Excerpt from "Wu Neng" Ma Dehua
Previous content: Wu Neng - I just want to sing and practice the basic skills.
It was only after I joined the Peking Opera Company in China that my artistic career began to take the right path.
In fact, if I really followed the "Four Pockets" uncle at that time, or followed my uncle to the art troupe and learned dancing and drama, now it may be another way of living. However, no matter what I do, I should also be inseparable from opera. I'm the greatest lucky person to be able to make my hobby a career!
The acting industry is indeed hard, and it pays attention to the kung fu of practicing two or five watches, and only those who are in the same industry can experience it. After I came to the Peking Opera Company, I got up at five o'clock every morning to practice, but I was not afraid of this. After washing, you are not allowed to eat, the joke is good, called: "full of hunger and singing", the brothers and sisters lined up together from the North Pond to Zhongshan Park and began to shout.
In the past, there was no microphone on the stage, and the actors had to use a fleshy voice to ensure that the audience could hear what they were saying clearly, no matter how far away they were. Therefore, it is necessary to practice a kung fu voice by shouting.
Shouting first practiced horizontal and vertical voices, which are the words "babbling" and "ah". "Babbling" is a vertical sound, pulling up and shouting, long tune door;"Ah" is a horizontal sound, the breath sinks to the dantian, and the voice comes directly from the throat, in order to hit Yuan'er. You also have to shout "wow", "wow" and "horn", and train the nozzle, the base of the tongue, and the lip and tooth sounds. After shouting out his voice, he will practice Xi "shouting", such as Wusheng's "Malai", Lao Dan's "bitter", Lao Sheng's "Go", and Xiaohua's "Aha". After practicing "calling the board", and finally practicing Xi "playing the introduction" and "reading the white", and experiencing the emotional state of the characters. But I will never practice singing, in case there is no huqin to follow, and the board is out of tune.
As the old saying goes, "You are eternal, why bother sleeping three times and getting up five times;."The most useless thing is to be exposed to the cold for ten days a day", and it is important to do things with perseverance. This is especially true of the practice in opera, which pays attention to practicing three nines in winter and three dogs in summer, even in bad weather. The joke often says: "If you don't practice for a day, you know for yourself."If you don't practice for two days, your peers will know;If you don't practice for three days, the audience knows. "Three years of arms and five years of legs, ten years of training a mouth." "In addition to shouting in the morning, I returned to the Peking Opera House and had breakfast in a short time, followed by basic skills in the morning, and after the meal was digested, I practiced blanket skills, sub-skills, posture classes, and singing classes, and in the afternoon I learned Xi cultural classes, and in the evening there was a night self-Xi, and I went to bed on time at 10 o'clock. For several years, there has been no interruption.
When I first started practicing, it was the most headache. Singing has very high requirements for waist and leg skills, and it requires wrenching, pressing, tearing, and waist. Therefore, this line of work attaches great importance to young skills, because when the age is young, the bones are still soft, and when they are older, the arms and legs are stiff, and it is not easy to practice again. At that time, our average age was 14 or 5 years old, and some of the older children had to tear their legs by force, and the pain could be imagined. Therefore, every time I practice, occasionally people passing by the Peking Opera Company hear ghosts crying wolves in the gong room, and they think they are slaughtering children.
Fortunately, I am not afraid of taking the top, tearing my legs, lowering my waist, or so on, but no matter what minor illnesses and disasters we have in the Peking Opera Company, the teachers all rely on practice to "cure our diseases".
Once I woke up in the morning with a terrible stomachache, beads of sweat like soybeans, rolling straight down, I really couldn't practice, so I went to the teacher to ask for leave. The teacher looked at me, wiped the sweat off my head with his hand, and said, "Well, I know, let's take the big top." ”
This is what we call a handstand now.
As soon as I heard this, the aggrieved energy in my heart came up, and I said to the teacher: "Teacher, I'm not pretending, I still have to practice?"”
Baby, don't deal with my blindness, hurry up and practice!”
I had no choice but to do what the teacher told me to do and find a wall base and put my legs on the wall in a handstand. The teacher also held a bamboo stick, poked my waist and said, "Pick your waist, stand up, raise your head, don't slack off." ”
I couldn't hold it back, all the grievances in my heart broke out, my nose was sore, tears and beads of sweat were dripping down, and I hated this teacher in my heart. The teacher still watched us practice, while the other students kicked our legs, skipped and jumped, and smashed shuttlecocks. After waiting for more than half an hour, the teacher pointed at me with a bamboo stick: "Ma Dehua, come down and flip a few small turns." ”
I reluctantly walked over, the teacher grabbed my back with his hand, I pressed my hands on the ground, followed by a few back hand flips, after the turnover, the teacher helped me waist: "Activity, see if my stomach still hurts?"”
