there are a lot of whys to be answered. the first why being, why did i close this blog?
i closed it because it felt so... pointless. i felt that all i did was rant and write these blogs that made no sense and i wanted someone to read it and pity me in all my patheticness. so when i talked to someone who told me how she hated to be pitied, i wondered about myself... how i could be so... worthless to grovel on my knees the way i had. this blog had become nothing but a tool of pity.
so its been a week or two. and must thinking has ensued. and then i realized that i am actually capable of writing things that have to do with more than just myself.
so i was talking to that same girl, the one who hated so much to be pitied, about her dancing. someone had recorded one of her performances and i had commented how nice that must be. and she said that it didn't matter. the audience doesn't matter. "i dance for me," she said.
this may seem tangent, but it'll go make sense, i promise. i hope... so i just finished watching my favorite TV show, "How i Met Your Mother." today's particular episode involved the main characters debating the issue of fighting. i believe the episode started off by asking, "why do we fight?"
i'm a rather large guy. i'm sure i can hold my own in a battle of physical strength. however, in all my life, i've never gotten into an actual fight. ok, well there were instances, but those were when i was quite young. and besides, that wasn't really a fight... three times i had come oh so close to ending the life of one of my neighbors. we were the same age, and we hung out a lot. we were friends. we would go over to each others house a lot, we went to the same church, same school. but i'm pretty sure that his hobby was to drive me crazy. which pushed me to my limit three very memorable times. i can still remember the rush that you get from that... other than that, we used to wrestle a lot in church. stupid, but fun. young boys full of testosterone...
there's something about being pinned to the ground by a guy who clearly has at least 50 pounds on you, pushing you to the absolute limit of your physical ability that causes you that gives you this rush... whether you get him off you or not, you push and push, mustering up strength that you didn't realize you had.
i'm not a very athletic guy. but there is one thing that i can do, which i'm quite proud of. in the same years that we wrestled in church, we tried to do stupid ridiculous things that would make us so cool. of course breakdancing was one of those things. along with it, we wanted to flip. i can't even remember how long it too me, but i remember wanting so bad to get the forward handspring. it took countless handstands that led to falling flat on my back. but something about that pain felt so good. thinking this is going to get my closer to my goal. and one time, i actually did it. i couldn't believe it. no one else did, but i made it.
well that doesn't mean that i can just pull it out whenever i felt like it though. i have to be "in the moment." during a basketball game, after making that shot. watching the phillies win the world series and then running through the streets with nearly half of philadelphia on broad street. dancing.
Dancing is one of those get my adrenaline up. that boost my physical capabilities beyond the norm. and somehow, it clicked. i still secretly want to get into a fight, and beat the crap out of someone, or even get punched, to feel that kind of pain. but its not as strong a desire anymore. the stronger desire is to dance.
so many different stories to make this point...
i had this desire to watch old dance movies, considering that they are essentially what gave us what we call hip hop today. so i was watching "Flashdance", with Kevin Bacon. at one point, he gets so stressed out, he goes to a warehouse, where theres no one except him. he pops in a tape and rolls out of his car with a blunt in his lips and a beer in his hand. and as the music progresses, he dances.
it liberates us.
In "Step Up 2," one of my favorite movies, Brianna Evigan says "we call this a battle, but what are we fighting for?" thats what it is; a battle. and why do we fight? we fight for us. i fight for me. i dance for me. Capoeira's got it down. we've all seen it before. Eddy from Tekken, or that one scene from "The Protector," where Tony Jaa fights Lateef Crowder, who coincidently looks just like Eddy from Tekken. it's breakdancing! though Capoeira is still a martial arts form, it's also so much more as an art form. it literally combines dancing and fighting into one. and if you watch sparring matches of capoeira fighters, they make a lot less contact, and a lot more pizaz. water it down even further, and you've got battling. dancing. the fighting without the contact.
though i have to admit to desiring the presence of an audience, when i'm in that moment, nothing, no one else matters. chances are, my eyes are closed.
this is just a side note, couple dancing? "Take the Lead," with Antonio Banderas. as he watches Morgan dancing, Caitlin says to him, "i'd kill to dance like that. it's like sex on hardwood." that's why dancing so hot. some forms a little bit more explicit, where the boundaries between dance and sex are more blurred, like grinding... but when you watch dances like the Tango, or the Salsa, rarely will you find that kind of passion between two people. i keep taking all these references from movies... in a Korean movie, "Innocent Steps," a girl is trying to learn to dance. she's got all the steps down, but something is missing. the instructor/partner tells her, "when you dance with me, love me." which is exactly how i view dancing. just like it's the fighting without the contact, it's the sex without the intercourse.
