Matt Chung's Site

Author: mattchung

  • House Dance Analysis Homework

    Was given a task to analyze some of my favorite dancers and attempt to articulate what specifically it is about their dance that inspires me. Although there are two more dancers I’d like to analyze, I’ll start with one of my favorites: Yugson. Over next few days, will update this page with some others.

    Yugson

    One of my favorite rounds that I used to watch on repeat

    Without music

    • Explosiveness – from soft toe taps to big movement
    • Arms seems quite relaxed and not flailing around but with some intention and direction
    • Moves the groove from footwork to upper body and back down
    • Again, small subtle movements to big explosive movements in chest
    • Seems very grounded and “heavy” in the feet
    • With the footwork able to do “double time” and then transition in and out of that rhythm
    • Controlled turns
    • Can see texture changes from hard and sharp to “flowy”

    With music

    • He’s able to accent the “clack”
    • Wow, at the end of the round, the musicality of taking the heavy bass rhythmic pattern
    • On his loose legs, its even more obvious with music that he’s accenting certain parts of the song and not just doing the standard loose legs
    • Even more obvious now he’s able to take the “1 and” sound

    Traits to take away

    • Turning
    • Use of hands in the farmer
    • Grounded
    • Footwork

    Criticisms

    • Lack of using space

  • 1:1 Dance questionnaire

    Below are some questions (along with my answers) asked by Francesa in preparation for our upcoming 1:1 dance private scheduled this Friday. Also included a couple of my favorite dance clips that inspire me.

    • What are 3 house steps that you are comfortable with and use frequently?
      • Pas de bourree
      • Loose Leg / Chase
      • Cross Step
      • Shuffle
    • ⁠What are 3 house steps that you struggle with or tend to avoid?
      • Farmer
      • Skate
      • Train
      • Sidewalk, Salsa (and others that I’ve practiced that sometimes don’t make appearances during rounds/sessions etc)
    • Can you identify what in particular you struggle with for those steps?
      • Falling off beat (exclusively with the farmer)
      • Not quite aesthetically where I want it to be (Skate / Train)
      • Inability (or have not yet attempted really) to convey different rhythms beyond the foundational, syncopated rhythmic pattern
      • Develop a groove (where I doing more dancing than steps) that I can dance and intertwine these steps with
      • Often forget that I’ve even trained these steps and thus rarely come out
    • ⁠Who are 3 house dancers who inspire you or whose style you enjoy?

      So difficult to name just three so going to toss out a few more at the risk of violating the constraint in the question 😊
      • Brian Green
      • Kwame
      • Yugson
      • Rick Indigo
      • Shan S
      • J Soul Zuberi
      • Rachad
    • ⁠Can you identify what is about those dancers that you appreciate?
      • One common theme is the beautiful simplicity in their movements
      • Ability to dance both masculine and feminine energy
      • Laid back while also energetic and crisp and clear
      • Versatility and their ability to adapt to different types of (house) music
      • While the steps are “beautiful”, the ability to gracefully move other parts of the torso
    • Is there anything in particular you’re really keen to get out of this initial session?
      • Curious to hear your observations from the past 3 weeks of Kev’s Kitchen
      • Incorporating double time without looking or feeling so robotic
      • Turns and space without looking robotic / stiff in the torso
      • From the wide array of “elements” (e.g. levels, space, rhythm, musical, isolation, footwork) how to manage training routine and practice and develop them over both the short and long term

  • Dance, discomfort and making mistakes

    Lots of dance activities going on lately and wanted to take a moment to reflect on the journey.

    Choreography volunteer as a dancer for video shoot promotion

    Last week, Francesa messaged me over Instagram, re-sharing an Instagram story, where Vi (an elite dancer from Japan currently located in London, teaching House and Locking and Hip-Hop) requested volunteers for dancers to come learn his choreography that would be filmed as a promotional video for his upcoming class:

    I received this message late on June 7th, the night before the shoot itself. First, I really appreciated Francesa sharing this with me and the fact that I was even on her radar. Second, I experienced mixed emotions, excitement, joy, anxiety. Excitement that I could be involved in something as cool as this, given that I just entered the dance scene about two years ago. Young Matt would’ve been so elated (I myself now, at 37, am elated). And as far as anxiety, I had thoughts like:

    “I’ve choked before during choreography, what if it happens again?”

