ARTiculAction Art Review - Special Issuue Aug. 2016 | Page 141
Leonid Dutov
ICUL CTION
C o n t e m p o r a r y
A r t
R e v i e w
Special Issue
his thoughts about martial arts and a
black-covered notebook which contained
his work on energies. To this collection
were added an icon of an Orthodox
Christian saint, a little bell and a shell. I
had t o lay all of them out and I did not
remember the right way to do it. I did not
even remember which piece of cloth had
to be laid over which. But I did realize the
importance of the task and the degree of
responsibility imposed. Moreover, there
was no room for error, I could not dawdle
because people were gathering in the
class and I also could not show my lack of
confidence in what I was doing.
would form an octagon. On these pieces
of cloth were laid a portrait of a
prominent Japanese karateka,
nunchacku, a replica of an Old Russian
sword, two tonfas, a notebook with a red
cover, in which the Master wrote down
So I just laid it out somehow, as I
remembered and as I felt like, and,
sweating from stress and exertion, went
out to call for the Teacher to review my
work. He came in, looked at my creation
and said musingly: “An interesting
solution”. Since then I was responsible for
laying out the altar, and I did it six times
a week for more than a year. If at any
given training session the students were
frustrated and it didn’t go as planned, or
if the Master was not able to show a
technique at the first try or, what was
even worse, if he took a punch while
showing the drills, he would stop the
training and would firstly take a look at
the altar. Needless to say, it always
turned out that on those days the
elements of the altar were misarranged
and instead of harmonizing the room and
and focusing energy in the class, it
reflected the state of a teenager in the
throws of puberty. I would rearrange the
altar under his supervision, would do a
hundred push-ups as a punishment and
the training would be resumed. It is thus
that I learned to study composition, color
and light.
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