I have wondered a while whether I would ever reveal on this public blog more details about the journey I find myself on. A path that dramatically changed my perceptions about my identity and my relationships. It has tested me physically, spiritually and mentally. It has made me consider things I would have otherwise taken for granted. It has made me face the darkest sides of myself.

It has taken me 3 years to even get to this point. To write these words. To give voice to something that has frequently brought me to tears that rendered me speechless.

I would come to find it is an experience that is more normal than not, but one that is often experienced in silence, alone, anonymous.

In fact, I have been writing about the experience, just not here where one can attach my name to it, but somewhere else in the ether where I can be nameless. It has helped.

But the writer in me starts to call out, wants to give a voice to the unspoken. I just don't know if I'm ready.

is back to writing...

I cracked open a blank journal yesterday and started writing. Alot has happened, alot is happening. Most of it I haven't been sharing publicly. In this day and age of blogging and facebook, that seems almost blasphemous.

Over the last few years all the talk shows and self-help books talked about honesty and talking to someone and telling someone. I believe it's important to be honest with oneself, as for being honest with everyone else, eh, they can probably get in line.

What is this world without noise. Without chatter. Why are there still some things people just don't talk about?

Going back

One of my students recently went to the Exploratorium's Tactile Dome. A journey in complete darkness that you must feel your way through. The first time, you're just looking for the one way out. The next time through, you get a chance to feel around and see if you can find anything new.

The last few kali classes, I've been going back to the classic style. What I call the classic style is the style that I saw when I first practiced, what can be recognized as "typical" Filipino Martial Arts.

As I've watched the students practice, I've noticed some things that were missing. Little things. Subtle things. I had to go back. We've dropped stuff along the way.

I've been teaching for 12 years now and it feels like I'm beginning again. The first time around I kind of stumbled along trying to remember what was taught to me and repeating that method. This time around I'm getting a chance to see new things, how things connect, why this movement was needed to get to this movement. Each time I teach nowadays there really is something incredible to learn and uncover.

So I've been going back. The Classic Style. yes. The percussive left hand. We started with the left hand percussive because it's the only way anyone knew how to use it. Then people learned how to blend and manipulate. But then to go back to percussive really tests ones accuracy and sensitivity. When you return to something, do you go back to the way you did it then or are you able to return to it as another layer? Do you have a deeper understanding of what you did before? One of them simply defaulted to how they had learned it. I remember when I defaulted. I didn't think there was much more else you could do with the technique. Once learned, it was boring and repetitive. I just didn't know its potential.

Simply using the left hand was difficult for some. It forced them to move their trigger, stop using muscle, and learn to follow their weapon. Instead of forcing the weapon (typically right hand) to do everything (hold the weapon, generate power, manipulate for accuracy), we move the power and accuracy to the left hand. It's a switch in brain thinking. But when they did let go, you could see their entire bodies relax.

In high school, my track coach told me to "run faster." I didn't understand what that meant. I was running as fast as I possibly could go. I instinctively tried to contract my legs more, to harden, to run faster which only resulted in me going slower.

To go faster, one has to create mechanisms to spring them to go faster. The mind only knows one voluntary speed. The body has to be taught what faster feels like.

What it takes to actually go faster is contrary to the instinct the mind takes.I don't need more muscle to be hard, I need the muscle I have to relax. I need my joints to swing. I need muscle and joints to work together to store spring energy. I need less control to be in control.

Next week I think we will go pick up another piece we are slowly losing: to see and not see. Too too easy to fall back into the habit of tunnel vision in sparring.

We did a bit of it today and my student said, "I'm not a very good liar." in reference to how the technique uses some "magic". I told him, "I'm not lying to you, I'm showing you exactly what I'm doing. It's not my fault your looking in a different spot when it happens."

the circular nature of the spirit

I've been reading posts from Eileen, Leny and Jean on Eileen's mom's reading talking about the Dawac, healers she remembers from her childhood.

At the same time, there's a facebook email thread that someone included me on about the roots of the word Kali. (There are constant complaints my Filipino Martial Artists, usually non-kali folks, who believe that since the word was not documented, then it couldn't have ever existed.) I keep trying to delete the thread, but it just keeps coming back.

