Sometimes the road curves

Even when you think you know where you're going, you really don't. You only know where you mean to go, or want to go.

Sometimes, it looks like a straight shot of road, right down to your destination, and then you crest a hill and shit! There's a curve there. You couldn't see it from where you started. You had to be halfway down the road before it stood out.

There's nothing wrong with a curve. That whole phrase about "It's the journey, not the destination?" Sure. I guess it all depends on what you consider your destination to be. I think it still helps to have a goal in mind. Eye on the prize. But I also think that when life throws you a curve, you bloody well look around and see what's hiding there. Even if what's there is hard or scary or too much or too big.

Edison said, "Opportunity is missed by most people because it is dressed in overalls and looks like work."

A lot of things look like work.
Does that means a lot of things are opportunities?

Tempest's Teapot

If you don't already read Tempest's blog, you should. No, really. I don't care if you're not Goth/Orientale/Fusion. She's awesome and clever. Her most recent blog is about why (and how) you should think about your audience: http://darklydramatic.blogspot.com/2011/08/captive-audience-understanding.html

Break It Down Now

I introduce you all to my new project: The dissection of ATS.

While I enjoy the simplicity of ATS on those who care to perform it sans "decoration", I have learned that the format doesn't entirely suit me. Neither, though, do I care to completely redesign the improv vocabulary I grew up with. Modifying the wheel-- rather than reinventing-- tends to be my style. I draw on my shoes and toss glitter on everything. "Can't leave well enough alone" is probably a good phrase here.

So this puts me in an interesting place. I get to examine each part of ATS and decide: Does it work for me? For my students? Do I like the look? Is there something similar that I can substitute?

This has already started happening. My students are taught, at the end of the choo-choo arc, to open their arms like a flower, rather than that swing-the-arms-overhead-and-down thing that FCBD does. We saw BlackSheep doing it and liked it better.

Another example of a soon-to-be-changed-in-my-format move is the "Arabic Drop Drop Drop."
The issue I kept having was twofold: 1, there's supposed to be 3 drops. Really it's more complicated than that, but in basic terms, you arabic (an undulation up in on yer toes) twice and then level down while dropping your chest 3 times. On the fourth beat you rise back up to standing. Lemme tell you, it's really hard to actually get 3 drops in 3 beats. It's also hard to chest drop when you're leveled down too far. Problem 2: Chest drops are pretty hard to begin with, especially for more inexperienced dancers or those with sizeable chests. As a result, they thrust their shoulders back and forth, which ain't graceful and ain't what the move is about.
So I hemmed and hawwed about this for a while-- maybe I should just drill it, maybe I should research it, blah blah. I went and found actual video of Fat Chance themselves actually doing it, and saw, Lo! Half the time they don't get the 3 drops in, either, especially when the song is fast. So it's not just me. It's the move. Watch here, at about 2:12 (after the arms come down-- that's the cue for the dropping):

So I decided, right then and there, that the Arabic Drop-Drop-Drop was getting the axe. Maybe not the whole move, but it's going to be trimmed or altered in some way so it's not such a pain in my ass.

Some people might get their britches in a bunch over my outright gutting of this dance form. That's fine. I could get twitchy at people who insist on wearing khakis and pastel polo shirts year-round, but I figure without people to hold the line, there's no way for me to toe (or cross, or dance atop) that line.

All the ATS vocabulary aside, this seems like a useful exercise for any dancer to do, especially if you've been taking classes/self-teaching and not questioning what you've been taught. Obviously dancing in a group situation (whether it's improv or a choreography) places certain limits on what you can change, but if you're a soloist or troupe leader, take some time to review what you do. Look in the mirror and see what you like. Something that looked great on your teacher might look crappy on you, unless you're her twin. My friend Amy Danielson (of The Gypsy Kiss) just posted a rather long article similar to this-- about questioning those things that are "right" in your mind. Link: http://www.paulgraham.com/say.html

Indian Fusion

I found this piece really well performed. Most fusion I've seen that draws on Classical Indian dance is fast and bouncy-- whereas this.... isn't. I don't wanna spoil it for you. :)

Personal

I was thinking today about something I heard once. I believe the context was in retail-- specifically, the handmade retail scene. It was: "What people want most is a piece of you." The thought is that out of all the things people can get, the one thing they'll never have is the ability to be someone else. So they, the customer, love having something that feels like a bit of someone else. That's why people go crazy when they're offered the chance to buy anything a famous person once owned.

