A Retrospective of Fight Class from the Society of American Fight Directors

The alarm clock rings at 9:45 in the morning. I force myself to roll out of bed, grabbing my contacts on the way. I stretch just a little, put on some clothes, pause in the restroom to brush my teeth, grab a piece of fruit, a granola bar, and my water bottle, and I head out of the door across the old brittle sidewalk, across the asphalt road, into the one air-conditioned building on the hill. It's 10AM by now and other actors are trickling in. Everyone is dressed in gym clothes, and the atmosphere is one of tired energy. Dan Granke, a fight director from the Society of American Fight Directors (SAFD), comes in carrying his red backpack, which is full of training knives. Class begins.

We grab partners for the majority of our work. We grapple with one another, pushing one another back and forth across the room. We play with knives, testing what it feels like to make contact to one another with them. We discuss concepts developed by Michael Chekhov. We imagine that we stand in the center of invisible bubbles, essentially our personal bubbles. We test what it feels like to move around other people in our bubbles, conscious of not only our own but also everyone else's. We test how it feels to contract and expand our bubbles. We continue to practice grappling and using knives. We discuss martial skills and what attacks and disarms and defenses would actually do if one were to apply them with complete force. Knowing our target objectives is important. A sense of reality is important.

We choose partners for scene work, scenes which we will serve as our fight tests. One partner for unarmed fighting and one partner for knife fighting. My unarmed partner is my friend Elena and we choose a scene from Barefoot in the Park by Neil Simon. My knife partner is Kemper McDowell, an older actor who I don't know very well and we choose a scene from Tristan and Yseult.

Every Monday through Saturday, over the course of three weeks, we meet to work on our training. With Elena, I practice punches, elbows, kicks, knees, falls, chokes, grappling on the floor. With Kemper, I practice stabs, slashes, punches, knees, disarms, grappling with knives in our hands. The scene with Elena is a lovers' quarrel; in it, there is no intent to kill or seriously injure. My character while angry, does not want to actually harm his wife. The scene with Kemper is a fight against an invading king; in it, we fight to the death. I am disarmed, stabbed in the gut, and as I gasp for air, I disarm Kemper, taking his own blade which I use to fatally stab him through the eye.

The choreography is tight. We watch our classmates work. Everyone does the same choreography but the scenes are vastly different. We see bits of Shakespeare, we see contemporary works, we see a particularly terrifying fight between two women doing a scene from The Crucible. Every pair refines their fights so as to work with their own physicality. This shows us just how different working with different people can be. All of the scenes are strong. All of the fights are strong. And all of them are unique to their pairs.

As the days go by we continue to discuss the technical theory behind the work we're doing. We practice acting exercises to help us fine tune our work. We get out short pool noodles and have a competition we refer to as the UTH World Cup Knife Fights. We fight in pairs. The first person to get three clean hits wins. Day one of the competition, we split into three groups of four. Each person is required to fight everyone in their group. The two people with the most wins in each group will continue on into elimination rounds for the final. My first fight is the first one of the competition. I'm fighting Travis, the UTH fight captain. In a dumb luck moment, I upset the roster by a fluke disarm. Then, fighting Elena, I find a spot she has trouble defending, and I win again. Kemper, however, beats me. I move on to the quarter-final.

Between the first round and the semi-final, we do a different exercise with the noodles. The premise is essentially the same: two fighters face off. This time, however, Dan side coaches us as we fight. The only rule: we cannot leave the scene until he tells us. We are fighting to the death, and this work is brutal, emotional work. We're asked to imagine actually fighting as if our lives depend on it, as if we are really killing someone. Our movements change drastically. The exercise somehow doesn't feel like a game anymore. It's disturbing and emotionally draining. After each fight ends, we take time to stretch, to breathe, to calm down and recenter ourselves. We discuss the emotions and effects of such awful things as killing another person (or of dying in such a terrible way). The exercise reminds us of the danger of weapons, the danger of fighting. It is disturbing, but it is an extremely valuable exercise. It informs our work not only in fighting but in acting in general. It pushes us into a different place, one we don't necessarily want to go, but it gives us a new tool we can use.

