Monthly Archives: October 2014

DANA WHITE CURIOUS TO SEE WHAT A HEALTHY BROCK LESNAR COULD DO

Author’s Note: Yes I know for anyone, or even everyone that is keeping track of this article after I publish it. Yes I know that UFC 179 has past and everything. But it’s the question about Brook Lesnar that intrigues me. That’s why I still published this article. I do follow MMA not as much as I should but I’m a Brook Lesnar fan myself. Also, if anyone wants to discuss more about Brook Lesnar and stuff like that just leave a comment. And we can have a discussion for anyone that wants to have one.

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DANA WHITE CURIOUS TO SEE WHAT A HEALTHY BROCK LESNAR COULD DO
October 23, 201415 CommentsKen Pishna

There has been no indication from WWE Superstar Brock Lesnar that he’s ready to give up his latest run in professional wrestling for a return to the real world of combat sports in the Octagon.

Jim Ross, a former WWE broadcaster with intimate inside knowledge of the world of professional wrestling, recently told Fox Sports that Lesnar is nearing the end of his current WWE contract, and at 37 years of age, needs to make a decision about his fighting future. He feels it is now or never for Lesnar to try to regain the UFC heavyweight championship he once owned.

“Creatively from a strategic standpoint, WWE will need to find out sooner rather than later if Brock is interested in re-signing or not,” Ross told Fox Sports.

“It looks to me like he’s gotten back on track. He looks phenomenal strength-wise. He’s just scary looking. He’s more scary looking than he was before he left [WWE the first time],” he continued.

“I see no reason he couldn’t have the potential to return to the UFC and sell pay-per-views.”

SEE ALSO: Decision Time for Brock Lesnar

Brock Lesnar vs Randy CoutureConsidering Lesnar is reportedly the UFC’s top pay-per-view draw of all time – even above the likes of Georges St-Pierre, Anderson Silva, and Ronda Rousey – company president Dana White would certainly hold the door open for him.

“I have a great relationship with Brock, we talk all the time,” White told UFC.com on Thursday. “I don’t know (if Lesnar wants to return), we’ll see. If he wants to fight, he knows my number.”

During his UFC tenure, Lesnar was never fully healthy, often having to deal with severe bouts of an intestinal disease called diverticulitis. His condition became so severe that he eventually had to have surgery to help alleviate the problem.

Despite his health issues and a mere four years in the sport, Lesnar made a miraculous run in the MMA world. He fought in the UFC in only his second professional bout, capturing the UFC heavyweight championship in just his fourth fight.

He scored victories over the likes of Randy Couture, Shane Carwin, Frank Mir, and Heath Herring, before eventually returning to the WWE, citing continuing issues stemming from diverticulitis.

SEE ALSO: Shane Carwin Would Un-Retire to Welcome Brock Lesnar Back to UFC

“It’s pretty amazing what he did and accomplished here while having diverticulitis,” White said. “It would be interesting to see a 100-percent healthy Brock Lesnar compete.”

There’s also little argument that, with current UFC heavyweight champion Cain Velasquez entering a Dominick-Cruz-like struggle to get and remain healthy, Lesnar would not only be a big boost to pay-per-view numbers, but also a shot of excitement to a division that is currently floundering to find a star that shines.

Music PR Is About Building Relationships Not A Mailing List

Music PR Is About Building Relationships Not A Mailing List

Pink-slimeDon’t get me wrong, mailing lists are important, especially optin email lists of your fans who really want to hear from you regularly. But lists of people, whether fans, writers or influencers, can give one a false sense that your public relations all come down to distributing a regular email. Brian Solis and Hugh MacLeod recently released a free ebook, “What If PR Stood for People and Relationships?” [instead of public relations.] It may speak most directly to people in corporate settings but the cartoons, in particular, remind all of us to develop human relationships that go deeper than automated marketing can ever do.

Both Brian Solis and Hugh MacLeod blogged intros to the ebook which itself can be found in slideshare form embedded below.

A big part of the message, that connecting with humans is about human connections, is summarized in the thumbnail cartoon above (click for bigger size):

“People Don’t Like Being Mistaken For Pink Slime”

What If PR Stood for People and Relationships By Brian Solis & Hugh MacLeod
More food for thought from the above ebook (p. 29):

If an Infographic Is Published and No One Shares It, Did It Even Exist?

Infographics are the new press release.

Native advertising is the new corporate journalism.

Snapchats are the new Instagram.

Vines are the new YouTube videos.

Instagram’s Hyperlapse is the new Vine.

See the pattern?

There’s always the next thing. The question is, so what?

It’s how you use these platforms that defines your brand. It’s how you engage people and inspire them to do something after engagement that defines your legacy.

Live your brands as your customers do. Let them, in turn, bring your brand to light in ways that inspire you. Technology should be invisible.

Hypebot Senior Contributor Clyde Smith (@fluxresearch) recently launched DanceLand and is relaunching Crowdfunding For Musicians. Contact: clyde(at)fluxresearch(dot)c

Does Your Band Need A Movement Coach?

Does Your Band Need A Movement Coach?

Kevin-andrews

Kevin Andrews is a Nashville-based choreographer and movement coach who works with country musicians on their stage presence in addition to such activities as choreographing music videos. He’s focusing in on a specific niche but what he’s doing is a good example of what a lot of solo acts and bands need. Some artists have difficulty adjusting to the stage imagining that somehow just “being themselves” will make them look “natural.” But the stage is anything but a natural place and a movement coach might be just the thing you need.

I found out about Kevin Andrews via an interesting piece he wrote about the top 4 ways country music can compete with pop music performances.

