Kata In A Cruise Ship Talent Show by Rob Jacob
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My wife and I just got back from a Caribbean Cruise (we were on the Carnival Victory that sailed from Miami on 4/25/04) to celebrate our 10th wedding anniversary. This was our third cruise, so I had a good idea about some of the things that would be going on. On previous cruises they had had a talent show, so as the cruise was approaching, I played with the idea of performing a kata.
The talent show was to be held on Thursday night, with selection/rehearsals in the afternoon. I showed up, and found they had room for eight acts. I told the woman from cruise ship what I planned to do, but she didn't really know what a kata was. I asked her how long the act should be, and she said about two or three minutes. I decided to perform Seiunchin, and go directly into Kusanku figuring that should be close to two minutes. I got up on the stage, and demonstrated what I planned to do, and she said the time was perfect. I also wanted to get a feel for the floor which was black painted plywood with a few metal plates here and there. Only seven acts showed up, so I was in the show.
The talent show started at 10:30pm, but we were supposed to be there fifteen minutes early. I didn't wear a gi or anything, but was wearing shorts, and a tee-shirt. They handed out sheets, and I found that I would be fifth in the line up, following a guy singing a Garth Brooks song. I enjoyed the other performers which were mostly singers, but there was a kid who did some hip-hop style dancing and another guy did some Michael Jackson type dancing.
As my turn arrived, I was introduced. I slipped my sandals off, and took my place on stage. I bowed, and announced "Kata Seiunchin-Kusanku", and went into the kata. As I was doing the first part of seiunchin with the breathing I started hearing a few giggles from the audience. I make no claim at being a great kata performer, but I think I am generally pretty good, and have won my share of trophies. I was not used to giggling while I was performing a kata, so that was a little wierd for me. I kept going, not allowing the giggles to affect my kata. As I got to the 'peace moves', some of the giggles turned to laughs, which got even stronger following the first kiai. Yet I still kept on. There were a few positive sounding noises among the laughter, like sporadic clapping, or isolated cheers. When I got to the jump in Kusanku, there was some light applause, some ooohhhs and aaawwws mixed in. Finally, as I got to the end of the kata signaling the end with a bow, I received strong applause and cheering. For my efforts I received a bottle of champagne (which will be a neat souvenir as I really don't drink, except for an occasional strawberry daiquiri on a cruise ship), and a solid gold plastic trophy shaped like a Carnival cruise ship.
In hindsight, I think the people who understood what I was doing were being quiet and respectful, while the giggling could written up to ignorance and rum drinks. In the days that followed the talent show, I was told by various people that they had enjoyed my performance. It was an interesting experience performing a kata on a stage under a spotlight in front of a live audience of hundreds of people, and would be watched on closed-circuit television by possibly a couple thousand. Would I do it again? Sure! It was a lot of fun.
Rob Jacob is the author of: Martial Arts Biographies - An Annotated Bibliography.
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