Whilst I can see parallels that agree in my life, there have been times when I’ve wanted someone else to provide just the right dance class, just the Arabic language class, enough challenge to keep me interested but not too much that I have to work too hard! Yet for some things I find myself unable to manage both the level of challenge and dealing with the challenge itself at the same time. In these areas I would seem to be stuck in the middle ground, reliant on others to manage the challenge.

When stretching, I get a dramatically more satisfactory result if I have a partner who is applying the force of the stretch and I can focus on breathing through and relaxing into the stretch. When dealing with emotional & psychological upset I get a much better result if I have someone else guiding me towards the truth of the situation whilst I focus on being honest with myself and staying open and vulnerable. In both these situations, the amount of challenge needed to obtain the benefit is prohibitive to me both working through that challenge and managing the challenge, i.e. making sure I stay safe.

One of my stories is that I should be able to handle personal challenges like this on my own, that it is unacceptable behaviour to ask for help. It’s taken a long while for me to see that I really needed someone else’s support with my mental health, and I know that I’m not the only one with this story.

This doesn’t contradict Havi’s post, but rather add to it. Whilst someone may be giving away their power & sovereignty to avoid taking responsibility for their own progress, there is another situation where a person is neither beginner nor expert and genuinely needs help to progress.

Beginners need direction, advice on where to start, but can then get on with trying things out by themselves. Which textbook is good for beginners? What exercises are best for those new to pilates/yoga/ballet? How far should I go on my first run? What should I write about on twitter?

Experts can navigate themselves and stretch themselves according to their own goals. I can study proper use of the subjunctive in French grammar, practice correctly engaging my core in downward dog, adjust my movement to take pressure off a sore knee, and decide to reveal more or less about a particular aspect in my writing online.

It is the addition of this element of navigation that I think is key to what I’m feeling here. A good partner will take instruction from me, it is still my choice where I go, but they navigate while I drive. They can even help me keep taking personal responsibility for my own choices through gentle reminder and feedback.

Want to see more? Try one of these posts:

• Going where I know…
• How can I allow & do at the same time?
• Blogging as a beginner

Ribbed Beanie for any size head

I’ve been knitting a lot recently, and I’ve even gone and designed my own hat as a present for a friend. I wrote up the pattern to share online and so here is my Ribbed Beanie for any size head.

Simples.

Want to see more? Visit some of the most popular posts:

• Identification, Self expression, Conformity and a rant
• Free Happiness Coaching
• Turning a lifelong fear into strength

The fact that spending a week crashing with a student friend of a friend that I met once, and her friends, in Brighton and then spending all day out on the streets trying to squash, jam, bend, balance, run and carry a group of 21 people into unusual places was so damn easy to do is a lesson in itself.  This burbling ramble back into blogging however, is about something different.

What this post is actually about

I’ve spent the last 18 months trying to work out what I want to do.  Trying to follow the advice of ‘Follow you heart’ and ‘Do what you love’. Such aphorisms will never tell the whole story (another favourite of mine is ‘Let go’, because tritely spouting metaphor without any explanation is always helpful).  Still, the idea of tuning into what you want, and then doing it sounds quite simple.

Ok, it is simple. What it isn’t, is easy.

Semantics ahoy!

I’ve always been a bit pedantic about the definitions of words – I had an hour long argument with a friend in sixth form once (schooling at age 16-18, if you don’t know what 6th form is) all about whether or not the Universe contained Heaven (the fact I’m an atheist and don’t believe in Heaven was irrelevant, I can be pedantic and hypothetical all at once). He said no, I said yes. We argued and argued and argued and then suddenly, click. Basically, our answers were entirely dependent on our definitions of the word Universe. Mine was ‘anything and everything’, his was the subtly different ‘anything and everything physical’. At that point the whole argument became moot and we just agreed that we had different definitions of the word.  So yeah, I’m pedantic about saying what you mean and meaning what you say – and yes this is going to come together into some kind of point but I’ve no time to plan and edit because I might not feel like writing after dinner and I’ve been given my 5 minute warning before I have to go be sociable.

