I’ve done some very preliminary research. CUNY is probably my best bet, as it allows me to stay in NYC (with my already established work and social ties) and is affordable. Perhaps I’ll consider other options.

It’s scary; a lot of things are, today. Anyhow, one of the requirements is competency in two other languages besides English. I’ve already taken like 6 years of Spanish (2 in junior high school, 2 in high school, 2 in college) so I’m fairly set with that. I just have to review my conjugations and irregular verbs. After that, it’s just vocabulary and idioms, which takes experience and time. As for the other language:

• Korean: I’ve actually wanted to learn this in the last year or so; it’s been finding its way, with great difficulty, into my poetry.
• Cantonese: It’s probably about time I learned this. I find it daunting and am unwilling beyond feeling obligated and shamed into learning it.
• French: This is the easy way out. Another romantic language. I can already piece together elementary sentences.
• German: This would give me access to a lot of literature.

Ballet, in ways, is completely different from what I know. As a poet, I use words to convey meaning and tell story. Ballet dancers, instead, use the visual. Even when they use the aural, it is music, which is absent of language and embodies elements (tone, rhythm, cadence) that I only touch upon. As a martial artist, I have a vastly different aesthetic on movement. I focus on using the core as the dominating factor in movement — maintain the center, don’t sacrifice it for technique. Morihei Ueshiba has similar philosophies in his Aikido. However, ballet dancers focus on their extremities: legs and arms. They value expression over safety and surety.

It’s interesting how they manage the human body. All physical expression, from dance to martial arts to theater, is limited by human anatomy. I’m not sure how theater deals with this but martial arts takes advantages of it by employing joint locks, taking advantage of center of gravity, etc. Dancers, in order to create the illusion of flight, jump up with one leg and switch to the other. This creates the thought or psychological effect that they are in the air longer — an event happens between jumping and landing. On any take off that involves spinning, they continue spinning (seamlessly!) when they land to deemphasize the transition from air to ground. Very interesting.

There were two instances that stuck out. I arrived just as the curtains went up, so I didn’t have time to read the synopsis. I didn’t perfectly know the story of Swan Lake, so when the swans came on for the first time, I didn’t know what to make of them. They certainly suggested swans (metaphor! symbolism!) by holding their arms up on aquiline postures and puffing out their chests (like crane style kung fu). When I finally read the program at intermission, it hit me: they were using figuration to express literal swans. It made me smile. In the final scene, when the tragedy of the princess is looming, they bring out three dances but arrange them as if there were four. The missing spot is unsettling and generates tension. What’s more, it was on my left.

To be a housefly,
to be hated and hit at,
to be hatched instead of born,
to be alive for a handful of hours
but for everything (everything!)
to be honest and new,
I would trade this all.

is he also thinking the same things,
questions about his life and his mom
and how trees are probably bad
for caskets but they’re planted anyhow
or else we’d be too overtaken
with death?

is it something you can learn
to live with, this view
so sudden with stopping points?
can it be dismissed like
the shibboleth of a smoker
or does it need the scent of grapefruits,
the ripening jade of Spring?

The thirties
I don’t exist yet
Grass grows
A girl eats strawberry ice cream
Someone listens to Schumann
(mad, ruined
Schumann)
I don’t exist yet
How fortunate
I can hear everything

– Adam Zagajewski

I want to open up a school. not just for Tae Kwon Do but for the arts and sciences too. literature, calculus, biology, physics, computer science … the whole thing. like they used to do with knights, samurai, and hwarang. whatever I couldn’t competently teach myself, I would get someone I trusted.

charter school, anyone?

• I can do a straight breaking demo. 90 seconds of wood and concrete. there was a contestant this year who did that (if I recall) and who moved on to the next round. I don’t think I want to, at least not just breaking.
• I want to do a handcuff routine with some rope dart moves. I’ve been wanting to use handcuffs for a while; I wanted to test for my black belt with them in a creative poomse. (I decided, instead, to use a rope dart).
• I’m going to have to step outside of my Tae Kwon Do zone a lot.
• I have flashes of choreography in my head already. it will be tough to break it down to 90 seconds.
• I want to do a whole scene — plot, development, comic relief. thing is, I would need at least 1 other person to do it. I don’t know or trust anyone to be dedicated or talented enough to work with me. I’ll have to cobble together some shadow boxing excuse.

it was covered in filth so I ran and got a stack of newspapers. after laying down what we needed, we made boats with the leftover and set them afloat. later, some people in a real boat dock next to us and the girl asks what we were doing. Eugenia, trying to be congenial, invites her to make a boat. we take out 3 sheets of paper and I start giving her the instructions (for something I only learned how to do 10 minutes earlier).

halfway through, she says to me, “you’re really good at teaching. can you be my professor? although, you’re kinda hot.” I give a slight knowing smile, more to myself than to anyone. in the split second of silence, Eugenia interrupts with: “Jon’s really good at teaching because he is a teacher. he’s going to be a college professor in September.” she then proceeds to tell my whole life story.

auxiliary win of the day: when we were finished, the girl exclaimed: “I’m so happy! I feel like a kid again! I’m 22 years old and I made a boat! is it sad that I’m 22 and so excited about making a boat?!” when you can do that, make someone feel that way, you know the lesson was successful.