so a month later.

i have decided to go back to jill’s saturday class.

after doing so many makeups… being in so many different classes… i felt like goldilocks. this one, the girls are too stuck up. this one, the teacher isn’t advanced enough with the pole. this one, the warmup feels militant. this one, the girls don’t dance in a way that is inspiring to me. this one, the teacher’s EC doesn’t inspire me. i realized that a lot of what i missed was feeling like the teacher knew me, knew where i was coming from, where i had been, how much i had grown. going back to jill’s other classes and doing makeups, i felt that from her. i wonder if i could ever feel that with another teacher– if i would ever stay in another class long enough to eventually feel that way?

i’m not operating under any illusions here. i know that she’s not a perfect teacher, and i think still that she treats me a little colder than other people. i think that her taste is music is not quite mine; i think that she is a little kooky and out there sometimes. but i’ve tried so many other teachers, and i’m sick of not having a home. and i know the girls in her class, and i know they are good people, who are glad to see me and who are kind and nice and sweet.

we will see what happens.

well.

clearly, i have been more disillusioned by the TT experience than i thought.

life has been busy but for some reason i have stopped making room or going out of my way to make room for S.

i think a big part of it was that throughout everything i was getting so much encouragement from teachers to try out and somehow i got it into my head that they were supporting me and wanting me to do this, thinking i was a good candidate. i think that part of this disillusionment is that i feel that they were not honest with me in giving me feedback or evaluations.

ruminations on the past two months. and the madness of this TT experience.

you know, i’m so okay with it that i’m kind of surprised and i feel like i should be more upset! haha. i told nick that they didn’t call me back and he went “what the hell they’re so stupid blah blah” and i was like nick, honey, i’m not mad so i don’t need you to be. hahaha.

i have no idea why i wasn’t picked. i asked ali to let me know what things i need to work on to be considered as a possible TT candidate in the future… because i want to know if where i am going, with my EC, coincides or will coincide with what they want fro ma teacher. it’s not that i want to tailor my experience to what they want… it’s that i have realized that the qualities they are looking for in a teacher are veeery specific, and i don’t want to waste my time or theirs if i don’t have them or don’t care to have them.

there was a lot about TT and the assessment that i didn’t understand until all was said and done. 30 women tried out and only 10 or less will be chosen. but ali said outright: if you can commit to teaching full time, you will be given preference over everyone else. i know that i had already told her that the schedule would be very difficult for me and i was going to try out even though i wasn’t sure i could make it work, which in hindsight, may have been shooting myself in the foot a bit.

it was so strange, so many of the wome nthere had NO IDEA what the time committment was for TT, they were going into it blind and they were still so willing to rearrange their lives for it. and i realized that i love S, and want it to be a part of my life, but not my whole life. i couldn’t teach full time, i need more then that to be balanced and happy. i need a job like mine on the side at least, where i can be assertive, and aggressive, and yell at stupid people and not just be supportive all the time LOL.

i am in a great, great place at work. i worked so hard to be trusted with the clients i have, and if i left i would have to pass off my clients to someone else and then wtf, where would i be two months from then when TT is over? i wouldn’t be valuable to my company anymore because someone else is already doing my job. it’s different if it’s TT part time and i can keep my job and still be there for my clients. but full time? sigh. i was so crushed when i heard that. if i chose TT over my work, right now, then that would be making a huge decision about my future and limiting possibilities for me in a way that i am not comfortable with.

i also know that just because they don’t pick you, doesn’t mean that your dance isn’t honest and expressive and beautiful. being appropriate for being a teacher isn’t necessarily any kind of commentary about you as a student. i know now (beth, the other TT mentor, said this to me) that if you move too far into your EC, they do not consider you appropriate as a teacher anymore because they want clean and defined movements. i’m not saying that i am there, but they are looking for a very specific type of movement in a teacher and it doesn’t bother me one bit that i don’t fit that mold. i may, at some point down the line, and if that happens then it is splendid! but teaching S is much less about understanding hte movement and the philosophy than i had thought it would be. i mean, they cut you based on the physical movement before they interview you… so. this has been a great experience and if anything it has forced me to REALLY think about my priorities, how much i love my job, where i am in terms of my EC, all of that. i think i had TT as this whole huge thing in my mind, because teaching is so noble to me… but even just this little taste of corporate S and all of that has made me a touch less idealistic about it. =(

the last word on TT

Thank you very much for attending the S Factor teacher training assessment class this weekend!

