Channeling the creative

Welcome to my blog! As an expressive therapy advocate I think it is very important for individuals to channel their creative side. It is therapeutic in so many ways. Enjoy the short read and short video clip!

To give you a little bit about my dance background:

I have been actively training my body and mind through dance classes for 2 years now. Prior to that, my dance experiences or expertise came from being in dances team: "Rhythm City" (2006-2007), "DeWitt Clinton H.S dance team (2003-2005), Two years of dance as my gym class while attending high school and dance teams that performed in school concerts during my middle/elementary school years. I have always enjoyed learning choreo and executing it, then witnessing myself in that state and admiring my abilities. One can compare this process to Mary Starks Whitehouse's and Jane Adler's approach on Authentic Movement (Mover and Witness). I -- being the mover and witness to my dancing -- a taboo way of Authentic Movement (DMT). I'd like to say it is MY OWN UNIQUE WAY of experiencing dance therapy; a way to self-validate, promote the self.

The backstory of the video (because I'll always have a backstory):

Like I mentioned before, I have been actively training and I enjoy being a student when it comes to dancing. Dancing is my THERAPY, it is the time where I can let go of anything going on in my life and just focus on the one skill that brings me joy, movement of my body. Recently I had been struggling with connecting to classes and choreographers, while also feeling anxious about trying new classes and learning from new people. I had also been struggling with connecting with choreo from Youtube videos (a self teaching method I practiced between 2017-2020).

This session came about because I was not connecting with anything -either the choreographers I followed had something too fast, the date of a class I was interested in wasn't a good date, and/or the song in general -- no connection. I decided why not challenge myself, I have attended enough classes to be able to make a combo of a very basic "beginner" friendly choreo -- something that'll allow me to practice my dance therapy aside from the freestyles I also do. Thanks to the encouragement of my dear friend Falon, that is exactly what I decided to do. I was nervous, I was scared to go forth with it as the dance community is a very cut throat and at times a very negative community. But I did not let that stop me. I channeled my creative and I am feeling proud of myself and my abilities.

So to end this post, I want to share:

Many people are afraid to step out of their comfort zone. When suggesting "channeling into the creative" -- this is something that can be applicable to everything in LIFE, not just DANCE.