I took (5) 1:1 dance privates with Francesa Miles over the past few months in 2025. Reflecting on that experience, while there are quite a number of dance exercises that I found useful, three in particular stood out to me, two of which I’ll share below.
Exercise 1 – Randomly selecting a “foundation” and pairing it with a “quality” of movement
In this exercise, we randomly select two sticky notes, one green and one yellow. The green sticky notes are labeled with dance moves (e.g. pas de bourree, train, farmer); the yellow, quality of movement (e.g. contrast, explosive, turning). After pairing the two sticky notes, you dance a round (e.g. 1 minute) with the move with the quality of movement layered on top.
Exercise 2 – Cues to repeat, develop, change speed, reverse
In this exercise, you freestyle for a round and throughout your round, someone shouts one of the following cues: repeat, develop, change speed, reverse.
Repeat – you repeat some movement in your dance (e.g. shoulder shrug, a step, a twist)
Develop – you build on top of the movement. For example, smaller to bigger, energy change, intensity, texture, level
Change speed – do whatever move either slower or faster
Reverse – do whatever you are doing but in reverse order / backwards (e.g. pas de bourree backwards)
A python program to randomize the cues
During the practice sessions in which I am practicing on my own, I will use one of my software programs, like the one below. When this (Python) program runs, it will play a recorded voice (from Francesa herself) and for random bursts of time. It’s almost as if you have a person there with you in person, shouting out cues.
I’m writing the below on a Saturday evening (December 13th, 2025), while sipping on tea from Tea House Theater, located in Vauxhall (London).
Although I more or less shut down my software (consulting) business earlier this year, Crossbill close down officially as of December 04, 2025.
As I type this out, a few questions come to mind:
How do I feel about the business shutting down?
What were the motivations?
What are the lessons learned?
What would I have done differently?
How do I feel about the business shutting down?
Surprisingly, not really filled with much guilt. I do feel a sense of pride of what I had accomplished during those 4 years of operation though. Creating something out of nothing (see hunting for clients below). Finding different ways to generate revenue; providing jobs and finding jobs for people
And the primary emotion I am filling right now is relief.
Relief from no longer having to pay taxes and managing Quickbooks.
Relief from all the unnecessary overhead of running a tiny little business.
Relief.
What were the motivations of launching Crossbill
I started Crossbill in the summer of 2021. The business came to life shortly after I had left Amazon Web Services (AWS) as software development engineer. I had always wanted to run my own business and had the desire to “be my own boss.”
While there are huge upsides of running your own business, there are significant drawbacks that I had not fully considered when I had made the leap. Like many others who venture out on their own, I found myself in a situation in which I was fully responsible for making shit happen, fully responsible for generating revenue: nobody was coming to save me. Goodbye to the steady payroll. I had to make something, out of nothing.
Lessons learned
On learning how to sell
Totally forgot that I had done this but I ended up signing up for SPIN course (here). Prior to running Crossbill, I had zero experience in a sales position. Upon reflection, I think some of my challenges — in addition to lack of experience — was my high need for acceptance, my sensitivity to receiving rejection. After becoming aware of this baseline disposition (present in my dance / creative life), I’ve learned (and continue to learn) how to overcome (perceived) rejection, which is the cost to play. It’s like dating: receiving “no” is part and parcel of the experience.
Hunting for my clients
They say innovation is sometimes born out of frustration and desperation and think that also applies to how I went about landing clients. A few memorable ones:
Responding to a LinkedIn message for a software engineering position, which lead to going on a walk with the CEO around the Arboretum park in Washington and within a few days, converted them to my first paying client
Cold e-mailing and calling a rather (deliberately) anonymous user on hacker news – reading a thread about customer relationship management (CRM) software and had reached out to someone who I had viewed as very knowledgeable on the topic and that phone call translated into them becoming a customer of mine
Cold e-mailing a YCombinator backed company (i.e. Quadrant Eye)
What would I have done differently?
Hired someone to manage my books for me
Secure a physical mailbox
Put myself on payroll sooner
Had more expenses / business write offs during the early stages
Hold my contractors and third parties more accountable for their actions
Summary
I have so much more to say about this but this blog post was something I wrote as a means to brain dump.
Practicing dance has started to both look different and feel different. That is, the way I am approaching dance practice changed (I think it will continue to change change and evolve) based on both recent conversations with Kev (aka DJ Renegade) as well training directly (both group and individual) with him.
