Just Like Falling
On Wednesday, I started my first shmancy, official, Society of American Fight Directors-approved stage combat class, with Joseph Travers of Swordplay. Huzzah! Here begins what will hopefully be a series of entries recording the experience, for my own remembering and for anyone who's interested in the fine art of faking violence.
I was half an hour early for the first class, so I spent a while circling the doorway, wedged between a mini-mart and a Chinese place on 8th Ave, before going up...and up...and up. Sitting on top of the neighbors is a very cute warren of studios; seems like converted apartments. We all gather and go in, Joe hands out paperwork while he spiels about the class, the SAFD ("You get to wear this nifty shirt!") and the schedule for the next couple of weeks. Since Courtney handed in her check in a Wonder Woman envelope, Joe declares he's only taking superhero-themed payments. I draw Underdog on mine and get declared a "hard-working student already." :-P
We go over who's who -- there are three, me included, who have never taken an SAFD certification class before. Some have done two or three, and Matt has done six (out of eight). Joe whispers "He has nothing better to do than take stage combat classes," and Matt pipes up, "Or stand outside your apartment drooling in the off-season!" Quick individual stretching, and then we play some favorite theater games:
1) The Yes Game - Not that yes game. In a circle, one person starts by making eye contact. The contactee says "yes," and the contacter starts moving to take the contactee's place in the circle. The contactee must now find someone to trade with. Giggly almost-collisions ensue.
2) Trust leaning, part one - Not as intense as a trust fall, but same idea.
3) Trust leaning, part two - Grab hands with a partner and lean back into a V; relax. This turned out to be a great stretch for those sitting-at-a-computer-all-day muscles.
4) Indian wrestling - Stand toe-to-instep with a partner, grab right hands, and (in a friendly way) push back and forth to find each other's centers.
It was a fun series of concentration and getting-to-know-each-other warm-ups, getting used to touching hands and shoulders with everyone. An hour has passed! We break for water and move upstairs.
Once there, we spread out, and Joe asks us all to just sit on the floor without using our hands. We dissect how we did it: using our legs to lower ourselves, hitting the floor butt-first, keeping our hands out of the way. We do it again and go all the way to lying down, noting how we naturally sit first, then lie back, and keep our heads for last. And we breathe, which Joe has to remind us we did. We stand back up and prepare for our first official fall.
Joe loves this fall, because "the name of it is what you do. It's as if your milk in the morning were called 'unscrew cap, then pour.' So easy. It's the step-back-sit-fall."
We step back, counterbalancing forward with our arms. We shift our weight to the back leg and lower ourselves on it. We hit the floor with the opposite butt first (right leg back, left side on the floor, and vice versa), and roll down to the floor along that side, head last. Safely down, we let our legs and arms make violent sounds on the floor. Joe's watchwords at this point are asymmetrical and arrhythmical, as in, no coordinated floor-slaps a la judo. (Oops.) We do this several more times, adding vocalizations. Joe pretends to push the whole room; when we're down, he gasps and shouts, "Oh my God, are you guys okay?!" Giggles and groans.
Next, what Joe calls the plain sit-fall, the pratfall, or the banana-peel fall. Instead of stepping back and shifting our weight onto the back leg, this time one leg comes all the way up to 90 degrees in front of us, the standing leg goes to demi-point, and then we lower ourselves and flop as before. This one is accompanied by a comedic "Whoa!" and miming dropping a tray of champagne.
Change of genres! Falling forward. I remember hating this in judo, because on a mat, you just take a deep breath and fall on your forearms. This occasionally hurt enough to make me ill, usually when someone was -- hrm -- helping me down. But wait! In stage combat, there's an almost entirely painless way to do this.
Imagine you're standing on on a clock face, both feet at 6. Your right foot goes out in a huge step to land between 1 and 2. Shift weight onto the front foot until you are hell of low to the ground. Place both hands flat on the ground beside your right foot, then slide your left hand along the floor to lower yourself down. The last thing that hits the floor is your right knee. (Oops. That would be my cute little bruise.) It takes me a while to figure out why this fall is so problematic, but it hits me: in a lunge in yoga, it's a huge no-no to bend your front knee so far that your knee is out over your toes and your heel pops off the ground. My automatic 90-degree lock on my front knee had been making me wonder why I was so far from the ground when it was time to put my hands down, but bad yogic alignment is safe front-falling, so I will work on this instinct.
That's all the technique for tonight, so Joe puts it together in a short little scene. Old West bartender ejects a drunk, thusly: hand on collar, hand on belt, drunk preps back, then ejects him/herself with a big front fall. Bartender walks two steps forward and says, "And stay out!" Drunk rolls over, pulls his/her gun, and shoots the bartender three times. Bartender steps-back-sits-falls. Drunk blows on the gun and mutters "That'll teach ya." After one student's improv, Joe changes this to, "That'll teach ya, ya varmint." In my best Calamity Jane voice, I add, "'N stop waterin' the whiskey."
We discuss the victim control that goes into the fall. I tell my partner I prefer the term "survivor control" and she worriedly asks if I feel like I'm on in control. I assure her otherwise and don't push the joke. We switch parts for a while, then pick sides for the end-of-class presentation. I'm the drunk.
As we're rehearsing, Joe reminds us drunks that he wants to see us push those swinging saloon doors open as we're going forward into the fall, and that's when it hits me that the man knows what he's doing. Everything - the warm-ups, the sequence of falls, the scene -- is calibrated to work together and build up our technique. It's easier to remember to push the doors open than to just tell yourself, "Don't drop your hands yet, don't drop your hands yet....", y'know? Class ends; I'm feeling good about the whole venture.
