04 Sunday Feb 2018
Posted in Dance, Dance Like No One is Watching, Do You, Kids, Live in the Moment, Love, Nothing Meaningful, Parenting, Schedule
It is mid dance convention weekend. There has been some stress, but the Girl has danced her heart out and done amazing as have her teammates! The kids are doing an amazing job! I love watching her dance! We we’re there at 7am until 10:30pm I’m spent. I had a great day and will talk about my day more as the week goes on and when I am not so exhausted!
#SLWC2018
28 Sunday Jan 2018
Posted in Be Present, Be You, Dance, Dance Like No One is Watching
Tags
Dance is what you need it to be, Dance it out, Do your art loud and proud, Emotions, interpretation is in the eye of the beholder, What you need and what they need
Today is another day at convention with the Girl. Last night she performed her solo for the first time. The solo that she didn’t want me to see it was all a surprise. I loved it, I loved the costume (except would add some rhinestones to the straps but she wants nothing to do with that!) She got some really great critique from one of the instructors here at the convention. She did great if I critiqued it (which I have not, I am trying to let the professionals do it) I would say get more emotionally into the dance. However, in talking to her she said she messed up a couple parts and felt that she did terrible. I looked pretty good so I know she is a critic of herself so that kind of showed only because she was thinking through it and only I could tell because well, I am her mom. I am glad I made her perform it here to go once through it before she competes next week!
Right now, I am watching Tap. The girl is taking tap off since her injury was her gastric which is a calf muscle and tapping works the calf muscle a lot. They are dancing to a song called “This Is Me” from the Greatest Showman. I am loving this song. My favorite line is “I make no apologies, This is me” I want to live this in my life more. I want my kids to live this way. Live out loud and make no apologies!
That’s part of dance and art in general! One purpose of art is to express of feelings our emotions. Or at least for a place to put our emotions. We put ourselves in a dance we do what the choreographer tells us to. But in dance we bring our life out own emotions. The choreographer saw a picture or had a thought of what they want that dance to look like or feel like and the dancers takes it applies their own experience and transforms it into…. well, ART! This is why I love dance, the performer may bring one thing that the choreographer did not intend but in that moment both emotions are realized along with the emotion and interpretation of the audience! Whatever you feel when you see art is right even if it was not the intended emotions or experience. Nothing is wrong in the world of art…it’s heaven!
I love how you can watch a performance and be inspired to grow, express, love, move or just be loud. You can be the performer and go to the darkest place in your world and get it out and at the end someone saw it and thought it was beautiful even when for you, it came from your ugly place. That’s where the inspiration happens. Like a phoenix our of the ashes of loneliness comes the most beautiful love song. All it takes is getting to the core, you, dancing, from that place that no one sees. Yet even when you dance from that place, they see your most vulnerable piece of you coming out in the safety of dance but they may still not see you they see themselves…that is what makes art of dance so beautiful and gorgeous!
Here this is where transformation happens! Be you be real dance like no one is watching because no one really sees you, they see the deepest most personal and beautiful part of you. They see you for who you are, but they decide who you are and that is okay it doesn’t change you because you are, or your art is who or what they need you to be. That is okay, that is what makes it beautiful!!
#SLWC2018
27 Tuesday Sep 2016
Tags
be raw, Be Real, Be You, Close your eyes to feel the music and let it flow through your body, Dance it out, Don't judge you, it's beautiful!
***writers note I started this yesterday, Monday edited and completed Tuesday**
What a great three day weekend (we played hookie today so we all had a three day weekend) To be honest, it was a rough start to our weekend. The Hubs and I had a long “Special Moment” (aka big fight) to start off Saturday then a loss for our PeeWee team made it just a bad day but then was recovered with great friends who are more like family Saturday night. Then it was Seahawks Sunday then we ran into more good friends after the game and then we met up at Great Wolf Lodge Monday with the kids and In-laws. However, I feel shafted because the power went out and we didn’t get that much time in the water park, and then home to a crazy mess of a house. Then, I realized the meat in the fridge that needed to be cooked or thrown away, only $130+ so I had to throw it on the Traeger to salvage it dinners are pre-prepped for the week …I guess. Then it was time for my Adult Modern Dance Class. I was tired and unmotivated, but I knew it would lift me up and rescue the day (not that it was bad, but I was tired).
In Modern, We are working on improving and “feeling” the music without “holding back” or judging our moves. Take up the space, use the floor and dance from within….I SO NEEDED that!!!! I need that in my whole life. Dance overflows totally into life, Thanks Ms X! Dance once again rescued my day and actually without getting to in depth dance really has rescued my life more than once! And then today, flowers from the Hubs to seal the weekend. And better yet we go back to work/school for Tuesday, it won’t be a Monday!
So, Love life! Embrace the positive, ditch the negative. Dance from within. I think dance is the only time in my life maybe the only time I allow myself to be uncensored (when I close my eyes, yes I dance improv with my eyes closed so I don’t judge myself). I am thankful for dance and a class to go to and a teacher who draws out my soul out to put it in my dance. I may one day find if it is ever possible, I may find the real me, with the help of dance probably on stage when I don’t even expect it! I love dance! Dance mimics life and I love dance, my life is a dance. I love my life!
#Dance2016
06 Saturday Feb 2016
Posted in Dance, Dance Like No One is Watching, Love, Raising Kids
Tags
Dance it out, great job, I don't care what color your medal is, I love watching her dance!, Leave it all on the stage, The Girl did great
This evening the girl had her first competition performance of the year! She did great! She was asked how she felt she did after she got off stage and she said she felt really good. She should have it was a great run! However the judges were tough. She got a Gold. Here is how the awards go. They are given are based on their score by percentage. 100-98 is a Titanium, 95-97.99 is Platinum, 90-94.99 is Gold, 80-89.99 is Silver and 79.99 and below is Bronze.