I feel the same goes with dancing. People want a taste of YOU. The trouble is finding "you" under all your video-watching and training and popular costuming.

Think about your personal style. I don't mean your dancing, I mean your clothes, the interior of your home, your overall aesthetic. How did you get that? How long did it take? What influenced you? Who influenced you? Do you even realize how deep your influences run?

It took me a long time to realize that some of my dress style was inspired, long long ago, by Claudia from The Babysitter's Club. Big LOL there.

So when I dance, I can see some obvious influences. ATS in general and my first ATS teacher, for example, are always floating on top. Under that is a random mix of every other dancer I've ever YouTube-stalked or whose DVD I've watched. There's other stuff, too-- my love for Classical Indian dance, the soft spot for swing music, the desire to live in a Neo-Victorian fantasy world. Where am "I" in all this? Am I the sum of my parts, or is there some other element that makes me ME?

How do I let myself be me without forgetting all the things I've learned? How do I take the training and aesthetic of others and twist it and shape it around myself? Personally, that's my goal. I don't want to look like another dancer. I'd like to stand out. I'd like my solos to stand out from other solos (not "be better than" but rather "be memorable") and I'd like my improv to stand out, as well-- both in excellent execution and in interesting vocabulary.

It takes time, and the relaxation of the perfection muscles. Everyone has some epic wardrobe fail, one where you realized part way through the day that your shirt/skirt/shoes were a very bad idea and you wished you could crawl into the floor to escape the sudden embarrassment. Without that eff-up, you wouldn't have a catalog of "don'ts", just as if you don't keep track of what works, you never have a list of "dos." Play is essential.

Enough deep thoughts for the moment. I hope to blog more about other stuff in the future.

I startled myself.

Tonight I was teaching an ultimate beginner's class and was explaining Tribal posture-- how it's strong, regal, and uplifted. I started to talk about what it's done for my general posture over the years-- namely, that I used to slouch terribly and look at the floor and hang my head a lot. Now, I walk with my head up. I square my shoulders. I look at people. As I was explaining, I suddenly came up with this awesome phrase, with thanks to Terry Pratchett:

A material takes the form of the container it's in.
If you pour milk into a vase, you have vase-shaped milk.
If you pour milk into a bowl, you have bowl-shaped milk.
What happens if you pour your being into the body of a strong, confident woman?

How I practice

I broadly group my practices into three types:
1. General.
2. Performance.
3. Play.

1: I think it's very very important to practice what you know. Especially in dance forms like ATS/ITS, if you don't use it, you lose it. For a while I had a list of every move my troupe did, and I'd run through all of them. I also had them on flashcards so I could randomly select a few and practice transitioning between them.

Also in "General" is practicing the smallest pieces of what we do. Explore the range of movement you have, and drill that range over and over until it expands. A teacher I sometimes work with suggested doing top-to-bottom and bottom-to-top undulations over and over. She also suggested doing them in every direction-- to the front, front-right, straight right, and so on. Lemme tell you, that sort of movement (although I don't really use it on stage) works muscles I didn't know I had.

Varying what you practice is important. Work different muscle groups. Work your brain. Keep yourself sharp.

2: If you have a performance coming up, practice what you'll be performing. Practice it like you're on stage. Don't stop and go back if you eff up. You won't have that option on stage, so don't give it to yourself in practice (or, at least, not always. If you're really confused, stop and fix the issue and then move on). Practice in your costume, including any jewelry or hair pieces you're wearing. You'll learn, in advance, that your bracelet snags your veil or your headpiece falls off when you lean backward (this latter issue was my most recent "Aw, crap"). If you have to wear shoes at the venue, practice in them. If you play zils, practice with them. Don't cut corners. Especially don't cut corners if you're being paid. They are not paying you to half-ass.