I also watch a stroke recovery progress through the memories of their life, rebuilding and reconnecting.

All this leads me to how does one search for a forgotten past.

Much of the memory of the Philippines faded quickly from my parent's memories as soon as they set foot here. A consequence really of needing to focus on building a new life in a different country, which rolled into the craziness of kids and work. There are few things that remind them.

I remember my mom tell us a story here and there of her grandfather, the abulario/local healer. He walked on fire and didn't get burned. When I met him, he was near 80, deaf and blind. Not sure if he remembered my mother, his eyes always in half trance.

When I took up Kali, the sticks I brought home triggered other memories not just from my mother but from her siblings. How he had sticks, but never taught his own sons. How he moved just like me. How when he slept he raised his arm to the sky and no amount of force would bring that arm down. Without knowing it, I had stumbled upon a memory and lineage I didn't know existed before. Was I genetically programmed to move in this way? Was there still a spiritual connection that brought me to this place, to pick up where 2 generations had left?

As I carried these stories with me and told them to others, they too had stories. A collection of anting-anting. The trance healing dances of their mother. The more I explored this Kali movement, the more I triggered memories that people wanted to share as if they wanted to keep the memories together, connect them to something living today.

I've come to terms with the lack of "proof" or written knowledge. I'm tired of people wanting "proof" that Kali ever existed. What does it matter if it existed before if it exists now? Why can't I rewrite my own history in the way colonizers have rewritten mine for centuries at a time? Why must history always be written to be proven? Why can't I carry my history in my body?

My teacher always felt that we were discovering new techniques, only uncovering ones we had forgotten. We have been exploring the movement of our basic human structure for thousands of years, surely someone somewhere in that time did this movement in this way.

I have no issues with wanting to document what is currently known. But this inverse that if it isn't written down then it does not exists, irks me like bible fundamentalists. And I know they copied me on that "thread" to "hear" what I have to say about this. And while they may honestly just want to know, I refuse to walk into a discussion based on prepositions that if I cannot show proof of my name, then I do not exist. So I refuse to respond. Just because the Spanish wrote about Escrima, does not make the existence of Escrima more legitimate than something that is not documented. There's something very colonized about that idea.

Close relations of the person in stroke recovery ask each other, how old do you think he is now? We watch as his body relearns movement, his mind relearns his life. He memories and stories bounce around a general age range and never in linear form, more like an interwoven tapestry. They hover. If you could relive your life, would you forgive yourself? What bits of your life are retained, who do you remember, what do you remember? What parts do you hang onto and should you? it's like his mind is repacking his bags: folding, reshaping. His personality may reflect this fragmented memories: the brash young man, the young boy on his own, encounters that changed his life, regrets. He must rebuild, bit by bit. Who can say what "normal" is anymore?

In searching for the forgotten past, I treat it like a treasure hunt. Stories here and there giving me clues to something larger. I note things I hear repeated and confirmed as possible truths. The clues are not "substantial" for academic standards, but they are big enough for me. If our history is shattered where do the dust particles go? Do they still exist. Or are they hidden in plain view, the way we traded pagan gods and gave them Christian saint names?

I know there are questions of the past I will never have answered. I also know there are answers I have that I cannot reveal. There are many things in this world where writing them into words kills the very spirit we wish to pass on. There are some things that have to be experienced.

I had to come to terms with what I could not have and have taken pleasure in what remains. I see them as points on a strand. They repeat and connect. There are confirmations if they strum the right way. It is possible to seed these stories. It is possible to create your own. These stories, these affirmations, remind me that if it existed before, it can exist again.

Quadratus Lumborum

Last couple of days I've had a stiffness in my back, kind of middle and the side. I got a massage and asked her to work on that.

I've always had issues with that side of the body. I could always bend more one way than the other. She said the muscle was the Quadratus Lumborum. And that she fines that when we feel vulnerable, it's this muscle that activates to protect us. It connects the lower back to the pelvis and runs just under the kidney.