I’m inching close to 3 years into my dance journey and I’m starting to feel another leap in my dance. It’s on the cusp. I can feel it. More specifically, only now am I really able to tell when I am “on beat” and certain movements that I’ve struggled with, movements I’ve actively avoided, are finally clicking in to place. Most notably, the farmer.
What’s changed recently?
On less thinking, more doing
I’m thinking less. Perhaps, I’m no longer overthinking (or if I am overthinking, I am doing it less, so net win overall). In the past, I would during my individual practice, I would often stop myself multiple times throughout a session, analyze the video, make micro adjustments. While this analytical approach can be useful, I also think this interrupt filled approach has one major drawback: reducing the volume of work, reducing the number of repetitions.
On qualifying the statement of “shortcuts”
“There are shortcuts”. And then he’ll qualify his statement. “There are no shortcuts, for the first couple years. Just grind.” While I do value his expertise, and while I still will follow his guidance, I do think that beyond drilling, there’s other elements of dance — my dance — that I don’t want to neglect; in fact, I want to nurture them, specifically the creative aspect.
Practice Log Notes
How did I train yesterday?
Booked a studio (new studio: studio 7) at Unit3 – 1.5 hours for 13.50 GBP
After I recently finished reading “The subtle art of not giving a f*ck”, I’ve made the choice that at the end of this year, after December 23 — final court hearing for child arrangements for my daughter — I will begin (online/app) dating actively.
Although, like many others of my generation, I much rather prefer meeting someone organically, in person, I’m faced with a few different hurdles that have lead me to explore a different path.
First, when it comes to meeting someone in person, I spend the majority of my time in the world of dance: dance training, dance sessions, dance events. And while a part of me lights up at idea of dating someone who also spends an inordinate amount in the dance scene, another part of me questions and recognizes whether doing so would be wise, the old adage of “don’t shit where you eat.” Moreover, the argument against dating someone from the scene has gained even further traction based on recent conversations from those who have direct experience.
In fact, someone share their perspective, stating how painful it would be (on a regular basis) not only running into an ex, but witnessing your ex date someone else in the scene.
Yikes.
The grief. The jealously.
Doesn’t sound like fun. At all.
So, now, I (once again) reconsider dating someone within the same stratosphere.
Now, returning back to the reasons why I want to date. As mentioned above, while reading “The subtle art of not giving a f*ck”, I became more aware of my own anxiety that has been lurking at the bay, some fear around “my own desirability.” When on begins dating, when one “puts themselves out there”, they are confronted with their own attraction; maybe you are not as attractive as you think you are.
Maybe (actually, most certainly), you will face rejection.
Sitting with this thought, I then ask myself, “so what?”
Anyways, what’s interesting is that becoming aware of this anxiety actually — unexpectedly — makes the whole prospect of dating less daunting.
The last few days the shooting pain (i.e. sciatic nerve) traveling up and down my right leg caused moments of misery however I was reminded that injuries are a type of setback and setbacks are part and parcel of the journey towards elite levels of performance.
Lessons learned
I partially regret going out clubbing – last weekend, I went solo dancing in South Bank at a beautiful venue and experienced what I considered a huge psychological breakthrough. For some context, I gave up drinking alcohol 10+ years ago and on that evening, I was able to dance: freely. No anxiety. Just me being me. No internal worries. Just being me. Though this is a psychological breakthrough, I very likely exacerbated my leg injury (more on this below)
No physical activity for the entire week adversely impacted my overall well being – at the same time, my body was begging me for rest and I’m honoring my body because I do believe that the body whispers before it screams
What are some of the ways I spent my time
Monday
hour tattoo session, blacking out sections of right sleeve
Tuesday
Tuesday – due to my injury, I sat out from my own Tuesday Training session but had still showed up in person, for about an hour, and recorded a few clips on my DSLR
Wednesday
Wednesday – picked up Elliott from school, then had our ritualistic dinner (her a cheeseburger, me mixed doner)
Thursday
Thursday – during lunch break, limped my way to Canary Wharf and received a couple follow up steroid shots in order to shrink the size of my Keloid scars located on my chest, left jaw line, and right shoulder. Later in the evening, had dinner with my current employer. Finally, made the choice to travel to Vilnius from Nov 6th-9th for workshops and battles
Friday
Saturday
Saturday with Elliott – played a memory game in her room (she also said she likes how I decorated her room with the nuggets), took her to her classmates 6th birthday party, shared a taro milk tea with her, grabbed a few groceries with her from M&S, watched half of the movie “The parent trap” (often found myself on the verge of tears — movie hits different as a divorced, single parent)
Sunday
Sunday with Elliott – played same memory game in her room, ate lunch in Chinatown and met up with an old co-worker of mine from Amazon, grabbed a few desserts from the bakery, Elliott accidentally performed a flip on the pull up bar and now has mustered up the courage to perform tricks (we watched some calisthenic videos), listened to a few spooky kids stories, sat at the dinner table and drew monsters and kittens
Final thoughts
I’m finding it a bit challenging to recall the events from the previous week so I may want to consider a few different options like maintaining a journal throughout the day, or perform nightly reflections. And at the same time, I question the motivation behind recalling the previous week’s accomplishments?
