Concentration 20

Today was my first regular Hyper class in quite a while, since lately I haven’t been able to go, and when I have been able to go it’s been a joint class. I got to class a few minutes early for once, and went to the lesson room to find everyone waiting outside, while the Pop Class finished. The chuugakusei came and said hi to me, and I said hi to Hana-chan and Uchida-san. Tomo-chan, who had waved to me from inside the lesson room with the Pop Kids, came and gave me a hug. Anna-san came out and said ‘Oooh!’ with a big smile, before she started talked enthusiastically to a girl that apparently hadn’t come in a long time. I think they were the girls who had helped out at our Live. She asked if they would dance today, but they shook their heads. Kurata-san laughed, and said it was just like a family/house, ‘come up into the house with us!’ (uchi he agattene!) It was great to see everyone egain.
When we were all lined up to do exercises, Anna-san brought forward a very pretty girl I had noticed before, and introduced her as ‘Yumi, from Actor’s, who’s come to play today.’
Then she introduced ‘itsumo no’ (your ordinary) Yuuta, Atsushi, and Namio, who then tried to introduce himself again.
Today Anna-san talked to us a lot. So much that I think I’ve forgotten a big chunk of it, but I’ll do my best. First, she sat us all down after exercises and introductions.
She told us that she had been thinking a lot about Hyper Class, and what it was supposed to be, and what the goal of it was. She said that she thought we had all lost sight of that recently. That recently classes had become very lazy and half-hearted. ‘We’re here to have fun, to enjoy dance, but if we don’t have some rules, and some guidelines we’ve set down, then we won’t have a good atmosphere, and people will grow dissatisfied. We come to this class to dance. In order to touch people and connect with people through dance. And I think that they people who come here, really seriously wanted to dance, the people that try really hard are going to be most annoyed by the way things are now. Lately classes have gotten really lazy. When I say that class is going to start, everyone is talking amongst themselves, and it takes so long to start class. And some people are standing by even before I give the word, and they then have to wait until the others stop talking. It’s the same during breaks. Of course you can talk during the breaks, but you need to be able to get yourself back in lesson mode right away when the break is over. Because you have to think about the nuiscence your causing the people who are waiting for you to re-start class. One of the things we’re here to learn through dance is truly caring for each other, and caring about each other. And that includes thinking about other people like that, about not inconviencing them. If this is just a place where we come and talk, there’s no point in having lessons. Now, this is partially my fault as well, of my own laziness, because I didn’t ask you all not to talk so long.
If there are people who are just going to dance half heartedly, and just think this is a pain in the butt, they can sit out. I’m sure there are some people who don’t agree with what I’m saying, but the thing is, it’s much easier to fall into the minus side than the plus. If there are any people who are just being half hearted about things, and not really caring about it, then their mood starts to infect everyone else. And once people start dancing half-heartedly everyone’s dance become lazy, and their artistic sensitivity grows worse. You can’t grow like that. It doesn’t matter about your skills. You’ll be able to do the technical skills if you really want to, most definitely. But you need to really feel the music, and let yourself out, 100%.
I’m not going to tell you what to do, to dance this way, or give you orders like that. I want this class, and the Pop class as well to be classes that we all make together. But I feel like if things continue the way they are now, that you’ll all become no good (dame ni naru) and that I will as well.
I want all of you to face yourself ever class, and work hard, and get over the hurdles in front of you, slowly but surely. Don’t worry about what everyone else is doing. If they’re going to just slack off, leave them to it.
The way we have fun in the class now is basically Namio makes a joke and I make a sarcastic comment about it. But the way we should really be enjoying things is through dance. Even if a few weeks before the concert, everyone gets together and decides to strengthen the bonds within the group, and try to get everyone in synch, but it won’t work, unless those bonds have been strengthened constantly during lessons. You’ll still be separate and out of synch at the concert. Bonds like that are built lesson upon lesson.’ (I think there was some kind of concrete end to this talk, but I can’t really remember. I believe she said something again about us listening to and feeling the music, and really giving out 100% of ourselves. She also announced that the Boyz would be joining in the lesson today as students, not instructors. I wasn’t surprised, as that’s how they did things at Actor’s. )