The semantics of ‘Follow your heart’

The general gist of these aphorisms is to know what you want to do, and to go and do them.  The semantics comes in on such innocent looking words as ‘know’, ‘want’, & ‘do’.

Knowing

To know something can mean several things, it can mean to decide or agree or understand, but note how these are all words to do with the brain, and thinking.  And the whole point here is to be in touch with your heart and feelings.  Better not-so-much-synonyms-as-just-other-words-to-help-explain-it-better might be recognise, notice, accept.

Wanting

As for wanting something – this is where the majority of nay-sayers jump on board with their own personal definitions of the word and scream all over anything you’re trying to communicate because you may have just pushed a hot button of theirs, oh deary me, do you think, no surely not.  Again, it’s a lot to do with understanding the words as being about the heart and not the head.  The head tells you what it thinks you should want, or ought to want, to keep you safe, part of the group, and anything else you might worry about.  The head tells you to want status, power and cash.  The heart wants joy, meaning, love, peace, contentment, exploration, adventure, and all those lovely things.

There’s another thing about ‘want’ however. The Moaners can be quick to argue about wanting things that are impossible (such as to grow wings and fly like in dreams) or restricted (like being a pilot when you have to wear glasses). Again, it can be seen as head vs heart.  Often the head has decided exactly how something has to happen for it to be correct.  The heart however is interested less in having wings or a job as a Navy pilot and more things like experiencing flight, heights, the wind rushing past you, freedom to manoeuvre in the air.  Once you can identify what it is about the experience that you want, you can find other equally good ways of fulfilling your heart’s desire even if your head is arguing the whole time that you’re not doing it the right way!

Doing

Then there’s ‘do’. And this one is the one that I have finally realised (like just today, just before I figured I would write about it here, this is fresh off the press, hot news kiddos).  To do something does not necessarily mean to do something constructive.  Shocker, I know. I’ve just totally changed your whole world view haven’t I? You’re reassessing everything after that paradigm shifting beauty.

Thus my tricky little title is lying (the old bait and switch).  It’s not Doing what I want vs Being miserable, but doing what I want means being miserable (sometimes).  Yup, the moping, lying about everywhere, not bothering to leave the house, sulking, being maudlin, avoiding the world, and all that stuff is exactly what I needed to do.

Now don’t get me wrong. It’s depression, it’s a medical condition, and I’m seeking treatment. It’s not happy, I don’t want it to continue, and my head sure as hell doesn’t want anything to do with it thank you very much (it’s sucking my status, power and cash right down the drain). But my heart is pretty damn clear that right now it needs a huge great big dolloping dose of feeling crappy and sulky and miserable and whiney and petulant.

Sure, I could help myself feel better (superficially) by doing exercise, going out, still taking care of myself.  Sure, I could be applying for easy work, running my own projects & looking for more projects to join, and even making more of an effort to stay in touch with friends and family. And yes, I’ve been told to do all these things.  And sorry, but no.  Because this is what I need. I need to feel shitty, I need to feel morose, I need to be depressed, and I need to learn from it all.

Some kind of ending type thing

One gentle reminder – this is just me and where I am now. I may change (correction, I will change) and it may bear no relevance or resemblance to anyone else’s experiences of depression or similar situations.  And that’s ok.

The point that I’m slowly allowing to eek out of my brain with all this is: I’ve been ‘Doing what I love’ all this time.  No the aphorism doesn’t fit the reality, but then they very rarely do (heck, aphorisms all seem to come in opposing pairs anyway: one man’s meat is sauce for the gander and all that malarkey).  Rather, I’ve been allowing my heart to direct my actions, and my mind has been serving my heart rather than the other way around.  Maybe my mind could do with learning better ways to express pain, sorrow & anger (and that’s all part of my current plan) than depression, withdrawal & boredom, but at least my heart is leading the way for once.

So yeah, I’m going to feel shitty for a while yet (and frustrated at how slow these processes are), but I will hopefully remember from time to time that all this is a step forward, movement in the direction that I want to be going, and though it hurts like hell at times, and leaves me numb, deflated and wrung out at others, it’s my choice, I choose it, I want it, and I’m ok.

