I have a memory, incomplete and loosely formed, from my childhood, where I sat on the floor of my parents room, neck craned up at the old television. \u00a0I was watching a musical which I wouldn’t remember I had seen till several years later when I finally saw it on stage. \u00a0Vague images of the dancers and the set was all I carried for a time. \u00a0At ten I went to my first musical, a small production of Footloose put on by a sixth-grade class at my school. \u00a0After that night I knew I had to have that teacher so I too could be part of a musical. \u00a0Two years later I was granted my wish as an extra in Grease. \u00a0As preparation for our performance my teacher took our class to professional productions of the Lion King and other shows. \u00a0Over the years I went to more and more shows, read plays in my spare time, memorized monologues and lyrics. \u00a0While I waited with excitement to start high school where I could finally take theater classes I worked backstage for my sixth-grade teacher. \u00a0I learned the in’s and out’s of stage management and lighting, of how to handle performers and their props, how to transform the stage from a garden to a castle. \u00a0By the time \u00a0I finally took a real theater class it was very much a part of my identity. \u00a0In high school it only began to consume me more. \u00a0Lunches and free periods were spent in the theater room with my teacher and the senior students who had taken my friend and I under their wing. \u00a0By the time these students graduated my friend and I had taken up their place mentoring new students during class and at after school rehearsals.<\/p>\n
There was no part of theater I didn’t enjoy. \u00a0Memorization came easy to me, accents presented a fun challenge. \u00a0I could never dance without specific instruction, and things always seemed to be scattered right until the curtains opened, but the satisfaction when the curtains closed made everything worthwhile. \u00a0Stepping onto the stage I could leave behind the identity I had constructed for my high school peers. \u00a0I could step into the character and present some aspect of myself with more honesty than in my day to day life, and no one would know how much closer this character was to the real me; they just saw a performance.<\/p>\n
It was my intention to keep performing after high school. \u00a0We used to say in my family that my brother was the artist. \u00a0He could create beautiful imagery with a canvas or a camera. \u00a0I have never been artistic in the same way, but if you gave me a stage I could perform my art. \u00a0With my junior year things started to change. \u00a0At the prompting of a friend, I went to my first martial arts class. \u00a0I went to two nights of taekwondo and felt what I describe now as falling in love. \u00a0It was so outside my normal realm of activity that I felt painfully awkward and self-conscious, but passionately driven to mimic what I saw the others practicing. \u00a0My instructor was endlessly excited and encouraging, teaching exactly what I had no idea I had been seeking for self-defense and self-development, that I just had to keep going. \u00a0As time went on my body found that forms and details of techniques felt natural. \u00a0I no longer felt like an outsider. \u00a0I became part of a community to which I still refer to as my taekwondo family.<\/p>\n
A year after I found a new love in the disciplined training of martial arts I had the opportunity to do my first real theater work outside of the high school environment. \u00a0I was in a small show in the city. \u00a0For a period of three months I devoted much of my time to this show and to the the theater company. \u00a0I helped to remodel the building, build the set, acquire props, enlist volunteers, and on and on. \u00a0Every night I drove into the city to nurture this growing theater company as they put on their first show. \u00a0Now, until this point there had been no conflict between what I called my two loves; theater and taekwondo. \u00a0For high school performances rehearsals fit in between school and taekwondo practice. \u00a0For this professional show the rehearsals ran during taekwondo. \u00a0So for three months I had to take a break from my training.<\/p>\n
Never in my life had I been so miserable. \u00a0I was doing what I thought I loved so much, yet I found myself suddenly without an outlet, without a source to re-energize myself. \u00a0All of a sudden monologues and performances were dull instead of satisfying. \u00a0The director could no longer command my attention as well as my teacher could. \u00a0Stepping onto the stage no longer fulfilled my need to express myself, for now it felt like a new art in expression to perform my forms for my instructor. \u00a0My body ached for the chance to work out with my little family. \u00a0My mind suffered as I had no contact with this new love of mine who just a year before I had no awareness of.<\/p>\n
When the show ended I couldn’t have been happier to walk away from the stage and onto the mats. \u00a0I had learned something. \u00a0I loved theater, I still love theater, but there is something I love more. \u00a0My path was altered when I was forced to see where my priorities lay. \u00a0There are many things I enjoy, that I view as important, but I have yet to find something more important to my mental,\u00a0physical, and\u00a0spiritual development as my practice in martial arts. \u00a0As my current sensei says, we practice to keep our sanity, so we practice all our lives.<\/p>\n
I haven’t been in another performance, or taken another theater class. \u00a0Now I spend most my nights in one dojo or another, training and teaching. \u00a0My free time is no longer spent memorizing monologues, but memorizing the history of our lineage as I sit and listen for hours to my teachers. \u00a0I express myself now through the movements of my art as my teacher has passed it to me, blending his teachings with my interpretations. \u00a0My identity has shifted from a performance artist to that of a martial artist. \u00a0Theater was a hobby, my practice is a way to be.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
I have a memory, incomplete and loosely formed, from my childhood, where I sat on the floor of my parents room, neck craned up at the old television. I was watching a musical which I wouldn’t remember I had seen… Continue Reading →<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1233,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mi_skip_tracking":false},"categories":[8],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.evergreen.edu\/losttime\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/369"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.evergreen.edu\/losttime\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.evergreen.edu\/losttime\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.evergreen.edu\/losttime\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1233"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.evergreen.edu\/losttime\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=369"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/sites.evergreen.edu\/losttime\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/369\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.evergreen.edu\/losttime\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=369"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.evergreen.edu\/losttime\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=369"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.evergreen.edu\/losttime\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=369"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}