I stretched my waist back and forth, and my stomach really didn't hurt anymore.
The teacher glanced at me: "Baby, do you still have a stomachache?".The parts on the body are quite complete!”
Of course, people should still be put in place when practicing, and this kind of corporal punishment and irresponsible practice now seems undesirable. However, at that time, the teachers all demanded us in line with the old dogma of being strict with teachers and making high apprentices, and not succeeding in the competition, in fact, it was also for us to have a chance to make a name for ourselves and become a corner in the future!
Although the strict teacher is strict, he still loves and cares for us from the heart. Until now, I am over 70 years old, and when I feel unwell, I always like to hold a few big tops against the wall to relieve fatigue. It's all because of the teacher's sentence back then: "Take the top, treat stomach pain." ”
Network map, invasion and deletion.
Mother wept. When I was studying at the Peking Opera Company in China, I could only go home every Saturday night and return to the Peking Opera on Sunday afternoon. So, this day is very precious to be together with the family.
Every time I went home, I had to take my dirty clothes back and wash them for my mother. It's not because I'm lazy, it's because I'm too hard to learn drama. When the teacher showed us the exercises, he often said, "You have caught up with the good time, when we were studying opera, we couldn't even go up to the kang at night." ”
It is true that we train at high intensity every day, and at night our muscles are sore, like a shot of vinegar in the cracks of our bones. The students in the lower bunk went back to sleep upside down, and the students in the upper bunk had a hard time pedaling the ladder, and sometimes they simply ripped off the mattress and laid the floor on the ground for a night. In such a situation, who has extra energy to do the laundry?
In addition to doing laundry, one of the other things I do every Saturday is to take a shower. My mother knew that I was studying hard to act, and every time I got home, she would boil a basin of hot water so that I could take a bath and relieve my fatigue. Once, as soon as I had taken off my clothes and was about to enter the basin, my mother stared at my lap with a heavy face and said, "Dehua, have you been in a fight?"What's going on on your legs?”
I looked down at my legs and saw that there were small purple dots around my knees, and quickly explained: "Mom, I didn't fight, it's okay, it's okay. ”
No, this must be pinched by someone, you honestly, what the hell is going on?Mother asked sternly.
I saw that I couldn't hide it, so I told my mother the truth.
It turned out that in the past, it was always important to play dramas, and after the founding of New China, children were no longer allowed to be beaten in the theater, but there were still corresponding teaching methods. For example, when turning a small flip, the correct posture is that the two legs must be straight, just like a big wheel, and only when you turn quickly can you standardize and see kung fu. But at the beginning of learning, the legs will involuntarily "hang the dragon", the so-called "hanging dragon" is the legs hooked and bent, so it is easy to stand unstable, and the speed is slowed down.
In order to correct our problem, the teacher came up with an idea, take a bamboo stick when you turn your head, and when your legs are hooked, the bamboo stick will come up and knock on your legs, and emphasize to you that you should not hang the dragon. But the somersault is a subconscious action, the attention can not be focused on the leg at all, three times in a row to hang the dragon, there is no need to use a bamboo stick, a little careless, with a fingernail on the leg, just like a scorpion sting, like a pain in the heart. If you look at these two legs, like a conditioned reflex, they will be straight. When you turn it over again, you know where it hurts, you know that you have to pay attention, and you will ensure that you don't make mistakes next time, and you will be especially in charge. Moreover, this trick only hurts the flesh and skin, not the muscles and bones, so it hurts for a while, and then it will be fine, and it will not harm the body.
When I finished explaining the ins and outs to my mother, I saw my mother's tears rolling in her eyes, and she muttered to me: "At that time, your father didn't let you learn opera, but you didn't listen”
Bitterness is really bitter, but I seem to be really enjoying it, and all I think about is when I will be able to become a role and stand on the stage of my dreams to act. So I firmly said to my mother, "Mom, I'm not afraid of hardship. ”
My mother wiped her tears with the back of her hand, hugged my changed clothes, and turned to go out the door.
Many years later, my sister told me that my mother was most afraid of seeing the small purple spots on my legs when I took a bath every week. When I was not at home, my mother secretly shed tears several times. Now when I think back to my mother, I feel more deeply and greatly the love of my mother.