As My Reflection In Light, I'ma Lead You

[Post title refers to: Common, "The Light" ]

Whoa, whoa, whoa--another long period between blogs?! Oops! Big things going on in my world. Ya'll don't even know. For example, I got a car wash the other day. It was pretty crazy (no, really it had been like a year or something absurd so it was long overdue and definitely an aberration in my usual weekend activity). This weekend my friend Jon and I decided we needed a random sports team to be really excited about between basketball and football season (I don't like baseball and the impending end of the NBA season is just too much for me to handle). So, we have adopted the Club Deportivo Chivas MLS team. It is completely arbitrary. See Jon's blog post about it here. No, I don't know much about soccer. But I am pretty excited about my new found summer obsession (after the NBA playoffs are over that is). And yes, I have plenty of non-sports-related and non-car wash-related things to do (like work).

As for the blog title post, aside from genuinely loving The Light and the beauty of the lyrics/song (it is one of my favorites), I thought the John Steward-Bill O'Reilly battle over Common's invitation to the White House was relatively interesting and I just so happened to be thinking of Common.  And yes, I just posted a link to World Star Hip Hop instead of You Tube. In other current events that happen to be in my head at the moment--hey Mavs, I see you; Gibson, you are a beast; errybody Dougie (RIP M Bone); and I appreciate you Grant Hill/Jared Dudley/Rick Welts).

Okay back to bhangra! So for today I have my first guest blogger! The wonderful Hans Gill! (Cheering, applause, yippees, woohoos!). You might remember me talking about Hans in my first couple posts--he was one of the guys I talked to early on about joining LBC and one of my first friends on the team back, back in the day.  He is also an old school LBC member, which is where the awesome throw back picture above comes from.

I asked Hans to answer a couple questions about my joining the team and about his experience with LBC.   He also adds some of his insight on the judging and nature of competitions. My self absorbed questions (you should laugh when I make fun of myself otherwise it just makes it awkward for both of us...and yes I mean just me and you because we might be the only two left reading at this point) and his wonderful answers are below. In the brackets I insert my random and probably unnecessary commentary. Enjoy!

1. So my first few blog posts makes it seem like I pretty much stalked LBC. Would you say that is how we met?

Haha well I don't think that was the case..was it? Well even if you did, you certainly had me fooled. I remember you asking me a few times about dancing with us and in general most of us were not really into the whole idea of dancing at competitions with girls because we perceived it to be a bigger headache than it was worth. My comments only apply to the dancing at competitions not parties or anything else like that =)

3. I heard that you considered putting me in a pagh and having me dance the whole time. Seriously?

Oh man that was the brilliant Idea of Sukh if remember correctly. He said in his Sukh style "na hell naaaa we puttin her in a paaghhhh plaayaa".

4. What do you remember about our first practice for Bruin 2006?

The practice was a bit sloppy (that's common) and I remember being a bit frustrated (nothing uncommon again). I do remember you asserting yourself (in a good way) by being very eager to learn and wanted to keep practicing. "Come on guys lets practice" "we gotta get this down". The gentle approach to getting all of us to be focused on practice.

My question to you is what did you think of the first practice? Amazed at our talent? Amazed at our ability to dance in a parking lot? or were you bewildered at how we actually get it done? Somehow the idea of 30 minute breaks and 5 minutes of routine run through didn't really make sense to you but I think you have learned that is the secret sauce along with Gurjit's hilarious jokes.

In all honesty, this question is something which Gurjit, Sukh or Ambi can answer to the exact minutes. I don't know what they eat but whatever it is, its equivalent to bhangra memory pills. These guys can tell you about each dancer was on your Michigan team at the VIBC competition and what their position on the floor was at 4:15, If they were doing the jugni or the morni OR if they were out of position.

5. Did you think I would continue to dance with you guys after Bruin?

When you danced with us at Bruin, I seriously thought it was going to be a one time thing because we didn't want to utilize a gimmick every time, similar to this other down south team which brought out this extremely talented little kid EVERYTIME if you know what I mean, that gets old you know? =) [The smiley face implies he is joking, for all of you getting your banans in a bunch. Speaking of banans.]

And now here we are, 4 years strong with Jazz as a gimmick highlight. Oh wait no you're not a gimmick I take that back and will leave the highlight part of my comment in there =). You brought / bring great energy, structure and overall joyful character to the team and if I knew in 2006 what I know now I would say no question you were going to be part of LBC for life! [SELF PUMP for the winnnnn!]

6. How did you feel going in to Bruin 2006?

Bruin was always the big competition where the best teams performed and I'm sure it was the one event which was marked from day one on every teams calendar. The whole event was just amazing, the huge crowds, amazing parties, great organization (except for the after party nonsense of teams rarely getting in). I usually felt that we were under prepared as a team for the larger events but that is me always being the worry wart. In all honesty, if I have one regret its that I didn't let myself enjoy, as much as I should have, the times which led up to the performances (hanging out, partying and practicing) because I was always too worried about getting the things right. The guys had the right attitude and joked around a lot more and knew that things would work themselves out on stage as they usually did.

There is one thing which I think is important to discuss and that is judging (related to order of the show). I clearly remember picking the order in the show was by far the most frustrating part for every team. It had to do with many things. If you picked the first spot to dance you pretty much were going up when some of the crowd hadn't even shown up. Also the practice time was going to be super early and LBC was never one to back-down from a night of partying till 6am the night before competition. A typical conversation night before a show: Hans: "guys we should get a good nights sleep and can party all we want tomorrow after the show". Ambi (a specific moment which I still remember from LA): "mannnnnnn, F*** sleeping I'm having hella fun right now". Just for that reason alone I always prayed we go later on stage later in the show.

Most importantly if we picked to go up 1 or 2, we knew we would generally be scored lower than the other teams. This is by no fault of the judges rather I think its the structure of the judging. Many of the judges were not qualified to judge and everyone knew that but here is the more important point; Even if I was put in position to judge 10 teams I would err on the side of caution and not be able to give proper scores to the early teams because I have nothing to compare against.

 As the judges see more and more they are able to hone in their scores because they have other performances to compare against. What is required is unbiased comparative judging of a performance. I say comparative because that is naturally what everyone in crowd does and that is how it should be judged. The scoring should be done when ALL The performances have completed. The judges should be able to see a clip of each team and then based on the notes they took during the performance give their scores.

Some are going to argue that each performance should be scored individually with no other performance affecting the score but this is not possible because most judges in the US are not qualified in the art of bhangra and rare are times when teams meet the criteria of TRUE Bhangra. Most of what we see is entertaining fusion bhangra and there is nothing wrong with that, judging has to be structured accordingly. That is just one idea of how to improve it but really there needs to be some research on how other talent shows judge and adopt similar ideas into the bhangra world. Jasmine lets head it up and see what we can do with this =)

7. Anything else you want to add?

The blog which you have created really is a great way for many to share in the experience of the bhangra scene. One thing I grew to understand over my many years dancing is that at the end of the day its all about friendships. If it wasn't for bhangra I wouldn't have never met some of my closets friends (LBC), KJ, yourself.

I hope that the current teams are able to step back and realize though by nature these are competitive events there's far more to gain than just being called the best team. LBC made it a point to be social (perhaps a little too much at times but that's just how we were). From these interactions with other individuals who share the same passion, culture and love for the art of bhangra we gained lifelong friends and that is a prize possession in itself.