Tuesdays have become my training days. 4pm-6pm, my own organized Tuesday Training session. Following that, 7pm-9pm at Kev’s Kitchen. And though today is today, I am sitting out due to a hamstring injury (more about the injury over at Stretch Therapy Forum)
Because I’m nursing this injury tonight, I decided to try and spend a few cycles re-watching my own dance rounds from last week in spirit of improving my ability to self-analyze and provide self critique.
Why review my own rounds?
Although I continue to train and practice, I think it can be helpful to sometimes pause and check in and reflect. I admit, I sometimes have a tendency to focus only on areas of growth while ignoring — an unintentional self invalidation — some of my progress. But I digress.
Because I am relatively early in my dance journey — about 2.5 years in — I’ve relied on classes, mentors, teachers, instructors etc to help guide me. While I will continue leaning on this different paths, I also want to increase my own ability to (lack of a better word) judge where I am at, identify where I fall short, and then construct a plan to train and practice.
Rinse and repeat.
So, for now, I am going to leverage what I learned from the book Think Breaking and analyze my own rounds and also analyze some other dancer’s rounds that I inspired me. My thought is that if I pinpoint some quality in their dance I like and then if I notice it’s absent from my own, then I’m on the right path of improving self-analysis.
And while there are many facets of the dance to analyze, I’m going to (in spirit of time) focus on on Dynamics. Again, there are many other parts of the dance I can dive into but because I’m new to evaluating my dance using this framework, I want to first familiarize myself with the terminology and semantics etc.
Kev’s Kitchen
Round 1
My intention of this round was to incorporate the exercises we had been drilling for the hour leading up to the cypher, the drill focused on stepping flat footed with full force, as well as stepping on the ball of the foot.
Towards the end of my round, I attempted to change the rhythmic pattern and increase from “on time” (i.e. every quarter note) to “double time” (i.e. every eighth note) but eventually fell off beat — definitely a stretch for me. When I took this experimental leap, Kev said “too much too much” and that’s to be expected. A little embarrassing on my part but I don’t shy away from doing “too much” because, even as Kev said, it’s easier to go “too much” and pull back.
(Body) Physical
Dynamics
Contrasts – although I vary the speed/velocity of the step, there’s a lack of contrast in terms of energy; similarly, unlike Gabby’s round (see below) there’s not this consistent contraction and expansion like quality, going from slow to fast, smooth to sharp, small to large
Round 2
TBD
Rounds that inspired me
Gabby’s Round 1
Dynamics
Contrast – she starts off smooth with her steps and then after a few counts, transitions to sharper, staccato like movements. Similarly, when she extends her limbs, she often changes from short distances to long distances. Yet another form of contrast: she’ll sometimes contract and dance smaller and then explode and expand.
I sometimes doubt decisions I make. I sometimes question what I’m doing. I sometimes lack conviction.
But there’s one decision I made 1.5 years ago that I know, deep down in my bones, is the right decision for me: reorganizing my life to maximize time spent with my (6 year old) daughter.
What sparked this thought?
The following video that showed up on my Instagram feed:
In the above video, a daughter surprises her father by visiting him in person, after the two of them not seeing one another for 5 years. By the way, even the idea of not seeing Elliott for 5 years makes me want to shed a tear.
