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a rare sport on the other side of the world saved his life - now he wants to give back.

“Chinlone and soccer – same family. There’s just something better about manipulating a ball with your feet, whether it’s keeping it in the air or to score goals with it or whatever. And then to do it as a team, there is something really extraordinary about that – extraordinarily difficult and you know, you’re just part of this weird fabulous thing. You know we are so good at using our hands, but a foot sport is just like wow – its odd in a way and it shows something about humans who would do something so odd and be driven to do so out of nothing more than the joy of it.”

A team combination of sport and dance with no opposing team, Chinlone, a sport native to Myanmar, is essentially a non-competitive exercise not too dissimilar to juggling a soccer ball. There is no scoreboard, no winner, no loser, however the sport is as physically demanding as any. Those who come to know it, practice it, seldom master it, yet find they are nearly unable to live without it.

Greg Hamilton is such a man, and Mystic Ball, the documentary film he made with movie partner Matthew London was his first gift back to the sport. In the years since its creation, it has won numerous awards and prizes, and Greg has continued giving back, as the sport continues to bestow gifts on him.

A year ago this November I spoke to Greg about his long journey through life to Chinlone, and struck up one of those friendships that could only exist in our digital world. I had just seen Mystic Ball, and though it had nothing at all to do with soccer, the visual similarities were too striking for me to let it pass. What I found on the other end of an e-mail, after a long long phone conversation, forced my hand. I had to share it. It’s not American soccer, but American soccer could learn something from chinlone.

But the world got in the way. Greg’s global traveling, from film festivals to Myanmar, hindered my deadlines. Our mutual hope that the film would be purchased for theatrical release had me holding the story in hopes of timely publication. But it didn’t happen that way. And then a few thousand monks started marching… and here we are.

Chinlone is a search for community, and it should be no surprise that Greg, after beating back the anger of his childhood through martial arts, would be drawn to something like Chinlone, Myanmar, and the people of Mandalay. And once you read the interview, it should be no surprise why people are drawn to Greg. But it started much more simply than that. There was no spiritual lightning bolt when Hamilton happened upon a man juggling an unusual, woven ball in a park in Toronto. But there was a sense he needed to learn more. He had to know what it was. I had to know why? After the jump begins our 3-part conversation, with parts 2 and 3 following in the coming days.

Hamilton amid the Burmese bamboo

For the sake of people who will be unfamiliar with ‘Mystic Ball’ and chinlone, let’s start with a little background. You have years of footage in the film, more than a decade. Where does this story begin for you?

What happened was that I introduced a friend of mine, Matthew (co-producer, living in NYC), to chinlone and he started playing. I had an idea to try and promote Chinlone and thought of trying to take a team on tour. In 1997 we went there and it quickly became obvious that it was impossible to get passports for the players. The idea morphed from there to us thinking we could make a little film about Chinlone. Neither one of us had made a film before. We figured it would come together quickly, of course it didn’t.
So that’s how it started. Initially, I was not going to be in the film, just Chinlone was enough – it filled up my whole screen. When we tried to raise money to make the film, all the film industry people we talked to, told us we had no story and no drama. You’ll appreciate this one - we thought maybe we could get Pele to be a celebrity guide in the film. We tried to contact him, but he never got back to us. Then, because I knew a lot about Chinlone and had been playing for so long, I started to think that maybe I could be the guide into the world of Chinlone in the film. Bit by bit the film kept asking for more of my story, until finally my story became a central feature of the film.

In that regard, I really wanted more of you in there. For example we don’t really learn that much of your background beyond that quick few minutes that wraps up your biological family and childhood.

Right. I can’t tell you how difficult it was for me to be in the film. I wanted the film to be all about Chinlone. I think that most people don’t look at themselves and think their trip is all that interesting, at least I don’t. So you know, I didn’t want my story to overshadow or get in the way of, or take anything away from Chinlone. If it was left up to me, it would have been 90 minutes of pure Chinlone playing, you’d meet Su Su and a few of the players, but the focus would be purely on the game. But of course I couldn’t make that film, or to put it another way, I couldn’t sell that film. So, yeah, it was really hard, me being in the film was really hard. All of the footage that you see that happens before 2001 was never intended to go in the film. Any of the pre 2001 footage we shot in order to make little demos and videos to try and raise money, they were basically home videos.