The Girl always tries for a Platinum which used to be the top rank at all competitions. Most Competitions that we attend go Platinum, High Gold, Gold, High Silver and Silver… When she here’s Gold she kind of gets deflated even knowing that at some competitions her Gold from tonight would have been a Platinum. I always try to give her just as many hugs and take as many pictures no matter what color the medal is. She was bummed. By the time I got to her after the awards ceremony she was already taking of her costume and was visibly upset. I told her she should be proud but she wasn’t having it! She did not understand that the scoring system is tough, she moved up in age group category as the judging is tough and there are A LOT of kids in her age group (11-13) all that being considered oh yeah by the way she has a tough dance. She had a couple turns that to an untrained eye looked perfect but to a judge she stepped out of and kind of fell out of a couple turns. Each time that happens judges knock off points and with only 5 points to get down to Gold… There is not a lot of room for error. She really did amazing. I hate this part of competition. She comes out of the awards defining herself by the color of the medal. And it is sad that she feels deflated with a Gold! Gold is pretty damn good!
Last year she got Platinum and this year I am pretty sure she did better performance wise, technically and creatively. She wants to hear that word Platinum!!! It’s like I tell the boy in Wrestling the outcome doesn’t matter, it’s how you feel, how you did not how the other person did or what the judges think. You go out there do your best, leave it all on the mat. For the Girl it is leave it all on the stage. If you don’t ‘win’ you learn! Use that to fuel you to get those turns and for the Boy how to defend that next time.
Honestly the Girl has always usually comes out with her best or highest rank the first competition of the year and maybe she kind of rests on those Laurels so here she can use this to fuel her to prove something…to get those turns right and nail the performance and routine! She truly is amazing, I love watching her perform I want her to feel proud without needing thebjudges to say so. I would love for her to just be able to go out and hit her moves and just know when she has a great performance. To be proud and confident and not care about the score! She mentioned “I want tobget you what you paid for” …..Wait, Hold up! I paid fornyountonjoin perform in stage and be critiqued and to get you seen by other great dancers. I laid for a convention that teaches you how to audition and be confident… I did not pay for your award. I paid for the judges opinion but not for a first place or Platinum. You earn that! But to me today I got to watch my Girl dance to inspire to break through a barrier to teach and interpret a song into movement, to draw emotion and tears from onlookers eyes! She was beautiful, she was passionate and I loved her performance! That was worth my money times 10! How do I teach her THAT is what I pay for!That is why I lay for dance, that is why she dances and she accomplished what she set out for! I could not be more impressed, wait,I will be more impressed next time she goes to rehearsal and worms on this little mistakes and gets her turns and the next competition that she nails! She is beautiful and inspiring I can’t wait to see what the future has for her! Keep up the good work Girl.
To you parents with kids in dance or any activity, help them know we don’t do it for the win! We do not for them to develop passion, to inspire, to grow and to gain confidence!!! For them to learn to always put their beat out there. To leave it all on stage and dance like no one is watching!!! We need to tell our kids that we love watching them dance, that we are proud of their performance and bravery and courage and confidence. We love them as much when they get Platinum or Gold or Silver! Dancers rock inspire and I am proud to be raising one!
#Everday2016
15 Tuesday Sep 2015
Posted in Dance, Dance Like No One is Watching, Do You
Tags
Yesterday I went back to dance for the first time since this summer! I have been so busy with football and just enjoying my family on the nights that I could so dance got pushed aside! Being Monday, The Hub’s is teaching and The Girl is dancing and luckily the boy had a buddy at dance to hang out with. Which made it a perfect night for me to be at dance. At first I felt like an outsider, the girls who had danced all summer had their little secret inside jokes and I felt left out. Once we got into actual dancing I put all of that out of my mind and checked in to me! It was Modern and we had an exercise that we were supposed to feel the music and the instructor would tell us what body part to move from.
I
totally got into the music. This is why I dance! Everyone, everything, went away and I just felt the music. The teacher said to me “nice facials Ruby!” and I realized my face was showing the emotions inside of me. I was about to cry! Full of emotions that I don’t really know what they mean. I have been so busy that I haven’t been able to think feel or even know what any of that really is! When I was dancing I wasn’t thinking about my feelings or even knowing what I was feeling. I was just dancing! I even very smoothly went into the splits, just like a real dancer! (I didn’t even know what I was doing and then I was like WOW! Check me out!)
How can I be expressive in my dance when I don’t know what I am trying to express of feel or anything! The answer is “It doesn’t matter!” The idea that you have got know what you are expressing in my opinion is so untrue. Sometimes your dance will mean one thing to you and then something completely different to the person watching it! And that is perfectly okay. Just let what is inside of you flow out. When you have choreography, yes, you should know what your dance is supposed to mean, but that doesn’t mean the person watching it will get the same out of it. They will get what they need. So when you are free styling just dance what feels right!
I am so glad I got to dance last night! I so needed it and I am so glad I will be getting that every single Monday night. No football to interfere and The Hub’s is at work so I won’t feel like I am missing out on time with him and the Boy has a buddy who he can hang with while I am dancing and the Girl is dancing at the same time. So operation dance until you feel yourself is in full swing!
I love that I have dance even if it is only one night a week I hope and think it will help me to stay balanced and stay me for at least that one night a week that I get to dance, maybe I can squeeze in a little more dance or me stuff during the week!
Dance like no one is watching!
#Everyday2015
Sex Love and Washing Clothes 