Matt Chung's Site

Category: Personal Development

  • 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, us unable to make forward progress.

    In those moments, I remind myself to take a break and quite literally step away from the computer.

    As for my right foot pain, I recently being throwing different things at the wall, trying out a variety of exercises and stretches, desperately hoping the pain will disappear soon. However, while reading a ballet blog on resolving plantar fasciitis, it suddenly dawned on me that my pain coincides (6 weeks ago) with the following changes:

    • Wearing 1.6 kg (3.5 lbs) ankle weights on each foot while training
    • Increasing frequency of training – previously only taking (2) two 1.5 hour dance classes a week and then on top of that, had added about (3) 1.5 hour training sessions on adjacent days
    • Introduced new exercises that likely my body was unprepared for – jump roping on one foot, hopping from one leg to another leg (again, while wearing ankle weights)

    It was either in the referenced article or another video that talked about how just a little bit of weight gain can increase odds of plantar fasciitis. While the article was implying body weight gain, I had increased my weight through the use of ankle weights. While wearing them, I often feel my ankles are a bit wobbly, a bit unstable, especially while performing certain movements. So probably poor biomechanics and other foot muscles compensating.

    In short, too much volume, poor technique due to increase (ankle) weight(s), and not enough rest.

    Next Steps?

    • Rest (I find this the hardest of all)
    • Barefoot walking on gravel and pebbles
    • Increasing foot strength by doing calve raises and standing on toes
    • Increasing foot strength by doing eccentric heel drops

    Ultimately, I want to be able to increase my dance training volume since I am seeing huge gains but without an uptick in injuries.

  • Dance Practice Log – December 09, 2024

    When: Monday, December 09, 2024 6:30pm until 8:00pm
    Where: 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 I can see the work paying off. I feel it. I see it.

    What did I do

    • Conditioning
      • Jump roping (3 minutes)
      • 2 rounds of single leg squats, lunge jumps (my enemy), squats, holding dance positions
    • 1 round of 9 exercises with ankle weights
      • Compass on time
      • Compass double time
      • Compass with a swing
      • Jump from side to side
      • Rapid fire forward and backwards
      • Side to side arm stretches (used to make me nauseous but not anymore)
    • 6 rounds of pas de bourrée rhythm training with ankle weights
      • On time, double time, “standard”, 1/16th
    • 6 rounds of cross step rhythm training without ankle weights
      • On time, double time, “standard”, 1/16th
    • Musicality exercise – Used Garage band (no. 16)
    • Freestyle round – started cramping so I stopped after about 3 minute round

    What was the main focus?

    • Musicality and transitions
    • Updated dance training program – added moves such as roger rabbit, jack in the box, side walk, drunk walk, compass, swirl, heel toe, dodger
    • Drilling rhythmic pattern (Mavinga)
    • Main intention continues to be holding the position just a fraction of a second longer, particularly on rhythm 3 before transitioning to 1/16th notes

    Wins

    • Throughout freestyle round, I incorporated (recency bias) the kick, bend, into roger rabbit transition (from Miriam)
    • Setup with the repetition – this is something that I came up for myself; well, I arrived at this move on my own and do not doubt that others in the world have come up with the same move
    • Threw in the shuffle transition I picked up from Miriam from class last Saturday – kick out right, step left leg back behind right, finish the shuffle kick out. I find this transition really beautiful and I’m adding my own flavor, my own sauce to it

    Areas of Improvements

    • Right arm stiff during swirl (and more generally, in all movements)
    • Adding textures
    • Incorporating pauses and quarter time with intention
    • I’m thinking of doing something like Bas Ruten, creating .mp3 files of me just telling myself the exercises with music baked into it

    Full training and practice video

  • Dance practice log – reflection

    Starting a couple weeks ago, I changed the way I approach dance training, particular when training by myself.