And this was to fund the tour. Right?

Yeah. It was really expensive. We took crews from America on two separate occasions in two different years.

I was taken by the quality of the footage. It was shot beautifully with thoughtful camera angles. I have to admit I was expecting something much less professional out of the film.

Hmm. Yeah, you need to see it on a big screen with a good projection.

Hopefully in New York in the future?

Yes, hopefully; we’re trying to make that happen (laughs)!

In that regard, I’d love for you to fill in a few gaps about your past. The film touches on your martial arts, but what were you doing in Toronto? What was your life like, what was your livelihood before you became engulfed in chinlone?

Up until chinlone I played music and did martial art mostly.

So you earned a living playing gigs or teaching martial arts?

I was teaching, but I wasn’t making any money from that. But yeah, from playing music and any little odd jobs that could help support the martial arts.

Would you describe yourself as involved in the martial art as you came to be in chinlone?

Oh yeah, absolutely. Another few years and I would have opened my own place. I was deeply involved in that.

And the music?

That was more out of love. If I could make some money from time to time that was great, but I wasn’t a studio musician or an everyday gigging musician.

Quick sidebar: what kind of music do you like?

Oh, I love just about every kind of music you could imagine. I love Brazilian music, all kinds of jazz, world music.

Who are some of your jazz favorites? I’m a big jazz fan, so I’m just curious. We won’t linger here, but I could talk about jazz forever.

Coltrane, of course. I love Alice Coltrane. Do you know Moacir Santos?

Yeah.

You do!? That’s excellent. Do you know Ouro Negro?

It’s one of his ablums, but I can’t go too far there. not quite bossa, not quite anything. People rave about his arrangements.

Yes, well that’s an extraordinary album you’d definitely want. Black Gold.

Consider it done. Sorry about that. I just get can’t let the music go that easy. And see I’ve found a new album to get.

You know, Chinlone is a lot like jazz.

I was taken by the musical accompaniment at the chinlone festival. The way the players in the circle and in the bands played off each other.

Right. What happens inside the circle is that the soloist is supported by the other five players, and that support is very intricate. You’d be shocked at how intricate it is. As a supporter you can influence the soloist. You can quicken their playing, for example and affect the kind of movements the person is stringing together. So, similar to an accompanist in jazz, as a supporter, you can help to shape the whole solo.

That’s a great metaphor, which leads me to how and why I found ‘Mystic Ball’. As you know, soccer is my game, and while there are the obvious superficial comparisons, it really ends with stretched metaphors. There really isn’t much there. You, for instance, had zero soccer background.

Ok, this is interesting. I grew up in Canada and when I was a kid, they didn’t teach us soccer at all. I’ve never played soccer, ever - period. The first time I ever saw soccer juggling was in the 70’s when I used to hang out with some Jamaican guys and I saw them keeping a soccer ball up. I was like, WOW what is this? I tried and was no good at it, but something kind of struck me.
Anyway, I’m a rabid fan of World Cup. I’m a fan of soccer now, but not enough to watch it all the time. But when World Cup is on, I’m no good for anything else, because I have to watch every game. So I had no foot skills whatsoever coming into Chinlone. No soccer skills. No juggling skills.
That blows me away, but it’s almost perfect in some way, making the story that much more amazing. How you found this new foreign thing out of nowhere.

Yeah, it’s interesting. I saw this one guy playing and somehow it got deep inside my blood. I couldn’t find a ball, so I used to crumple up paper and make these little balls to try and keep up. I was selling stereos at the time as a way to pay for the martial art. And I started playing with these paper balls or trying anyway, even when I was supposed to be working. Because, for some reason, I knew I needed to do this thing.

So now decades later, you don’t have an urge to try soccer? You obviously have this amazing footwork.

I have people coming up to me all the time when they see me playing, especially how I used to play when I would chase the ball all over and it was really a more chaotic type of play then what you see in the film. After 16-17 years, I got pretty good at keeping the ball up in the air while running and changing direction. So people would always come up to me and say ‘hey, so you’re a soccer player, right?’ And I’d say, “no”. And then soccer players would come up. ‘You play soccer?’ No, and they’d be like ‘man, you should be playing soccer. You should play for Canada or something.’ I had mixed feelings, first of all, I’m 53 now, so it’s a bit late to start soccer. But I do have this feeling inside that, I sure wish I had played soccer when I was a kid. Because I’m sure I would have loved it, and maybe been ok at it. But it’s just a bit late to be charging around playing it, you know?