Then it all made sense.

What I've been doing for my health. What I want in my life. The blockages I've been experiencing in those areas. I get it now.

It's all connected you see. The answer we want is always in front of us. Everything is a mirror: our bodies, our homes, what we wear, the people in our lives.

I think I'm going in the right direction. It was the first time with some help I could reach that muscle. I have a ways to go. Whenever I think I had already past a turning point, there is yet another turning point. I hope I have time.

there can only be one

I know you are not yet whole. That the person before me is a fraction and fracture of your whole self. And yet, I do understand, that we both know this is for the best. Fractured selves feel pain readily, but I want you to know I leave in love. Hate is not the only source of Pain.

Up until this point you have known me and seen me as clearly as truth. Up until now you knew me better than myself and made sure I recognized my own lies. Never ever lie to yourself you told me and always held the mirror up so I could find my own truth.

Until today.

Today I do not know who you see. Your eyes that are always distant as if seeing everything from afar. So far, I can no longer feel your presence on this earth.

I do not know the woman you speak of when you talk of me. Have we fallen so far that you must fill in the gaps? You have made me who I am today but I am not that woman. And yet, the message is clear. It is what exists in the periphery. This is truth.

Doors have closed between us. The path diverged below my feet. It is time. As you said, there can only be one. I do not deny that this is true. Yes, you are the one.

Perhaps you felt the tremors between us. Perhaps I felt them too but didn't want to.

In parting I walked away. In the end you've never lied to me. In parting you told me to turn my back, and to not follow you. We both know where that path ends. You gave one last message to my guardian, let her know she has always been loved.

In love, there is can only be one truth.

elements

Earth creates metal that attracts water which nourishes wood that feeds fire that burns everything to earth.

Earth muddies the water that douses fire that melts metal that cuts wood that breaks up earth.

Then there are yin and yang states of each one, yet another permutation of these cycles. I don't really understand all of their yin and yang states, so I will attempt to seek possible examples of what they might be.

Yang fire will clear an overgrown forrest and open it up to new growth. Is Yin Fire like the earth's core or the sun's fusion?

Yang water will cause great flooding, yin water will carve something as spectacular as the Grand Canyon.

Is Yang Metal like armored plating and yin metal the edge of a blade?

Is Yang Earth an earthquake or a mountain? Is Yin Earth the dust that settles on riverbanks eventually creating solid land?

Yang Wood can be like the ivy that envelops and kills a tree or the grandeur large redwoods or other canopy trees that form the forrest. Is yin wood the sprouts of plants that find their way in every crevice? Who they can split sheer rock and find a place to hold onto and grow?

Lava is an awesome combination of fire, earth and metal.

There is always another layer.

To draw the sky

How do we know what we don't know? How do we know what we can't see? What is that space between leaves, the shape of shadows, the space in between in between? How between sounds like the Tagalog word "bituin" or star. And like the stars, the space in between is vast and unknowing, yet shines in the night sky to let us know it is there.

Bringing it back online

I was offline for quite some time. The offline real life has a way of doing that. Most of my day to day online interaction happens on facebook nowadays. But things have happened that have made me consider going back to blogging.

I'm on a new journey.

It's a bit of a lonely journey in that it's time to put the pieces together. Hopefully an incredible journey of uncovery, exploration, imagination, and if all goes well, in the end mastery, though there's no guarantee.

Previously, I blogged about random anything. But I think now, I will focus this writing around the journey.

I recently posted to my cousin's blog where he was discussing media and communication. I said, "blogging is just about as close to being archaic on the internet as email." Blogging has become "old-school".

But there's a benefit to "old school" and in this case there is the luxury of longer sentences, stream of consciousness that go beyond 140 characters, which I believe leads to longer meditations on ideas versus sound bytes and attention deficit quality of other communications. And that's what I need. I need to meditate.

the quiet life

I haven't posted here much at all though I've wanted to post reactions on the various personal and/or global experiences over the past couple of months...but then I haven't.

And while I continue my avid presence on facebook, even there, my public life has come down to chit-chat snippets.