3: Even if dancing (or teaching dance) is your job, you started because it was fun, right? Geez, I hope so. It needs to remain fun. Even when there's hard work, endless drills, aching muscles, there needs to be play. Experimentation leads to discovery. I really didn't believe this for a long time. I just drilled and drilled and drilled. It wasn't until I decided to step away from "pure" ATS that I felt the freedom to experiment. I make up my own combos. I choreograph songs. Both come from letting myself play with music that I love. Sometimes I have to "watch myself" when I experiment-- if I'm choreographing a piece, I'll free dance and see what I come up with. If I like what I did, I write it down and try it again. Sometimes I get so caught up in the moment that I forget what I did. So I record myself, usually doing the same song a few times in a row to see what I repeat (and to give myself a chance to forget the camera is there). It's still play.
When you play, don't restrict yourself. Don't worry that your dancing isn't precise enough, or that you're not using "real moves." Just dance, damnit. Turn the pressure cooker off for a while. Stop thinking. Just move around until you forget there's any other option.

An overuse of italics.

Sometimes things don't work out.

You can practice your steps, run through your choreography a million times, test out that costume, triple check your music, plan for every possible eventuality, and BAM! Something goes wrong. Call it Murphy's Law, or call it what I do: Life. Yep. That's how life is. You think you know what's going on, but that's an illusion you feed yourself so you don't go loco. We have no idea what is going to happen. We can only plan for the worst and hope for the best.

I often find that the more stress I put on myself to "do good," the less good I actually do. My troupe calls it "chasing the awesome." The more awesome you try to be, the less awesome you tend to ACTUALLY be. This doesn't mean you should stop practicing, or planning, or thinking, but it does mean that you need to find the line between "trying" and "trying too hard" and then go up to the line, but no further.

Now, if you've effed up-- I mean really effed up-- you can feel free to examine why/how/when that happened. Let's say you have a wardrobe malfunction on stage. Did you practice the piece in the costume? Did you make sure it was constructed well before putting it on? Did you check the venue to see if the costume was appropriate for it (i.e., "Gee, I really wish I hadn't worn that white chiffon to the rainy day of Ren Faire")?

If you figure out where you effed up, make a note of what you did and how to avoid it, and move the fuck on. Seriously. Holding onto that "Oh damnit, I messed up" feeling does nothing to help you. Don't use it as an excuse to stop trying ("I'm just not good enough") or to work yourself to death ("I'll practice until I can't possibly mess up."). Accept the fact that you're human, that everyone knows you're human, that mistakes show you're not a television show, and get over it.

Have you ever preplanned a conversation that you're afraid to have? Where you try and guess what will be said, and come up with answers to it in advance. So you're "prepared." So you're less afraid.

Did it help? I mean, really help? I have found that just as often as not, I cannot predict what someone will do or say. I think they'll get mad and they don't. Or I figure it'll be fine and it's not. All my planning does, usually, is give me a false sense of security. It's like a screensaver for my brain.

Worrying does nothing. It does not cure sickness, or prevent accidents, or keep your CD from skipping during the number right in front of the famous dancer. All it does is raise your heart rate and use up time that you could be spending on, I dunno, something productive and/or fun.

Sometimes things don't work out. And that's okay.

Want

I really, really, REALLY want this bra.

New Ways of Talking

I am very very fond of this set. Especially the first two pieces. The last one... not so sure. Very silly and not meant to be taken as Serious Dance, obviously, and that's fine by me. We all need some of that sometimes. And it's Unmata, so they can get away with an awful lot. I'm not going to go into whether this is bellydance or not, because A. I don't care and B. that's not the discussion right now.