    • Sometimes I used the mirror, sometimes I do not – I have mentioned this to some others that the mirror can become a crutch, could end up maladaptive, where we are overly relying on the mirror, which of course is not always available
    • I perform a “warm up” before
    • I’m able to train longer before – my physical endurance has improved. I’m not talking about cardiovascular. I’m talking about my muscles (particularly leg muscles) sustaining longer amount of time dancing. There have been sessions where I wanted to train more but was hitting limits on my physical ability
    • I find it sometimes lack the motivation to start the training – but as soon as begin, I’m locked in … in the zone.
    • I enjoy watching back the footage, often surprised that my creativity lead to something that I consider beautiful
    • I’ve been reviewing my footage with the hopes of using it as input for future dance sessions – whenever I see something (e.g. right arm stiff) that I want to work on, I’d like to write it down and feed the feedback to future dance trainings
    • My body is getting stronger and I’m able to train longer and longer
    • Leg muscles hate the exercise of quickly

    December 04, 2024

    What did I work on?

    What are my areas of growth?

    • Staying on time when performing loose leg with toe tap – Loose leg to toe tap and then was initially struggling to catch the next beginning four count

    December 06, 2024

    What did I work on?

    • Some moves from Jevan’s choreography from this past Thursday

    I started uploading my entire dance trainings onto YouTube (as unlisted, since they are primary for my own eyes).

    Although I keep a dance journal (using Obsidian), it’s not well maintained. I’d like to keep an online dance journal primarily for myself, and secondarily for anyone who finds the act of practicing as enjoyable as performing.

    What are some things that creativity sparked something beautiful?

    • 3 counts of 1/16th cross step with an 8 count pause to the other side
    • Transition from dodger into swirl – totally unexpected and felt awkward but when looking back at the footage, looks quite aesthetic
    • Dodger on one side repeatedly
    • Musicality with pas de bourree with a hop – still struggled with initially translating what I heard into what I was moving
    • For the setup, I cut some piece of it and repeated it, jumping two half circles

    Where are my areas of growth?

    • Right arm a bit stiff when dancing
    • Stiffness in arms asymmetrical when dancing
    • Continue practice holding the count longer, especially for pas de bourree and cross step, the standard groove I tend to rush past
    • When performing head isolation left and right, chin is sometimes too far out, pull back towards center (which looks like the appropriate resting position though it feels like I’m pulling back too far despite the positioning looking more aesthetic and correct)
    • My shoulders are quite stiff, hunched forward

  • 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 learned that there’s a subtle difference between authoritarian and (“positive”) / authoritarian parenting. According to the workshop, we want to move away from the former (authoritarian) and towards the latter (“positive” / authoritarian).

    Here’s what I learned

    • A four quadrant analysis with firm and nurturing
      • Permissive Parenting (high nurture, low firm)
      • Neglectful/Uninvolved (low nurture, low firm)
      • Authoritarian Parenting (high firm, high nurture)
      • Positive/Authoritative Parenting (high nurture, high firm)
    • Learned that I have a tendency to sometimes fall into the Permissive quadrant, my default state

    What I enjoyed

    • Breakout groups – listening to some other parents friends and being self aware of their own shortcomings (we all have them)

    Some criticisms

    • Elements of the workshop felt a bit dogmatic
    • Several assumptions and implicit values and beliefs
    • Viewed through a “western” lens and failed to consider cultural context
    • Instances of binary thinking – lacks nuance. Giving kids options “You get to choose X or choose Y” to me lacks imagination
    • I had asked the moderator what their definition of “a boundary” was and she continued to defer to the “books” – I asked this question not to be contentious but I had observed that some of the examples in the pamphlet were not necessarily boundaries (according to my definition of a boundary, the definition I learned from Dr. Becky Kennedy) and were merely requests. For instance, “Call me at 12:00 or setup a time with your dad to pick you up.” Where in here is the boundary? If a child neither calls at midnight nor communicates with their father, what is the consequence of their (in)action?

    Finally, though it was uncomfortable being in the same space as my ex (I had invited her to the workshop in spirit of centering our daughter Elliott), ultimately think both her and I could learn more for Elliott. And overall, though I picked up a few good tools that I’ll practice (lots of overlap with DBT, especially resemblance with “cope ahead” tools), overall I felt the workshop was a bit dogmatic.