This entry and those to follow are purely informational and not intended to replace stage combat training with a qualified instructor. Be safe.
I was half an hour early for the first class, so I spent a while circling the doorway, wedged between a mini-mart and a Chinese place on 8th Ave, before going up...and up...and up. Sitting on top of the neighbors is a very cute warren of studios; seems like converted apartments. We all gather and go in, Joe hands out paperwork while he spiels about the class, the SAFD ("You get to wear this nifty shirt!") and the schedule for the next couple of weeks. Since Courtney handed in her check in a Wonder Woman envelope, Joe declares he's only taking superhero-themed payments. I draw Underdog on mine and get declared a "hard-working student already." :-P
We go over who's who -- there are three, me included, who have never taken an SAFD certification class before. Some have done two or three, and Matt has done six (out of eight). Joe whispers "He has nothing better to do than take stage combat classes," and Matt pipes up, "Or stand outside your apartment drooling in the off-season!" Quick individual stretching, and then we play some favorite theater games:
1) The Yes Game - Not that yes game. In a circle, one person starts by making eye contact. The contactee says "yes," and the contacter starts moving to take the contactee's place in the circle. The contactee must now find someone to trade with. Giggly almost-collisions ensue.
2) Trust leaning, part one - Not as intense as a trust fall, but same idea.
3) Trust leaning, part two - Grab hands with a partner and lean back into a V; relax. This turned out to be a great stretch for those sitting-at-a-computer-all-day muscles.
4) Indian wrestling - Stand toe-to-instep with a partner, grab right hands, and (in a friendly way) push back and forth to find each other's centers.
It was a fun series of concentration and getting-to-know-each-other warm-ups, getting used to touching hands and shoulders with everyone. An hour has passed! We break for water and move upstairs.
Once there, we spread out, and Joe asks us all to just sit on the floor without using our hands. We dissect how we did it: using our legs to lower ourselves, hitting the floor butt-first, keeping our hands out of the way. We do it again and go all the way to lying down, noting how we naturally sit first, then lie back, and keep our heads for last. And we breathe, which Joe has to remind us we did. We stand back up and prepare for our first official fall.
Joe loves this fall, because "the name of it is what you do. It's as if your milk in the morning were called 'unscrew cap, then pour.' So easy. It's the step-back-sit-fall."
We step back, counterbalancing forward with our arms. We shift our weight to the back leg and lower ourselves on it. We hit the floor with the opposite butt first (right leg back, left side on the floor, and vice versa), and roll down to the floor along that side, head last. Safely down, we let our legs and arms make violent sounds on the floor. Joe's watchwords at this point are asymmetrical and arrhythmical, as in, no coordinated floor-slaps a la judo. (Oops.) We do this several more times, adding vocalizations. Joe pretends to push the whole room; when we're down, he gasps and shouts, "Oh my God, are you guys okay?!" Giggles and groans.
Next, what Joe calls the plain sit-fall, the pratfall, or the banana-peel fall. Instead of stepping back and shifting our weight onto the back leg, this time one leg comes all the way up to 90 degrees in front of us, the standing leg goes to demi-point, and then we lower ourselves and flop as before. This one is accompanied by a comedic "Whoa!" and miming dropping a tray of champagne.
Change of genres! Falling forward. I remember hating this in judo, because on a mat, you just take a deep breath and fall on your forearms. This occasionally hurt enough to make me ill, usually when someone was -- hrm -- helping me down. But wait! In stage combat, there's an almost entirely painless way to do this.
Imagine you're standing on on a clock face, both feet at 6. Your right foot goes out in a huge step to land between 1 and 2. Shift weight onto the front foot until you are hell of low to the ground. Place both hands flat on the ground beside your right foot, then slide your left hand along the floor to lower yourself down. The last thing that hits the floor is your right knee. (Oops. That would be my cute little bruise.) It takes me a while to figure out why this fall is so problematic, but it hits me: in a lunge in yoga, it's a huge no-no to bend your front knee so far that your knee is out over your toes and your heel pops off the ground. My automatic 90-degree lock on my front knee had been making me wonder why I was so far from the ground when it was time to put my hands down, but bad yogic alignment is safe front-falling, so I will work on this instinct.
That's all the technique for tonight, so Joe puts it together in a short little scene. Old West bartender ejects a drunk, thusly: hand on collar, hand on belt, drunk preps back, then ejects him/herself with a big front fall. Bartender walks two steps forward and says, "And stay out!" Drunk rolls over, pulls his/her gun, and shoots the bartender three times. Bartender steps-back-sits-falls. Drunk blows on the gun and mutters "That'll teach ya." After one student's improv, Joe changes this to, "That'll teach ya, ya varmint." In my best Calamity Jane voice, I add, "'N stop waterin' the whiskey."
We discuss the victim control that goes into the fall. I tell my partner I prefer the term "survivor control" and she worriedly asks if I feel like I'm on in control. I assure her otherwise and don't push the joke. We switch parts for a while, then pick sides for the end-of-class presentation. I'm the drunk.
As we're rehearsing, Joe reminds us drunks that he wants to see us push those swinging saloon doors open as we're going forward into the fall, and that's when it hits me that the man knows what he's doing. Everything - the warm-ups, the sequence of falls, the scene -- is calibrated to work together and build up our technique. It's easier to remember to push the doors open than to just tell yourself, "Don't drop your hands yet, don't drop your hands yet....", y'know? Class ends; I'm feeling good about the whole venture.
This entry and those to follow are purely informational and not intended to replace stage combat training with a qualified instructor. Be safe.