June 12 is MartialGym’s yearly showcase, besides gymnastics, we will include some martial art performances. I draw the line very clearly between martial arts and gymnastics – Gymnastics is about creativity, amplitude, fun, expressions to music and awesomeness but martial arts is about effectiveness, survival instincts and adaptation to changes. Therefore planning performances are a challenge – I don’t want to do any traditional forms because I don’t really believe it tells the right story. We do condition our knuckles but we don’t like to break boards either.
A little story from a while back may help highlight what we don’t want.
Quite a few years ago, we were invited to perform at a school. There were other performances before us, the gym was full of people and we expected it to be lots of fun. There was a martial arts performance ahead of us (style is irrelevant and therefore withheld), the demonstration went on and on without any punch line and they managed to lose half the audience within 20 minutes. It was very disappointing for us but nonetheless, it taught me what NOT to do.
Mistakes:
- Presentation took too long – each demo has to be short and sweet to set up and to execute. “Knowing when to stop” and “learning to have clear message” is a huge challenge.
- Did not differentiate between a training session versus a demo – the purpose of a demo is to educate, impress or entertain. Activities good for training purposes may not be audience friendly.
- No punchline – after the entire performance, everybody just remembered how dreadful it was to stand there and watch and that certainly wasn’t the message you want to leave behind.
Presentation is not really about the product itself but more about knowing your audiences. While I took courses about make effective presentations from work, I was most impressed during one rhythmic gymnastics demo at a school – how Lori Fung (first Olympic RG gold medalist) got the kids to quiet down, catches theirs attention and engage them for an awesome experience. She used hand-signal, voice control, interactive questions to draw them in and of course, finish off with an awesome performance by the gymnasts as well as to leave them with a dream “to be brave enough to dream and go for it”.
Exercise:
– No written homework for a change but this Tuesday, you will be required to dry run your performance. So have a plan and execute it.