Yeah. That was one of the things that struck me as the film went over your past briefly. You spoke about being orphaned and getting picked on, and then funneling your anger into martial arts. So many people I come to meet through soccer have similar stories about how soccer saved them or at least gave them an outlet and some focus. And people from different backgrounds who immigrated into America found soccer to be one of, if not the first place they found a community of people, a home if you will.

Yeah, you’re right. I look at soccer that way and I love that it really mixes up all kinds of people with different backgrounds. It’s great. I was rooting for Brazil in the World Cup, but they didn’t look right, and then Argentina just looked fantastic. And I’ve been rooting for Africa one way or another since the last World Cup when Senegal played so well.

One of my favorite quotes from the film, I believe spoken by you if memory serves, was that “most sports aren’t playful,” in reference to chinlone being a non-competitive sport. And it just struck me as really much deeper than the statement led on, which by the way happened a lot in the film for me. But to draw it out, that as kids we’re all taught just in the language that you go and play soccer, or play baseball.

Yeah. Absolutely. I watched a few minutes of the baseball series that was on, and I thought, man, that is just the most non-playful stuff I could imagine, you know? It was when I was watching U Than Gyi, the master Chinlone ball-maker, and this one chubby buddy of his that takes the flip on the ground in the film, and right then it just struck me. Almost all competitive sports are not playful. Chinlone has this spirit in it, you start playing and five or ten minutes later, everybody is laughing and smiling. Aside from how much fun it is, the game is so difficult to play that even the best players often end up looking funny. It’s a real serious challenge, and I’ll tell you an interesting thing. I don’t say it in the film, but all of those players over there, all of the men definitely, played soccer pretty seriously, and they all say this is more difficult. It’s super difficult, more than it might appear.

So will they go out and play soccer still?

Some of them still play soccer, but mostly it turns out that once you fall in love with this, you tend to drop other sports stuff because it’s difficult to maintain the level of skill.

The difficulty is another thing that amazed me. The moves were outrageous with bodies contorting and reflexes impossibly quick, yet here were these old guys who could barely walk holding their own inside the circle.

Absolutely. Exactly. Another beautiful thing is that the old guys are included, of course, but they have an older style, just like in soccer I suppose, but they have this older more elegant style that the young guys, who are playing a faster more acrobatic style, really still cherish. Of course the older guys are like ‘yeah, well we play better than these younger acrobatic guys.’ They tend not to drop the ball as much, the older guys. You get all the young guys watching a bunch of 70-80-year-old guys play and they give them tons of respect.

I loved the guy who played for a few minutes and then dropped out saying, “I’m pooped,” but while he is in there, his reflexes are on par with the best, and then he turns to leave and he can barely walk and has to sit down almost immediately.

Right and you may have noticed, his legs don’t even straighten out all the way. But he comes everyday and plays for a while and sits and watches. Man, I just am sooo super lucky to have found this in my life. And maybe this is something people find in soccer, but for me, I need to do something that just takes my whole being to do it. I never got enough of that even in martial art. One thing I love about Chinlone is that I can go full out at it, and afterwards, no one else is humiliated, knocked-down or knocked-out or whatever. Like I said, I love soccer, but I’ve lost interest in most competitive sports. Most sports I see as forms of fighting, and fighting isn’t always bad, but Chinlone I see as a form of loving, and I’d like to get closer to the loving part of life.

Which brings us to one of my other favorite quotes from the film. You said it right after the quick bio vignette. You said, “I could kick people, but that was different.” And it was a masterful piece of editing from my perspective, because it stood for much more, again, than what the basic definition of what the words meant. You were speaking about kicking the chinlone ball, but for me it was a real reflection on your growth through a troubled past.

Well, you are good at remembering lines from the film. I really had mixed feelings about martial art. I loved to do it, to be strong and quick and all that stuff, but at the same time I really didn’t like hitting people, which was kind of a dilemma.

The film kind of leads one to believe you got into the martial art to funnel your anger, after being bullied and teased throughout your childhood about your mixed race and being a foster child. Is that accurate?

