Matt Chung's Site

Author: mattchung

  • Half term Highlights – Part 1

    Elliott is still asleep in the bedroom and I’m afforded the quiet morning to read, reflect, write. In a couple hours (hopefully), she’ll slowly rise and then shortly after I’ll drop her back off at her mom’s house. So, here are some morning musings.

    On trying Onion Rings

    I offered Elliott an onion ring to try out and she smiled and said “Sure, I’ll try one.” She proceeded to reach into the freshly opened bag, grabbed one onion ring, and ever so slightly stuck out the tip of her tongue and tasted it and immediately said “I don’t even need to eat it because I HATE IT already.” I couldn’t help but burst out in laughter. Her honesty— kids in general — is so raw, so beautiful. I’m not offended in the slightest bit and understand (especially within British culture) how that response from her would’ve been labeled or interpreted as rude but to me, absolutely hilarious.

    Video recap of Monday

    Been practicing taking footage on my DSLR and practicing improving my editing skills (thanks again Wei for suggesting I start off with experimenting with shadow, temperature and highlights).

    On being kind to oneself, others and communicating boundaries

    Elliott knocked over the container of beads, about a hundred of them flying all of the kitchen floor. The spill happened just before we were heading to bed and I had let out a big sigh of frustration. And then proceeded to say “These things happen Elliott. Could happen to anyone.” The way I speak to her is no different than the way I’ve learn to talk to myself: with kindness and self-compassion. In addition to being kind with her — with words — I showed functional validation and dropped to the floor to help pick up the sea of beads. Initially, she said “How about you pick up the beads and I’ll continue playing.” In response I said, “Elliott, I’m here to help you however it is also part of your responsibility to clean up after yourself as well.” She initially resisted, and proceeding to assemble a new pattern when I then placed a boundary: “Elliott, please come down here and help me pick up the beads. Otherwise, after I pick them up, I will throw them away.” In general, I try to start with positive encouragement and more often than not, she (more so lately) is more than willing to help however in some scenarios, I find it appropriate to clearly (to the best of my ability) communicate consequences: not empty threats. Often I’m reminded of Dr. Becky’s definition of boundaries, which is (paraphrasing here): in order for a boundary to take effect, the OTHER person does not need to DO ANYTHING. In that way, boundaries differ to requests. With a boundary, for it be enforced, I take action.

    Drinking Sparkling Mango while taking a bath

    Elliott typically does not like sparkling drinks but after she tried out this mango flavored sparkling drink from M&S, she loved it, so much so that while giving her a bath last night, she asked if I could pour her a cup of the drink and if she could drink while bathing. Why not?

  • Week 07 – Pistol Squat / Single legged squat progression

    I consider my lower body to be particularly weak mainly due to neglect from all these years. During my teenage years (about 16 years old), I started weight lifting and NEVER — and I mean NEVER — worked out my legs, only focusing on building mass in my upper body. Back then, I was focused on my aesthetics, wanting to sculpt myself into someone with a chiseled arms and popping chest: my then definition of masculinity. Fast forward 20 years later, my definition of attention has shifted towards function (i.e. “can I perform this movement without pain and incorporate it into my movement practice”) and longevity.

    In any case, turning my attention towards my lower body, I made the decision to start training pistol squats about 7 weeks ago, my initial draw towards it was that the move “looks cool.” On top of that motivation, I’m finding that attempting this movement serves as a diagnostic tool:

    • Is your quad weak?
    • Are you cramping in the rectus femoris?
    • Are you able to bend your knee over your ankle?
    • Can you feel tension in your hamstring while its working?

    With that in mind, I am training my single leg squat by following this progression from the lovely folks over at Stretch Therapy:

    Progress

    May 23, 2025 (Week 07)

    No victory too small. Yesterday, I was able to perform one entire pistol squat. Albeit, I was holding a 4 KG kettle bell to assist with balance however this just goes to show in just a couple months, my legs are gaining strength. Above all else, I am NOT (unlike many other areas of my life) obsessing over the movement. I am once a week, hitting the gym for about 45 minutes, going through the sequence and then moving on. Non-obsession, it has it’s place …

    April 21, 2025 (Week 04)

    Just a few weeks ago, you can see how shaky my base leg is, even at the very beginning of the movement, when I am upright.

