Tuesday, February 8, 2011

Day 2 of the Winter Sangmo Intensive

February 8th, 2011

It was another really amazing day. First of all, though I doubted I could sustain it I –still—did well in 상모 sangmo class all day long. Today the teacher, 이재정 Yi Jaejeong, had me work on 나비사nabisa, a movement that sketches a butterfly with the sangmo (left wing, right wing, center backward and forward). Amazingly by the end of the day I could do the move at least mostly correctly 5 or more times in a row without pause. It's really amazing! Other than that in the afternoon because two of the more beginning people are able to sort of do 양사위 (right 1, 2, left 1, 2) the six of us had to practice together (as in 정화 Jeonghwa, 진영 Jinyeong, 범준 Beomjun, me and those two). We just stood in a line and practiced over and over, trying to hit 200 without a mistake, which of course since two people had only started doing it that day was impossible, but at any rate we practiced a lot as we TRIED to hit 200 as a group.

Today Jaejeong put on a sangmo (Beomjun's) for the first time. Which made it clear that he teaches NOT by example, but through talking. He does physically move the head of low level people, but not more advanced students, and he does sketch the moves without a sangmo on (which is pretty important when you are talking about a spinning move or a jumping move like he was having Beomjun and Jinyeong work on today). However, in general he talks us through things, in a very relaxed manner.

In the afternoon 김동민 Kim Dongmin came to talk to him. Dongmin came into the door and got down belly to the floor. So Jaejeong did the same. But then Dongmin was moving forward on his stomach, and Jaejeong had to slither off the stage he was sitting on to do likewise. The whole time they'd come up, see the other and go "Ohhh ohhh, aigo" and go down in a super deep bow again. It was really funny. I was, however, conducting an interview when that happened, so it did interfere with things, but Dongmin had to come and complain about being forced to learn to drum right handed (he's left handed) in order to teach some students. Jaejeong is also left handed… so they commiserated.

Otherwise… we had the drinks I bought because I couldn’t play the game, and we also had drinks after Jaejeong demonstrated (the idea was that he deserved an appearance fee). I led us in beginning exercises before morning and afternoon classes. I told everyone to be back at 7 for evening classes and we all worked hard and helped each other to improve. I went back to my room at 9:30 and worked a bit on a fellowship application then showered with 민경 Min'gyeong. I forgot to mention but three of the students that I did 고성오광대 Goseong Ogwangdae with in 2009 are here, including Min'gyeong.

Starting at 11 we had an exclusive 뒤풀이 duipuli for the sangmo people. I tried hard to facilitate a good mood, and eventually everyone really loosened up and talked with each other a lot. I think we're all getting to be close. We switched seats several times, talking to whoever was next to us and also playing games together. We didn't drink much because the training center has a new 1 bottle of 막걸리 makgeolli per person rule, which is not much. In my opinion anyway, since for me one bottle would only be a buzz if I scarfed it on a mostly empty stomach.

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