Then we did the thing where we split into groups, and half watched while half danced. Anna-san explained that dancing is for an audience, to give the audience a good time, and she said that one of the most important things about dancing was ‘semete semete semekiru koto!’ (to ‘attack’ in other words, you have to aggressively involve your audience. Sing to them, dance for them. Give them everything you’ve got. ) She said that it’s the moment that you’ve thoroughly attacked your audience that you learn how to draw back. (are first allowed to draw back?). She said, ‘even if someone is an amazing dancer, if they don’t attack there audience, I don7t think that they will communicate anything to that audience.’ So we performed, while the other group watched, and vis versa. My group watched first. In the other group was Yumi, the pretty girl from Actor’s. Well, not only is Yumi pretty, she is most definitely a member of B.B. She had it all, the smile, that Actor’s way of moving. She’s an amazing dancer, and she has the whole aura of having so much fun, and really communicating with the audience. She also could dance perfectly to the song she was hearing for the first time. She was so good. So graceful, doing a lot of slides, and rolling her body and what not, so smooth and seemly, completely in tune with the music. She was amazing. I think I worship her now. I want to move like her!
Then when it was my turn to go, I ended up being in front of her, and she smiled so brightly, as if watching me was as interesting as she herself could have been. Then we split the group into ever smaller groups. (momo-chan and her little friend moved when Anna-san was counting off numbers so they would be together in the same group, but Anna-san noticed and split them up. It was amusing.)
Then we did Beat, which Anna-san cautioned us to do with the same enthusiasm, and the same feeling of performing for an audience. After, Anna-san said that she felt like we had really tried really heard for the first time in a while. She advised us, ‘When you’re in front of the audience, just direct all your feelings at them, even your embaressement. Don’t look down. If you look down, your emotions, and your dance will go down too. When there’s a long interlude, don’t dance around half heartedly, unsure of what to do, thinking ‘Isn’t this part going to end already?’. Just do your best to keep your audience interesting during the interlude. If you keep trying, you’ll start to grow annoyed at yourself, thinking ‘Why can I only do so little? I want to be able to move my body is many more different ways!’, and you’ll start to research dance, and get better and better. (Note: The exact thing she’s talking about here happened to me a few classes ago, so I was surprised when she said all this.) Oh, BTW, Anna-san herself did Beat with us today, which is sometimes rare. I mean, she often dances randomly on the side, but today she was really in the middle of us all.
After this we did Battle. First though, she had us sit down, and explained about Battle again. It’s no good just to look at yourself in a mirror all the time. And it’s hard to just imagine an audience. In Battling, she said, you dance with someone right in front of you. You face each other, and come at eachother with dance. You look into their eyes, and try to entertain them. Not with techniques, or tricks, but with your heart. Use your heart to it’s fullest for the sake of the other person in front of you. It’s a deadly serious battle called dance. (dance to iu shinken shoubu). ‘ Then she had AtsuYuu battle for us. They were very cool, just like always. They were both very ‘battle’ like, and serious, although they smiled sometimes, and the one who was drawing back and watching for a moment smiled a lot. It was very sexy. Yay. Especially how they didn’t ever take their eyes off the other ones eyes. (They made eye contact the whole time, except when flipping and whatnot)
I battled with the new girl who was sitting in on a lesson (oh, btw during the first part when we all danced for the other group, Anna-san came and helped get the girl into it.)
Then I battled with Hana-chan.
Lastly we did Group Battle. Once again Atushi was in my group. Anna-san explained to us the original point of Group Battling. On stage, in a group concert, you have to keep the show linked with the person that you’ve go out after. You need to keep the energy up not at the level of the dancer who’s turn was before you, but you need to start at the level they were at and raise it higher. Group Battling is training for linking together a group concert.
We Group Battled, and then we did cool down exercises.

Afterwards, I found Anna-san talked outside to Momo-chan’s mother, who is also a member of Hyper, although I don’t know her name. They were talking about driving. One of the other members said she didn’t have a driver’s liescense. I said I didn’t either. Anna-san said she didn’t either, but she was thinking about getting one. At one point they started talking about how people change when they get behind the wheel, and Momo-chan’s mother said she did, and Anna-san said ‘Oh, I knew it!’ And did an impression of her getting angry in the care. They both laughed, and Anna-san said, ‘I’m not accusing you of being a crazy driver though…’ She thought amount. ‘Actually since I just said that, I guess I just did…’ It was amusing.
I told Anna-san that I would be going home from Aug 31 to mid Sept, and she smiled and said ‘Got it! Lucky! Are you going back home?’ and I nodded and she said ‘ You must be so excited.’ I nodded, rather half heartedly. ‘I bet your family misses you!’ She said. I nodded, and said I thought so. Then her mother beckoned to her or something, because she went off to talk to her. Our little conversation made me happy though. Anyway, today was one of those lessons where I wish I’d brought a tape recorder, because my retention of Japanese is definitely more limitied than of English.
I had a really good lesson though, it was so much fun. And it made me feel much happier about going home. And realize how selfish it is to be sad to go home, when everyone wants to see me, and that of course I’ll miss things in japan for a bit, but I can still have a great time and live life to the fullest in the US, for the summer.

Ok, I think I've figured out what to do with my blog and LJ. My blog will be for serious stuff/ my diary, and my LJ will be for random ramblings and quizzes and whatnot.

I think i will take the time now to write a little review of my classes, as they are for the most part over. (Only one paper left to hand it, and 2 exams)

First, the ryuugakusei classes

Speed Reading: In this class we learned how to skim things for the important info, reading comprehension, how to write summaries, that kind of thing. The class itself was alright, I liked how we split into groups and discussed things. I loved the teacher for this class, she was great, always telling us stories or antedotes about things, and interested in our opinions on things.

Kanji: This suxored. Not just because it was, well, kanji, but the teacher was not a good teacher, the class was waaaay too long (one can only concentrate on kanji for so long before going insane), and the teacher was strict about talking and whatnot. Oh, and the textbook was horrible, very disorganized and hard to learn from.

Listening to Lectures: This class was sooo boring. And pointless. it just bothered me that I had to listen to boring fake lectures when I was having to listen to real lectures in other classes. If not for the credits, I most likely would have dropped it.

Nihon Jijo (the only class taught in English, by a Japanese prof) : Hmm, well I didn't actually read the readings unless I had to present the topic, but I would have liked him to use a different book, rather that the Reichehaur (sp?) one which generalizes so much, and is so old. (Not to mention the fact that all the additional reading were articles written by the professor which was kind of weird, not to mention narcissistic) On the other hand, it was good for discussions. Speaking of which, this class was great because we went off topic so much! The best was when we were discussing guilt vs shame etc, and all of a sudden Suzuki-sensei says seriously, 'Like in season 6 of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, I never understood why Buffy says Spike is evil, when he has helped and saved her many time.....' (Turns out he's a big Buffy fan! he has all the Seasons on British DVD! It was just so random, for our academic 30-something basically single father sensei to talk about Buffy! esp. when he got into when Buffy had 'sexual intercourse' with Angel...) I really liked him though, he was nice.

Later I will finish about

Regular Classes

Gender in Society

Romance Literature

Modern Woman's Lit

Colour Environment