I see all the links to community events and think briefly about going, but then don't.  Sometimes there are truly other things that get in the way, others, I get the feeling of, "that's not where I need to be."  

I've listened closely to that "need to be voice" as it's served me well.  

And I know as I add people to my facebook list of people I met in various community events and organizations, they must wonder, while I also wonder, "I haven't seen in a long time."

I told someone several months ago that I found myself in an "observation" phase.  I still find myself there.  Quietly taking care of things that I could not take care of when taking care of the community.  

Someone asked if I was going to participate in this event next year and my reply was, "I have not yet decided how I plan to participate."  I think my choice of words are important.  I don't attend things just to attend them so much anymore.  I haven't been that interested in attending Filipino events much either.  Because the question is, how am I engaging and participating and not much simply attending.  All I know is that this is not the direction.

I'm not sure if there is any direction right now and perhaps my direction that I need to delve is not horizontal but vertical.  That perhaps my direction is the depth of the plain.  

I don't think this quiet life will last forever.  I do envision a time when I will return to "saying" something either here or artistically or even socially.  But that time is not now.

It's real, not practice

Sometimes people wonder when we actually get to practice the moves we learn in kali in real life.  It's not always apparent.  But it is there.

It has been interesting these last few weeks that I find the lessons of kali reverberate not just in what I'm teaching in class but in every day life.  There are some choices I've made to put me in a certain direction, there are others soon to be made that will test my "eye" for quality.  And the consequences for these decisions are very real, they both impact my life and others.

I have to take into account not just the present day but the future and I have to predict the next few years the same way I set up and predict the direction of my opponents.  I have to understand the wave that I create from this choice.

I have come to understand the choices or more often than not the non-choices people have made before me.  To not act, to not choose, is a choice that more often than not postpones the inevitable to the future, which in this case is my present.  The choice doesn't go away, it just makes whoever gets the choice down the line even harder.  One of the difficulties of the budget situation is that people want to choose not to choose, to hope someone else will bail them out or grant them forgiveness.  Neither is around in any abundance.  But what it does is that because individuals at the bottom cannot make the hard decisions, that decision moves up the chain and the farther and farther you are, the larger the blade you need to make a slice.

There is only so much one can do to avoid being cut, but no doubt one will get cut.  How deep of a wound do you wish to suffer?

This is where my training and I mean all of my training from the kali to the leadership development to even 6th grade crossing guard captain has brought me to.  

I know that change is painful.  Mostly because people do not change until it hurts.  It being whatever it is they're in now.  The other incentive of course is pleasure.  They change because the thing they are going to is more pleasurable.  But pleasure is difficult to measure once someone is acclimated to the pain of their present state.

I know from kali a delay in decision making, a delay in acting determines how deep is the wound.  

I regret I was unable to made these choices earlier and yet I did not fully have the tools to do it. But regret has no place here. The proper choice is both about its decision and its timing.  And I have to believe that when I make the decision, when I act will be the proper time for everything to happen.

I imagine in the Year of the Ox, an Ox plowing the rows in a field.  I hope that if I keep plowing that by the end of this year I will have a nicely sown field that will give me great harvests in the future.  I can only hope.

watching a lifetime

It was rather appropriate watching "Up" tonight, the latest Pixar movie.  There's an opening sequence that fast forwards through the main character's life with his wife.  It is a sequence that is succinct and effortless that shows a man who once experienced joys and adventure and even now alone attempts to continue on this journey together.

I had spent most of the day at the funeral for Uncle Cef.  He was 81.  He and his wife were one of numerous families part of the Barkada.  Many of them lived in Oakland, and many of them were nurses.  They raised their children together and many of their children's children consider each other cousins even though there are no blood ties.  For many years, I thought us and the Barkada were the only Filipinos in Oakland.