Sidenote

I hate the misuse of aphorisms. They’re basically only useful as reminders for things you already understand, but they’re bandied about as learning aids (particularly in places like twitter and religion).  Doing what you love doesn’t mean always loving what you’re doing. Following your heart doesn’t always mean being blindly led by your emotions. And aphorisms are useful as simplistic reminders, but never tell the whole story and can lead you into a false sense of certainty.

Want to see more? Try one of these posts:

• Living in the past
• The journey to nowhere
• Meditation on time

Suffice to say it was brilliant fun and I got to meet 20+ new and awesome people.

There are some photos on the Telegraph website and more on Facebook, if you have me on there.

Want to see more? Try one of these posts:

• The P-word
• Going where I know…
• A Dancing Geek’s dream

Yes, the P-word has a lot of emotion attached to it.

The P-word is <shudder> ‘Professional’.

Well, I figured that one reasonable marker was that once I’d been paid to work in dance then I could use it.  Except I’ve been paid to teach a number of times before now and I still didn’t feel I could use it.

I got as far as semi-professional, or even part-time-professional (I know, I’m totally making these up – that’s what crazy does to you), but mostly not out loud to other people, just as a label for myself in my head.

Note to self: labels are not that useful unless being used to provide simplified ways for people to understand something quickly.  In your head they just mess you up!

The good news

Cause I like to try and end my posts on an uplifting note, if only for my own sanity.

I recently had the privilege to work with a group of students of varied ages and dance experience.  For two sessions of 3 hours.  I don’t remember being happier, and there was a big part of the final ‘click’ that started to break open the mess around the P-word.  Note I said “started”, I’m still calling the P-word after all.

At the end of the first session I realised I had hit what I termed the ‘holy triumvirate’ of career path hunting:

• I liked it
• I was good at it
• Someone was willing to pay me to do it

The first one was easy to spot – I was bouncing around the place, chattering my head off or simply dancing around in the space enjoying moving.

The second one came later when I realised that I had real ideas and experiences to share when asked questions or facing problems.  I’m rarely lost for something to say, but to actually feel I had something meaningful and valuable to offer – now that felt good!

The final one was the simplest one.  I was there as an invited guest artist, they were offering me money to be there.  I’d have totally done it for free too, but I ended up walking away with a cheque in my hand and big ass grin on my face.

Frankly, when I had this realisation (right about the time I read this awesome Ittybiz post) I was actually a little disappointed not to hear angels singing and blinding lights – but that’s what a childhood spent in places like Sunday school will do to your expectations.

And next?

Ah yes, my brain’s immediate and wholly annoying questioning of where this is going to lead.

Well, I don’t know.  That’s been one of my big lessons this year.  And I’m still working on being ok with that.  In the meantime, I try and taper the heart-exploding panic of not having my life mapped out for the next 20 years with the reminder that 1) having it mapped out would cause me to die of boredom, and 2) I’m actually making progress here.

Want to see more? Try one of these posts:

• Having a good time
• Bodies in Urban Spaces – Brighton Festival
• Webcomics

The piece consists of four male dancers and a double bass player.  Whilst the guys are doing their thing on stage, the musician is playing, recording and mixing loops of his music, percussion and other clever tricks real time – an absolute treat for the audience (and probably the dancers too).

The dancing itself was mostly gorgeous to watch, and pretty full on for the whole hour.  Cue sweat patterns – all part of being a male dancer though, at least we don’t have to pretend that we don’t sweat.  There were the odd times when the unison wasn’t together, I caught a couple of moments where someone stopped to wait for the others to catch up and so on, but my Dad never saw any of that so maybe I’m being too picky.

The lifts were great fun, and even managed to perplex me as to how it was done on a couple – wonderful and frustrating at the same time.  The duets in general were excellent fun to watch and you could see the smiles on the dancers’ faces.  They even admitted afterwards that part of that was having to egg each other to keep going as energy levels started to flag.

Having 4 guys dance together was brilliant for me, as I got to see the differences between them and how, whilst I might not have the facility of one or the strength of another, they each had different limitations and natural abilities that made them unique and I’m no different.  I will admit to being horribly jealous at times, they’re all a few years younger than me, thus managing to make me feel old at 28, but mostly I was inspired and determined to find/create more opportunities to dance.

