For Sensei Peter, Sensei Trisha and myself, one of our greatest joys in Karate-Do has been learning and practicing the various katas. Many folks practice kata just so they can pass the next promotion exam. For us, it’s always been practicing something we love. When we are performing a kata, we actually become immersed in it. We feel doubly blessed when we can share and teach kata with all of you.
I hate to admit it, but another thing that I enjoy, is watching Kdramas and listening to some of the South Korean singers (So Hyang and Lee Hi are among my favorites). I know I’m getting pretty old, but I even enjoy the music videos of certain KPOP groups for their energy and catchy dance moves. Anyways, the reason I mention this, is that I recently came across a number of YouTube videos which feature a KPOP random dance game. Hundreds of teens will line up outside of a large rectangular space and the speakers will play about 20-30 seconds of random KPOP dance songs. The kids are all waiting to see if they can identify the song. As soon as they do, they go rushing into the dance square and proceed to emulate the high energy, rather complicated dance routines of the associated KPOP idol/group.
The tunes are catchy, but I was so amazed at how “in synch” the kids were for each snippet of song after song. They must also have tremendous endurance (the gift of youth), as some seemed to dance most every high-energy song. It’s random, cause sometimes only a few know the moves and rush in, other times, perhaps 20, and once in a while, most everyone jumps in. This is not an organized performance, they are all seemingly synchronized because they separately had been watching the music videos and trying to learn the dances on their own. I ended up thinking how many thousands of hours went into practicing the unique moves of countless songs. There are videos of the game being played in many countries such as, China, Thailand, Philippines, France, Ukraine, Italy, Germany, the USA, and so on. Each showed teens that were full of enthusiasm, displaying the dancing skills that only practice, practice, practice, can achieve. My favorite was from Stockholm, Sweden.
If each of us spent half the time and energy in our katas that these youths invested into the music they love, wouldn’t that be something?