Being a choreographer for hire, he does focus on that element of what country artists can do to up their stage show but also discusses rehearsing the performance on stage and not letting your lighting become a light show. The latter works in other genres but not so well in country music.

In the following video he gets down to some very basic concepts for stage performance:

Play YouTube video

3 Quick Artist Movement Tips

Andrews says he’s worked with such stars as LeAnn Rimes, Big & Rich and Alan Jackson. It would be really interesting to see those interactions but from the article and the video we can see two basic keys:

Maintain an awareness of how you’re presenting yourself to your audience so that you’re not cutting yourself off with the mic or inadvertently closing off from your audience.

Have some choreographed moves in place that you can draw on at appropriate moments without making your act seem totally choreographed.

Of course the details will differ based on the size of stage and your musical genre but a movement coach or choreographer might be just what you need even if you don’t want any dance steps or choreographed material.

Much Of Movement Coaching Isn’t About Choreography

Note Andrews’ advice in the video about holding the mic on stage with the hand furthest away from the audience so that your arm isn’t blocking your upper body from view.

That’s not something you choreograph. It’s more a habit you develop that you can carry through everything you do onstage. Because the underlying principle is to never turn your back on your audience and when you turn to the side to keep your body open to the audience.

Someone who’s trained to view detailed movement can help you with that and point out the moments you’re most likely to lose track of the underlying principle. But they’ll probably start like Andrews with a very specific and important technique from which you’ll learn concepts that you can apply throughout your performance.

Analyzing videos of your performance focusing only on the movement and presentations can also be of help. A trained eye can teach you how to see the details that matter without getting distracted by all the other stuff happening onstage.

Here’s A Different Example

Here’s a quick example of what an outside eye can do:

I saw a young rapper in Raleigh years ago who had a strong presence on stage and well-developed songs for someone at that level of the game which basically meant he had the potential to go further.

But he had this habit of bending one of his knees in time to the music and following through with his thigh kind of bouncing up into the air. It was a fairly large consistent movement far beyond tapping your foot to the beat. The problem was he was initiating the movement on the beat but visually speaking the movement suggested that the beat occurred when his thigh reached the top of its arc.

That meant his leg always looked like it was behind the beat which he was rapping to in perfect rhythm. It also meant that his stage show was characterized by that one movement.

It’s the kind of thing his friends would say doesn’t matter and he might reject as an issue because it felt natural.

But when was the last time you saw a pro with a real career distinctly moving in the same offbeat manner through every song?

I can’t think of anybody.

Guest Post – What Drives You to Buy Independent?

OCTOBER 7, 2014 BY LINDAGHILL

With the abundance of self-publishing that’s going on these days, much of what we run into when browsing through e-books are novels written by independent authors–writers without traditional publishers. Being that it’s relatively easy to upload your own shiny new novel to Kindle and Kobo, and it’s potentially a free enterprise, everyone and his mother are doing it, with or without the talent to back them up. The quality of said self-published works is a fairly hot topic, but not one I want to discuss today. (Been there, done that, wrote the blog post.)

My question today is a little more simple: what is it that compels you to buy an independently published book? Is it the normally $2.99 or less price tag? Or is it something more friendly?

With so many self-published authors blogging on sites like WordPress, everyone has the opportunity to get to know his or her favourite writer on a more personal level than ever before. The way I see it, this is a bonus for everyone involved. Not only do the readers get to see, potentially, what inspires the characters and places they enjoy, but for the writer I believe it supplies the opportunity to sell more books. Getting to know an author as a person and not just the shadow behind the words we love to read is a treat. If you haven’t looked them up by way of the website they provide in their novels, do! It’s a situation that just doesn’t happen with writers like Stephen King and Danielle Steele. They might give up a little of their personal lives, but not enough that we can relate to them or get to know them as real people.

Do you “know” any independent authors – and has knowing them compelled you to buy their books? Is it the price tag? Is it to support the little guy in the big world of publishing? Or is it something else altogether that drives you to buy independent? Please, share your experience!

Linda

http://lindaghill.com/

A clear writing mindset: Quitting sugar and Google

A clear writing mindset: Quitting sugar and Google
by Alex
Late last month, I felt like I was in a rut, trying to finish a short story for a collection. I’m still not done, but I feel like the end is in sight after a period in which it couldn’t have seemed further off. A few changes helped me get back in the right mindset.

The Internet is often portrayed as an enormous distraction for writers. Writers like Jonathan Franzen have even made a big deal about disabling their networks in order to get some work done. I can understand the impulse. But I don’t think such severe blanket action is needed.

Instead, I believe that many writers (and everyone else, too) would be amazed at what life is like if you just give up on Google’s services. No Gmail, no YouTube, and no Search. Giving them up wasn’t too bad for me since I’m not a big YouTube watcher and find Search too filtered and customized, so I understand how this technique may not be that extensible.

Still, avoiding Google’s endless abyss of answers is liberating. If I wanted to know something, I would consult a book or use DuckDuckGo if I had to – both of which require much more effort. Not having it there to lean on was amazing – I could just write or think instead of trying to sate my curiosity about an inconsequential question.

Around the same time that I went off Google, I went off sugar. Not completely, but pretty close. I don’t even put sweetener of any kind in my coffee now. After I felt terrible for days (sugar really is a drug, and withdrawal is palpable), I eventually felt much calmer and happier. It felt good to just write and not feel the background urge to eat something really sweet, which would take away time and then set me up for a crash after the high wore off.

Being a writer doesn’t entail being puritanical like this (quite the opposite, in fact). I might relapse eventually – low-stakes, since we’re talking about Google and sugar, not something more serious – but it’s refreshing to know that it’s not that hard to upend your entire experience of the world with a few simple actions