When my parents arrived in the US in 1970, they were met at the airport by my dad's uncle, the first cousin to his father.  When they arrived, they stayed at his house, and for a time next door at Uncle Philip's.  They were adopted by this Barkada.  My sister's first babysitters were these women.   Auntie Esther, a nurse at Kaiser, had been there the day each of us were born to welcome us into the world.  My sister and I called most of them auntie and uncle.  Their children, about 6-7 years older than us, were our cousins, though technically they would have been 2nd cousins once removed.  In a time, when my parents had left their parents and complete social structure in the Philippines, the Lomuljos, the Monteclaros, the Prados, were the family parties we attended on a regular basis.  The graduations, the weddings, the baptisms and now funerals.  Mostly funerals now.

With my parents out of town, and my sister pregnant, I was left as the lone representative of our family to pay our respects for Uncle Cef.  The "old" family as I called them.  It's been some time since we last saw them.  Uncle Cef and Auntie Esther had come to our wedding 3 years ago.  We had seen him and his family all together for their 50th wedding anniversary 2 years ago. 

Yesterday and today, we listened as family, friends and their grandchildren, memorialized him: his humor, his strength, his helpfulness.  The priest had gathered the family at the casket for the final prayers.  I flashed back to their wedding anniversary, as the same priest had the family gather around them then too.  A moment of great joy juxtaposed with great sadness in my mind.

I re-acquainted myself with the aunties and their children, who of course all knew me way back when.  I learned the names of their children and their spouses.  Their children's children seemed confused by all the strangers that knew their family.  Where did these people come from?  How did they know their family?  Even though, I could say to many of them, I remember when your parents were married, and when you were born.  I remember.  I know.

I came to discover other people I had known from other circles, connecting again here.  A fellow from work, a student from kali class.  They were friends of the grandchildren, the newer family.  The grandchildren were strangers to me.  I was connected to the earlier years, their grandparents, their parents before we had all moved on with our lives.  The circles that repeat and reconnect were palpable.  

I had brief conversations about where I am now.  It was just a sight to recognize faces and remember when we were all a bit younger.  That seemed like enough, to see that we were still here.  To remember a time when life wasn't complicated.  

When I left the reception and greeted Auntie Esther, she seemed smaller than ever, impish now, but still always with the loving sparkle in her eye.  "I remember" she tells me, "I know you.  I know you when you were a baby and your sister too.  And now all of you so grown up. I remember. I know. Thank you for representing your family.  Regards to your parents."

I looked around the room with a mixture of sadness, joy, and gratitude.  Those who I had known and who had known me were now passing.  I would no longer know their grandchildren as those lines grew thin.  Yet, I was grateful to them for what they had given my family, for us.  How they had opened their doors, their guidance, to a young couple separated from what they had known to provide the example how the values of family, community and barkada played themselves out on this American plateau. 

I don't know much about the aunties and uncles of the barkada.  I was too young to learn their last names, or know about where they originated in the Philippines nor how they came here.  I only know of the family parties in orchid and rose filled backyards and how I had to mano po a line of elders in the dining room.  I am anak ni Rebecca at Narcing.  The second daughter.  How tall I had become from the baby they had once held in their arms. 

The cycle of this "family" is coming to a close as the memory of our connections disappear with the Barkada generation.  The elder children in each family will complete for their parents the last of the obligations and tributes to the other families when their parents pass and this will close the circle.  This is the way of things.  We have already gone on to form our own barkadas and families that are still growing.  Those too will come to this moment of goodbye.

"Up" seemed to reflect this day.  What memories do we take with us?  What do we hold on to?  How do we continue on?  How did that life teach us how to live this one?  

Thank you Uncle Cef for what you brought to this world. Goodbye.

fyi

thank you to everyone who emailed about the post I pulled.  Your well wishes and prayers are well received.  As an FYI, he's out of ICU and into rehab.  Alot of work ahead of him, but he's inspired with the reward of "real food".

pulled one

i pulled a recent posting mostly because I didn't want to be as public as I ended up being.  But thank you everyone for your kind words in reaction to that post.

grateful

Over the years we've explored truth.  The school's name uses the Visayan word for truth, Kamatuuran.  And how do you know when you find truth?  Can it be possible to find pure truth, stuff that isn't tainted by the slightest bias?  There are honest emotions, but do they automatically remove truth.

