Thursday Think Tank With Hung: Warm-Ups

Hi you! Yeah you, you beautiful, gorgeous, random blog reader! I know you’re out there! You’re just a little too shy to comment but that’s OK! That can change, and that will change! But for now, welcome back to Thursday Thought Tank with me, Hung Hoang. Side note: starting this week, the official name of my weekly blog will be Thursday Think Tank, not Thought Tank, just to spice it up a little. Truth is, when trying to come up with the name, I over-thought and doubted if Think Tank would fit the bill since what we are doing here has little - if at all - to do with, as Webster dictionary told me, “interdisciplinary research”. Little did a guy fresh off the boat like I know that Mr. H thinks Think sounds so much better. Should have guessed that. But anyway, there you go. Think Tank.

So, without further ado, let’s get right onto our topic this week. Let’s get it. Let’s warm up. Just like athletes. Loosen the muscle, release the tension, avoid injuries, and stay on top of the game. 

Now, imagine yourself being in a circle, surrounded by eighteen other people. It’s 3:20 in the afternoon, school just ended, and you have a couple of tests and quizzes the day after (in case your days as high school students are long gone, let’s replace that with professional development meetings). You have had a pretty rough day already, and you have so many things on your mind. You feel like exploding. You feel like screaming. You feel like the weight of the world is on your shoulders. 

Then the song starts. 

That peaceful melody emerges out of thin air, swoops down and enwraps you, consumes you. And you let it take you away. And you begin the warm-up. You close your eyes, shut down your mind, and let your instinct take over. Every day’s warm-up is different. In no particular order, a typical warm-up shall be a combination of, but not limited to, Dying Goat, Syllables, Twelve Counts, Word Association, Pass the Clap, High Pitch to Low Pitch, 2 slows – 2 fasts, so on and so forth. This is not Yoga, by the way. But the effect is equally powerful, I must say. Also, if you encounter any problems while imagining what these exercises are, don’t worry; I’ll upload a sample warm-up in the near future.

If you were like me, after a few days, you would realize that regardless of how different every day’s  warm-up may be, the circle would always get smaller at the end. We wrap our arms around our fellow cast members, our friends, and look into each other’s eyes, for a really long time. I always had goose-bumps around this particular moment of the rehearsal, especially on the days when the warm-up song ended just in sync with the closing of the circle. It felt as though time has stopped for a short while just for us boys and girls, plus Mr. Howard; just so that our bodies can freeze in space; our souls connect; and our trust in one another forever strong. I always had goose-bumps, and I always loved it.

It’s been about three weeks since I started shouting at the top of my lungs, jumping up and down, squatting, and letting all the pains drip down my fingers. And in the past three weeks, I feel as stress-free as humanely possible. I got my mindset right before every rehearsal, I forgot the bumps I had during the day, I managed to set aside the worries of my life, and, like my good friend Sami “Shades” once told me, to feel like a Beast from the East. #MinorityPride. (I’m from Vietnam, btw).

Again, I will upload a video of our typical warm-up in the near future, possibly next Thursday. But in the meantime, should you have any questions, concerns, suggestions, so on and so forth, don’t hesitate to drop in a quick comment. If you’d like to come to our rehearsals, you are always welcome to (I have never asked Mr. Howard about this, but I don’t think he would mind).

Have a great day, global citizens. See you next Thursday.

by Hung Hoang, '13