Back to the video. The daughter hid squatting in a cardboard box. The dad reluctantly approaches the box, wondering if someone is in there, and adopts a boxer position, ready to “punch the shit” out of whoever may be hiding in there. But as soon as he recognizes that the person is his daughter, he immediately throws his arms around her, grasps on to her so tightly, and the first words that he cries out are: “My baby girl ….” he continues to grip on to her tightly. “I fucking love you so much.”
Pure rawness.
Beautiful.
Relatable.
It goes to show that having a daughter can soften a man.
I’ve been told throughout my life that I have a tendency to rush. I struggle with boredom, which according to Brené Brown can be defined as “uncomfortable state of wanting to engage in a satisfying activity, but being unable to do it.”
People throughout my life would often (with good intention) kindly suggest that I “slow down” … when speaking … when learning a new skill … slow down they said. But for much of my life, I’ve felt similar Charlie Sheen, having only one speed: “Go.”
And this urge to want to move through life quickly — in a rush — I think partially stems from this belief (argument made by Oliver Burkeman) that it’s a mechanism for avoid the following: we’re all going to die someday and that our time on this earth is limited.
According to Oliver Burkeman, the average human life spans 4,000 weeks. I find that completely wild, don’t you? Death feels distance and the thought of it is unsettling. But after sitting with this negative emotion for a few deep breathes, a certain calmness follows. By radically accepting that my life is finite, my attention shifts towards ruthlessly prioritizing my life and ironically, the desire to rush dissipates.
It’s ironic and somewhat paradoxical.
By increasing awareness of life’s finitude, time begins to slow down. And in contrast, when there’s a lack of this awareness, when traveling through life as if there’s an infinite amount of time, I tend to rush.
By accepting that my time will soon come to end, I temporarily free myself from what Burkeman calls the “brace position”.I drop the desire to get everything done immediately. Instead, I transition to a state of mindfulness, revisiting projects that I want to tackle, breaking them down into tiny, manageable bite sized chunks and slowly, but surely, chip away at them.
Adopting the mindset of incremental improvement
So again, instead of my default tendency to try and make one-off titanic shifts in my life, I am practicing the art of incremental improvement. I’m applying this mindset towards sharpening my organizational skills. Looking back at all my previous attempts on becoming an organized person — the desire for identifying as an “organized person” may stem from a fixed mindset, which can be counter productive for development — I had approached learning organization skills with sort of a “get it done and over with” mindset.
This attitude of wanting to rapidly get through things reminds of one piece of advice that Kit Laughlin passed on another forum member on Stretch Therapy, who was trying to rush the process of becoming flexible:
“Just wanting to get it over and done with” is exactly why it’s not working for you. The attitude you bring creates the resistance you feel in your body. I guarantee zero progress with this approach. If you really don’t want to do it (for whatever reason) then don’t. Life is much simpler if you approach it directly like this.
The above comment reminded me of another topic on the forum, a topic on failure and persistence; developing organizational skills for me has been (and continues to be) challenging. But despite the frustrations and setbacks, I persevere:
No. That is what your mind tells you, no doubt, but when you try, and fail, and try again, you are developing persistence and determination; and you are signalling to the organism that you are serious about change. What you describe (the idea quoted above) is literally the reason so many people who desire change cannot bring it about. What you argue is a thought—that is all—and it is not true.
Tiny little victory of pulling quotes
And I want to hit pause for a second and share that I’m experiencing a proud moment: I was able to find the two above quotes within seconds, pulling them out from my digital organizational systems by:
Launching my DevonThink app on my laptop
Expanding the “quotes” directory
Navigating to “L” (first letter of Laughlin)
Linearly searching for the quote
I consider my current approach fairly effective. And one way to evaluate effectiveness is by measuring the approach through the lens of the POET compass:
P – Presents well (on time and clear)
O – out of the way (invisible)
E – easy to use/get to (instant)
T – trusted (off mind)
Based on the criteria above, I think that my quote management system works (for me, right now):
Presents well – was able to relatively quickly (in the order of seconds) retrieve the quotes.
Out of the way – Yes, up until the moment I wanted to fetch them, they were out of sight.
Easy to use/get to – In terms of easiness, little effort (a few clicks) and a short linear search, which for me is acceptable since I’m not storing a huge volume of quotes.
Trusted – I have not visited my DevonThink application for (probably) months and the application was certainly off my mind and yet, I could trust that I could return and retrieve the necessary quotes.
