When you put together a cosplay performance in your mind, at first all you can see is the epicness and grandeur of the idea and concept and how awesomely amazing it would look on stage. Then you start to understand the complexity of what you have thought out and what it would take to accomplish and all you can think of is which would be less painful - to kill yourself with a gun or a knife. Ahh, I’m just messing with you. But there is at least some serious head banging against the wall for a while.

And then you start, step by step. Being the perfectionists that we are, me and my partner in crime Toh decided that everything must be perfect. So we started training. Thankfully though my work in the movie industry, I was able to reach out to some professionals for help. One such person who immediately responded (and with enormous enthusiasm, I must add) was Joro. He is a stuntman and he is as crazy (if not even more) as I am. He took on the challenge and trained Toh and me in the art of stage fighting and did our choreography. So from the beginning of November all the way to March (almost 6 month – wayyyy not enough time) we spent hours of repetitions two times a week in order to prepare our less than 3-minute long fight scene.

Truth be told, the first couple of months were just getting us into shape and learning how and why the swords were supposed to move. And we started repeating and repeating and repeating the movements and choreography. And then, when we had repeated the movements soooo many times that we wanted to just throw up, Joro came and said “And now, I want you to believe that you are a Jedi.” This is the moment of magic that translates to the stage. The difference between actually believing in what you are doing and repeating the same movements over and over again.

That is why even though what you saw on stage was a series of fails, it was still an amazing performance that people loved and appreciated. And the reaction of the audience was the reason why all the pain, sweat, bruises and 6-hour wait at the customs for the light-sabers was worth the wait. That and hearing the customs clerk say “Ahh, those things that go Whoosh-Whoosh in the movies” when he recognized the light-sabers or using the saber as a door-light ‘cause you got home too late and it was already dark outside.