There’s only a couple of more dates down South to catch this, but it’s worth it – and if you don’t manage to see this one then check out Retina anyway.  They’ve been producing consistently great quality dance for a while now, and being based in the East Midlands it’s a real treat for us to have this based in our region, rather than down in London.

Want to see more? Try one of these posts:

• Sense of Self
• nottdance09 (15-25 October 2009)
• Music & Art Festival

Purposefully obscure, from technical jargon to non-linear plot, it’s a feeding ground for geeks and nerds to compete over who has mastered full understanding of the film.  But don’t worry, if you’re just interested in good film then still check it out, you don’t need to understand all the details to get the drama, and indeed the vague feeling of WTF? the film creates is part of the intention of the director/writer/actor/composer/pretty much everything else guy, Shane Carruth.

Of course, if you do decide you want to pick it apart, there’s plenty of help – including infographics which are one of my favourite things.  An alternative version, which first got the film on my radar, is from one of my favourite webcomics, XKCD.

Another reason to like this film is the fact that it’s free.  You can watch it right now on Google video.  It lasts an hour and a quarter, will make you use your brain, and whilst it isn’t a barrel of laughs type of a film, it’s a more grounded take on how discoveries are made, exploited and then the consequences that follow.  Indeed, trying to work out what’s right or wrong in this context quickly becomes confusing, a worthwhile experience for anyone I think.

Go watch it, don’t worry about the plot too much, and enjoy the experience of being uncertain.

Want to see more? Visit some of the most popular posts:

• Identification, Self expression, Conformity and a rant
• Free Happiness Coaching
• Turning a lifelong fear into strength

I’ll admit that my reasons were selfish, there were two workshops being run this year: one to share ideas and techniques, the other an artistic process.  Given that both these followed a performance by those running the workshop the evening before I could hardly miss them.

My only criticism of the whole affair would be the difficulty in finding the venues – and I’ve been to them before!  Given that it’s going to be dark at 8pm in October none of the entrances from the roads were lit or any signposts, resulting in being late for one performance and missing another entirely!  May I humbly suggest even just a large canvas sign that marks the turning you need to take off the main road – so that those of us driving over don’t miss out.  Both Lakeside Arts and Sandfield Theatre are so hidden from view, that I never even found the latter.  Of course, next time you can bet that I’ll being doing daytime reckie drives and getting full and complete instructions from friends before heading off (I swear Sandfield Theatre has moved!)

My involvement therefore was limited to the two workshops and their performances the night before.  The first, ‘The Swimmer’ by Rachel Krische, I missed the first half of, but thankfully those of us who were late (a fair sized group in the end) were allowed in to enjoy the second half of her piece.  Whilst the piece is improvised each time, there are strict rules, an improvisation score, and a specific improvisation technique used in this piece and it was these interacting layers that Rachel was able to introduce us to in the workshop.

The workshop itself was a wonderful process.  Rachel’s piece derives from choreography by Deborah Hay, and her teaching on awareness in dance.  The joining of these two areas that I have recently thrown myself into was hugely enjoyable and quite moving.  Seeing how these different layers of movement, awareness, internal questioning, and movement score could all interact and be maintained as a loose whole within the mind of the performer was fascinating and personally very inspiring.  I hope that I will be able to impart some of this in the work that I am doing at the moment with Chaos.

I still find it difficult to explain what the workshop involved, without just writing it out in minute detail, but the end result was dance that invited you to watch it, and without necessarily intending to communicate any great meaning or purpose was still captivating and engrossing to watch.  Sometimes funny, sometimes sad, sometimes playful, sometimes lost, it didn’t restrict itself to one thing but was open and free – the constraints of the score and movement serving to simply provide a frame in which to express oneself creatively.  A throughly enjoyable process to watch and to participate in, I am very glad I was able to experience this from both points of view.

At the same event as Rachel’s performance was a piece by Robert Hylton called ‘I don’t know, what do you think?’  Worth mentioning for his use of voiceover, and a beautiful piece of body-popping to Iranian drumming.  It involved the audience’s direct feedback and interaction, an interesting idea, but one that generally felt like under-rehearsed improvisation (if that doesn’t sound like too much of an oxymoron).  Those parts where he had clearly had time to develop them on his own were highly enjoyable, but the interaction with the audience felt a little awkward – which to be fair is something you can’t rehearse except in performance and this was the piece’s first outing.

