Chatkalina - Frequently asked questions

Chatkalina live demonstrations

"Hold your true friend with both hands." - Nigerian saying

"It is not possible to shake hands with a clenched fist."W.G.P.

"Am I not destroying my enemies when I make friends of them?" Abraham Lincoln

What is Chatkalina?

Dance system

The basic movements that everyone has to master are about 50. However, the combinations that two partnering people could make are limitless. The nature and logics of the system make the design of various choreographic compositions on any rhythmic melody very light, no matter if the tempo is slow or fast. The main idea of this unique dance technology is that two persons with coordinated movements of hands and bodies meet each other’s palms, and thanks to the specially designed plates on their palms a typical clacking sound is produced.   

The alternation and changing of this sound during the dance may create or follow any rhythm. The sound produced by the plates is indication for the correct performance of the movements and synchronization with the partner.

It is true, Chatkalina compositions might appear similar to something known. Nevertheless, the only reason is, human mind is accustomed to relate and describe anything new it encounters, with well known past events, situations or objects.    

Anyone who wants to enrich everyday life, will accept this system exactly as something new and different from anything else. Chatkalina is new and unique! It was designed to awaken the joy in human heart and to open one more door to the beauty in life. Together with Duonika, Chatkalina is one more powerful ritual for awakening the spirit of collaboration that guarantees the most successful living. They open new horizons for our body and soul, aimed at collaborative cooperation, creation of music and rhythm. Both systems are the apotheosis ot partnership in all its forms.  

The Chatkalina designed compositions may be considered as a kind of a dynamic meditation because, while performing them, thinking has stopped and the conscience is clear and elevated, the two partners are settled "here and now", exhilarated, flying, truly living, feeling the magical unity between the sounds and their body movements! When the conscience is free of thoughts it is like a cloudless blue sky. At this point man has merged with the flow of the living power and this is called a meditative state.

Martial Art

I remembered about Morihei Ueshiba, who used the trajectories and movements of a Samurai sward while creating the Aikido martial art, and then I realized that the trajectories in Chatkalina are similar to those of many punches and blocks from the martial arts. However, unlike these, Chatkalina produces not pain and skirmish but sound, rhythm, and dance.

In other words, the "confrontation" between the two people is shifted from the fight and pain in  the direction of partnership, art, and beauty. If we consider the martial arts as a large branched tree, then Chatkalina is a wonderful and delicious fruit. No matter how strange it might sound, Chatkalina has very close relationship with the martial arts. It develops all those basic skills and abilities necessary for anyone practicing martial arts. If we go from the statement that the true martial arts master is the one who has perfect control of him/herself, then Chatkalina is exactly such type of an art. The one who masters it would be able to make a wonderful dance with another human being without hurting it. There is no need for victories!

A famous martial arts master say that the best warrior is the one who can transform the enemy into a friend.

Hence, Chatkalina is the top martial art where the fist opens and the palm, free from any weapon, invites the partner for a dance. If you are a master in Duonika and Chatkalina, you would not have to avoid fights because you would be constantly transforming the situations from hostile and dangerous into creative and mutually beneficial ones.

Chatkalina and Duonika

Chatkalina inherits everything positive from Duonika and, moreover, has some advantages:  

• May be played indoors and outdoors

• Does not require a mat

• May be performed by two men or women as well as by perfect strangers.  

•  May be performed on different melodies, collages, specially composed dance music, and without any music because it creates rhythm.

What else is Chatkalina?