Monday night is dance class night around these parts – meaning no football and no dancing with the stars. So imagine my joy tuning into the news of the hour and the various souls weighing in on Tom’s dance debut.
It took me a bit to figure out what dance he was moving to and it occurred to me independently of being told, “well, you could do a Cha cha to it, or more correctly in this instance the bastardized cha-cha-cha to it, followed his feet and sure enough, that was what he was doing. One of the judges made the same observation, when you actually did the cha-cha, it was quite good, but that other stuff.”
It brought me back a few years when I was throwing high kicks for Sonny Umpad at his place, something I generally don’t advertise that I can do. Sonny Baptiste happened to be there and was watching very intently. In the back of my mind I was thinking of a photo of Baptiste punching his way through 15 or so cement blocks, when I turned to him and said, “What?” Baptiste said, “I’m not saying nothing, man. I can’t do that?”
Tom DeLay sliding across the floor on his knees, “I’m not saying, man. I can’t do that.”
And I’m willing to bet none of the jealous bitches who put him down for showing up can either.
Anyway, since the distinction between a cha-cha and a cha-cha-cha is back on the air waves, I’ve decided to start yet another category, this one for the martial artist.
I’ve been thinking about this for awhile and as an organizer for a meetup group of dubious existence, I should have something to say on the subject. In my other life, I am a Sifu of Mo Meng Do, and a Guro of Visayan Corto Cadina Eskrima and like most folks who have run the course, have an opinion of the process it takes to get there.
I’ve also had a certain back and forth as how to incorporate this into my general writing over the years and it was my interest in the martial arts that made me willing to suffer the early days of the internet and web-building. Movie Memes also grew organically out of people asking me what I thought about a piece of movie choreography and how it might work in the real world. And for that matter the wisdom of showing lethal techniques in a movie, pro and con.
