The Evolution of Movement
Over the last twenty or thirty years (though I suspect it has gone on much longer) I have noticed a curious trend (well I haven't been alive thirty years, but I have noticed for twenty years a trend that's gone on for around thirty years...); this is a trend where people are changing the very way we move, and where dance and martial arts are becoming so spectacularly unusual that it almost seems inhuman. At the same time, entirely new 'types' of movement that are neither dance no martial arts that are sweeping the nation and pushing the boundaries of what the human body is capable of. Simply walking places these days is just lame...Not that long ago in a club (then called a 'night club' or 'disco' - that's changed too), people would dance in a way that showed them swinging from side to side and generally clicking their fingers. Today though, people dance by standing on one hand, dropping onto their face, then spinning around like a spinning top (it just wouldn't have worked to the Moody Blues); or by walking backwards while remaining on the spot. The music changed to fit this more exotic style of dancing, and then it began creeping out of clubs and into the rest of our every day life. This has come from a series of innovators and ground breakers (is that an expression?) but has seemingly exploded exponentially in recent times.
Dance was already becoming fairly more physical after the introduction of the television - where Gene Kelly and his colleagues had to create dance moves that would impress audiences the world over. This perhaps set the seed for more inventive and physical forms of dance, but probably the roots of this new kind of movement are in martial arts and specifically Capoeira - the Brazilian martial art that disguised itself as dance when martial arts were banned resulting in some of the most athletic and flamboyant kicks in the world. This developed into break dancing which was the use of these kinds of moves for their aesthetic value and physical difficulty, though it was Michael Jackson who really brought break dancing and body popping and stuff that's generally like that to the masses. Michael Jackson was a true innovator - he didn't just take that break dancing and get good at it - instead he took it and merged it with more popular forms of dance to make something that was at once accessible and incredible. He set this to some music that was equally innovative, and then he changed the face of music and dance forever.
This of course lead to more people trying to do what Michael Jackson did, and saw the invention of street dance and an explosion in break dancing which saw new incredible feats of physicality - one handed hand stands and head spins and all manner of other things. Literally if you took a break dancer back forty years in the past people would not believe what they were doing. A handstand was impressive one hundred years ago and people had neither the fitness levels nor even the imagination to perform such moves. What movements are we not imagining now?
Jackie Chan was of course influenced by Bruce Lee, but he also found inspiration elsewhere - in the form of Buster Keaton, Harold lloyd and even Gene Kelly. He merged the great stunts, prop work and choreography of these individuals with Martial Arts, Peking Opera in which he was trained, and his God-given natural agility. This resulted in something fantastic that saw him flying over buildings to get away from attackers, leaping through car windows and fighting using ladders - all with an eye on his comic timing. Others have followed, notably Tony Jaa who has combined Jackie Chan's athletic fighting with gymnastics and extreme martial arts.
People like sebastien Foucan and David Belle credit Bruce Lee and 'The Matrix' as their inspiration - but in doing so they must have forgotten or opted to leave out Jackie Chan who was without doubt the real creator of parkour/free running is without a doubt the Chanmeister.Still Parkour is also a new thing on its own - dropping the idea of dance or martial arts at all and using these new abilities to traverse the environment create art out of the urban scenery. Literally normal humans can now move like Spider-Man and do things we wouldn't have imagined even a couple of decades ago. I mean sit down and think about it - these guys can hold a wall right and then spin around horizontally 360 degrees! Others would then combine this parkour with their extreme martial arts to include flips and thereby begin to delineate the parkour movement.
The new ability of your average men and women has resulted in more innovations and 'types' of movement too. Such as the 'buildering' movement of climbing building in a manner akin to rock climbing. The UK talent contest 'Britain's Got Talent' has seen new types of dance from the innovative troupe 'Diversity' and recent double act 'Twist and Pulse', while gymnastics and hand balancing has really upped its game with the likes of Cirque De Soleil. Meanwhile the 'Bartendaz' are doing crazy things on poles (too bad the main guy keeps shouting 'health is wealth' - not everything that rhymes is gospel my friend and you can't create a movement if you try to hard). Check out what 'Hannibal for King' has to offer to workouts...
The thing is that once there were only few people who could do handstands and they were in the circus. But now it seems like a large proportion of the general public are born with the ability to literally fly - to flip and swing and to control their bodies in new ways. Possibly from better living and health, possibly from better training perfected over the millennia... possibly even from evolution? The internet and the ability for anyone to share ideas and videos has then meant that this evolution can now move even faster. What does this mean for the future? What will people be doing in fifty years? There are still thousands of imitators who want to be the 'next Bruce Lee' or the 'next Michael Jackson'. Every talent competition has hundreds of people imitating Michael Jackson moon walking and hoping to get famous as a result. But the real successor to Michael Jackson won't be a 'new' Michael Jackson - it will be someone who invents something new. The next Jackie Chan won't use props or stunts, but will bring something completely new and innovative. Be yourself and bring something new to the table, think outside the box and train your body to do things that no one has done before (it's just a matter of using some imagination and using different muscles). Combine old ideas from places you wouldn't expect and work hard.
That could be you who does that by the way. So get thinking man!
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