Adam The Musical Week 1

And so, last Tuesday we started our practice for Adam the Musical.

I was a bit kiasu - I took the day off(part of my plan to clear my 2009 annual leave). I even left home to KLPAC at about 5.15pm. Reached Jalan Ipoh and had dinner at one of the stalls around 6pm. Still got lots of time left, and ended up going for round 2(dim sum) & round 3(Old Time White Coffee).

Nowadays, it's better to be very early then 5 mins late, no?

Almost all was on time - I guess nobody wanted a tongue lashing from our director Joe Hasham.

I managed to talk to a few people, including one Michael Chen who was recently in the show "The Swimmning Instructor". Incidently, Michael is now training Janis @ TNT Kickboxing.

First day wasn't much of a practice - we got the script for the show and did the reading. Took quite some time to finish but it did give us an idea how the show is going to be like.

Again, before we ended the night, we were reminded by Joe again that "There is only 1 director and nothing is more important than the production".

Wednesday was more interesting as we started with something I didn't expect to happen so quick - learning my first dance!

Stage manager Rosheen & Executive Producer Dato' Faridah Merican

We did some streching which included the Sun Salutation. Though I have never really done yoga before(the closest thing I ever did was BODYBALANCE), it was quite easy to follow our choreographer Lex since I've seen the moves so many times in our class audit(QCC).

 

Waiting for the practice to start

We then proceed to learn quite basic moves from Lex. The moves involves a bit of shoulder isolations(which took me 2 days to understand how to do them better). Thankfully, Lex did the mirror image method:)

More waiting

After we got the moves right, Lex then put in the CD and out comes Spice Girls' "Who Do You Think You Are" and we had to dance to the music!

Preparing to shake our booties!

I wasn't feeling confident about dancing again, and I began to wonder if I could pull it off.

Rolling the shoulders out, together with the arms

I started with quite few mistakes.

What have I gotten myself into?

That's Michael on the left

After doing it a few time, though, I began to adjust to the moves and eventually I was moveing rather well(or at least, I thought so). In fact, I was beginning to enjoy it:)

 

Lex looking pleased with the progress, apparently

After doing them a few times, Lex handed us over to Tracy our Music Director and we received our first song to learn. It's quite a Broadway-ish number and rather catchy too. In fact, I'm quite proud that a local song writer could do such a high quality number.

The practice was made simple with Tracy singing the melody for us. She was fantastic! The catchy tune is very easy to learn, but getting the phrasing correct is another challenge. Not to mention, we have to sing in parts to support the main singer Sandra.

Again I took leave on Friday. The practice started the same way with the warm ups and we had to do the dance again. This time, Lex added a few move arm/leg movements to the dance steps that we've learned on Wednesday(sort of like BODYJAM's layering, methinks). It wasn't that difficult to learn the additional moves once I've got Wednesday's moves right.

And again, we had to dance to "Who Do You Think You Are".... man, I feel like a Spice Boy!

Day 3 dance

Basically we've managed to learn the entire choreography for the first dance that night... unless Lex has something to add on to this week.

Tracy took over after that and we were divided into soprano, alto, tenor, bartione. Not surprisingly, I was in baritone. The good news was the guys got to sing the melody till the very end, where we sang the harmonizing part.

A few of us, including me, was still struggling with the phrasing but I am thankful that I could read the notes. Otherwise, it would be difficult to learn at home- so mom & dad did the right thing to send me to Yamaha Music School, despite me not keen on learning organ.

By the end of the night, Joe gave his pep talk again. He wanted us to learn the song over the weekend so that the next practice(today) we could do it without looking at the sheets.

Anyhow, I did my homework over the weekend and I can tell you that wifey can hum the tune already:)

Tonight we'll be practising again - hopefully I will not forget my phrasing and hopefully, I can impress Tracy and make her feel proud, coz today is her birthday!

BC 42 Launch in IOI

Last sunday was quite happening in Fitness First IOI Mall, with 3 programme launches - BODYATTACK, BODYSTEP, BODYCOMBAT.

