I am an artist

         Is there anything as personal or as vulnerable as one's art?  Art is how we express ourselves: our emotions, our thoughts, our bodies, our creativity, both creation and destruction.  It is a snapshot of our inner world that we are sharing with the world.  All of us here are committed to the arts, by being a martial artist.  Kung Fu is just one many different mediums to express our art.  Even though we all learn the same techniques, the same forms, and stances, we present them differently.  Not just because we are all individuals and as such our bodies move differently, but also because we're each conveying something different with each brush stroke our limbs create.

        Demos have been very intriguing for me this year, because I've really started to see everyone's art in a new light.  It's fun to watch different people do the same form because their personal expression comes out in a different way that makes the form unique to them.  Watching those that have created their own form is also a gift, because it is a much more personal viewing of themselves.  Whether the form is hard or soft, expansive or reserved, fast or slow, rigid or smooth; they're all traits of the person performing.  I wonder what people see in me when I perform?  As I've gotten used to performing, and my confidence in my skill has grown, I've allowed my body to open more with my techniques; though my style tends to be more crude: fast, hard and rigid.  I would say my form very much mirrors my inner world.  Look calm and reserved on the outside, but definitely have a fire raging on the inside.

        My art is also expressed through my writing.  Both blogging and creative writing have helped me to find my voice, which I otherwise find difficult to express.  I know I don't contribute a lot to our meetings at the beginning of each month, and part of that has to do with not being able to articulate what I want to say.  Writing has a way of funneling what I want to say in a concise manner, that comes out organized.  Blogging helps me express the thoughts and feelings I have day to day, where as creative writing brings out more of my personality, in all of its quirkiness.  Writing is my main medium for self-expression.  Words flow gracefully in the torrent of information spilling out of my brain, in a way that can't be harnessed any other way.

        I am an artist, and my arts show me for who I am, flaws and all.  It is beautiful, messy, and a bit unrefined, but it is who I am.