Blog posts
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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…
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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…
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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…
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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?”.…
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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…
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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…
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Waking up from a different kind of nightmare
It’s 4:57 am right now. Already, I hear a few birds chirping from outside, despite no sun in sight, outside still pitch black. I am typing this blog post while sitting in my dimly lit kitchen. In the bedroom, my daughter is still fast asleep and hope she continues to sleep for another hour (i.e.…
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Friday night farmer
The house dance farmer move is one that eludes me. I’m about 1.5 years into my house dance journey and this move in particular is one that I both struggle to achieve both the look and the feeling. Because of this, the farmer rarely makes an appearance in my freestyle rounds and when it does,…
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Nose piercing bump – How I’m getting rid of it (in progress)
I started developing a little red bump on my nose after I swapped out the stud for a hoop. On the day of the piercing swap, the piercer said, “If you end up developing a little bump — which is normal and can happen — then use bio oil.” Immediately after he swapped out the…
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A cup of tea, a splash of milk, a flood of love
I’m feeling lots of love right now, all from flicking through my diary and unexpectedly stumbling on some stick figure drawings that my 5 year old daughter drew, along with some sentence fragments she wrote. For a moment, the love was overwhelming and I was on the verge of crying. I just fucking love my…
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House Dance Training Log – January 04, 2025
First training of 2025. In a separate post, I’ll go over one of my 2025 goals but in short: participate in the prelims of summer dance forever 2026! That is, 1.5 years from now, I’d like to stand up on that beautiful stage and be prepared both mentally, physically, and emotionally. Summary Motivational quote on…
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On recovering from plantar fasciitis
Similar to software debugging, sometimes the best thing you can do is create distance between yourself and the problem you’re troubleshooting. Because more often than not, when we’re in the thick of it, sometimes we can become fixated — fine, a bit obsessed — and prevent ourselves from gaining additional insights, our wheels spinning in place,…
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Dance Practice Log – December 09, 2024
When: Monday, December 09, 2024 6:30pm until 8:00pmWhere: Morden home living room Summary Yesterday I trained for about 1.5 hours. Up until last couple training sessions, I felt so much resistance, so much procrastination. And every time I get myself to to practice — not force — I feel emotionally better, lifted with higher spirits, and…
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Wow, you have good memory
To me, I like to think I’m somewhat self-aware (who doesn’t think that about themselves but according to one study, only 10-15% are actually self-aware). But from my own perspective, it does not seem abnormal — to me — to remember little details of conversations. That being said, about at least 3 times in the…
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Dance practice log – reflection
Starting a couple weeks ago, I changed the way I approach dance training, particular when training by myself. December 04, 2024 What did I work on? What are my areas of growth? December 06, 2024 What did I work on? I started uploading my entire dance trainings onto YouTube (as unlisted, since they are primary…
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Weekly Review – November 25th to December 02
Normally, I conduct my weekly reviews on Sunday, on a weekend where I am less pressed for time, a period of time that I can sit down and reflect. However, I had Elliott this past weekend — at the moment, alternating weekends — and by the end of Sunday evening, at 5:00pm, when her mother…
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Reflection on attending a parenting workshop on boundaries
I signed up for a parenting workshop hosted by my daughter’s (Steiner based) school, a workshop on setting and applying boundaries. Though I have an aversion to authority in general — I value and have a high need for independence — I showed up in the space with an open mind and open heart and…
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Hallelujah: Officially divorced
I’m trying to contain my excitement. I feel a profound sense of joy, liberated: I am officially divorced. I’m officially financial broke more details below) but my spirits are very high. Though I have some regrets throughout this process, mainly on my lack of assertiveness, I am very happy with now and what the universe…
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Musicality Exercise – Dancing on the high hat
Below is a YouTube tutorial I made for some house dance friends, showing them an exercise on how to not only dance on the high hat, but to transition between the kick, the high hat, and back to the kick. I learned the core exercise from Walid, who taught a group of us the exercise…
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Gold nuggets on developing self confidence
Developing confidence is an area that I naturally find myself gravitating towards. I find the whole topic fascinating and ironic because I feel confident in some areas in my life while feeling insecure in others. What’s up with that? Confidence: A non transferable skill and domain specific I recently finished a book titled “Mastery: The…
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Vibing with Xinobi’s “Searching for” song
I’ve been listening — on repeat – to the song “Xinobi – Searching for”, one that was suggested by Spotify. It’s not only the melody and harmony but it’s the lyrics, the lyrics cause me to turn inwards, to introspect. Just so many beautiful lines including: Another reason I love this song is that this…
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On experiencing joy and love when watching my own recap videos
On the days I don’t see Elliott (my beautiful 5 year old daughter), I often find myself (re)watching recap videos of us on my iPhone, short little clips that I stitch together to capture a moment in time, a snapshot aimed to honor our relationship (as well as share with some friends and family). Right…
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Human limits and the 40% rule
I was on the phone yesterday with my sister and during our chat, she shared one of her beliefs: that we (as humans) can achieve whatever we set our mind to — that we were “limitless.” It’s a growth mind set, one that I myself subscribe to. Generally speaking, I agree with the spirit of…
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Photography patience
I was gifted a Canon DSLR when I was about 16. I remember being so eager to take “beautiful photos”. I remember purchasing a couple DVDs, my hope then was that after an hour or two I could begin taking photos that were similar to the ones that I admired. But quickly I found out…