People Don't Think Like it Be Like it is But it Do (2)

2) Not understanding how bad you are until you're good

I've always enjoyed dancing.

Ever since I figured out I could do the worm and a half-assed attempt at the robot that made adults "ooh" and "ahh," I realized that it was something special to me. Now, mind you, I never took it seriously to the extent of lessons or teachers; it was always just the kind of thing that I practiced on my own in the comfort of my bedroom at 3 in the morning. Looking back at myself in the earlier years of dance exploration I chuckle a little bit because I drew inspiration from movies like, "You Got Served," and other terrible excuses for film. When watching those movies I never really understood what style I was watching, be it breakdancing, locking, hip hop, some weird kind of house, or a mishmash freestyle. Yet, what I clearly understood was that I wanted to be able to move like that in some way.

Freshman year at Tufts I joined TURBO, Tufts smallish breakdance group headed by a few seniors who were good friends. The group itself never really fell into a groove -- it never knitted together -- but regardless, I was learning and the people were fun.

Freshman year was when I started to comprehend the distance between myself and good dancers. That isn't to say I'm bad at dancing, but where I throw in a lot of random movements that seem right, other people have actually tested the waters and their bodies know the right feel, how to respond to the rhythm and melody properly, how to shift weight, how to isolate your chest while the rest does its own thing, etc.

Sophomore year, however, dancing took a backseat to Quidditch, Japanese, Event Staff, and ZBT. I guess "took a backseat" isn't the correct phrasing. I pushed dancing off of my ladder of priorities and watched it fall down into the pool of activities I wistfully think of putting time and effort into, yet never actually do. It's a big expanse of water, I regret to say.

However, Junior year, this year, the-year-I'm-in-Japan year, I've reached down into the depths of those murky waters and thrown dancing up near the top wrung, right below Japanese and Friends, above masturbation and homework. In its own way, though, dancing is also conducive to Japanese and Friends, seeing as I'm in a Japanese speaking circle, and I'm making new friends in the process. (And abs, I'm making those too. It's amazing what 15+ hours a week of extra exercise does for you. //more shameless than a mirror pic).

And so that's where this blogpost's title has come from. Having joined 8-Street (the dance circle), I've come a little bit closer to understanding how much I really don't know about dancing.

I read this thing, somewhere a while ago (fuck you, I can be vague, it's my blog) that said something along these lines: "The discrepancy is that novices don't know enough to accurately gauge their own skill, and in that confusion they rank themselves higher. Experts, however, understand how much more they need to learn, and in that regard rank themselves lower." I think I'm misquoting it, but you get the gist, right?

You don't know how bad you are until you're good. You'll never know how high the tallest mountain is until you get to the top of your own and see for yourself how far you have to go. And so, after reading that, I tried approaching life with a little more humility. (Might be hard to notice under my stupid cockiness. Forgive me, please) Now, when I begin something anew, I pretend that I'm deaf and blind, only being led by the sensation of touch. Only when I have touched something do I know it's there. However, to understand where everything is in relation to everything else, I have to touch upon a lot of things. That's when I can start drawing a picture in my head of where I am, how I'm doing.

(This is a somewhat twisted example, but just follow along).
I guess an easier to understand analogy is when you're playing Zelda and you only have the map and not the compass, so the only time your map displays new rooms is when you actually enter them. But, take it a step further. Pretend there is not map at all, and you have to draw everything yourself onto a piece of dried up parchment. Yet, instead of seeing what you're drawing, you close your eyes and hope your hand can trace it the way you see it in your head.

Now take it even one step further, and imagine that you've been blind your whole life, and the only reference you have for what something looks like is to feel it for a while and compare it to other things you've touched in your life.

Now maybe that's not a fair description of me in a new activity, since a lot of things in life overlap even if you don't realize it, and you probably have more experience than you think, but that's the gist: that's the humility I try to enter something with.

// SUPER SIDENOTE //
I'm reading Norwegian Wood right now (Haruki Murakami), and wow. WOW. Murakami is phenomenal.

Excerpt:
"You're really cute, Midori," I corrected myself.
"What do you mena really cute?"
"So cute the mountains crumble and the oceans dry up."
Midori lifted her face and looked at me. "You have this special way with words."
"I can feel my heart softening when you say that," I said, smiling.
"Say something even nicer."
"I really like you, Midori. A lot."
""How much is a lot."
"Like a spring bear," I said.
"A spring bear?" Midori looked up again. "What's that all about? A spring bear."
"You're walking through a field all by yourself one day in spring, and this sweet little bear cub with velvet fur and hsine little eyes comes walking along. And he says to you, 'Hi, there, little lady. Want to tumble with me?' So you and the bear cub spend the whole day in each other's arms, tumbling down this clover-covered hill. Nice, huh?"
// END SIDENOTE //