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Thread: bad first demo

  1. #1
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    bad first demo

    ok so I did my first kung fu demo for the chinese new year last weekend. I was actually really sick and got stuck half way through the form in front of a bunch of people and felt very embarrassed. I was just wondering if something similar has happened to anyone else or if you have any good/funny stories to share about your first demo?

  2. #2
    Was doing the tai chi 24 form with a small group of people, it was being recorded, I caught my back foot on my front foot during the right-bow to left-false leg transition for the second brush knee step. I managed to keep my root though and smoothly transitioned into the next posture thankfully, so it wasn't a complete fudge-up.

    "Victorious warriors win first and then go to war, while defeated warriors go to war first and then seek to win."
    - Sun Tzu

  3. #3
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    nice cover up man. Hey neeros do you use any messengers or facebook?

  4. #4
    We were travelling in Tianjin with my teacher. We spent one night there, first day training and second day we joined a big demonstration/feast thing in honor of Huo Yun Jias birthday with many of the Tianjin Baji masters. On the first day we met one of the masters that my teacher had trained with. I had the priviledge to learn a form from him (a version of Xiao Jia). This form was kind of a different version of a form i already new, but with alot of added movement and different flavour. At the end of the day my teacher ordered me to learn this form and perform it the next day at the festivities. So i spent that evening in the hotel hallway trying to remember the whole form.
    Needles to say i fudged up at the demo infront of all the people. Around halfway in the form my memory got locked. I tried to improvise some of the moves and it ended up kinda strange . But the spectators liked my form anyway, lot's of Hao! shouting. So i guess it's not really about showing perfect memory of a form, but the movement quality. **** embarassing anyway, Chinese national TV was filming the thing

  5. #5
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    When I was 18, I was nearly knocked out by a 12 year old in front of the entire gym...

    Heh, in my defense, the kid was really good.
    It is better to have less thunder in the mouth and more lightning in the hand. - Apache Proverb

  6. #6
    Quote Originally Posted by shaolin_allan View Post
    ok so I did my first kung fu demo for the chinese new year last weekend. I was actually really sick and got stuck half way through the form in front of a bunch of people and felt very embarrassed. I was just wondering if something similar has happened to anyone else or if you have any good/funny stories to share about your first demo?
    pace your self

    set up pause points among forms.

    if you feel tired or sick or forgot what is next

    assume your pause posture

    such as single whip in tai chi

    since almost all the moves in tai chi may turn into single whip

    and start from single whip

    elbow push or liang yi ding in ba ji.

    green dragon extending claws in ba gua

    etc etc

    if too sick to carry on

    after pause posture

    then assume end posture

    pause posture may be used at will or or at any moment, you think that you are in trouble for continuing or need time to recall what to do next


  7. #7
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    Demo's are always fun, we just had one this past weekend as well. It's even more fun when the people that say they will be there dont show up and you get pulled off injured reserve to do single and group forms that you havent done in a while due to injury! Ah the things we do for our Sifu's. I've come to learn from my first time dropping a staff, that a dive or a roll can be a great way to cover up the mistake.

  8. #8
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    "Fake it till you make it!"
    I always tell my students this. As long as you don't stop, just keep going. The judges/audience doesn't know your form anyway, so they would never know.
    One of my students has thus far, performed about a hundred different versions of the sword form! I have never seen her do it twice the same.
    Now, my SPM teacher also does this, but for him, it is the style expressing itself through him, and once it is inside you, it becomes spontaneous.
    (that is now the excuse we use every time we eff up...)
    "My Gung-Fu may not be Your Gung-Fu.
    Gwok-Si, Gwok-Faht"

    "I will not be part of the generation
    that killed Kung-Fu."

    ....step.

  9. #9
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    I just published an aritcle about one of my many demo fails

    YEAR OF THE DRAGON 2012: She Takes Her Fan and Throws it in the Lion's Den discusses how I split my head open and bled all over the place while lion dancing...twice.

    I remember doing a demo for an elementary school and getting stuck in BSL #4. That for repeats a section so I was stuck in a loop. It was on the school theater stage and I kept realizing I was repeating myself facing our drummer, a talented teenager who I had just taught #4, with my back to the audience. The first time, I looked at him and whispered 'oops'. The second time, I looked at him again - he was trying not to laugh - it was a low pressure demo so I whispered 'I'll get out next time'. The third time I said 'Next time, definitely'. In the end, I just stopped and did a closing movement. Our drummer didn't let me live that down for years.
    Gene Ching
    Publisher www.KungFuMagazine.com
    Author of Shaolin Trips
    Support our forum by getting your gear at MartialArtSmart

  10. #10
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    Quote Originally Posted by GeneChing View Post
    YEAR OF THE DRAGON 2012: She Takes Her Fan and Throws it in the Lion's Den discusses how I split my head open and bled all over the place while lion dancing...twice.