    “I’ve never taken a class for Vi … what if his choreography is beyond my level?”

    “Should I just hide in the back? But what if only a couple people show up and there’s nowhere to run?”

    Despite having these thoughts, I not only signed up, but forwarded the screenshot to a couple friends, one of which (Aubrey) enlisted herself as well. Part of the reason (a big one), right around the same time of seeing Vi’s announcement, I had read a series of Jo-L’s stories on Instagram. In a nutshell, he basically stated that while we all know that discomfort and mistakes are part and parcel of growth, despite recognizing that reality cognitively, we tend to make decisions (unknowingly) that keep us in a state of comfort. Though I do believe that I am growing and putting myself out there, I definitely knew that signing up for Vi’s choreography was putting myself in discomfort.

    Not only that, but I had somewhat other anxiety reducing thoughts such as:

    • Even if I choke, so what? You are still whole
    • Everyone messes up sometimes
    • The pros (challenge, learning, growth) outweigh the cons (embarrassment)

    In the end, I did it and thrived and nailed the choreography. Not only that, instead of lurking in the back, I positioned myself up front, no where to hide. Finally, even if I did flop, I would’ve been proud of myself either way.

    Some takeaways

    • Starting the loose legs on on the “2” (instead of the “1”) – Almost always, I start the loose legs at the start of a bar. It’s quite common for us (house) dancers to begin our movement on the first downbeat. However, Vi started the choreography with performing a little hop on the “1” and the on the “2”, starting the loose legs. This change of timing is something I’ll take away as a learned lesson
    • Tilting torso to the left while hopping on the right before the shuffle – this was an unusual move for me, one that I’ve yet to perform before. When he demonstrated the move initially, I could not at first identify what I was doing different when comparing my figure in the mirror to his. Eventually, I paused and watched carefully and noticed that he was not rotating his trunk and instead, facing forwards and only ever so slightly stretching the top left of his body
    • Applying a different variation to the tic tac toe movement – I took away a new rhythm and a variation that I like and will drill and incorporate into my freestyle (I did already actually, during Kev’s Kitchen a couple days ago, which I’ll blog about shortly)

    Challenges during choreography

    • Salsa step and then hop
    • Additional “stutter” steps between pas de bourree transition into the salsa step

  • London House Dance Workshop Summary

    I attended a house dance workshop lead by Samantha Mavinga. The workshop took place in London last Sunday on May 25th and ran for 3 hours and though I’ve attended other workshops in the past, this one felt particularly special:

    • Trained with Mavinga previously in 1:1 and so I’m familiar with her work
    • I DJ’d for the self-exporation and cypher portion of the workshop
    • I created a recap video using my DSLR

    Exercises revolving around the “Shuffle” movement

    We started the workshop with a breathing exercise, and was asked to envision (while our eyes were closed) of our safe space. Following this tapping in exercise, she revealed that we’d be focusing on a single move throughout the entire workshop: the shuffle.

    I love the fact that we focused on a single foundation move because she’s providing us with a template that can be further applied to other foundational moves. It’s like teaching us how to fish.

    1. Controlling and strengthening feet required – an exercise she had taught me during our 1:1 privates. Good refresher and reminder.
    2. Rhythm patterns – simple, syncopated, double time, 1/16th notes. I was familiar with this and actually had practiced this rhythmic pattern not only with other foundation moves (e.g. pas de bourree, cross step) but also had practiced it a bit with shuffle as well
    3. Repeating the movement on the same side (instead of switching from left to right or vice versa) – I really like this technique
    4. Combining shuffle with roger rabbit – though she combined the shuffle with roger rabbit, taking components from each one, I imagine so many opportunities where I can combine shuffle with other moves like pas de bourree and cross step
    5. Leveraging control and strengthening to stretch out and slow down the shuffle
    6. Moving up and down across the four levels – I really struggle with transitioning from level 3 (the penultimate level) and level 4, on the ground.
    7. Taking up space by traveling with the movement – I got some nice feedback from her that I was prematurely kicking out (i.e. initiating the shuffle) the non jumping leg
    8. Transition between Peter Paul on left side to right side – lovely move and transition and feels unnatural to me and will require lots of practice in a slower tempo

  • 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