A little picking apart...
I love Unmata's improv. As a student of ATS, I really enjoy seeing what people do with it. It's sort of like a cover song-- the interesting parts are both what you change what you keep.
In Unmata's case, I am agog at how well everything fits together. This goes far beyond adding in a "new" move or three. This is Amy Sigil's own style. While some core ATS can still be seen, nothing looks like "ATS with a different hat on."
This is really hard to do.
For one, it takes balls. There are about a bazillion ATS dancers, it seems, with a range of devotion from "Oh, yeah, it's fun, but whatever" to "OMG ATS IS LAW." When you learn someone else's dance style, you need to have respect-- but how you show your respect is your choice. Maybe it inspires you to emulate that style as perfectly as you can. Or maybe it inspires you to save the things you like and rebuild it from the ground up. Either one takes big brass balls.

For two, it's difficult. You can't just add in a few hip-hop moves and call it a cohesive vocabulary. That's why ATS can be a very difficult starting point. ATS proper-- Fat Chance, we're talking-- has such a specific aesthetic. You can't toss a Bollywood move in there and call it good. It'll stand out in a bad way. All your moves have to keep the same flavor, and that takes a lot of time and effort.
Other tricksy things are the technical aspects of the steps. Let's just say we're keeping the aesthetic of basic ATS but adding in steps that don't exist yet. How do you cue them? You need to make sure the cues are strong, can be viewed from the back, will not be confused with any other cue. Not only must you have a handle on your moves, but you have to know, understand and properly cue every other step, or at least every one in that half of the vocab (slow/fast). You have to know where the holes are. You have to be able to say, "Well, we don't turn our heads in the Egyptian, so that's a possible cue." You also need to avoid overlap. There's no point in having two moves that are essentially the same from the audience's standpoint. Again, you need to be able to see holes: "Hey, we don't do any fast hip circles. Let's build something off that."

For three, you need to practice the shit out of things. Watch the improv at the beginning of the clip and see: even when the cues happen, and there's sometimes that slight delay between the leader and the follower, the followers always catch up quickly. You don't much notice it unless you're looking for it. Another point-- when they're moving, arms undulating low, they're all in pace with one another. There's no competition. Everyone is on the same page. Everyone knows the music. Everyone knows to follow the leader. The inventor of the steps is on stage, and she's following the leader. She'd follow them even when they fucked up. They'd make it work. And how does it work? A metric ton of solid practicing.
You have to believe in it, too. You can't have your "own style" and not really follow through. Watch groups who dance straight ATS but have a move or two of their own-- when those moves come up in a piece, you can see the pride shining through. The pride needs to be there the entire time. 

This new improv is so interesting to me because I'm working toward the same. Unmata's steps are lovely, and while I occasionally borrow from them, their aesthetic is not mine. The same goes for all the improv troupes I watch: Fat Chance, Black Sheep, Wildcard. But since I started with ATS, my performance troupe is mostly ATS, and my students know mostly ATS, I can't just shift gears straight into something new. It will take time and experience to create this new thing. I have to slowly reshape and rebuild the vocabulary to suit my vision. Yes, I just said vision. I effing hate that phrase, but it's the best I've got. And I'm tired of typing "aesthetic."

Sometimes I need to be in the right mood....

....and that mood is last-minute panic.

I have a performance tomorrow, and am nervous. I thought this was a good thing to talk about.

My first solo was at a retirement home. I was down in Madison visiting some family and one of them asked if I would dance where she worked. At the time, I was eyeball deep in ATS, so that was my vocabulary. I was going to be dancing to music I'd never heard before (a band that played some crazy Caribbean drums), and I didn't have my costume along. I should have been more nervous, given the circumstance, but I wasn't. The only thing that bothered me was being suddenly center stage and not knowing anyone. Once I was going, though, I loved it. I wasn't afraid. I was able to think about what I was doing (like, "Oh, there are people behind me. So I'll split this move into two parts and use it to turn around and face the back for a while.") and I didn't freak out, even when the smoke from the campfire got into my eyes and a dropped my basket (which I caught).