2009 has been for me an exploration of emotion.  Ironic as my training has often been about controlling emotion and keeping it in check to be able to think clearing in times of action.  But this should not be confused with ignoring emotion or believing in its non-existence.  There is always a time to mourn.

I find my emotion rising in moments when it is time, in the quiet moments alone when there is not one else to face but yourself.  There is a difference between the temporary and the permanent state.  That momentary sadness is different from the depression of being unable to experience joy.

It is part of what the body and soul endure to come to a peace and understanding of experiences that have gone by.  It is a new thing to navigate.  And I cannot yet possibly imagine the depths in which this path may go.

But I awoke today with the sincerest of joy and gratefulness in my heart.  And I recall when my grandmother passed, my family had spilled out to the hallway of her room in tears and a nurse comment, "someone was well loved here."  That to love and appreciate we risk the greatest of temporary sadness in order to continue to experience the recurring joy and love.

Love endures.

it's easy to doubt

It's easy to replay the past in one's mind and wonder if you did everything you could.  It's easy to research what you might have done and question everything that happened because it doesn't match the perfect way.  It's easy to be critical when the results are a probability instead of a reality.  It's easy to beat yourself up and feel guilty about not doing enough or not doing something exactly right.  You will always be wrong.  Hindsight might be 20-20, but it shouldn't make you blind.

My training, my training has always told me to be critical, to question, to improve.  There is a fine line between critical study and guilt ridden regret.  The difference is the result.  Guilt is based on what could have been.  Study is about what you'll do next time.  It's a vital difference.

The difference between carrying a burdensome past or building a new future.

Today was a time to reflect on the weekend.  Was tricky to concentrate on work with a play by play re-looping in my mind.  I cried remembering my fear and doubt.  I cried remembering the sadness and my own helplessness.  

Then an email asking, should we have done more?

And the answer is always, "we did what we could do at the time we needed to do it."

How do you know?

Because someone is alive to hug his kids, hear his wife say I love you, and for him to reply, "I'm a very lucky guy." 

This is what really needs to replay in our minds.  This is the proof that we did something right, maybe not perfectly, maybe not exactly the way it should have been, but that doesn't matter.  Hugs matter. I love you matters.  Being alive to experience those things matters.

there's a reason

Correction: Saturday was the 3rd time in my life when 911 had to be called. All 3 times, not for me, but for people who happen to be in front of me.

Saturday was the 2nd time in my life when 911 had to be called.  I guess all those human physiology classes and Red Cross emergency classes have paid off.  I guess that means God had me at the right place at the right time to help my friend get immediate assistance after his stroke.  I pray for his wife who must now be the emotional and physical strength for their family.  She is a strong woman who can endure.

While still cognizant and talkative though slow and slurred, my friend still has a long way to go, alot of therapy ahead of him.  We are grateful for hope.

I was glad to have been there for them.  I wish I could do more, but now we are just in the waiting period as the doctors figure out how it happened and try to find the stroke source to lessen the chances of second one, so he can proceed to rehab.

It is now Monday and the happenings of Saturday morning are just now replaying through my mind.  I must remind myself, that we couldn't have done anything better than what we already did.  That he got to the hospital and was able to get treatment in the first 3 hours and the hospital has a specialist unit in strokes.  To be grateful that it happened the way it did, when the alternatives could have been much worse.

His wife remains at his bedside reminding him how much she loves him, reminding him who's a lucky guy, and that he still has alot to do, alot of things to see.  It's up to him now to find his way back.

It is what he has for years trained in me.  The test of your skill is not in practice, but somewhere out there at a time when you need it the most.  Who you are then, is who you really are.  It is how you live your life.

not here, there

Haven't posted much here for various reasons. Mostly because other parts of my life have needed a bit more privacy. But I have been online, mostly on facebook and still contemplating the necessity/usefulness/do-I-really-want-to of twittering.

Rhett and I are working on a couple of books together. One is on getting into college. We're finally writing down all the advise we've given to younger cousins on how to get in, though Rhett is far more successful at getting people into med school (which will be the next book). So I've been studying how other people sell their own books outside of the poetry world and the use of Web 2.0 (twitter, facebook, etc) in marketing and promotion. I'm still not sure how it works. Though picking up hints and tricks here and there.