 For me, I had the priviledge to launch BODYCOMBAT 42 with 4 other instructors.

(L-R)Jayson, moi, June, Peggy, JX(who's there as a participant), Simone

June started the ball rolling with the first 3 tracks.

our latest import from HK, popularly know as Miss 6-pack

Peggy was not supposed to be teaching that day, but we sort of have a last min arrangement.

She taught track 4 & track 5

And I took care of the next three tracks.

BC 42 theme was muay thai, hence the shorts

I would say it was a rousing success with the members flocking into the studio for all three launches. We have not experience such electricfying atmosphere on a Sunday for a while.

Jayson was entrusted to teach the conditioning track which was the Sean Kingston hit, "911".

One of the famous three Klang boys in Fitness First BODYCOMBAT team

And sweet Simone ended the class with the sweet cool down.

Wow... never realise she has a big mouth literally

I would say this is one of the few launches that I really enjoyed.

Thanks to the instructors who made it happening in all the 3 launches, and also to the members who came for whatever reason- nothing would have happened without your participation!

See you on 4 April for BC 43!!!

Happy New Decade!

Bye bye 2000s, Hello 2010s....

Looking forward to great happenings in the new year!

Christmas Presentation 2009

And so I celebrated Christmas 2009 in KL, my very first Christmas away from Penang. Even when I was away studying in Australia, I've always managed to be in Penang for Christmas. But this year was a bit different.

Also diferrent was this year marked my first time back onto stage play after a long hiatus.

Initially I was supposed to be in this 3-parter on 6, 13 & 20 Dec, but because of the Les Mills Quarterly Workshop with Dan & Rachel Cohen, I was only in for 13 & 20 Dec. The role I played? My favourite... muahahahaha!

Below are some of the pictures taken on 20 Dec, the finale:)

the final rehearsal in the morning


Make up for the devils

Believe it or not, this guy is actually quite good looking in person

Putting on the red face....

Wifey helped to make me look bad

Almost done...

It is finished!

A lovely hubby/wifey moment

mucking around

The cast

I reckon this can be a good ad for some jeans company

Gabe showing off his wings

The temptation recap

The Father

The angelic hosts

The Son

Overall, it sure brought back sweet memories of my previous involvement in Penang Christian Centre. I'm looking forward to a new challenge next year.

Next year, I hope that we would be able to put up a full-length drama that will run for a few days. In fact, I'm currently working on something to be submitted to the church leadership. God willing, it will be a good one:)

Merry Christmas to all and Happy New Year!!!!

Adam the Musical's Final Call

And so, 22 of us were chosen to be part of Adam The Musical!

Basically it was a short brieing session by Joe Hasham OAM, our director. He took some time to explain to us what we are going to commit to and how this would require a lot of hard work from everyone.

Among the things he mentioned:

"No one is bigger than the production"

"There's only 1 director, not 22 directors"

"People First, Performance Now"

Mark Beau also shared a bit a his experience on collecting information before writing the story to raise awareness on HIV/AIDS. The last thing, he said, people with HIV need is our sympathy. The more important thing to do is to create awareness so that people with HIV/AIDS will not be rejected by the community.

We were given the practice schedule and we'll kick start the practice on Tue 26 Jan 2010 Tuesday.

Before we left the place, we went around hugging one another and wish one another well.




I still don't know most of the people in the musical. but I'm probably the only first-timer in the group... which is why I felt priviledged to be part of this production. I look forward to the practices, even though I will have to give up my classes and drive from Puchong to Jalan Ipoh at least 3 times a week. I believe this will be a worthwhile effort.

I am thankful that my boss has given her blessings for me to pursue this. Otherwise, I may have to resign to do this:)

Anyhow, I will be sharing my experience in this production, from the first day of practice on 26 Jan 2010 to the actual show starting on 12 May 2010 at The Actors Studio in Lot 10.

I finally have something interesting to blog about besides gym- Stay tuned!

Auditioning for Adam the Musical

Though I have been involved in church performance arts, I have never done anything outside the church. This is quite an odd thing and it is even odder that I'm venturing to the open at this age.