I realized I really did like solos. It was kinda sacrilege at the time. I was an ATS dancer. We didn't just run off and do solos all the time. And I hadn't been "raised" (if drag queens have drag mamas, surely dancers have dance mamas) to dance to modern music. BUT I REALLY WANTED TO.

So my second solo was at an annual Halloween event. I could get away with a lot, it being themed and Halloween at that, so I threw everything I could at it. I dressed as the Bride of Frankenstein and danced to "Remains of the Day" from the Corpse Bride. People liked it. I was cute and silly. But I also felt like it wasn't *real* dancing. Theme pieces are so reliant on the theme that it's easy to cheat. Theoretically, you still should be dancing as well as you possibly can, but when the number is silly, or cute, well.... it's easy to let things get too silly and cute, to let the attitude and theme carry the piece. So though my number was liked at the show, I wasn't extremely pleased with it.

After the Haflaween, I was sorta put off solos. I had this strong feeling that I was cheating. I was mostly using ATS moves, trying to scrape the noticeable ATS off them, and setting them in a specific order as a choreography. It was really boring, at least to my eye and body. I wasn't stretching myself.

So my troupe kept doing shows and I kept doing solos. A few of them were within bigger shows, where we needed 3 minutes to fill and everyone else had already danced a lot and needed a break. A few were at haflas. None of them made me terribly nervous. I figured the more solos I did, the less nervous I would get. That's sorta true. Not completely, though.

I tried to add things to my vocabulary-- not just moves, but concepts. I had to break down the ATS first (and this is a topic all to itself) and then let other things trickle in. Drill, drill, drill, until my brain would let the new moves have a place in my body.

At one hafla, one of my students literally pushed me up to the music matron and said, "She's soloing!" But it was a push in the way that friends will push you to have a drink when you've had a really long day. I really wanted to do the solo. I'd danced to the song a million times. It was the venue making me nervous. Not only was there a mix of dancers I knew and dancers I didn't, but there was also a few non-dancer friends there, and they were all really close to the "stage," and ohgeezthey'reallygonnaseehowterribleIreallyam.

Performances in front of the public don't bother me. I do the very best I can, and realize that many of the viewers have not seen enough bellydance to know the bad from the okay and the good from the great. It's a dangerous and stupid thing to rely on, but at the same time I always have the thought of "Well, I'm a bellydancer. I'm magical to start with. Everything else is gravy."

So there's this show in the spring. I'm on a real stage, with real lighting, dancing in a real (piece-specific) costume to a real song and real choreography. There are real people AND real dancers in the audience.
I was on top of the world. I loved it, even though I forgot half the choreo and just sorta shimmy-walked around the stage. I'm still not happy with it-- or at least, not with most of it-- but I was glad that I finally had done a solo that wasn't just thrown together. I'd chosen the song last minute, true (because I was originally set to do a fan veil piece, but one of my fans broke), but it was a song that had been in my "oh, if I only had the nerve" pile for over a year. My personality showed more despite it being a themed piece.

That show was a few months ago. My students decided that they'd like to throw a "dirty song" hafla-- one for those songs that you really WANT to dance to, but just aren't appropriate for most venues. I liked that idea. So BLEEP Fest was born. I will talk more about this idea some other time. My students had some songs they wanted to do, all on their own, so I decided to go with a solo, just because the opportunity was too fun to let pass.

Hafla is tomorrow. I'm actually not as nervous as I thought I'd be. I've gone over the (very simple) choreography many many times. I need to practice it in my costume, and make sure I have my music, and do all the little things that will make me crazy if I don't figure them out in advance. Do my hair once. Do my makeup once. Take the mess my creative brain will devise and untangle it.