  • 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 during a workshop that took place in London. Though heavily inspired by his teaching, I made some changes that I think provides more clarity:

    • Counting on the high hat – in the third set of pas de bourée, we’re dancing on the high hat. The way Walid taught us to count was “and one and, and two and, and three and” which is totally valid however, I’m counting it as follows “and one and, and three and, and five and, and seven and”, giving us (or me) a clear understanding of where I am at relative to the eight count
    • Annotating with a piece of paper – during the workshop, there were no visualizations. So I added my own annotation (as you can see in the video)
    • Adding my own interpretation of ending on on the 7 beat – Though we can immediately transition to the high hat from any down beat, I believe in the second round, the reason we end on the 7 beat and transition to the high on the “and” of the 8 downbeat is because 1.5 counts of “time” gives us ample time to prepare ourselves physically and mentally to transition

    Exercise Description

    Short version:

    • Dance 8 counts of pas de bouree, starting on the “1” downbeat
    • Skip the “1” of the second 8 count, and dance 6 counts of pas de bouree, starting on the “2” downbeat
    • Start on the “and” of the 8 beat (from the last round of pas de bouree)

  • 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 first rule of mastery: Stop worrying about what other people think” and currently working through (a library rented copy of) “How Confidence Works” by Ian Robertson. In “How Confidence Works”, Ian Robertson states that confidence is domain specific and that confidence itself is NOT transferable.

    In other words, just because you are confident in area A (e.g. dance) does not mean you are inherently confident in area B (e.g. public speaking). While it can be a trait, self-confidence has more to do with competence within a specific domain.

    For instance, you can be the most confident dancer, able to effortless dance in front of a large audience, and then feel absolutely unsure and insecure and terrified when it comes to dating! It follows that building confidence is a skill that is transferable across domains (more on this below — see Gold Nuggets below)

    All all that brings me to “paradox of rising expectations.”

    In a nutshell, when it comes to setting goals, an individual’s goal post continues to move. That is, what often happen is that once we reach out goal(s), here’s a natural tendency to set another (typically more ambitious) goal. It’s a recursive, infinite loop: set goal, achieve goal, set goal, achieve goal.

    Gold nuggets extracted from conversation with Jo-L

    I followed up with Jo-L over Instagram, sending him a few voice messages, asking him a few follow up questions. Here are some pearls of wisdom I extracted from the conversation:

    • “Confidence is a product of the effort ….”
    • “I’m not talking about the outcome…the outcome is a completely different story … I am putting myself in this position and I am trying. And that means no matter the outcome, I can try again. And I can go again. I am gaining confidence in the fact that I am putting myself in this position. And this is something that is transferable.”
    • “If I’m capable of putting myself here — of trying this out — I am capable of trying something new out. If I am capable of mastering this … then I have the capacity to master something else.”
    • “You’re not mastering the craft. You’re mastering yourself WITHIN the craft”
    • “Every single time you master yourself within the craft, you’re also learning a lot about yourself that’s going to be useful in the pursuit of mastering yourself within another craft.”
  • Vibing with Xinobi’s “Searching for” song

    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:

    • “It is about the mind. How it grows progressively. What do you feed it?”
    • “It is about choices much it is about decisions. But it is about having bravery and the strength to make those things come to fruition”
    • “… the past repeats itself. So how will you choose to repeat yourself…”

    Another reason I love this song is that this past weekend, Elliott out of the blue said, “What are you feeding your mind?”

    I was confused as to why she had said this and she responded with, “Dad, remember? The song?”

    I was blown away at her ability to recall the lyrics! So when I hear this song, I often think about Elliott and that little passing moment.

    Lyrics

    It is about what you feel, what you do
    How you choose to present yourself when the situation requires you
    It is about what you’re looking for, what you search for
    It is not about fulfillment, but it is about what is missing
    How do you improve? How do you progress?
    Are you searching?

    It is about the mind
    How it grows progressively
    What do you feed it?
    How do you cultivate the mind?

    It is about the galaxies and the stars
    But not so much about the moon as much as it is about you

    It is about choices much is it about decisions
    But it is about having the bravery and the strength
    To make those things come to fruition
    What is it you’re searching for?

    It is about a pause, a break
    A interruption in the transmission
    A stop in the space-time continuum
    A choice that you will always make
    A moment in being when you realize
    That you are what you are searching for
    So, I will ask: what is it you are searching for?

