Matt Chung's Site

Tag: training

  • 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

  • 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

  • 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