After thorough evaluation of your assessment and application, I have concluded that additional experience with this movement would be most beneficial and appropriate for you at this time. Therefore, I regret to info rm you that I will not be inviting you to participate in the Fall 2008 training session in New York .

This weekend, you were one of many amazing and qualified candidates! I highly recommend you move forward with your personal journey with S Factor and thoroughly enjoy your time as student. Your continued experience as a student will only enhance your insight as a potential teacher down the road.

If you have any further questions, please don’t hesitate to contact me via email [email deleted].

wow. relief.

what was i thinking? how could i take 2 months off when i’ve worked my ass off to get the google project? i’m getting paid the most of anyone in my position in my company, and i’m on a track to become a project manager someday soon, and i was going to throw it away… i was a nervous wreck just thinking about how i was going to ask for time off right now.

and not only that but nick was really going to support us for two months completely on his own, while i’m losing out on thousands of lost salary dollars over those two months?

…he said: “i was worried that if you got picked you would do it.”

sigh.

back to the drawing board. now that i know, finally, i can get back to the rest of my life. finishing my MA possibly? haha.

TT assessment

it was exactly like taking a regular class. beth and tina were there, beth was the “teacher” leading us through warmup. and tina was doing warmp with us while ali ran around the room and took notes and corrected form. she did three things: tell me to sit up more during abs (OMG i’ve been doing it the “easy way” this whole time, not sitting up far enough and holy moly i feel it today… abs were WAY longer than usual haha); telling me to relax my feet during brain massage and also during open leg stretches.

then we did “pole time” but it was only L1 tricks and textbook style. i realized i never learned the “beginner” ballerina– we did the advanced ballerina from the beginning (hips forward). we also never learned a stationary corkscrew which is what she wanted us to do. then she had us all snake– we split into three groups and were spotted by beth and tina whiel ali rotated around and saw our snakes. unfortunately, although my first snake was wonderful and i was very happy with it, by the time ali got to our group (last) we were all a bit tired. but– no worries on that. snake is snake is snake.

then we did dance in three groups (we were in A with the 5 poles) which beth picked songs for. during dance i was not feeling the song but my body had frustration that she just needed to get out. all these weeks and weeks of being stressed about everything. she was all over the floor and wall and chair. ali said after that i was just exploding all over the room and she was right on. it felt good but at the same time– music wasn’t loud enogh, not my song, but still i did what i wanted to do. i connected with my body even if my head wasn’t into it (or out of it, rather).

then there was a Q&A session. i was telling yesim it was shocking because some of the women were asking questinos like “what are the hours of the TT” “how much does TT cost” “are we supposed to get 2 months off from work”– all the questinos that i have been struggling with for hte past two months! and they were just coming in compltely blind about the committment. amazing. it makes me wonder if i was an idiot for worrying about money, time, leave of absence, etc LOL.

nina was in it with me. it was nice to see a familiar face. she said my dance was great. beth and tina were both sweet when i left. but, it is traditional S fashion to be very positive all the time =)

we find out tonight if we are thruough to next round but ali said something that put me at ease a lot, which was that they are assessing TEACHER movement, not student movement. so you may be amazing and so true to your EC and your body and never get chosen for TT…. which i think i’ve always known but to have her say it explicitly meant a lot to me.

well, it’s over.

after class 7/8/08

this was week 2 of sultry but another makeup for me. first official class is still not until friday.

soooo remember the alamo meant a lot of crappy country music. really i think that is the only genre of music that i intensely dislike. i remember near the end of class i was putting stuff in my bag and two girls sitting on the bench together said to each other: wow, i really heard a bunch of songs that i liked! yeah, country’s not so bad! i will have go home and look up more songs like this!

gag. gag! seriously? it’s like when i log into the forum sometimes and after an assignment that i hated, people are going, yeah it was such a good learning experience! well, yes, sometimes it is, and sometimes you learn that your EC HATED IT. mermaid was like that. this was like that. i didn’t even do the assignment for my dance, but doing backup dances to music that iddn’t move me at all was just painful. it felt like a waste of money. maybe i will just sign out of that class next week because honest to god i just cannot handle country music.

is that bratty? i dont really care. it may be being a “bad sport” but it just doesn’t work for me. i tried it.

