dancing – Page 6 – hannah ananas

Trying something old newly

Today, I was granted the opportunity I have so greatly desire these past few years to compete in a certain category of dancing. Years ago, it was only normal for me to compete in this category, but then some mental things happened, I didn’t like where I stood with the category, and so I stopped. Until I had a new perspective and relationship with it all, it was best that I not participate…, though I am only just now realizing the truth to this – at the time, I was just tired of my fear of rejection, and especially the seemingly constant unfortunate partnerships in which I ended up being.

So today, I had a beautiful and brief and clearly god-given chat with someone who gave me my new perspective. There was barely ten minutes remaining for sign-ups for all competitions, though everyone was pretty much all signed up for everything desired at this point, and a guy near me suddenly turned to me and asked me if I were competing this weekend.

We talked about it. I explained where I stood with perspective, including my desire for a new one, and he gave me his own perspective, and well as some on-the-spot thought-out ideas. I was nervous, yet excited, as he accompanied me to the registration desk, and I registered myself for one category, and asked for help in finding a partner for the other category.

Thirty minutes later, I had my partner (who had already signed up, but just without a name for the parent, so we just added my name onto his registration), and I was even excited about competing.

When it came time for competition tonight, he and I had danced maybe four songs together total. So our fifth ever song was in competition (and sixth and seventh). I felt a bit meh about our performance, but I was okay with it – we had only just met, and I hadn’t really known the songs too well or at all, not was I in the habit any longer of competitive dancing. So there were a million improvements to be made to meet just my own standards for making finals in a contest of this caliber.

Sure enough, my sentiments were validate when I watched the videos of our dances – not bad, but not great either. Just meh – average whatever mixed with good spurts here and there. And so I didn’t much expect to make finals, leaving me comfortable with the resulting non-finals-making. Yeah, it’s a bummer not to make finals. And I want to be confidently in finals whenever I am in them, instead of being in them by surprise. You know what I mean? I want to deserve it without a doubt, as opposed to being mediocre and that being enough.

And so, I am happy that I competed. And tomorrow, I might not make finals either. That one has been mentally harder for me on the past. However, I think this is the perfect time and place for me to try it out, give it a go, and keep my head held high, all in preparation for future dancing events. I want perfection of myself, and competition is a darn good way to work towards that. I was reminded of that today. Both parts of it. So I no longer have to compete to win the competition, but can compete in an aim for my own perfection. I mean, come on – who doesn’t want perfection when hundreds of people are quite obviously watching? Hmm?? 🙂
Post-a-day 2017

career planning like child’s play

As I pondered about today at work, with no actual work to do, but tons of pastimes to pursue at my desk, I somehow came to the idea of thinking like a child. I think I was inspired from the fact that a girl in this one movie was about to become a full-fledged lawyer, and I found myself somewhat envious. It got me thinking about how, as a child, I never really wanted to be anything specific when I grew up. Sure I said singer/actor, but that was kind of a ‘just ’cause’ answer, not an impassioned one – my heart was certainly not in it. It just sounded fun to be famous and super talented, you know?

So, as I was thinking about how kids have these people they want to be when they grow up, and how ridiculous those things sometimes sound, and then how boring of jobs those kids typically eventually end up getting when they are adults, I got into the crazy-ish idea of, “Well, if I were a kid now, what would I want to be when I grow up?” And that’s when the fun started.

It didn’t take very long for me to come to my conclusion. Fully-passioned and excited, I felt a need to share the news with the world. I didn’t think much beyond that – sharing it – other than how fun it sounded, and how silly it would be should I actually somehow become such an individual. Why? Well, I said that I want to be a cello-playing ballerina artist who does astronomy and physics stuff for fun.

So, I posted about it on the beautiful world of Facebook. After seeing a few of the comments that friends made, however, I began actually thinking about such a career path for myself. Part of the whole reason I started thinking about it, was because I thought it crazy how kids, who can do next-to-nothing about it, are so passionate about what they want to do for their jobs, and yet adults, who have all the ability to do something about their current jobs, tend to be so dispassionate about their careers. So, here I am, taking on a child’s passion in terms of career direction/choice (really, choosing freely (as a child chooses) what I would do, if I could do anything I wanted), and I suddenly realized that I am one of those adults who is in a position actually to do something about my career.

Wow. The more I thought about it, the more I realized how easy it could be for me. Yes, it is loads and loads of hard work. I know. But I’m talking about practicality of the situation. I’ve recently re-begun ballet lessons, I’m picking up my own art supplies next week in order to continue in my student-taught art lessons I’ve been receiving, and I’m working at a school with lots of musical connections (likely with links to a student of some age who could start teaching me to play the cello). And this is all just in my small town in Japan. When I move back to my big city in the US this Summer/Fall, I’ll have innumerable resources at my fingertips. And, without even realizing this earlier today, I have made specific progress towards this goal for the Fall: I now recall that I have already spoken to a sort of art expert to help me find some appropriate art classes for me to take this coming Fall.

