Waterbending for muggles
Feb. 23rd, 2011 10:05 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
bnewmanSarah and I have been watching Avatar: The Last Airbender on Netflix. It's amazing — well-drawn, full of plot and character development and world-building and nicely done fantasy martial arts action. I've heard and can well believe that the bending disciplines are based on various (distinct) real martial arts.
Meanwhile, I've been realizing I need more exercise, and specifically more martial arts, in my own life. I studied karate in middle school, and the moves are still there in muscle memory. In terms of a real dojo, I'm probably extremely rusty, and was never very highly ranked to begin with. But, in terms of keeping myself active and working out nervous energy, I remember the forms enough to run some (improvised) kata in the living room when I get twitchy, and I plan to make a habit of that.
And that got me thinking... if we can have muggle Quidditch (well on it's way to becoming a "real" intercollegiate competitive sport), why not muggle bending disciplines? We might imagine various activities as the real-world equivalents of the different bending forms, depending on whether we are more interested in preserving the association with the element in question or the style of movement. (For example, fire spinning, a natural candidate for real-world firebending, mainly involves rotational motion around the practitioner, while in-world firebending involves a lot of outward-directed linear motion. Also, I feel a bit silly saying this, but the best candidate I can think of for real-world earthbending is bowling.)
Which brings us to water. I can think of two basic divisions of muggle waterbending, depending on whether or not the water is contained. (In-world, the water being bent is contained by the bender's will and skill until released, but we can't do that.) That leads me to two "waterbending" forms I call splish and splash:
Splish is basically t'ai chi with a half-full water bottle as a prop. Since water is heavy, it's also (depending on the size of your bottle) pretty good exercise for your arms! To start, hold the half-full bottle with one hand on each end and tilt it back and forth, from 45 degrees to 45 degrees the other way. Find the rhythm at which the water consistently curls like a breaking wave and makes a satisfying splishy sound. Now extend the motion by moving your hands in a figure eight as you tilt, so that your hands are moving in the same direction the water is. Finally, take a wide stance and bring your whole body into the motion, shifting your weight from foot to foot. This is the core movement of splish waterbending. The key is to keep conscious control of the sound of the sloshing water at all times.
One can further extend the form by moving around (always keeping the water in motion — in general, sloshing towards the foot that is just being planted), and I've been working on moves that could be thought of as strikes and blocks, with the goal of developing splish kata, and maybe eventually a set of rules for (non-contact) sparring.
Splash is what it sounds like — in contrast to splish, it involves getting very wet. When I was a kid I spent a moderate amount of time distracted in swimming pools. One of the things I did to amuse myself was make up splash moves, figuring out how to move water in different ways. It's been a long time — I think too long — since I've been in a pool, and unfortunately it looks like Brandeis closed its pool a few years ago. But, hey, the Intercon hotel has a pool...
Splash really wants to be adapted into a sparring form, which means it needs rules determining what counts as a hit. It also needs a sense of form — it's possible to get a lot of water everywhere by flailing your arms around in a swimming pool, and that shouldn't be the point, it should be about control, finesse, and being in harmony with the element of water. Ahhhh, I miss splash-fighting — I should totally organize a "waterbending" tournament the next time I'm at a con with a pool. Who's in?
Meanwhile, I've been realizing I need more exercise, and specifically more martial arts, in my own life. I studied karate in middle school, and the moves are still there in muscle memory. In terms of a real dojo, I'm probably extremely rusty, and was never very highly ranked to begin with. But, in terms of keeping myself active and working out nervous energy, I remember the forms enough to run some (improvised) kata in the living room when I get twitchy, and I plan to make a habit of that.
And that got me thinking... if we can have muggle Quidditch (well on it's way to becoming a "real" intercollegiate competitive sport), why not muggle bending disciplines? We might imagine various activities as the real-world equivalents of the different bending forms, depending on whether we are more interested in preserving the association with the element in question or the style of movement. (For example, fire spinning, a natural candidate for real-world firebending, mainly involves rotational motion around the practitioner, while in-world firebending involves a lot of outward-directed linear motion. Also, I feel a bit silly saying this, but the best candidate I can think of for real-world earthbending is bowling.)
Which brings us to water. I can think of two basic divisions of muggle waterbending, depending on whether or not the water is contained. (In-world, the water being bent is contained by the bender's will and skill until released, but we can't do that.) That leads me to two "waterbending" forms I call splish and splash:
Splish is basically t'ai chi with a half-full water bottle as a prop. Since water is heavy, it's also (depending on the size of your bottle) pretty good exercise for your arms! To start, hold the half-full bottle with one hand on each end and tilt it back and forth, from 45 degrees to 45 degrees the other way. Find the rhythm at which the water consistently curls like a breaking wave and makes a satisfying splishy sound. Now extend the motion by moving your hands in a figure eight as you tilt, so that your hands are moving in the same direction the water is. Finally, take a wide stance and bring your whole body into the motion, shifting your weight from foot to foot. This is the core movement of splish waterbending. The key is to keep conscious control of the sound of the sloshing water at all times.
One can further extend the form by moving around (always keeping the water in motion — in general, sloshing towards the foot that is just being planted), and I've been working on moves that could be thought of as strikes and blocks, with the goal of developing splish kata, and maybe eventually a set of rules for (non-contact) sparring.
Splash is what it sounds like — in contrast to splish, it involves getting very wet. When I was a kid I spent a moderate amount of time distracted in swimming pools. One of the things I did to amuse myself was make up splash moves, figuring out how to move water in different ways. It's been a long time — I think too long — since I've been in a pool, and unfortunately it looks like Brandeis closed its pool a few years ago. But, hey, the Intercon hotel has a pool...
Splash really wants to be adapted into a sparring form, which means it needs rules determining what counts as a hit. It also needs a sense of form — it's possible to get a lot of water everywhere by flailing your arms around in a swimming pool, and that shouldn't be the point, it should be about control, finesse, and being in harmony with the element of water. Ahhhh, I miss splash-fighting — I should totally organize a "waterbending" tournament the next time I'm at a con with a pool. Who's in?
(no subject)
Date: 2011-02-24 07:19 am (UTC)I'm a big Avatar: The Last Airbender fan, myself.
Singing is how I airbend. I'm really a waterbender at heart, though I do bend metal in real-life, and so am possibly an earthbender.