Post-Canada Day Demo Thoughts

 Little delayed writing this post, but I still wanted to jot down my thoughts after doing my first demo and dragon dance since that seems like exactly the thing blogging is meant for. 

Like I mentioned in my previous post, I was shocked at the lack of nervousness I felt beforehand, and I was surprised to find that this stayed true on the day-of as well. I was a bit nervous, but in a jittery-excitement kind of way rather than the usual, "I want to crawl out of my skin and bury myself 10 feet underground and begin a new life as a subterranean being" kind of nervousness. 

The secret practice we were doing at the bottom of the hill really helped me to get used to moving the dragon through the wind, and I think the conversations we were having felt like the best communication we had as a team as a whole so far, which also really helped to calm my last bit of nerves!

Running through the actual performance my headspace wasn't all the different than when we are practicing in class: just trying to make my piece flow as nicely as I can manage in the context of the rest of the dragon, and focusing on making the dragon come alive.

For the weapons portion I tried to focus on speed and explosive/large expansion so that it would look more flashy for the performance, and it did feel very strange to consciously let some bad techniques slide for the sake of showcasing those aforementioned things, but the demo was really helpful in that it forced me to consider what my form looked like from an outside perspective (especially since when I was creating it I was almost entirely focused on how I felt when I was doing it, (What stances feel like they give me the most power? How can I move the sword in a way that carries the momentum from the previous technique? What can I do that makes me feel cool?) I think I managed to do it decently fast, but I definitely could have expanded further on a lot of my techniques.

I got turned around at some point in my form, and I almost slipped on some grass and tumbled down the hill at the end, but I think I managed to hide it pretty well, so absolutely self-indulgent pat on the back for myself since I think I'm usually pretty obvious with my mistakes when I make them. 

Overall the whole demo went by so much faster than I expected and I had that exact feeling I always get after a school presentation where I'm wishing that I could get one more chance to run through the whole thing one more time immediately after, because I know exactly what I would do differently next time.

 Sufficed to say I am looking forward to the next demo!

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