    March 28, 2025 (week 02)

    March 21, 2025 (Week 01)

  • On Practicing Footwork

    Very rarely, even after 2 years of dancing house, do I throw in footwork heavy dance moves like heel toe or farmer. However, I’ve recently been motivated for forward for several reasons:

    1. About 2.5 weeks ago, I learned how to (finally) farmer on beat – historically I’ve been so focused on how the move looks and the overly focused on the aesthetic of the move. However, during my dance lesson with Chiara (MASH), she demystified the movement by providing me a different target, which was the rhythm of the move.
    2. Identified what specifically I’ve disliked about the aesthetic of my heel toe – often I’ll re-watch my videos and struggle to pinpoint what it is specifically that I don’t like about the aesthetic of the heel toe movement. But while watching a series of YouTube tutorials, I recognized that it’s not my hip movement, it’s not the jack: it’s the (lack of) dorsiflexion in the base foot. Up until now, despite having both the flexibility and mobility, I have not been loading base foot. When I do deliberately shift my weight and dorsiflex, the consequence of that the opposite leg (the one performing heel toe) extends further away from the body, making it more obvious that I am actually performing a heel toe movement. Secondarily, I’m now feeling the burn in my thighs. So much of dance, I believe, is body mind connection and awareness.

    The heel toe practice was inspired by watching the following YouTube tutorial

    What I like about the above YouTube tutorial is the way he constructs the drills. It’s a reminder to:

    1. Start at a slower tempo
    2. Start with doing the move 8 counts, followed by 4 counts, followed 2 counts
    3. Practice looping the movement over and over and over again and see how many loops you can do without making an error

    One thing missing from the above video that I decided to inject into my practice is after drilling the heel toe movement, try and connect it with other moves I am familiar with. As you can see in the first video above, I transition in and out of heel toe and the farmer. While it’s great to practice the move in isolation (which has its purpose for refining the movement), it’s easy for me to forget why I am drilling which is of course: to dance.

  • 37th birthday – a life worth living

    Almost exactly a year ago, I moved to London as a 36-year old single dad in the midst of a rather contentious and divorce (they all are) mired with unanticipated betrayal that left me questioning myself and questioning how I failed to see the signs that were actually always there (hindsight is 20/20 they say).

    But I digress.

    Last year, not having forged any (what I consider) meaningful relationships or friendships in London, I had celebrated my birthday more or less alone (to be fair, I took a private 1:1 dance lesson with Ani that day and she surprised me with a little cupcake: very kind of her). But yesterday, a year later, I hosted 20+ friends (and some acquaintances that may transition into friendships) over at my flat. Hosting my own birthday party, from an outside perspective, might not hold much significant but to me, marks the beginning of another huge transition in my life.

    Yesterday’s gathering came to fruition as a result of:

    1. dialectic behavior therapy helping me become aware and confront some difficult negative emotions and how to construct a life worth living
    2. Oliver Burkeman’s chapter from Meditation for Mortals sharing his perspective on hosting people and employing “scruffy hospitality”

    The day leading up to my actual birthday and on the day of my birthday, I had the thought of frantically cleaning up the house so it appeared (or rather, gave the illusion) that I was completely orderly. This urge to line things up in perfect order has historically overpowered me. Unaware of this perfectionist tendency most of my life and only in the last year recognizing how deep that shame avoidant behavior runs. These days, I’m more accepting, more kind to myself and if/when people judge me, I repeat to myself: it’s okay, let’s them.

    My birthday unfolded beautifully and yesterday I moved through the day in what Oliver Burkeman calls an “unclenched way”. I recognized how the moments were fleeting and understood it as “not a threat to what’s unfolding, but as the source of its value.”

