Punctuation

Today in kid’s class we drilled our forms as if they were stories.  Each move was a sentence, a complete thought that we attempted to convey to the audience.  With this idea in mind, we experimented with changing the punctuation at the end of each sentence.

We started with the exclamation point.  Everything was very exciting!  Each move powerful!  No contrast but full speed ahead!  Then we moved on to the question mark.  Did the students know what they were doing?  Was that hand supposed to be a fist?  Where are they in the form?  Next was the period.  Did the form.  It looked a little blase.  Kinda passive.  The penultimate experiment was the run on sentence.  One move went into the next there weren’t any pauses nobody stopped moving it was hard to tell what each move was because it slurred right into the next one that was pretty messy.

Finally, the students punctuated the form/story however they thought was appropriate.  I suggested that they tell a dynamic and sure tale complete with exclamation points, periods,  a run on sentence or two but no question marks.  There are certainly forms out there with moments of uncertainty but Sui Wan is not supposed to be one of them.

The video above shows the students playing with the idea of exclamation points AKA hitting the pads during the form.