The quarter-final round of the Knife Fights is single elimination. My first fight is against Anthony, one of the two most athletic guys on the hill. He's fast, strong, and intimidating in a fight--though outside of a competition, he's one of the most chill and friendly guys you'll ever meet. The fight begins and I take a solid stance, holding my position. I hold still, waiting for him to strike. He tries to bait me into moving, but I'm not falling for it. He lands a hit on me. I stagger. He lands another hit on me. Down by two, knowing if I'm hit again, I'm out, I refocus. I patiently wait. I get a hit. Anthony dances around me, moving in circles. I only move slightly, always facing him. He moves to attack. I dodge and hit him a second time. Next hit wins. We're both sweating. We're both tense. We have several moments of hitting at the same time, moments we refer to as doubles which do not count towards our scores. It has to be a clean hit. Anthony raises his arm to begin a downward slash. In that moment, I make the first true lunge I've made the entire fight. I strike him straight on, winning the fight.

I move into the semi-final. My next opponent is Chris, a ruthless fighter who uses scare tactics. They don't work on me, but he's even faster than Anthony. He's more precise. I only land one hit on him, and he beats me. He proceeds to beat Eric in the final, winning the competition undefeated. Eric and I face off for second place and the match ends the same as the first one of the competition: a fluke disarm, and I earn second overall.

Class continues, our scenes continue to be tweaked and cleaned up as we improve our movement, as we learn our lines, as we work on building our characters. Every day we're covered in sweat and new bruises and carpet burns. We're all getting beat up each day. We're all tired. But it's fun work. It's enjoyable. It's acting work. And the general consensus is that Dan Granke is a wonderful teacher, not to mention just a great guy. He's friendly, extremely knowledgeable, and he works from an acting perspective. His criticism of our work never feels discouraging. He explains things in ways that are clear and precise, and even when he has to repeat himself, he never seems annoyed. He works to help his students learn and grow. If ever I have the opportunity to work with him again, I would say yes in a heartbeat.

The day of our fight tests comes along. Scott Mann, a fight master from the SAFD is our judge. He watches our fights with a smile. He then takes us through two short masterclasses. These are focused on fighting for film. We do a short knife fight pattern in one. In the other, we do a short unarmed punching pattern. Scott, in the brief hours he is with us, strikes me as another fantastic, knowledgeable teacher.

All of us students exit the building for a brief time so Scott and Dan can discuss our work. When we're called back in, Scott lifts up a fight certificate and says, "Daniel Banks. Please talk to your teacher after this. Fail." He tears the certificate apart. An audible gasp comes from everyone in the room. A beat. Scott laughs, "I'm joking, of course. Look, you all passed and several passed with recommends. This was one of the strongest sets of fights I've seen in a long while."

I did not receive recommends for either of my fights, but the pass is still good, and Scott gave advice and feedback on what I need to continue to work on.

These last three weeks have been extremely busy. Our classes had four hours of work a day with an hour lunch break in the middle. The first week of class was also production week for the farce I directed. Then over the last two weeks I was in rehearsals for Glengarry Glen Ross, which was a difficult production and I had a ton of work to do in a short amount of time. Over these three weeks, I got around 6 hours of sleep a night, and my day would start at 9:45AM and go until about 1 or 2AM without much of a break. I've been exhausted, but I have had a blast. The weeks flew by.

So, what happens now? Well, I'm taking a break. Sure, I still have performances of UTH every Monday-Saturday, and I have Time of War performances every Tuesday, Thursday, and Friday. But overall, my schedule has opened up dramatically. Yesterday afternoon, I sat and read for fun for a while. Last night, I hung out by the nightly bonfire. I actually got a full night's sleep. I'm planning on continuing to read a lot. I'm planning on writing more often (both blogging and working on some stories/scripts I have rolling around in my head). I'm going to pick up running again. I'm going to take walks and go swimming and try new restaurants. I've just started to look at possible MFA programs in Directing--Dan actually gave me couple suggestions of potential schools to look at. The constant workload has been wonderful, enjoyable, and I am so glad for all of the training and experience I have received from it. But I am also extremely glad that it's vacation time. It's breathing time. And I fully intend to enjoy every moment.