    “You won’t feel like you know what you’re doing. But nobody ever does; that’s just how it is for finite humans, attempting new things. The main difference between those who accomplish great things anyway and those who don’t is that the former don’t mind not knowing.”

    On scruffy hospitality

    “Scruffy hospitality means you’re not waiting for everything in your house to be in order before you host and serve friends in your home. Scruffy hospitality means you hunger more for good conversation and serving a simple meal of what you have, not what you don’t have. Scruffy hospitality means you’re more interested in quality conversation than in impression your home or lawn makes.” (pg. 133, Meditation for Mortals).

    “… wasn’t there something odd about putting so much effort into hiding the daily reality of their lives from the people they called their friends, or with whom they wanted to become friends?” (pg. 133, Meditation for Mortals)

    “To put on an impressive show for visitors is to erect a facade … the idea that such a facade is mandatory, if visitors are to be admitted to your life, must arise from the assumption that there’s something incomplete or inadequate about your life the rest of the time. Since your visitors’s home is presumably likewise usually a mess, it might even imply there’s something wrong with their lives, too. No wonder calling off the whole performance forges a deeper bond.” (pg. 134, Meditation for Mortals)

    Some Kodak moments in my head:

    • Almost anytime Ani caught a cute moment of Elliott, she turn her head back towards her boyfriend Yuki. It’s beautiful to witness and to me, seems like someone is ready to bear children
    • Number of friends playing and engaging with Elliott – The way they engaged with her so authentically filled my heart up. Some folks are into kids. Some are not. There’s no right no wrong here.
    • “Of course it’s overwhelming when lots of people are over and whenever you need to take time to retreat back to your room for some alone time, that’s normal and okay and also would love to have you out there with all of us” – At the beginning of the party, Elliott retreated back to her own room and I am all too familiar with the feeling of overwhelm growing up. Without bad intentions, it would be far too easy as a parent to invalidate and dismiss her feelings. From my perspective, there’s no need to force her to “be social” out of being “respectful”. At the same time, I wanted to encourage to take part and participate and apply “act opposite”. In the end, throughout the day, she hung out in the backyard with all of us the majority of the party, participated in the activities (e.g. limbo, jump roping) and would periodically retreat back to her room for minutes at a time when she felt she needed space.
    • Elliott “People should take off their shoes so it doesn’t get muddy in the house.” At first, I had the thought of permitting people to wear their shoes since that’s implicit in Western house holds. But I myself do not wear shoes in the house and Elliott and I practice putting our shoes on the rack so I informed folks to leave their shoes by the front door, no problem here.
    • Witnessing Yuki transition from sitting on his bottom to a squat position by tilting his pelvic and without using his hands – only other person at the party who could do it in this manner was Thi-Anh and Elliott
    • Multiple people saying “food was amazing” – I feel fortunate that I was able to get catered food from my friend’s Vietnamese restaurant in London. Though I appreciate some people thinking that I cooked the food, cooking is neither a skill that I’m currently good at nor is a something I’m inherently motivated by. But I do believe in the magic of good food, the way it somehow plays a role in forming community
    • Serendipity of jump roping, pistol squats (i.e. single legged squats) – only at a party filled with athletic individuals (e.g. dancers)
    • Little gifts from Steve (cupcake, recicprocating what I got him for his birthday) and a traveler’s mug from NZ
    • Nora helping clean up by grabbing the empty bottles and placing them outside in the front recycling bin
    • Ani attempting to greet and let other guests at the front door in but she couldn’t figure out to operate the door and said “Sorry Matt, useless here.” Gave me a proper chuckle
    • Heidi offering to make me a drink – small and specific gesture that I really appreciated it. Yesterday, I was bouncing back and forth between consistently heating up food in the oven, stirring delicious vegan curry, cooking rice, checking on Elliott, popping out in the backyard and chatting with people
    • Heidi drawing a painting of Elliott in her beautiful dress

  • Tuesday House Dance Training Recap (May 13, 2025)

    Who attended?

    Elena, Aubrey, Jimmy, Alex

    What went well?

