Birth of a routine

In an earlier blog post, I mentioned that we were going to work on a routine for Flying Fish especially for our Fish & Shark kites, and to the theme music of Jaws. While I was at a conference for work recently, I was getting some ideas during the coffee and tea breaks, and started to scribble them on the note pads we were provided with. Thought I'd share these scribbles, and give you some idea how a routine is born.

Anyway, warts and all, here's a page of scribbles, really writing down some ideas for patterns, and making some quick drawings to help me visualise them.

Once I had these ideas on paper, the next step was to put them in an order that 'works', an order that allows a smooth and flowing transition from one pattern to the next.

So there you have it: the birth of Flying Fish's "Jaws" routine! Now I'd be amazed if this actually is the final routine. It's much more likely that lots of things will change between having these first rough ideas on paper, and flying the actual routine to music at a festival next year. First of all, we need to fly the patterns, and what seems to work on paper may not work in the sky (there is one pattern which probably results in too much line wrap; can you spot which one?). And as we're test-flying them, we're likely to get other ideas which may work better than these original ones. And finally, we need to fly it to music, which means we need to work on timing. But I'm pretty sure that a number of these patterns will find their way into our final "Jaws" routine, in some form or other. Come watch us next year, and see how the final routine has changed from its birth!