The second evening’s performance I went to see was Oblivia’s ‘Entertainment Island 1′.  The first of three performances the group are developing from 2008 to 2010.  This is not an easy piece to watch, it lasts 50 minutes and seeks not to entertain but to show the core of what popular entertainment is.  There is a lot of repetition, but since their movement is not fixed to one meaning this means the audience has plenty of time to allow different interpretations and understandings of what is being shown to arise.  They describe their process as taking an idea that is too big, i.e. popular culture, and then working on it to produce something tangible and performable.  Given my current fascination with the idea of the new Information Age and its impact on global society, the idea of being able to find a route to dance was very appealing, even though my final style would almost certainly differ wildly from that of Oblivia.

Two of the artists ran the workshop the following morning, and with a group of just 4 attendees it was a wonderfully intimate and immediate environment – feedback was almost instant as we passed work between ourselves.  Given that Oblivia is a group of 3-4 artists themselves it was useful to try their practices in such a small group as well.

Oblivia is not a dance group, though movement is important in their performance, and as such the workshop was not dance focussed, but the framework of a process that we worked through is transferable enough for me to be able to take those parts that appealed and apply them to my current piece with Chaos.  Doing Qi Gong as a warm-up was a fun experience, and the size of the group meant that when we started to do creative warm-ups to connect we were already reading each other well after only 30-40 minutes of meeting most of the people in the room!

For me, the most interesting part of the process was the letting go of ownership of ideas by swapping work between the two pairs.  First we swapped ideas, then the development of those ideas and then we performed what we saw straight after creating a natural process of decay of superfluous parts of the performance, and a sifting of only those memes, concepts or ideas that stayed in your head.  Interestingly enough I managed to completely miss out the fact that the phrase I had just seen had started with the declaration “I’m going to kill myself!” – an impactful lesson in what is and isn’t picked up by the viewer.  This process of repeating what you’ve just seen was a wonderful way to explore ideas that are easily repeated, I’m not sure if it would work with dance that involved lifts or partner work, but as always in Chaos, it is by trying to take on each other’s movement that we learn to push outside of our own known comfort zone, and the results of trying to repeat this in a different context will be illuminating whatever the quality of the result.

I learnt a lot from this year’s festival (not least how to find Lakeside Arts in the dark) and I look forward to more of Dance4′s calendar throughout the year.

And another thing…

Another very important aspect of the workshops, and which applies to both of them, was the opportunity to meet some wonderful people.  Knowing that you have a shared interest to start with someone, and going through these engaging learning experiences together is a wonderful way to make new friends and I’m very pleased to have managed to get an email address or two with a view to making more dance happen in the future.  I don’t want to use the N-word, but the opportunity to make new connections and relationships is of massive value for all involved.

Want to see more? Try one of these posts:

• Antipode
• Music & Art Festival
• Sense of Self

Combining this enjoyment with the internet then is a win-win for me, and I have more than a few webcomics in my feed reader.  But it’s not just their entertainment value that I enjoy, it’s also what they represent as a successful example of adapting to the internet as a new medium.

Some webcomic artists are people that like simply to draw for fun in their spare time, some more regularly posting that others, some higher quality finish than others, but all enjoyable as examples of a passion shared.  When the subject material itself is also a passion, as in Rich Morris’ series ‘The 10 Doctors‘, the community that builds up around it provides as much, if not more, of the enjoyment than the comic itself – which personally I’m loving to pieces.

Community however, is not limited to fanfic.  Many artists who create unique material will also have a forum such as XKCD and Questionable Content.  These provide valuable feedback for the artist, a place for informal artwork and out-of-story imagery, as well as providing a way for people to connect with each other and create a Godin-tribe.

It is this tribe that then supports the successful artists, and enables webcomics to provide income to artists without resorting to the alienating practices of selling advertising space or indeed charging for their work.  This is where the real demonstration of a working internet model occurs.  The creator provides regular, quality content and in return fans not only will pay money, but demand to be able to do so.