Anyhow, followed wifey to attend an audition last month. She got in, I didn't. Was so disappointed that I was very down emotionally. The funny part was I even dreamt about the director changing his mind and called me back because one of the boys turns out could not commit to the show dates. Alas, it didn't happen.

But I sure wasn't going to sit around and do nothing while my wife has her spot in the limelight. Just as I was looking around for something to do, Joe Hasham OAM called for an audtion for his musical "Adam: The Musical" which is slotted for May 2010.

And so, last Saturday I went to KLPAC to attend the audition. All the people in the production team were there- Director Joe Hasham OAM, Executive Producer Dato' Faridah Merican, Music Director Tracy Wong, Choreographer Lex, Writer Mark Beau De Silva & Song Writer Lim Chuang Yik.

The vocal warm up with Tracy

Me singing "This Is The Moment" from Jekyll & Hyde

Trying the dance choreography by Lex

Finally, my monologue which is a localised version of Rowan Atkinson's "The Devil"

It was quite a smooth audition. I was nervous but the previous audition experience sort of helped me a lot to control my nerves. I thought I did well enough to be called back for Tuesday's second round.

I eventually got an SMS from Dato' informing that I have been selected and I made my way to KLPAC again yesterday. When I went there, I saw that there were so many people(about 35 people I think) who were called back too & looking at the way they chatted with one another, it looks like I'm the greenhorn among veterans. Suddenly I didn't feel that confident anymore.

For the second round selection, things were even more challenging. After the vocal warm ups, we were required to learn this song:

fascinating rhythm
I'm always on the go
Fascinating rhythm
I'm all a-quiver

What a mess you're making
The neighbors want to know
Why I'm always shaking
Just like a flivver

Oh how I long to be the one I used to be
Fascinating rhythm
O won't you
Stop picking on me

After learning the song by heart, Lex took over and showed us a 32-count dance choreography. I sort of lost my confidence when I realised I had to learn the choreography, but I lost even more when told to do the singing and dancing together!

First all of us hummed the song and danced together. Later we had to do it in groups of 5. I had some difficulty learning the moves, no thanks to 5 years of Les Mills training. Lex wasn't doing the moves in the mirror image method and I felt that I was going to screw up this one. Imagine the horror when we had to present 1 by 1!

Fortunate for me, the ladies had to do first before the guys, all done alphabetically. So I had to time to see how the rest did and it helped me to remember the words and moves. When it was my turn, I thought I did okay. As I was one of the first guys to present, I got to see those who present after me and I realised that everyone was struggling as well.

Just what I needed! I got my confidence back and knew that I had a fighting chance to make it to the ensemble. We got a 10 minute break while the production team had their discussion.

It was good to have wifey around. She dropped by to bring me dinner(silly me forgetting to eat my dinner!), was there to see the whole process, and it helped me to put on my best to impress her:)

Finally we returned back for 2 more group performances and I made sure that I got the singing, the beat and the choreography as accurate as I could. Finally, Joe spoke to us about the audition and thanked us for coming. He said that Dato' Faridah would sms us by end of the night if we were chosen.

Going back, again I thought I did a good job and I stood a very good chance to get a part. Eventually I reached home around 1040pm and started waiting for the SMS to come.

11.00pm. Nothing.

11.30pm. Checked the phone again. Nothing.

11.45pm. Checked to see Maxis line is good. Nothing.

By 12am, I still didn't get any SMS. Sure, there was 1 sms and 3 phone calls but they were not Dato'. It was then I thought that again, I wasn't chosen - surely Dato' would be sleeping by 12am!

Anyhow, wasn't feeling too happy about it so I stayed up to watch Astro for a while.

Then at 12.21am, I received an SMS from Dato' Faridah...

"Congrats again! You are in Adam ensemble! See you tomoro night at 7.30 will not be a long night. Faridah"

What was my reply?

"and finally I get to sleep:) TQ for this fantastic opportunity!"

