The MSU Stage Combat Blog: Body Movement

After reading Chapter 3, and 4 of our Stage Combat test book I was pleased to see that it strongly encourages stretching before any physical training or practice. I made the mistake of doing martial arts classes without stretching and resulted in pulling several muscles and becoming very sore for many days afterward. I did think the precautions for many of the rolls and falling was perhaps much but I come from a background martial arts which doesn't always put safety first tho I can agree that its always good to take as many safety precautions as you can.

I was surprised that the book uses the "hang loose" distance method when doing slaps, punches, ect... Because I had used the same thing when doing many techniques in martial arts and when doing performances with other people. Tho I think you could go closer to make it more realistic but I see the value of doing it that way. I also found the way the slaps, kicks, and punches were done was pretty close to getting actually hit if done right.

Finally in my professional viewpoint the way the rolls, falls, slaps, kicks, punches, and pushes can, if done correctly, look very real almost like the real thing. I agree with a lot of the ways many of them are done but think some of them have to many safety precautions on them such as the rolls and falls but that is because I come from a background in which we didn't do those precautions and were fine. But I can see why they are there.