    It is about infinite tomorrows
    But is also about yesterdays and how the past repeats itself
    So how will you choose to repeat yourself in their lives?

    It is about now
    It is about then
    What is it you are searching for?
    What is it you are searching for?
    Is it the now? Is it the no? Is it the yes?
    Is it that subsequent “I love you” that you need?
    What is it you are searching for?
    What is it you are searching for?

  • 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 her message and, at the risk of sounding like I missed the mark, I’ll add my own perspective: though each of us are born with our own set of unique limits and constraints, I believe that we operate far below our human potential.

    My opinion reminds me of an excerpt from a book I’m reading, a book on developing self confidence. The author shared one Navy Seal’s (who I later learned was David Goggins) position:

    He would say that when your mind is telling you you’re done, you’re really only 40 percent done. And he had a motto: If it doesn’t suck we don’t do it. And that was his way of forcing us to get uncomfortable to figure out what our baseline was and what our comfort level was and just turning it upside-down

    In other words, when we feel like throwing in the towel, we probably have a lot more to give.

    Recently, I started training with Mavinga on leveling up my house dance. And unlike other 1:1 privates that I’ve done, she starts off our lessons with (what I consider) fairly vigorous exercises and she programs them into intervals. At the tail end of some rounds, I find myself completely gassed out, the look on my face conveying that I’m reading to throw in the towel. Practically every time she sees my facial expression melt into despair, she shouts in her French accent: “Allez Allez — let’s go let’s go. It’s in your mind.”

    When I hear those words, I get a burst of motivation and push and somehow always end up coming out the other side. With the above Navy Seal’s “40% rule” in mind, I wonder if — during the moments of despair — if I am operating at even a lower percentage, like 20 or 30%!

    Of course there’s a fine line to walk. I do not want to push myself to the point of physical injury. However, I feel fairly confident and safe to push myself when I’m feeling muscle fatigued or out of breathe.

  • Stretch Log

    Day 173 of stretching and flexibility journey

    Date: November 5th, 2024

    Target muscles: hamstrings

    During the hamstring (lunge) exercise, I hold and prop myself with my arms, my tummy constantly making contact with my (target) thigh. I notice that when I try to deliberately relax my upper body and arms, the intensity of the hamstring stretch violently increases. As I type this, I think this makes sense since during relaxation of upper my body, I’m probably shifting the work onto the hamstrings. In any case, I was reflecting on today’s session and was curious and compare yesterday’s lunge range of motion compared to that of 2 months ago and though I know and feel a difference in my body, seems to me that the increase range of motion is probably a few small degrees. I will say I do notice what I consider for me significant gains in the hip flexor range of motion and as a result, I’m inching my way closer and closer to a forward split.

    Also, still trying to experiment with the forward fold — emphasizing hamstring, not lower back — and by hinging at the hips, though I still feel the stretch strongly in my hamstrings, I also now feel the stretch not in my lower back, but towards the middle. And, even with the assistance of the band wrapped around my feet, I’m not fully able to relax in the stretch and feel that hinging in the hips requires more “effort” of the hips, and I actually produce a sweat every time I attempt the forward fold.

    Separately, yesterday my body signaled to me that during the hamstring lunge, to point the toes since that increased the stretch for me in location of the hamstring that isn’t targeted when I am flexing my foot back.


  • Conveying one’s dance musicality ability with gestures

    Like many others, I watch and study lots of house dance videos. I’m still very much a beginner when it comes to the craft — at the time of this writing, about 14 months into the journey — however I’m noticing an increased ability within myself to tease out what highly skilled dancers are trying to convey in their rounds. Because I recently started training privately with Mavinga, I’m leveraging the opportunity by attempting to analyzing her videos and then coming up with questions that I can ask her since it’s rare and a wonderful opportunity to sit with the person and have them articulate what they were doing in a particular round. In particular, I like the below video (hopefully YouTube skips to the specific time frame I embedded in the URL) where Mavinga catches a particular phrase in the music and then (I think) signals to the battle opponent that he missed an opportunity to play with musicality or perhaps she’s trying to convey something along the lines of “Did you hear that? Maybe not.” It’s playful.