Was I happy? Of course! But I would've been happier if I get to be in the same musical as wifey. Nonetheless, I really enjoyed the 2 auditions I attended and I'm pleased to get to work with Dato' Faridah and Joe.

Tonight I'm going to KLPAC again to see what I'll be doing for the musical. Hopefully I don't have to do too much dancing:)

What I've been up to lately

Even though I've not been blogging lately, it doesn't mean I have been doing nothing. In fact, I have been busy with a couple of stuffs lately:)

1 MMA

I still recall when I completed my BODYCOMBAT training in March 2004, Tracy asked us to write down what we would do to become a better BODYCOMBAT instructor. One of the things I told her was I would sign up with a kickboxing gym in Penang and start training in the MMA so that I would understand the move and the feel of the punches/kicks better.

Sad to say, I didn't do it due to the busy-ness of my work and after moving to KL in 2005, my time was even more limited.

In early Sept, after delaying for so long, I finally decided that it was about time I stop giving excuses for not doing this. If I was really THAT busy, then I'd better work out my schedule to put this training if I were to continue to be the Head Teacher of BODYCOMBAT. So I search online for kickboxing gyms in KL/PJ. Instead of finding a kickboxing gym, I somehow dropped into this:

KDT Academy offers a wide range of trainings and one of the things they have was:

And since Oct, I've been attending CMD every Wednesday evening at 9pm. Physically it's now a little more challenging as this quarter I now have 2 classes on Wednesday (9.35am BODYCOMBAT, 7.00pm RPM Challenge). By the time I reach the place for CMD, I'm more or less around 50% of my physical best, but still I'm enjoying myself making new friends and learning new things.

My next step for this is to make it to the Sat afternoon open mat training which will allow me to hone my skills in boxing and grappling.

2 Teaching Freestyle Step

Fitness First Asia has just launched our 2 freestyle programmes and now I am teaching:

So far it's been a great experiene doing a class other than Les Mills programmes. As it's a entry-level class, the work demands are relatively lower compare to what I'm used to. After teaching it with a heart rate monitor, I realised that I am doing an average of 70% of my maximum heart rate and the highest I've achieve in a class was about 85%. Compare that to BODYCOMBAT or RPM which can reach average of 85-87% and sometimes I can hit beyond 90% in a class, this is a good option for beginner to try. Besides being easy on the heart, I notice that it burns around 520-530 calories per class, with 45-50% of it is fat.

Feedbacks from members have been positive. Sure there are those who find it too easy for them, but I taught a free class on Monday for my afternoon members to try and now they are asking for more! Will be looking to learn up more blocks so that I can teach more variety of blocks:)

3 Performing Arts

Back in my school days, I used to participate in a lot of church Christmas or Easter events. I've done acting, dancing, singing, script writing and -believe it or not- directing. Doing all those acting and dancing actually helped me in my development as an instructor. I have never had stage fright issues teaching my classes and I don't recall feeling anxious teaching my first BODYCOMBAT class- to me, it was just "Showtime!" The stage is something I'm so used to that it's just second nature to me.

I do miss doing those things but again, just like the MMA training, I've been busy with other things to do it again. Anyhow, I managed to do a bit of that for my wedding(musical theme) but something is still missing. So when the wife heard of this audition for a musical spoof that will be staged at the KLPac, she asked me to take part with her as well and I gladly obliged.

And so, Mon 12 Oct we went to KLPac and did our "thang" in front of the director. It was nerve wrecking as it's my first audition- usually in church shows, it's like "OK, you play the Devil... maybe you can try this role...etc" Anyhow it was a very good experience for the both of us and we were shortlisted for the second round. I was actually looking forward to it and I would be very happy just to be an extra for the show. Unfortunately, only the wife was selected this time.

Nevertheless, I am not giving up yet. There's another audition coming up next Sat for a musical and I'm going to try again. Even if I don't get selected again, I would still continue to try again and again, and again.

On another positive note, my church in Ampang has decided to do a couple of short skit for Christmas and, for the fourth time in my acting career, I will be playing the Devil. So no matter what, I still have something to do:)

Life is never boring!!!