Requests for merchandise often come from the fans who want a t-shirt or poster with a particular piece of artwork on it (yes, artwork).  The creation of a tribe means that clothing that will allow others in the tribe to recognise each other offline is desirable to promote the exclusivity and branding of the tribe we know so well in mainstream fashion today.

As well as the demand for memorabilia is the demand for experiences, comic conventions are an obvious place for webcomic artists.  Fans want to meet the artist, ask them questions, get a signed book of their work, and simply meet other fans.  Providing an offline, real world version of the online forum allows the best of both worlds.  The ongoing benefits of internet connectivity and presence, with the enjoyment of realtime, in-person interaction to solidify and augment relationships.

All of the money given by fans is for extra services that revolve around the main product, all is considered of value and yet none of it could happen with the sense of community that is built around a free product online.  It is this that excites me – the creative material is shared with anyone and everyone around the world, and supported by those who wish to be part of the community or tribe.  Others are free to access the product, but not the sense of connection that has grown around it.

Both the creative product and the community are valuable in their own right, but by allowing the community to support the work, everyone can benefit from the creative product without restriction (except obviously internet access, which by no means is a given yet).  This free sharing of creative output is something I am very interested in, and having even just one example of it to learn from gives me hope that we may find more open ways of interacting in the future.

If you’re interested, here’s a list of my current webcomic reads (warning – possible NSFW content for some of these):

• The 10 Doctors (finished)
• XKCD
• Questionable Content
• Looking for Group
• Least I Could Do
• Calamities of Nature
• JEFBOT
• Tasty Flesh
• Geek Loves Nerd
• AppleGeeks
• Able and Baker
• The Joy of Tech
• Penny Arcade
• Sinfest
• Girls with Slingshots
• Ctrl+Alt+Del
• Two Lumps

And thanks to the way webcomics link to each other, this list is sure to grow.

Want to see more? Try one of these posts:

• The P-word
• Music & Art Festival
• A pile of yuck I’ve been ignoring

The different venues provided a venue for bands and booze, art, music and coffee, or snacks and relaxing respectively.  Chaos found a home in the latter two locations.

We got to chat with some really nice people at Boo!, try some yummy tea and cakes, and generally relax on big cushions under hanging origami and drapes, whilst listening to some lyrical guitar followed by a violin and digeridoo duet (my personal favourite).  They also have a rather interesting little library of books you can read or borrow which I may well be venturing back to have a look at, if I can face being in Derby city centre.

Big Blue had some great art on the walls, including origami on canvas, painted canvases and cut-out art that made me think of very artistic theatre props.  It was upstairs in the cafe that Chaos actually got to do some dancing.

The space itself was “compact” with sofas round the edges, and the musicians in one corner, so there wasn’t a great deal of room for us – especially after everyone wanting to listen had crammed in.  So we ended up doing duets to allow us to actually move and stretch out our limbs at least a little bit.

The music (performed by Leela and the Spaceship – a possible Futurama reference?) was fantastic to dance to, it was a really enjoyable experience being so close to the audience and musicians, even if it did result in a few bums in faces and not so graceful attempts to avoid mass collision.  I was never sure whether the applause was for us or the musicians, but all in all we seemed well received by everyone in the room – certainly only nice things were said to us afterwards.

We did try again later to perform, but the music was evidently too catchy, or my little solo too enticing, that within a few minutes the floor was full of everyone dancing so we again had a little duet but mostly just enjoyed dancing with everyone to ‘Look Pancake?’.

Given we knew nothing about the space, the music, the audience, the duration or indeed anything really about what we were going to be doing, it was such fun to just turn up and move together in such an accepting environment.  It’s fair to say that not everything worked – the lack of space was a massive restriction, but hopefully our creativity was a match for it most of the time.  Certainly there were lessons I took away about adapting to different spaces.

I wish I had someone to link to about the event, but we were having such fun I didn’t think to find this out at the time.  Still, perhaps there will be more opportunities in the future – I would certainly welcome them!

Want to see more? Try one of these posts:

• Antipode
• nottdance09 (15-25 October 2009)
• Webcomics