David Lader's Warrior's Dance

[David Lader]

Please let me know what you think of Warrior's Dance... For more info, visit http://www.warriorsdance.com or check out my recent 5 minute Demonstration here:

Have fun... good luck in your training... Watch for more dynamic kicking and striking toward the end of the video...
David Lader

 

[Koshiki]

Something I have NEVER seen before. I must admit, it was beautiful and very physically impressive, but I found it somehow slightly unsettling to watch. I think it was the constant sense of *almost* familiarity of so many standard martial arts movements, that seem to break, or crumble, or flow into something not martial at all, very much dance. It's like, "oh, that's a, no it isn't. Aha, just like in... something else. Look at that, he's about to... ripple upwards?" Like those hyper-realistic dreams of very familiar places, where there's just something not true to life that you can never quite isolate...

Fascinating, to say the least.

Many thanks for sharing.

 

[geezer]

Zack's response expresses my view as well. Beautiful and skilled as dance (although I haven't the background to offer a critique in that field), wonderfully fluid and athletic, but oddly lacking in martial quality. The martial movements are there, yet they are not martial in feel. I see kicks that are fast and crisp, but not explosive, focused ...or fierce. Similarly, there are punches and strikes that have speed and precision ...but do not convey any sense of explosive release of energy or fa jin. In all the martial arts whether hard or soft, there are culminating moments when body movements all come together in a synergistic sense of purpose. A functional purpose. There are many points where this dance seems to lead in that direction only to deviate into a non-functional, aesthetic flourish. Perhaps that's your intent?

 

[clfsean]

Well... it's a dance. I can say that about it nicely.

 

[Tony Dismukes]

I have to agree with the others. It's impressive as dance. I don't mean that dismissively - I'm very respectful of dancers and I don't have the skill to move that way. However I don't see anything more than the most superficial connection to martial arts.

 

[David Lader]

Thank you for your extremely thoughtful and beautifully written response...very artistic and "poetic" in your own right...

I appreciate your feedback and impressions of Warrior's Dance (you were also clever, witty, and, at the same time respectful...)

Warrior's Dance, as you see it performed here, is certainly much more of a dance piece than a martial arts demonstration. In our studio, we train our bodies very intensely to develop our core strength, flexibility, muscle stamina, and most of all, coordination. What we ultimately "coordinate," however, are extremely powerful, fast, and "explosive" techniques that are genuinely applicable to combat. We often use rhythm, music, and dance movements to relax, develop timing, and have fun (while our bodies often scream in pain).

Warrior's Dance, in its actual practice, is not a martial arts dance - rather, it is a very serious martial art that employs various dance techniques and play to "open up students" to relax the correct muscles enough to move with great speed and focus. We continually examine, and raise awareness to, striking surfaces (weapons) on our own bodies as well as specific targets on the bodies of our adversary...

While I have a long history of having competed within the context of more traditional martial arts (forms, weapons, self-defense, breaking, sparring, etc...), in the Warrior's Dance system, we have little interest in sport-fighting. Our focus is on self-defense and wellness (integrated, functional movement, to be more specific). Many of us participate for spiritual and artistic reasons as well (myself included), though I appreciate this does not distinguish us from countless other martial systems and students.

When we "put it all together" in the form of an artistic choreography, it is, as you have so aptly noticed, a playful shadow of its true potential... When I consider the many traditional forms I've mastered through the years, in all of their "snappy", brutal, and precise power, they, too, were profoundly unrealistic in countless ways... I can also tell you that at 50 years old, while I am far less "tough" than I was as a 20 year old Tae Kwon Do player, I am a more powerful, accurate, and functionally integrated martial artist today... My forms impressed "back in the day," though I only now realize how remarkably empty my "core" was at the time. Most of it was show. Today, though our movements can be beautiful and "fluid," there is no "pretending" permitted in our training sessions... The proper biomechanics of true martial artists is timeless and difficult... Peace to you. Train well, and thanks again for visiting.

 

[geezer]

Warrior's Dance, as you see it performed here, is certainly much more of a dance piece than a martial arts demonstration...

Warrior's Dance, in its actual practice, is not a martial arts dance - rather, it is a very serious martial art that employs various dance techniques...

First off, total respect to your level of physical conditioning, flexibility and musculature control... at the age of fifty, no less. But then anybody who has known professional dancers knows how damn hard they train.

BTW do you perform any two-man "sets" or dances that might show some of the interactive aspects of your art? Also, do you do any movement with contact and "energy exchanging" as in Tai Chi push-hands or Wing Chun Chi-sau?

 

[David Lader]

First off, total respect to your level of physical conditioning, flexibility and musculature control... at the age of fifty, no less. But then anybody who has known professional dancers knows how damn hard they train.

BTW do you perform any two-man "sets" or dances that might show some of the interactive aspects of your art? Also, do you do any movement with contact and "energy exchanging" as in Tai Chi push-hands or Wing Chun Chi-sau?

Thanks for your observations...

We do, in fact, have a training tool very similar to "push-hands", though it involves the entire body (kicks as well)... There is no striking, per se, though students can "un-weight" each other and "send them flying..."

Also, we do have segments where multiple students are moving in a continuous flow of "adversary/defender..." Again, it is not about sport fighting or "scoring" - it's about sensing and reacting to another's advance.

Take care, and thanks for connecting...

David