt man hang upside down against a green screen with a fan blowing and flailing like he was falling. The director wasn't satisfied with how it looked in the rough draft, so the cinemetographer decided to convince him. He did a pick up with the actor standing on another building to get the night sky line and flipping over a rail. That was missing in the initial storytelling of the footage. They added that together, and then had the green screened figure flipping end over end as he fell. The final sequence was Dale fighting with CGI robots, fighting down a stair well, and then falling through about 12 floors of a lobby using a cable. The cable slows on the way down, but they used fans to make it look like he was still at the same velocity. He also showed us some YouTubers who are doing very well for themselves creating fim shorts based on combat, which were brilliant and inspiring! 

After that, we went back to the hotel, had a few ciders, and hung out with the interns until 11:30 or so. Then I took 2 Ibuprofen and went to sleep. 

The next day (yes that was only one day), we had the same morning routine. Then we had our first class. I was going to take an axe class with Burke, but he got a gig at the last minute so he was unable to come. I ended up taking Bloody Good Entry with Dave White which I could not have been happier with. With a plastic gun at our hip and a plastic rifle looped around our neck, we split into teams and learned the basics of hostage rescue with a real former SWAT team member. One team then represented the bad guys and hostages, while the others breached the door and secured the room. First came the two scouts. They flanked either side of the closed door and tested it. They would put their fist on their head to signal a "stonewall." The team leader came behind and signaled to me that they needed me as the "Breacher." I bore the backpack of death, as I called it, with a shorter, but powerful gun used to blow off locks. I held it close to the lock, but at arms length and, with a nod from my team leader I gave a loud "BANG" and cleared. The scouts went in first, securing the right and left corners. Everyone else filed in and I came in last. The "6" turned around after I entered to protect the rear. It was really cool. When I shook hands with White at the end, he said I had done really well! At the end of the workshop he gave me his card, and I hope to learn more from him. I love strategy and tactics. 

Then, we had knife and fan, co-taught by Casey and Jax. We split into two groups, each learning one weapon, and then we swapped. With fan, we learned a tai chi form using the fan, which was beautiful and really relaxing. Then we learned knife, which I was happy to find out that I remembered. Then, Ryan and I partnered and I fought with fan and he fought with knife. It was pretty neat and now I am interested in Tessenjutsu, the art of the Japanese war fan. 

Then we had lunch. Another lovely picnic in the grass around the theatre with a larger group of new friends than before. I lay back and soaked up the sun and was content to listen to everyone chatter above me. 

Our final class was Elemental Broadsword with Willcock. I was surprised to realize that I was one of the more experienced participants in that particular class. We started out with the very basics: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 sequences. At first, I was a little sad, but then I realized it was a chance for me to review and refine. I partnered with Matt first and we started with a basic bit of choreo. Then we had to switch partners and I partnered with Paul. Once we got it down, he wanted us to explore starting poses. Not stances. We think that we are limited to martial stances in theatrical fighting, but we actually have a world of options open. We had a pose conversation, reacting to what the other person gave us. My favorite was standing with one arm out and two fingers up, with my sword point on the ground behind me. We then fought with music, and I noticed that my fights were much more circular in motion, one thing flowing into another. We were then to chose an element and fight like we were that element. I chose fire, and pictured a fire tornado, circular still but more wiping and snapping. I loved it. It was very similar to Jax's Music of the Fight lesson, but I really enjoyed Willcock's relaxed and purposeful teaching, talking about how you breath affects your partner, and things like that. He was very zen. I think he and Brimmer would be good for me. They both have calm, growth based teaching philosophies, it seems. Mikey would be good for me for other reasons. 

After that final class, we got to see the short fight films that had been made over the weekend. My favorite was a sword and shield vs shaolin staff fight that took place in a hallway. One man meditated at the end, and another got off the elevator, ready to fight. The met in the middle, gorgeously framed. Then they fought. The man with the staff killed the other man, and then returned to his meditation. The elevator dinged again, announcing a new opponent. It was neat. We dissected each one. 

Then, we met in the main theatre for a Q and A and raffle. I asked the teachers if they knew of opportunities for those of us who wanted to fight, not teach or choreograph. They didn't fully answer my question, but made me resolve to get all my shit together on the SAFD website. Then, the raffle came. I won a copy of Eyeborgs, and Ryan won a full tuition to Summer Sling! 

After that, we said our goodbyes, packed up, and headed out on the road. We drove off into the sunset, singing "Don't You Forget About Me." It was a long road home, and we were both exhausted, but it was good.

-------

The next day, I woke up with a song in my heart. I was energized. I was ready. I danced on my way to work. Then things happened during the day, and all I wanted to do was go home and lay on the couch all night and drink. The next night was the same. I realized that I worked out for hours at a time all weekend, but I was never more tired than when after I finished work. And it wasn't a good kind of tired. It was a depressed kind of tired. An aching, brain foggy malaise. 

I have been listening to the Year of Yes, and Shonda Rimes talks about how she didn't realize she was profoundly unhappy until an incident sparked her realization. She realized that her light had gone out. I feel like this weekend was like that. It put into sharp relief how I could be feeling, and how I actually feel day to day. Part of me thought it was working on a show that made me more tired, but I am not in a show, and I still don't feel like I can move at the end of the day, and I have more drinks than I should to deal with it. 

With stage combat, I am excited about it. I feel like breadcrumbs are being left for me and all I have to do is follow them. But in the mean time, I have this job and it is making me feel a bit like the animals in the tar pits. Being at work makes me too sluggish to do the things I know I should do to do well in the thing that actually makes me excited. I just want to lie on the couch, binge tv and drink, rather than exercise. 

I struggle with it because I know I am good at being a librarian, and I know that it is helping people, which is really important to me. I feel like if I moved more in the combat direction, or even into academic libraries or archives, it would be more selfish. It would be more about making myself feel better than affecting the world in a positive way. What is the balance there? Grit and selflessness versus self care and pleasure. This decision is made even harder in this political climate. 

The two things that make my heart sing are fighting and writing. I enjoy research and books and stories. I feel like I can change the world through fighting and writing by creating stories that inspire people. Brimmer mentioned the quote "Be the person you needed when you were younger." I feel like the person I needed (and often had) when I was younger, were storytellers who took a little nobody, put them through a crucible, and through determination and focus they became a badass, all the while building a community of friends. Stories like The Hobbit and Alanna. Even Narnia. If I can tell those stories to people, give them strength to keep going, to fight, that might be worth something. Right now I am the purveyor of other people's stories. That is all well and good, but the politics and schedules, and other gunk get in the way. 

My struggle is that I want to leave, but I don't think I can. Lee might apply to Yale next year, and if he does, it is practical for me to stay in this job until he does and we know if we are moving to Connecticut. But feeling like this really sucks. 

Soon I will move into a whole three months of fighting. I have Flying V Fights rehearsals, Sword and Shield, and then I am going to cap it all off with the Summer Sling, which Ryan gifted to me. Hopefully that will feed me for a while, get my light glowing again. I just need to find ways not to let my work and how I feel afterwards interfere with my life.