anyway. i had beth for a teacher today. who is the other TT mentor for NYC, tina being one as well. beth is great– she has a lot of the same energy that tina does but her class seemed to all get along really well. it might honestly be studio B. it’s jsut smaller and more personal in there than it is in A. i will have to take another make up with her some other time to test my theory.

warmup was good. i had a little trouble easing in today. learned the snake dive- handstand- split off and it HURTS. will have to try again at home or using a different position… i basically squished the hell out of my pubic bone and had to abort. it doesn’t seem like a trick i will be doing in flow, but then again– i said the same thing about layout once upon a time. open mindedness is the goal. except with country music.

picked “let it rain” by keri noble. couldn’t quite connect to the emotion of the song, but i did find a home in the feeling of it. i think that i am able to make more of the movements mine. changing them to fit who my EC is now and what she wants to feel. not just a regular cat pounce, up and down– throw in a little bit of an angled push back up, like a rocking cat, with pants on that allow my knees to just glide into cat pounce hip circles into a side goddess. it feels delicious. and it feels like me.

beth said i was feline. which is funny, i’ve gotten that before– i am curious to see my dance. but, not that curious. i will not be taping any time soon but i think that the BF may be getting a dance soon… =) she also asked me if i had danced to that song before– i have no idea why? it’s funny i was listening to it again just now and i realized that i don’t recognize the second half of the song. i danced to it but i wasn’t hearing it.

at the end of class, we had a couple of all-swims. beth picked lucinda williams- “i just wanna make love to you” for my groups’ second dance. and it felt good. afterwards i asked beth if she remembered talking to me about TT questions with tina… and she did. she had been trying to place my face during class.

i asked her if she had any advice for me. she said she tought i would do really well, that i had a great dance and movement. she said that it was good that i wasn’t too far progressed into my EC… that my movements were still recognizable into the chunks we are taught in class. i’m guessing she meant that when you are teaching L1… you need to be able to “showcase” the moves. sometimes if you watch a girl who is IN IT… like a house girl who can REALLY dance… you can tell that she’s not using any S moves any more. it’s all like… her own. it was kind of a backhanded compliment. like, she said my movement is “clean” and beautiful but she was also basically saying that my EC hasn’t truly come out yet. more food for thought i suppose. i have no idea what i look like and i know i have a long way to go towards what i could be. so, i will take it constructively.

teacher training part 93024

As promised, here is the training schedule for the NYC August-October teacher training program:

Monday-Thursday: 10:00am – 4:00pm
Friday: 10:00am – 6:00pm

so, that’s a real monkey wrench, eh?

i have polled everyone for advice. but in the end, no one can make this decision for me. well, at this point, it’s relaly just coming up with a plan B, seeing as i won’t know until the end of this weekend what options are open to me.

the more that i think about it, the more that i wonder: how much of this is supposed to be a difficult decision? i quit xanga, i started school. that wasn’t easy. that was about as disruptive of a decision as i could possibly have made. and while i’m still not done with my MA, i know that i will be one day, and that those choices i made three years back started a whole bunch of wheels in motion. and i may not be making tons of money– i mean, if that was my first priority i would never have ended up here, no way in hell, i graduated from stern iwth a degree in marketing for chrissakes– i am spiritually so much richer now than i was four years ago. it’s a point of enormous pride for me, how much i have grown.

i asked my mom today: maybe i’ve been doing so well over the past two years at work just so that when this opportunity came along, i could ask for 2 months off, and get it. i mean, who knows?

ever since i received that email, with the hours of TT posted, i have been trying to rationalize this for myself. rationalize this opportunity. i know nearly everyone i have spoken to has said, this is not the time. you can wait for the next time that this chance comes your way. but something inside me says, insistently, that no, i can’t wait, and this, right now, is the time that it is supposed to happen.

i don’t know. i don’t know. i don’t know.

of course, this is all moot if i don’t make it past all the different assessment rounds.

also, i had another TT nightmare last night. but (fortunately) i no longer remember any of it.

sultry week 2

Monday, July 7 - Sunday, July 13
Week Two of the Sultry Session

“Level 6: Yeeeeeehaw, this week’s assignment is “Remember the Alamo.” No, not the car rental company, the actual Alamo! So hitch up your wagon and head on down home in a cowboy hat, chaps and denim, or frilly petticoats and lace. Texas-style music like Willie Nelson, ZZ Top, Dolly Parton, Johnny Cash and Chamillionaire will inspire your inner wild stallion to buck and gallop or be caressed and tamed. You’ll also swoop up into the “Spinning Helicopter” or “Body Spiral into Helicopter.” Go ahead, be fearless!”

