Keep on movin'

I love my lazy Sundays. After a usual week at work and training for a hard slog on the hockey pitch (and a hard slog recuperating vital liquids with the guys on a Saturday night...), I welcome a lazy Sunday. In the summer months there is nothing better than 30°c and beachin' it all day right in to the evening. Even though, I can welcome the rain the rest of the year round; the days where I can just veg-out on the sofa, watch a dvd, eat, fall asleep, eat, watch another dvd and eat some more.

But there is only so long I can do this. Sometimes the battery is recharged by 7 o'clock on Sunday evening in time for a chilled-out aperitivo glass of wine or two and nibbles. I dare say I like it when I can walk in to work in the face of an entire working week with something of a skip unlike most people. I hate to hate Mondays. That can feel so wasteful.

I am an active person. Fundamentally I am always on the move. I only stop to recharge batteries. I can't help myself. I'm not a moody person, but I can start going down that slippy, dark moody road if I don't do enough, if I'm not moving. Maybe that's why I have always done sport. That's why I cannot sit for 40 hours a week with my arse glued to a swivel chair behind a desk - I dread to think if the chair didn't even swivel.

I love movement. I love the way we can do it in so many different ways. I have always had a respect for the sea; how it can lull, and bob, and then grow and crash and build energy. I can barely swim, let alone surf, but I remember getting up early one morning in Puerto Escondido in Mexico to watch twilight surfers litter the beach and cruise the Zicatela beach pipeline wave of water, cutting, swivelling and gracing the water's surface. It was great to just sit in the sand and watch. And I love to see a Mexican wave in a stadium. All those fans moving together to create one massive smooth movement.

On my list of "things to do before I die" is included going to Brazil during Carnival. All those people on the streets and in unison to one sound, one beat, and be in the middle of it. There would be no way in this world I would be able to keep still for a second. And I love that samba beat of hundreds of people in a street group banging on drums of different sizes, all coming together as one unique sound, conducted by the sound of a whistle. It makes me want to pick up anything in hand and start knocking out a beat, just like the theatrical group in STOMP! Brushes, pipes and even bouncing basketballs knocking out a street sound, moving together to create one single thing. Complicated structures of simple movements weaned down to one thing so simple - a fundamental musical sound.

And what about the movement of just two components and how they link together in complete agreement. The wheels on a tank with the caterpillar track. Two entwined and sensual dancers in a a flowing Tango. Two naked bodies firm to each other making love, fast, slow, smooth, rocking.

Movement of the masses. Dance troupes, orchestras, Olympic Games opening ceremonies. Red Arrow formations, Roman Legion battle formations, WWII fleets of Allied aircraft sweeping across the sky and scattering thousands of paratroopers in to Europe. The mighty swath from the horizon of Buffalo stampedes across the plains of North America, the sudden take-off of flamingoes surging up and swerving on to their course like a pink curtain in the wind away from their watering hole stopover. A lullabye sway of long grass in skimming breezes, arial views of a traffic snake motorway and of a horde of marathon runners.

That's why I love this Human LCD video of Korean High School students cheering on their football teams. Movement, creativity in mass. Love it. The end result is great, but I get my kicks out of the actual doing it part, just like I would love to bang some samba drums; it's not just the destination but the journey too. Keep on movin'.