Next on the agenda vis-a-vis notation is the consideration of how to represent angles and directions. So far I've identified three use cases for this type of information:
- Rotation/change in direction
- Change in attention
- Direction of attack
So let's go through these one at a time and see what we can come up with.
Changes In Direction
Almost any form is going to require the performer to change the direction they're facing multiple times throughout the performance. Instructions for these direction changes come in two flavors:
- Relative: "Turn right 90°".
- Absolute: "Face front."
Which flavor(s) do we need to support? Given that we've adopted the convention that the top of the page is always the performer's front it is absolutely necessary that we have a way of marking down relative changes in direction.
Do we also need to support absolute directions? I think this is mostly a non-issue; I've rarely seen absolute directions used anywhere but at the start of a form. Provided you know what direction the performer was facing when ey started any absolute direction can be translated into a relative rotation. Additionally, most (all?) of the forms I know start facing "front", wherever that happens to be in any particular context. On those rare occasions where the performer begins facing elsewhere that fact can simply be noted in text at the beginning of the transcription.
Do we need to rigorously define what it means to "face" a direction? I think not; that's a "background knowledge" item akin to knowing how to assume a particular stance. The details of what it means to face a direction (where do the hips/shoulders point, where do the toes point, and so on) should rightly be left to the discretion of individual schools.
When changing their orientation the performer needs to know what direction to turn and how far to go. It seems to me that the easiest way to represent this type of information would be to use something resembling the following notation:
There's a lot of black there though. Maybe outlines would be better:
They're easier to write down than shaded figures. We can get more minimal still:
Though I'm not sure those are actually easier to read than the outlines.
However... up to this point we've been using only Unicode characters in order to aid computer entry, but that's going to prove something of a challenge when it comes to rotation. There are enough characters that we might, with a little bit of effort and ingenuity, handle rotations of 90°/180°/270°/360°, but I haven't been able to identify a palette sufficient for capturing multiples of 45°. One option might be to use arrows, which Unicode has in abundance, to convey rotation, but I'm reluctant to do that unless absolutely necessary. We already use arrows for translation of mass; using them for rotation as well could easily lead to confusion. We're also likely to use arrows, in some form, for changes in attention and/or direction of attack. I'm all ears if anyone has any suggestions in this regard.
Changes In Attention
A few of the systems described in Choreographics, most notably Eshkol-Wachmann, provide a way to describe the orientation of the performer's head, which yields some information about where the performer might be looking. The notion of attention in the martial arts, however, is more complicated than that; the region of attention represents that section of physical space from which the performer is trying to extract information at any given moment. This region is generally correlated with the direction of the performer's head/gaze, but the performer's other senses are involved as well. I can, for example, be facing forward and then shift my attention to what's going on behind me, a process which can be broken down into the following steps:
- Mental reorientation.
- Refocusing of hearing.
- My eyes look as far left (or right) as is possible.
- Rotation of my head to bring as much of the space behind me into my field of vision as possible.
The movement of the head is only the final step in a process which is largely invisible to the observer. Note also that steps 1 - 3 happen very quickly; less that a second would be my guess. Shifting attention is a very lightweight action in comparison to more physically-bound processes such as turning the body.
It seems natural to me to use arrows to indicate the area to which the performer should be attending at any given time. However, we're already using arrows to indicate translation, so if we're going to use arrows for attention as well we've got to find some way to disambiguate the two. Unfortunately, after some thought on the matter, I've been unable to come up with any satisfactory method of doing so.
As an alternative I'm considering the use of an open wedge shape to indicate the area of attention:
Forward Behind Left Right ˅ ˄ ˃ ˂
This shape is evocative of the performer's field of vision, which makes it easy to remember what it means. We unfortunately run afoul of the same problem we encountered earlier with rotation: we can't get multiples of 45° using Unicode characters. I'm by no means committed to this; just going to run it up the flag pole and see who salutes.
Direction of Attack
I know for certain that I want to use arrows to indicate the direction of attack. The arrows will be decorations on the associated attack symbol. So if I want to record the sequence "half-moon forward into right half-moon stance and then deliver a left front punch to your right 45°" I would jot down the following:
↗
FP
HMS
↑
HMS
Man that's satisfying... that's so much cleaner that the English version.
Simplifying Conventions
Here are some conventions which I recommend adopting to keep things clean:
- The area of attention is assumed to be the front of the performer unless otherwise noted.
- The direction of attack is assumed to be directly ahead of the performer unless otherwise noted.
And I think that's it for directions and angles.