…..seriously? sheila, you’re killing me. do you know how much i hate country music? i really, truly, am stumped on this one.

after class 7/3/08

signed up for a makeup with jill for week 1 of this new session. fourth of july– which would be my week 1 class with ro– falls on a friday, which means the studio is closed and therefore no official class for me until next week. i figured it would be nice to get a class or two under my belt before assessment to build my confidence back up. so i did.

had class with jill today after about 5 months away from her. it was awkward, which i expected, but i hope that she realized that my effort in seeing her for a makeup meant that i really didn’t want her to have any hard feelings. i don’t know if she really did take it personally, me and amanda transferring out, or not, but i felt a vibe that i didn’t like. i hope that she understands that i really do miss her, and that i am so greatful to her for everything that she gave me. having taken all those makeups has really shown me how lucky we were to have her. more than any other teacher, except maybe alex, she gives of herself emotionally to her class. you can feel how much she wants us all to love this experience, how much she wants us all to feel secure enough to open up.

one of the girls in her class asked me, “are you on youtube?” she put together that my name was amy, and that i am an S girl, and she had seen my youtube videos. she gushed at me. i felt totally dumbfounded. i didn’t know how to respond at all. i didn’t realize so many people watched them? she said, “you havent posted for a while!” and i said, well, yes, i’ve been focusing on my dance and not my tricks. i mean really– the tricks still don’t interest me much, although i try to make them matter more. i am still having too much fun exploring the vulnerable side of me, that emotional side.

the class was a L4. they were just starting with the improv. they were a great class- it seems all of her classes have fun with each other. they really appreciate each other. she does a great job of fostering that in her groups. which is really admirable.

at the beginning we went around the room and said what we wanted to get out of this session. she outed me when it was my turn– proclaimed me a “repeat 6″ which felt strange and kind of exhilirating. like, yeah, that’s right, i am a repeat 6! how time flies. and what i said was: “i want to give myself permission.” that was all. and she got me. she totally felt me and started talking to her class about how that was important to do– to stop judging yourself. oh it felt good, jill and i, that connection. to have someone know what you mean truly.

this week was a good dance. i stil got it! haha. did a song by susie suh- “all i want”– slow piano with angsty vocals. started in the fetal position and i just felt the tears come at the very beginning. there was one point where i crawled to the pole and did a corkscrew get-up and it felt amazing. exactly what i wanted to be doing with my body to express what i was feeling– a soaring, lilting freedom, joy.

afterwards the class was strangely quiet. one girl said, “that was beautiful.” i wonder if they didn’t get what i had just done: thrown my heart at their feet. maybe they couldn’t see it? maybe it wasn’t as clear as i thought it was, where i was emotionally? it was like that in lucy’s class as well when i did a makeup. it was like they were stunned… or just completely disinterested. except the one girl who said “beautiful” in each class. i guess as long as i get me, i need to get used to it. to not having the positive reinforcement from others. i can’t let others’ reactions take away from what i feel.

jill came up to me and the words she said made sense to me for the first time in a long time. i think she udnerstood where i was coming from. she said she saw the vulnerability. she saw that i did give myself that permission. that was so great. her eyes teared up and she said to me, like a parent, who sees what journey that their child is on, knows from personal experience what is coming next: she said, “when you get to a point where you don’t see where to go, just push through the vulnerability, the frustration, the anger, whatever it is, let it guide you and use it for yourself…” and i nodded, and i said i understood, but i know htat only when i actually get to that point will those words come back like an echo. i’m not there yet, but i know i will be, i know that these steps that i take now bring me to a better place, a more honest place, every time i dance.

when i was leaving and getting dressed jill poked her head into the locker room and gave me a couple words of advice about TT assessment. a girl turned to me and said, “oh you’re going to be a teacher?” and i was taken aback, again, almost put off at how blase she sounded, as though it was a choice and not a test that i was up against. and then thinking about it again later, i realized that i had no right to be so defensive, of course she could have no idea of how emotionally charged the assessment has become for me. and, following that, was the realization that i really don’t need to be so emotional about it.

i am coming to a kind of peace about the assessment. i am actually looking forward to it, and not just nervous about it. excited, wow.

the boy

i am feeling butterflies again.

that is all.