Practice 5/26/07

Back to practice after a one week break. I got a new P&S camera now so this blog will begin to fill up with a bunch of pictures. I got it on Friday night so these pictures are from Saturday's practice. To start out... we all got in to a horse stance at the beginning. For some odd reason, Ming thought he was special and didn't have to sit in a horse like the rest of us. Result? Ming sitting in a horse by himself:





yeah, you better be ashamed...

We mainly worked on Doug and Bradford that day. They are preparing for performances in June/July so we can have another option besides having Russell/Berman and Khiem/Paul perform every time. They know the whole routine and have performed with other partners but they are still trying to stay consistent practicing with each other. Here are a few snaps of them practicing:













Looks like Ming wants to sit in a horse again...

Pandora and Melany are also progressing but I didn't take any worthwhile pictures... sorry. So here's a picture of beginners plus Michelle (Michael)



Then I was testing my camera by trying to catch the guys practicing jumps and getting a picture of them at the peak of the jump:



Doug/Bradford



Russell/Berman



Doug/Berman



Russell/Bradford



Russell/Doug

Now that I've exhausted pretty much all of those combinations... I will stop now and will post again next week.

Berman Drumming Late 2006 - Early 2007?

Here's a short video of Berman drumming a simple Hok San beat with Andrew and Sindy playing cymbals and Paul on the gong. They have come a long way since then. This was quite a while back but I just found it in my photobucket. Anyway, enjoy...

Practice 5/11/07

Looks like the practice schedule has been a little irregular lately. We got a weird gift from fai...



There are about 700-800 bottles of water there. Our practice area is also going through some remodeling:







Looks like we won't be getting any full-on practices for a little while. That's okay though. We still have the cramped-up garage. I'm currently working on a video to put up of that. But for now, you can just stare at bottles of water and... wood.

UPDATE (5/15/07): As promised, here's a video from practice. I'm working on more.



Here, Berman is showing an example of an expression movement where the lion approaches an object from the right and then the left. Chelsea follows with the same move after watching Berman so that she can work on some flaws.

... people need to realize that the camcorder is going and stop talking. Oh well, that's exclusive raw footage for you!

"CYC what?", asks Ming.

Practice 4/28/07

So now we're working on completing the bench routine for Russell/Berman by adding the ground portion. They've been working pretty hard and are now beginning to learn the sidewards roll. Here's a video of their efforts:



It still needs some work...

Pandora/Melany is our new girl team and they are learning fast! We'll be able to get them out at a performance inside the lion in no time. I will edit this post with a video soon. Or I will just add another post.

We've just been shifting around with everyone else. Music is pretty strong and it can only get better. Bradford has been our utility man, and can do pretty much anything. Now that he can pair up with Doug, who knows what will come out of it. Michael has finally found a partner in Max. Paul and Khiem is starting on benches so that's pretty exciting. We also have a few new people so we should be able to use this down time to our advantage.

I need to start taking pictures...