    I remember doing a demo for an elementary school and getting stuck in BSL #4. That for repeats a section so I was stuck in a loop. It was on the school theater stage and I kept realizing I was repeating myself facing our drummer, a talented teenager who I had just taught #4, with my back to the audience. The first time, I looked at him and whispered 'oops'. The second time, I looked at him again - he was trying not to laugh - it was a low pressure demo so I whispered 'I'll get out next time'. The third time I said 'Next time, definitely'. In the end, I just stopped and did a closing movement. Our drummer didn't let me live that down for years.
    I did the same thing in competition with the butterfly knives. I was at the section where you go from rt cat to left while doing a flower and cut. So I did it once, and blanked out the next move, so I did it again, still didn't come to me, so I do it agian, and finally it comes. Luckily, my back was to the judges, so they didn't see the look of horror and panic on my face.
    You can't get away with that in some Chinese comps-they have the judges in each corner!
    Whenever I play "Kung-Fu Drum," for my guys doing a demo, I look away from them. If they screw up, I end up missing the beat if I watch. Then I use peripheral vision to end the drum with the end of whatever they are faking their way through!
    "My Gung-Fu may not be Your Gung-Fu.
    Gwok-Si, Gwok-Faht"

    "I will not be part of the generation
    that killed Kung-Fu."

    ....step.

  11. #11
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    Every form performance is a shamfru dispray

    Outside of the requisite embarrassment of doing a public form performance in and of itself (crappy music, realizing you are a thirty year old who does "kung fu"); I was supposed to do Xiao Luohan which I had just learned so I was already resigned to being extra terrible in the first place and we had just gotten new uniforms. Unifroms with nothing but cheap elastic to secure the waistband. . .

    During a foot stomp right at the beginning my foot caught the inside of my other pant leg and pulled my ill fitting pants down just enough so that my ass was hanging out but not enough for me to notice that anything was amiss for the rest of the form. It just so happens that a good portion of Xiao Luohan is performed facing the opposite direction.

    Of course everybody offered the helpful admonishment to pull my pants up AFTER I got down off the stage. . .

  12. #12
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    I practice on pretty rough terrain back in the US. Mountains, REAL parks, etc. Many a rock/hole/wild animal has disrupted my execution. I'm cool with that, though.
    The weakest of all weak things is a virtue that has not been tested in the fire.
    ~ Mark Twain

    Everyone has a plan until they’ve been hit.
    ~ Joe Lewis

    A warrior may choose pacifism; others are condemned to it.
    ~ Author unknown

    "You don't feel lonely.Because you have a lively monkey"

    "Ninja can HURT the Spartan, but the Spartan can KILL the Ninja"

  13. #13
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    Quote Originally Posted by Drake View Post
    I practice on pretty rough terrain back in the US. Mountains, REAL parks, etc. Many a rock/hole/wild animal has disrupted my execution. I'm cool with that, though.
    Where are you from Drake? If you don't mind me asking.
    It is better to have less thunder in the mouth and more lightning in the hand. - Apache Proverb

  14. #14
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    Quote Originally Posted by Drake View Post
    I practice on pretty rough terrain back in the US. Mountains, REAL parks, etc. Many a rock/hole/wild animal has disrupted my execution. I'm cool with that, though.
    You forgot broken glass and syringes everywhere......

  15. #15
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    Quote Originally Posted by Brule View Post
    You forgot broken glass and syringes everywhere......
    You know, I grew up in a place like that. Apparently it hasn't changed much over the years...

    I have two scars on my hand, and one on my foot from broken glass. I still shudder when I think about the foot one. Slipped down a bit of a trail, and cut right along my foot. Sounded like paper tearing. *shudder*
    The weakest of all weak things is a virtue that has not been tested in the fire.
    ~ Mark Twain

    Everyone has a plan until they’ve been hit.
    ~ Joe Lewis

    A warrior may choose pacifism; others are condemned to it.
    ~ Author unknown

    "You don't feel lonely.Because you have a lively monkey"

    "Ninja can HURT the Spartan, but the Spartan can KILL the Ninja"

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