    I really liked this exercise I came up with, where each person chooses a rhythm in their own mind, danced their rhythm, then ever other person in the group attempts to guess their rhythm. This was fun, challenging, and engaging. Perhaps next time increase difficulty by adding music?

    What did I learn?

    The warm up exercise — where we each take turns in taking a single foundation and adding a variation — seems to cause all of us to drop out of sync. And I don’t think this has to do with the (lack of) technical skills of people in the group because from my perspective, everyone is seasoned (even more experienced than me).

    That the prompt of “continuous flow” seems to significantly shift my dance in a positive direction during my rounds. This reminder tends to be given by Elena, who was there the first time Jake had prompted me and we all witnessed a radical change in my movement during my cypher round.

    Feedback

    • Elena asked if we could integrate the upper body and lower body (instead of two separate circuits) workouts

    Some action items

    • Upgrade the rhythm software to toggle or disable the metronome
    • Upgrade the rhythm software to do 8 counts, where two different 4 counts combined
    • Want to have more self exploration time
    • Think about doing repetitions instead of only time – multiple folks tend to like to hit the target. On one hand, yes, give the people what they want. And second, curious if folks can continue challenging themselves. Perhaps we can have both?

  • Touchdown in London and Easter Sunday Recap

    This is me jumping back on the horse and practicing imperfectly doing things. An imperfect blog entry beats no blog entry. Perfection, as I’ve learned recently, is both a trap and an illusion: perfection does not exist. So might as well take action.

    I’m currently sitting in the kitchen of my London flat, quietly typing on my wireless keyboard while my daughter (Elliott, now 5.5 years old) sleeps in the bedroom. It’s a little past 7 and she’s still recovering from jet lag after spending just about 2 weeks in Seattle (8 hour clock difference), our first international trip together, where it was just her and I who flew together.

    Some fleeting special moments from yesterday

    • Instead of dining out in Wimbledon, she convinced me again to stay in and eat dinner at home – thankfully, my Italian female friend (Francesa) had cooked pasta for me while I was away so we have lots of tasty food upon landing from Seattle
    • She tried to paint my nails but we ran out of pink and red (only two colors) of nail varnish
    • She bicycled to the station while I walked with the leashed dogs
    • She was motivated to draw yesterday so she followed the instructions from the book titled “How to draw almost every animal”
    • I setup the Nintendo Switch yesterday and she and I played both Super Smash brothers but her favorite game is “Pokemon” – because she cannot read, I’m left sitting next to her reading out loud the captions while she navigates the controller.
    • While holding the Nintendo Switch she accidentally called me “Andy” (my ex wife’s current partner) – though at first, I felt a little sting here, I in the moment recognized that she associates Nintendo Switch with Andy since they play together (Mario Kart, according to Elliott). I’m also proud here for all the emotional work I’ve done (and continue to do) since I in the moment recognized this and can see how some parents, in the moment, would feel jealous (valid and justified)
    • I napped next to her in bed while she watched (on the projector) the new series of “Unicorn Academy” on Netflix
    • We tested out the instant milk tea and Boba – unexpectedly quite tasty and I gave her the majority of the boba pearls
    • Watched GoPro footage that was recorded when she was just a few months old, in the midst of the pandemic – so many emotions float up in my body. Joy from seeing her as a baby. Grief for what was

  • An analytical mind in the context of dance – friend or foe? Perhaps both?

    These days, I’m learning how to work with this vessel, my body. I’m constantly weighing the balance between acceptance and change and generally speaking, I sometimes tend to over-index on changing myself (in spirit of growth). In spirit of leveraging the way I am wired, I’m practicing leveraging my analytical mind in the context of dance. Often, we’re told as dancers to “shut off the mind” because thinking too much during dance can in fact impede your ability to move. This is true in many contexts and situations.

    But how can I honor the part of my brain that is analytical? This has been on my mind lately especially after my 1:1 dance lesson with Jevan, who nonchalantly said “What if [having an analytical mind] can be your superpower [in dance]?”