Life is looking beautiful on the career path front. I in almost no way have a ballerina’s body. And that’s okay. I don’t want to be on the main stage. I know that. But I want to be dancing ballet. 🙂 (I’m so excited about this, I can’t stop smiling and having a little delighted shudder race through me every so often as I think about it all.)

My cousin commented about my career goals being similar to the career of Hedy Lamar. I had to look her up, though I recognized the name. As I was on the phone with my mom, I asked her what she knew about Hedy. Just that she was a black and white actress, very gorgeous 30s look. When I found her Wikipedia page, I read it aloud to my mother, and we both were amazed – she was fabulous, and my cousin was exactly right in comparing my career goals to the career of Hedy Lamar! Check her out. She was awesome. She and the guy from Queen (Brian May) who has a PhD in Astrophysics. They rock.

So, yeah… that’s today’s ponderings that I cared to share here. 🙂 Peace out, yo.

Post-a-day 2017

Ooh, ah, ow!

Everything hurts. Like… really… everywhere that I have muscles hurts.

I’ve been going to my gym most days these past three-ish weeks, and my body hasn’t stopped hurting since that first Angels Training class on a Thursday afternoon. Mostly, it was only the lower half of my body. Now that I’ve gone to ballet and barbell workouts, I’ve got the full-body pains going. So much so, that belly dance class (my first!) was actually quite hard, simply because I could barely control my own muscles. Ugh. Just ugh!

It’s all really good, of course, because it’s just part of being healthy and getting fit again and all that yada-yada. That in no way changes the fact that everything hurts, and doing anything – even existing, let alone walking or going up and down stairs and such – hurts.

And, what am I doing tomorrow? Going back. And for an undetermined amount of time, too. I want to stay until the last class, because Tai Chi is quite fun and relaxing-uplifting, but I think I won’t. I have a Lindy Hop party/social happening in town tomorrow night, and I want to go to the lesson that is at the start of it, so I have to head out before Tai Chi even starts, if I want to make it on time to the Lindy dance lesson. I wonder if I’ll even be able to dance. I might just keel over in pain, and just fall asleep on the side of the dance floor after my first and only dance of the night.

Anyway, I’m actually unable to see clearly or straight right now, I’m so exhausted from this week. I think I went to bed close to or long past midnight …oh, my… since last Friday. Ugh. No wonder I’m so exhausted! Haha. Okay, goodnight!! 😀

Post-a-day 2017

Dance Class #1

Dancing heals the soul. I swear, it does. Music brings up the emotions, the experiences of our lives. And the dancing allows us to express whatever those emotions and experiences bring forth inside us. When we are joyful, we dance it with ease and are free. When we are sad, we might resist the dancing altogether – but that is why the dancing heals.

In order to dance, and to dance properly (read “with the heart”), we have to allow that sadness to be free. So long as we resist the sadness, we cannot truly dance – our heart is not in it. As soon as we let go of being in control of the emotions, that sadness, it is as though literal bindings are removed, letting our legs and arms swing about freely to the beat. Even if we feel that we cannot let go of the sadness, by throwing the heart into the dance, that sadness is expressed and freed.

I could certainly put this into better words, but I really don’t feel like it right now. So, I’ll just leave it at this:

If you can dance, and properly, with all your heart, you can express and free any state of emotion in which you currently find yourself. And I got to do that tonight – it was really hard at first, resisting the dancing because of my emotional state, but then I reached that point of freedom from my fear-laced bindings, and I danced. And it was wonderful. : )
Post-a-day 2017

Blessings

Today, I got even more medicine from this beautiful place and its beautiful people. And I didn’t even her close to tears, I had already been so healed by the previous day and a half… after months of depression, I’m not sure I could have been more relieved to discover this fact today. 🙂

Here’s to dancing and marriage and goofy, cross-cultural blunders and friends and fun drinks and silly things and the unplanned and lots and lots of colors and fresh fruit. 😀

Post-a-day 2017

Dancing is a global language

Tonight, I was reminded of a speech I recently wrote for a speech contest. No, I was not even a finalist in the contest (Speculation has informed me that previous years’ finalists had all tied in somewhere, somehow, that Japan is amazing and totally the best place ever. Seeing as mine has none of that in it, guess I had no chance at all, if that actually is a factor in the contest.), and I’m okay with that. It wasn’t my best work, though it was a decent run for a rushed 45 minutes (including editing with a friend) around 10:30 on a Wednesday night, and on a topic I felt could have been significantly better stated (“Anything that deepens global understanding, other than political, religious, or commercial themes”).

I’ve put the speech below, however, let me say why I thought of the speech. I ended up going dancing tonight, as a follow-up to a bizarre sending off for a friend (literally ran up to the friend on the street, walked the three minutes to the station, and parted ways), because I didn’t want to have spent $15 and an hour and a half for only four minutes of moderate enjoyment, and I neither had other plans for the evening nor work in the morning.