Summary
Here’s a reminder to self that I can slow down and walk the path of slow and steady.
With my eyes still slightly shut, I slowly rose to consciousness this morning when suddenly, through the not so sound proof windows connecting my bedroom to the front garden, I heard the muffled sound of the dumpster truck slowing makes it way down the street. Based on decibal level of the metal claw wrapping its teeth around its current victim, I suspected that the truck was next door. Oh shit, I realized, I forget to wheel my own fully packed trash bins to the curb.
I had …. maybe 15 seconds to the trash bin wheeled out to the front!
Half naked, wearing only boxers, I leapt out of bed while still half-asleep sprinted towards the front door. I frantically twisted the knob, hopped over the two front door steps, gripped the handle of the trash bin, and began wheeling the trash bin behind me, anxiously wondering if I would make it out on time.
Just as I reached the the street, the garbage man — a young lad who looked as though he was maybe 20 years old — said “Thanks mate”. I handed over the trash bin and he proceeded to position it such that the garbage trunk could connect its claw around the body of the bin.
Now, this whole situation — of forgetting to roll out the bins on Wednesday evening, instead of Thursday morning — has happened not twice, but three times now, over the past 2-3 months. I’m not entirely sure what specifically changed in my life such that would’ve caused me to forget this weekly chore. Regardless,I’d really like to avoid these jump out of bed frantically instances. So, here’s one of the ways I am going to try and reduce the probability of that happening: adding an event to my calendar.
Setting up an event in my calendar
Just now, I added a recurring meeting on my calendar to remind me to pull the bins out at about 06:30pm every Wednesday. I maintain a calendar and have developed a habit, a practice, of checking it every day in order to see what’s on the horizon. If some event is coming up and not in my calendar, history has shown me that, chances are, I’m going to forget about it.
Configuring reminders
Now, not only did I add this recurring event in my calendar, I’ve setup my Fastmail settings such that now, by default, every time I add a new event to my calendar, the following reminders are automatically added, my phone (and laptop) showing an alert:
1 day before the event
1 hour before the event
15 minutes before the event
I find that these alarms are spread out sufficiently and give me little nudges, ways to warm up my mental cache for what lies ahead.
Summary
Will this weekly recurring event calendar help me avoid having to sprawl out of bed in the future and race to street while wearing boxers? I sure hope so. But we shall see.
The cycle of disorganization followed by organization
Yesterday morning, I had a (often recurring) thought to improve my organization skills. I’m aware that this repeating desire comes in cycles, periods of deep disorganization, followed by frustration — frustration from being unable to find something I saved, frustration from dropping the ball on some project — ending with a crescendo of hyper-focus organization. This pattern, that I’m becoming more and more aware of, motivates me to approach this (not novel at all) situation in a more mindful way, especially after reading this hacker news quote from this pursuing the forums this morning:
Sometimes, our problems tend to repeat themselves. And while nothing is wrong, per say, with a problem repeating itself, I do want to minimize the time I spend recycling the sames solution over and over. And instead of berating myself, and in spirit of a growth mindset, I ask myself: how can I learn more about organization and how can I develop more skill around organizing?
Why get organized to begin with?
There’s this baseline assumption I hold: that organization skills improve the quality one’s life. But is this rooted belief of organization helpful? Is it accurate? Is it true that acquiring additional skill may help me realize certain (personally, professional) projects?
Breaking down organization into concrete buckets, into discrete skills
Before jumping the gun (as I’ve done many times in the past, leaping to problem solving prematurely), I think it would be helpful in my situation to zoom out and break down organization into several skills. Upon creating these categories, it might be useful for me to then perform a self-assessment because by approaching this with honesty and compassion, I can then give myself what I need
Different ways to bucket the skills
Organizing Creativity
Thoughts that pop up while writing this article
What role does knowledge of Reiss Motivation Profile (RMP) play as it relates to a fixed vs. growth mindset. How does my low desire for order impact my motivation to develop organizational skills
What are some resources (e.g. books, courses) have I tried in the past? What worked? What didn’t work? Where am I at now, in my journey?
What are the trade offs of developing organizational skills, of becoming more organized? Can I really have the “best of breed” approach, leveraging the (assume) creativity sparked from lack of organization?
Can I develop organizational skills that have less to do with how it looks — especially from the outside — and more of a growth internally? Similar to DBT, the behavior might look the same but the internal feeling is different