I have also been posting here posting about the photos and photo products we've been selling online. The photo below is BY FAR our most popular item with someone buying one every other week or so. It's easy to see why. We have an 11x14 of it hanging in our home.

Eiffel Tower Postcard by exquisitephoto
Make postcards On zazzle
Browse Ile-de-France Postcards

Live or Memorex?

I've always been fascinated by technology and how we both we communicate with each other through it but also how it shapes what we say. So when the Kindle 2 came out and it was a product that people were really engaging in, I immediately thought about how does this affect poetry. We know it's a medium for novels and prose text, but what about the poem? Since I still had the layout files for Kali's Blade, I decided to transform the book into Kindle form. Because if I really want to know how this medium changes the face of poetry, I might as well dive right into it.

And not only put it up on Amazon, but also sell it at the special price of $0.99. Unlike the web, which shaped language, the Kindle brings about another important avenue for authors, the price of poetry. How does interacting with poetry on your iPhone change the experience? How does not having physical media to print change how authors make their work accessible to the public? And is the public willing to pay for it? If so, how much?

We know a good poetry book from a small press might sell 100 copies. 1000 copies would be astounding! But even author's who get their texts on their friend's reading course lists will be lucky to hit 1000 copies sold. Let's be honest. Plus how much of the actual cost of the book does an author really get? Not much because of the labor of production. But how many copies could you sell on-line for the right price? And while less and less people have room for shelves, there is growing storage on their computers. But do we want to interact with poetry through technology?

Right now Amazon isn't charging people to put their books on Kindle, so any price is a good price for now, but I suspect like the cuts publishers and distributor's take on paper books, how much Amazon eventually charges will affect the profitability of all of it. And since we're talking business, what of the publisher's, small print distributor's, and book stores? And even the non-businesses like Libraries? Imagine that libraries truly simply become cafes with reading tablets, instead of vast halls of books.

I'm not judging right or wrong, good or bad, I'm simply exploring possibilities. I've already had some lively exchanges with Jean and I'm looking forward to having lively exchanges with any of you!

Kindle Edition (will be up in a few days)


or

Print Edition

drama on the court

I've been attending rehearsals all week to prep for the kali demo we're doing during the Warriors game Thursday night for Filipino Heritage Night.

As Tuhan described us, we're not the typical martial arts demo with drills and tricks. Over the years we went from the drills to bringing a more theatrical element to the demonstrations. Part of this stemming from how we've used the kali in "non-martial arts" settings like poetry readings, modern dance shows, and theatrical presentations. It's less about the techniques we're actually doing, but the story of the lives of the people.

It's been a personal endeavor to not only bring a kali demo to a non-martial art audience such as in "When I was Jaspar John's Filipino Lover" for the Small Press Traffic Jubilee but to also use it to bring other arts into a martial arts venue, like when Eileen came to read during a women's martial arts camp.

Many martial artists I've talked to have often lamented how audiences just don't really care for the martial arts demo. Alot of that has to do with the saturation of martial arts fighting in just about every movie and show that has a fight scene. But also I think in a world where most weapons that are used one never has to ever see the person you're attacking or the one attacking you, hand-to-hand combat in close proximity is an anomaly, something found out of context. Where fighting scenes are often thrown into movies to keep the action going but not to progress the plot, we don't really understand what it means anymore.

Which is why I've enjoyed the direction we (and I mean in how Tuhan and the school has approached demos) have taken to bring a context back to the martial arts. To have the audience understand how it integrates, to give it a different life with story and character, to give them a chance to find the connection with themselves. That this has meaning not just to the people who practice but to the people in the audience.

I won't give too much of the plot away, but I get to be the villain. Muwahahahaha! Villains are fun! I've played the heroine a few times before which was fun too, but the villain always gets to play it up and I get a chance to just throw myself out there on the floor. I'm looking forward to the cathartic release. Kali has always provided me with what I needed at the moment.