    Identifying rhythmic challenges during dance class

    One of the many benefits of attending dance class is that they can sometimes reveal and help you become aware of weaknesses, or opportunities for growth. And last week, during Jevan’s class that I attend ritually, I noticed that I was struggling just a tad with identifying rhythmic patterns that were a bit more complex than the typical “1 and 2 and 3 and 4”. For instance, when he shouted (something along the lines of) “4 and 2 3”. At the same time, I struggled to clap the rhythm while dancing at the same time.

    Writing a software program to practice identifying rhythmic patterns

    Following the class, the next morning, I had the thought to do some ear training (similar to how when I took singing and guitar lessons for years, I’d practice singing major and minor scales) by writing my own little piece of software.

    The command line program essentially generates a random rhythm and repeatedly plays the rhythm with kick drums and high hats. I for now initially constrained the program to only play 8 notes — 1 bars where each note is an eighth note — which means there’s a total of 256 rhythmic patterns. This constraint seems sufficient (for now) to train my ears since doubling the number of bars — from 1 to 2 bars, a total of 16 notes — would increase the total number of rhythmic patterns to 65,536.

    Implementation details

    I define an 8-bit map and then generate all the possible computations. Then during each invocation, a random rhythmic pattern is chosen. For each bit in the bit-map, if the bit is flipped, a sound will be played. The type of sound depends. If the bit’s position sits either any of the whole notes (i.e. “1 2 3 4”), then a kick drum sound plays. In contrast, if the bit’s position is on any of the “and” (

    Anyways, for 8 counts, there’s a 8-bit map, each bit representing an 8th note. if a bit — possible value is zero or one — is set (i.e: one), then a sound will be played. On the 1 2 3 4, sound of a kick drum. On any of the “and” a high hat.

    1 0 1 1 0 1 1 0

    This rhythm, converts to words, equates to:

    “ONE … TWO and … and FOUR”

    Of course this is ear training but I am incorporating this into my practice. It’s a tool. It’s not meant to replace listening to music. But I am finding that being able to identify the rhythm with the program seems to improve my ability to identify rhythmic patterns of certain instruments in real music tracks.

    One other addition I made to the program. Since it can be challenging to identify when the bar starts — since I initially only played a kick drum and high hat — the program always play a metronome sound, a “click”, on the one. Eventually, I made relax this and remove it.

  • Journal – Sunday, March 02, 2025

    I’m sick right now.

    Yesterday, my body continued fighting off a cold that started about 6 days ago and throughout yesterday, my body ached, my mind foggy, my chest infected with phlegm.

    Today my mind feels sharper but yesterday, I felt unmotivated, unable to focus and I had (negative) thoughts like “am I being lazy?”. But I returned to the practice of self-compassion, telling myself that it’s normal when we are sick to not want to do much. In contrast to the years and years in which I “forced” my body to do things, when I wasn’t sensitive to listening to it, I rested. Also, it didn’t help that I had not gone to sleep until midnight the night before and had woken up the next morning at 6:30am, sleeping only 6.5 hours and upon reflection, the body likely needs more rest especially when fighting illness. No wonder I was tired throughout the day yesterday and took several naps.

    On Sarah Bidaw’s Judge Demo

    I was watching Juste Debout preliminaries yesterday (shout to my friend’s from Seattle for flying over to Paris and participating in the event).

    Right now, I’m feeling motivated and inspired when watching seasoned dancers. In particular, this demo of Sarah Midaw I find particularly breathtaking. I have not met her but she recently showed up on my Instagram feed and I’ve seen her other friend’s videos; I imagine one day we’ll bump into one another her since the global house dance scene is both big and small. Anyways, what is it about the round I like so much?

