SEEMINGLY SEPARATE YET INTERCONNECTED

This is a part of my thesis project from school.

 I could feel the movement, hear the rib thumbs, and experience the speed as I performed a kata.  I was standing in the dojo alone, just me and the empty floor.  My mind was in the present.  I began working on a creative kata putting all the moves together, thinking about what worked and what didn’t, thinking about the various speeds, the different power sequences and heights.  I was thinking about contrast.  These thoughts stayed with me throughout the day and the week.  There is a certain connection your mind and body has while training – and it has stuck with me.

Before this revelation, I was thinking that all these disciplines are separate.  But as I reflected on this, the more I realized the connections these three things have.  Seemingly separate, yet they are all interconnected.  I didn’t realize at the time how I was overlapping design, karate and teaching.  I was starting to combine design with the martial arts and martial arts with design and both with teaching.  Within both the martial arts and design, there is a physical side of things as well as a mental side.  The physical is tangible, actually creating something and physically performing, while the mental side encompasses the challenges of overcoming fear/self-doubt and navigating the process of creating something, learning new ideas and skills and developing self-discipline.  

Yin Yang is the concept of balance.  Each one of us must create life balance.  This project explores the balance that all three of these disciplines work together in a cohesive way.  Design is used in martial arts with the same principles, time, rhythm, pace, contrast etc.  Martial arts works with design creating a process, and learning how to overcome obstacles, and working on the mental side of everything and both of the martial arts and design help with teaching by using those experiences and teaching the next generation of storytellers in a unique way that can help them not only in the class but use those lessons in their life as well.

The project consists of two tracks an artistic track and a commercial track all stemming from a karate demo that was created by using design and motion graphic principles (reinforcing motion, time, pace, overshoots, rhythm etc.).  From there, the commercial side has two different videos that use sections of the demo/demo team to create a high energy promo video for the dojo.  On the other side, - the more artistic side, I took the movements from the demo and created motion capture and then created a more abstract animation from that as well as still photos showing the movement.  This helps show the movement but also hopefully gets your mind to wander a little bit showing the mindfulness of the martial arts.

Martial Arts Promo (commercial side). After Effects + Premiere. A high energy promo showcasing some of the benefits of the martial arts. Clips include part of the demo performance as well as other performance clips.

Target audience: potential new students

Martial Arts Promo (commercial side). After Effects. A quick 1 minute promo showcasing the mind of a martial arts athlete. Inspired by an Adidas ad.

Target audience: martial artists already training that want to share their experience.