Overall, I'm not freaking out. I don't think it's because I'm "prepared." I've been prepared before. I've been so prepared as to be over-prepared. But this round, I'm lowering my expectations of myself. I don't need to be the most amazing dancer ever. I just need to be myself, do the best I can, and if I fuck up, let people see that I'm vulnerable. I personally love it when a high-octane instructor effs up and LETS YOU SEE. Tempest did this on her new DVD-- she left the bloopers in. She was teaching her own moves and still made mistakes, and let us all see that, Hey, She Does That Too, and nobody died. (Not that we know. Tempest is one bad ass dancer. There could be bodies in her backyard.) I get to show that I have a sense of humor, and even though I'm not the most amazingly technical dancer yet, I still have my own style, and every time I indulge in it, the stronger it gets and the easier it is to convey.

No neat ending to this piece. Just the littlest kiddo yelling about macaroni and cheese. See y'all tomorrow and hopefully nobody falls down.

Talk to People

I just answered my door. I was annoyed by it because I was RIGHT in the middle of taping up a hoop to sell this weekend, and plus I was pretty sure it wasn't going to be for me anyhow, and it's hot and I'm stinky and whiny.

Well, I was right-- it wasn't for me. It was a young lady selling coupon booklets to benefit the animal shelter. As she turned to leave, I commented on her No Brand Con (a local anime/sci-fi convention) shirt.

"Nice shirt," I said.
"Oh, thanks! Have you been to the Con?" she asked.
"Yeah... actually, I was one of the bellydancers who performed there this year."
"Oh! Wow! That was so cool!"

We talked and talked despite the heat. We blabbed on and on, cycling through No Brand Con ideas, the Renaissance Faire, costuming, steampunk, cross-playing (which is cosplay, but dressing as the opposite gender than your own), and finally bellydance.

"So... you said you teach the bellydancing? Where is that located?" she asked cautiously.
"Well, I teach in Chippewa right now, but I have a new class starting August 3rd in Eau Claire," I said. "Hold on, I'll grab my card for you."

So I did. She took it. Will she sign up? Who knows. Doesn't much matter to me. It was a nice break from hoop making and worrying about my performance this weekend. I'm glad I answered the door. Anime girl calls for anime happy face: ^_^

Small Things

Sort of following yesterday's post... What can you do with very little?

I'm starting a new class in two weeks, and rather than setting it up like my previous classes (teaching basic ITS posture and movements), I'm making things even more basic.

As I teach Improvisational Tribal Bellydance, I'm flipping that label and teaching in reverse order. The most basic bellydance posture will be taught first, as well as the basic "shapes"-- circles, arcs, figure 8's, etc.

So I started thinking about all the simple things that can be layered on, or double-layered, and how the things we take for granted are such small beautiful things on their own.

Starting with a basic (ATS-style) taxeem-- a figure 8 with the hips, down-out to the side-up:
-Add a level up or down.
-Travel with it, leading with your torso.
-Travel with it, leading with your hip.
-Slow it down. Speed it up. Slow it down AND speed it up.
-Break it into parts. Stop between the "out to the side" and the "up." Move the break around.
-Leave your torso behind, facing forward, while taxeeming your hips on different angles.
-Just do a half. Either half. The middle half.
-Step during one hip and not the other.
-Turn.
-Turn the other direction.
-Turn quickly and taxeem slowly. Turn slowly and taxeem quickly.

That's just a teeny handful. None of them involve arms. All of them are just the taxeem with other small, simple layers. It's just a matter of realizing that they're useful-- not just useful but lovely.

Breaking things down is, I swear, the secret. Breaking them down as small as they go. Breaking them down and then putting all the pieces in a sequined blender and hitting "puree." They come out just as small, but in a new order, with new flavors that depend on what ELSE you put in that blender. Fusion smoothie!

Elementary

The longer you do something, the less useful the beginner steps seem. It's the reverse of the beginner problem, but is just that-- a problem.

As I learn new skills, like hooping, I get frustrated just like everyone else. I think, "I wanna do the most amazing thing RIGHT NOW."

If I could do it right now, it wouldn't be amazing.