    • The clear distinction between sending energy up to energy down during footwork sequence – Didie taught us this concept 2 weeks ago at Juste Debout workshop and his workshop revealed to me what I could see but not comprehend in terms of how dancers send their energy up or down on the kick drum

  • Juste Debout: 1 month of training for 1 minute of dancing

    Juste Debout: 1 month of training for 1 minute of dancing

    Tomorrow, I compete as a dancer in the infamous international street style dance competition — Juste Debout — and for the past 1 month, my 2 vs 2 partner (Aubrey) and I been consistently training together. Every week her and carved out 1.5 hours, time spent in a studio practicing. And now, all this comes to a crescendo in about 24 hours, when we take the stage in London and dance for a grand total of 60 seconds.

    This past month has been quite a journey. High highs. Low lows.

    And along the way, I felt a bit stuck with my dance, hitting an invisible plateau. Despite moving my body more, I ironically felt more disconnected with my dance, I felt a bit more performative, a bit more robotic.

    Thankfully, I rode out this anxiety and frustration and ultimately, the universe had my back. During this period of disconnection with myself, I happened to have one off dance private with Jevan. And during our 60 minute lesson, he fundamentally shifted the way I approach my dance. Up until that point, my focus and intention was, in this order:

    1) Demonstrate I can dance the fundamental and foundational moves in this style we call house dance and

    2) Sprinkle some of my own personality into the movement.

    However, he had me invert the two, prioritizing dance first and that unlocked something in me and I’m now back to enjoying dance a bit more. My dance rounds — when looking back at the footage — have much more of me in it. There’s more clarity. More conviction.

    But I digress.

    Over the past month, I documented our training journey and below are four short clips of each week.

    Training Week 1

    Training Week 2

    Training week 3

    Training week 4

  • Forcing oneself & Procrastination – not a problem, but a signal

    My view and judgements on procrastination has shifted over the last year and I’m becoming more increasingly aware of my tendency to delay or postpone certain tasks until pressure builds up.

    My observation is that sometimes for certain projects or tasks I put it off until (more or less) the very last minute.

    One example might be: it’s Monday morning and I have some report I need to send out by end of week and I wait until Friday morning to even begin. Then all at once, I complete the task — mind you, the task itself requires about 15-20 minutes of concentrated effort — often feeling totally drained and exhausted afterwards and above all else, guilty. Whenever I find myself procrastinating, I still try to stay self-compassionate “who doesn’t sometimes procrastinate sometimes?”. And though I want to minimize the negative consequences of procrastination, procrastination in itself is not something I want to completely eliminate.

    Here’s why.

    I do not believe that procrastination is the problem. It’s not something that needs to be extinguished.

    In fact, I believe procrastination has utility and functional in certain circumstances. The act of procrastination allows me to avoid or delay some anticipatory, potential (often yet unaware of) negative emotions. In that way, procrastination serves as a protective mechanism.

    Yes — procrastination can become maladaptive. I get that.

    But what I’m leaning towards now is to increase my awareness around procrastination and treat the behavior as a signal. A clue. A reminder to check in myself, a moment to pause and breathe, and question: “What’s going on?”

    Am I procrastinating because of some perfectionism tendencies? Sometimes I fall into the trap that whatever is I do “needs” to be stellar so that I minimize perceived social rejection. Acceptance.

    Am I procrastinating because of the potential boredom accompanying the task? Is it because the task at hand doesn’t provide sufficient stimulus. Boredom is useful and I believe a necessary ingredient to creativity. And more often than not, certain tasks that I believe are boring end up providing stillness and calm.

    Am I procrastinating out of fear or anxiety? Sometimes I avoid a task because reality is that there is a negative consequence that follows the task. And at the same time, I realize now (as I’m typing this out) that if there’s going to be a consequence, how about facing it? I don’t always HAVE to front load the negative emotions and immediately pay the price. Because sometimes it is best to defer negative experiences, like if I am lacking sleep and tired and some undesirable behavior would follow as a result of experiencing negative emotions.

    In sum, procrastination and I are becoming friends and ultimately I want to increase my awareness of when I’m delaying or deferring something and then, try to leverage one of the skills or toolboxes I’ve either come up on my own or ones that I’ve picked up from others (like from The Waves of Focus online course)