While at this dance thing, I delighted in the constant flow of English-to-French-to-Japanese-to-Frech, the forever exchanging of dance partners, and the true enjoyment of our unity and opportunity for us all to be together and at such ease. As a group, we have little else in common when you remove the dancing. But it is something we each learned in our home towns and cultures, which has now brought us together from many places around the world (really, I think we almost all were from different places, although some were just from different parts of Japan). And, even though we might never have come to know one another in any other part of life, we still ended up spending time together as though we were some of the best of friends.

I had met most of these people only once or twice, but that is the power of partner dancing. We work together in an intimate yet comfortable setting, one-on-one, to create something beautiful. We help each other learn, and we share what we have learned with one another. It’s like the best kind of school, in dance form.

Anyway, that’s all I have to say about that for now, so I leave you with my speech here:

My name is Hannah, and I do partner dancing. Every dance competition, I am terrified walking out onto that dance floor – “I am going to mess up! And in front of all of these people!” I cry inside my head. But, every time, I dance anyway. I give it my best, knowing that I will make mistakes (which I do), and I have an amazing time. Not to mention, I regularly place and even win the contests. Every single time I am grateful that I danced, even though I was terrified, but especially because I made loads of mistakes. Why? Because that is who I am. I am a beautiful, confident dancer who makes mistakes all the time. And every time I do make mistakes, I work with my partner to use them, and to transform them into something beautiful and intentional. We do the same when my partner makes mistakes, too. We work together to turn something accidental and potentially dangerous into something intentional, unique, and beneficial to the overall dance. When we do this, we each learn how the other responds to errors, as well as how to adapt ourselves to work with those responses. By the end of our three-to-four minutes together, we move flawlessly – any onlooker might think we had been partners for years. Why? Because we worked together on something difficult, ever listening to one another.

Marianne Williamson, an American writer, said that ‘our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate’, but that ‘we are powerful beyond measure.’ When we allow ourselves to make mistakes, we are opening up the doors that have been holding us back in life, and we give ourselves the chance to become greater than we ever expected, by learning something new about ourselves and about those around us. When I make a mistake dancing, I not only learn how I respond to error, but also how my partner responds to my making the error. Plus, my partner learns how I respond to error. Then, when we both work together to resolve the issue, we learn new ideas from each other, and we grow together, becoming more efficient and more powerful as individuals and as a couple.

So, what does this have to do with deepening global understanding? Every time I travel, I feel a sense of solitude and of being completely lost in this new world around me. And every time I go dancing in this new place, I not only feel at ease, but part of this new world around me. Every time it is terrifying. Not because I suspect it to go poorly, but because I know that there is no limit to how amazing an experience it can turn out to be. I have lived in various countries these past several years, and every time some of my best friends have come out of dancing. Why? Because not only do we love dancing, but we regularly make mistakes together, and we always work together to solve them. And, in the process of making these friends, I have learned through them more about their culture than any class or book could have taught me.

In conclusion, if you want to deepen your understanding of the world, and better it through understanding one another, and learning from mistakes together, I invite you all to dance. Thank you.

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ABBA in life

The musical delight ABBA holds a truly special place in my heart. For whatever reason, I have a few very strong memories connected to their music.

My Junior year of high school, while at a dance event (west coast swing, a partner dance), “Dancing Queen” comes on. My good friend and I rush out onto the floor, as we both love the song, and it is the first time we’ve heard it played at any kind of dance event or social. We both crack up at the line referencing the dancing queen’s being 17, as 1) he has just turned 17, 2) he is semi-secretly gay (putting him in a certain category of queens), and 3) he is dancing and is darn good at it. Neither of us had anticipated the line to fit so perfectly until we heard it while on the dance floor. I was overflowing with joy and delight during that dance.

Senior year of high school, I quote the lyrics of “Thank you for the Music” in a letter (possibly for a retreat) to my eventual boyfriend. A huge portion of our friendship/relationship was filled with the beautiful music he created almost constantly, and it brought true bliss to my life in a way nothing else could. (Not that other things can’t bring true bliss, just that that particular kind of bliss was its own kind.)

Studying abroad in Vienna in college, I come home late one night to my shared dorm room, where my roommate is already in bed, sleeping (from what I can tell, anyway). I sit down at my desk to do a few things on my computer (probably check Facebook and e-mails and whatnot), and notice that my roommate is listening to music rather loudly (seeing as I can hear it and all). “Oh cool,” I think, “She likes ABBA, too.” I wonder for a bit, how on Earth she can sleep with the music playing so loudly in her ears. When I am finally about to go to sleep, half-ish an hour or so later, I notice that the music doesn’t seem to be louder near her bed, but quieter. I follow the sound, and discover that my iPod has been blasting the first artist on the list for that past 45-ish minutes. It was difficult not to laugh, though I had really enjoyed listening to the music, even if it wasn’t my roommates choice after all.

So, what beautiful, strong memory will occur next with ABBA, I wonder? 🙂

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