Yes, there were a few reasons I was attracted to martial art. I’d been street fighting for a long time and had gotten quite good at it, you know in the schoolyard because of name calling, or whatever. I actually used to fight for other kids because I had a bit of a nack. And it was partly because I wanted to fight with style. I saw Bruce Lee and all of these Chinese kung-fu movies, and I thought - damn, this just looks way better than the way I’m doing it. Another reason was that I became afraid that I might kill someone, because I had had some bad things happen. I had a lot of rage inside, and when you have rage and you can fight and there’s enough people around who can push your buttons, then … you know what I mean? So I really wanted to be able to control myself, and know when enough would be enough. You know there’s always lots of reasons for things like this, and I think just plain ego had something to do with it as well.

How old were you when you started martial arts?

I started when I was maybe 15 or 16, and then I messed around with a few different martial arts and then when I was maybe early 20’s I started to get serious about it.

So how much time between the martial arts kicking into a high gear until you found chinlone?

Probably about 10-11 years.

So that puts you in your early thirties when you found chinlone?

Yeah I was about 28 when I first saw Chinlone and 30 when I started to play.

The time you first saw the guy in the park kicking the ball around, correct?

Yes, it was 1981 the first time I saw Chinlone, and I knew I had to learn how to play, but I couldn’t get a ball for two years. And when I finally got a ball and started to play, I was shocked at how difficult it was, in spite of the coordination I’d developed from doing martial art. Right away I thought, this is going to give me an edge over the other people I’m sparring with.

Playing everyday?

Playing everyday and still doing martial art every night and training.

And you’re working a job during the day at some point in there?

(laughing) Yeah. But then I started designing and making jewelry and other things. I design various things , so I could do that around my other interests, like martial art. It was more flexible than having a full-time job. Playing with the Chinlone ball did have the effect I thought it would. I started to get an edge over the people I was sparring with, but then, it totally absorbed me. Chinlone was just so much fun. I like to do something that is an end in itself, as opposed to preparing for something.

The sports analogy being you want to play in a game, but not necessarily practice?

No. In martial art, especially the Chinese style I was doing, much of what you are doing is working on form and shadow boxing. So a lot of it was preparing for when you might fight. Whereas with Chinlone, every kick is complete. Even if I’m playing alone, it’s a complete thing in itself. Obviously there is no score, but I’m not preparing for anything. It’s an end in itself, like making love. So I’ve always loved that aspect of Chinlone.

You said it took two years to get a ball. Take me through that process.

Well, there were no balls available here in Canada. What happened was that I went to Asia for the first time in ’83, in Thailand I saw similar balls, got one and started playing. I was in Southeast Asia for about a year on that first trip, and decided I wanted to live in Indonesia. I came back to Canada for about year before I moved to Indonesia. I stayed there for 5 or 6 years and played all the time.

Yeah, ok, so the film doesn’t really spend anytime on that – on your living in Asia. So you actually spent years living over there, not in Myanmar, Burma or chinlone country, but the general region.

Yes, in that whole time I only made one trip to Burma in ‘86, which you see in the film. There are some photos from then. But it was too difficult for me at that time. I just didn’t have enough foot skills to learn anything really. And so, all it did was inspire me and I went off and continued the chaotic style I was doing on my own. Sometimes I played with a few friends, sort of like you see in the film. Although I was in the region of Myanmar, living in Indonesia or Thailand, it was much different. It wasn’t like being around the Burmese style of the game.

And how did you support yourself while living over there?

I was designing things. I designed textiles for awhile and was designing jewelry in Thailand. I used to make things and bring them back over here sometimes and sell them. I was trying to sell jewelry in Japan. (laughing) Whatever would work.

So you found a ball and played with it constantly. We see in the film how the ball is woven by hand similar to how many people will think of a wicker basket. Being made of natural rattan, I’m curious how long a chinlone ball can last?

That’s a good question. It depends on how hard you are kicking it and what surface you are playing on. Obviously if you are playing on asphalt, the ball will come apart fairly quickly. It’s a tough question because it depends on the quality of the cane. But I would say that you have at least 6 months or a year, maybe a couple of years, depending on how well you take care of it.

That was just one of those little curiosities I had.

Oh, please, ask anything.
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Check back tomorrow for the rest of the interview. Check out the film’s website to learn more about chinlone and join the mailing list for updates about Greg’s journey and to find out when DVDs will be available.