What is amazing is being able to learn the blocks it's built with, and then stack them into a very high tower.

If beginners could do it right out of the gate, it wouldn't be impressive.

Jumping to something "difficult" when you don't have a base is like supergluing blocks to the wall. From a distance it looks like you're balancing them, but up close it's obvious you've cheated somehow.

This post isn't meant as "calling out" any performer in particular. It's just for me to remember that the little boring blocks aren't just needed, but beautiful.

Sometimes I watch myself dance and think, "Wow, my taxeem looks really pretty." And it does. But I so rarely use it in performance. I so rarely reeeaaaallllly slloooooowwwww it down to show off my flexibility there. It's an "easy" move for me. So I don't think about it, except as a building block or transition.

But it's pretty. Small things can be pretty.

Sometimes I find something that looks difficult but really isn't. Certain hooping moves were like that for me. Figuring out how to lift it over my head, for example, was figured out by just trying it.

How many people have tried it? Is that why it can look amazing, even though it's simple?
How many things have you thought of trying, but didn't?
What if you knew it wasn't going to be a struggle? Would you try it then?
Why should the process be a deterrent?
What would you do if you could try anything and not feel stupid?
Why do you feel stupid?
Who do you think is watching?

Feeling it in my feet

Feet are interesting.

When I was growing up, my parents' house was always under renovation. I remember a period where we didn't have a kitchen floor, and my sister, brother and I would walk across planks to get to our bedrooms.

One of the big projects was refinishing the dining room's maple flooring. The wood was decent enough, but had rough patches every so often that would bite the bottom of your foot if you shuffled them like I do. I started walking on the balls of my feet when I was barefoot in the house, just to avoid the splinters.

I hated being barefoot. My feet were incredibly sensitive-- maybe because I always wore shoes. They were so ticklish that even I couldn't touch them. Forget romantic foot rubs. I'd squirm until my heels met my suitor's face, and that just ain't sexy.

When I started to learn bellydance, I tried all manner of foot coverings. I had half-socks made from felt and stockings; I had crocheted ones from a friend; I had leather lyrical half-sandals that made me feel like a "real dancer." None of them helped; without my feet on the floor, I couldn't feel where I was supposed to be. Over time, I built up the inevitable callouses on the balls of my feet that would allow me to spin quickly in place, even on the carpeted studio where I took classes. My feet stopped being so sensitive and started being tools. Tools need to be maintained, not locked up in a box.

My feet did other things, too. When I was a teenager, I would do a yearly sweep of my closet to weed out junk I didn't need anymore. It was always hard to think objectively about my stuff. "Oh, this is the dress I got to be in that play. Totally not my style, but it's got MEMORIES attached to it!" At some point I realized I needed to try things on to check the fit, so I stripped down to my undies and bare feet. I tried to be very honest with myself-- would I ever actually wear this or that? And I found that I would get my answer through my bare feet. If an item wasn't me, wasn't useful, wasn't worth keeping, I'd feel off-balance. My weight would shift to the balls of my feet, like I was leaning out toward the hope of this item being useful. If the item WAS a keeper, my feet would feel... different. I'd feel centered and rooted and calm. It was like my feet weren't distracted by all the crap my brain was churning up. They knew what was right.

I called it "feeling it in my feet." It still works, and now I apply the theory to a lot of what I do. If I'm dancing and feel off balance, I go back to my feet. If I have an idea that I'm not sure about, I can always sort it out when I take the shoes off and find my center. I've started being more honest with myself, and I swear it's because I took off my damned shoes.

So this blog title-- which took me a while to think up-- is really about finding my center and finding myself. I try not to get to hippy/squishy with my writing. This isn't going to be a blog about yoga and deep breathing and eating crunchy raw foods. It'll be about me trying to try out all the crazy junk I think up, all while trying to be centered and balanced. I love dancing to bizarre songs. I'm learning to hoop dance and would like to spin poi. At some point there will probably be an entry about accidentally setting myself on fire.

And all of it will be done barefoot.