Booty Popping Culture Shock

So I had my first run-in with culture shock. According to my Japanese Ways of Thinking class, culture shock isn't the feeling another culture's ways of living directly confronting you, yet rather your interpretation of social situations not being current with what it actually is. In other words, it's not that a wall came and hit you, but instead that you didn't see the wall itself and walked right into it. Tricky walls.

Now, of course some people will question the necessity for a wall, or its placement, but they're missing the point. At the current moment there is a wall that they can't walk through. Walk around it. Maybe at some point later in time you may turn into a hulking juggernaut that can tear down that wall, but until then, it's easier from a mental and physical perspective to acknowledge its existence and moving on with your life.

So, you may be asking yourself, "Graham, what happened? Did you make an ass of yourself?" And the answer to that is, "no." I didn't make an ass of myself. All I did was learn a litte something something.

BACKGROUND::

So, I joined the dance circle, 8-Street, to make friends, enjoy myself, and get better at dancing. Within 8-Street there are various styles of dance, and each of these styles has its own group. The largest groups are break dancing and locking, with the smaller groups being hip-hop, house, girls hip-hop, and popping. I had tried breakdancing my freshman year of Tufts and was ready to try something a little bit different. Hip-Hop it is! (Tangentially, joining hip-hop has already expanded my repertoire of "cool shit" when dancing at parties.)

Now, my life philosophy for a long while has been "be honest" and "be happy." Simple things, yet oddly difficult to follow through on. Maybe that means they're really not that simple. //stopping myself before the pontification begins

END BACKGROUND::

Upon coming to Japan, my "be happy" philosophy broke down into a few more specific things: make friends (Japanese AND foreigners), have fun, and get good at something you like (Japanese, dancing, tell bad jokes, etc.). With those slightly more directed thoughts, I joined 8-Street, hoping to make friends, have fun, and get good at dancing. My main idea behind it, though, was to enjoy myself. If I wasn't having fun, what was the point of being there?

And I didn't get it.

Yes, you should enjoy what you're doing; it helps keep you motivated and yearning for more. However, upon stepping into the hip-hop group's dance, I was making a commitment to place the group's overall performance before my immediate concerns. Now, that sounds like a very stereotypical Japanese way of thinking - the group, not the individual - yet it makes sense. I can dance for myself whenever I want. I can have fun whenever I want. Yet the second I say I'll be part of the group, that is my tacit agreement to step it the fuck up and make sure my moves hit at the right time as everyone else's do, that my spot in the formation doesn't break, that my looking good is a consequence of the group looking together.

I can't be an self-centered kid about this. However, this doesn't mean the death of happiness and enjoying myself, it just means approaching it differently; I know the wall is there, now work with it. Get my little moments of stupid humor when I can, take pride and enjoyment from getting the choreography right, pocket that sense of accomplishment when the performance breathes as a single, living thing. (A little much, but it's phenomenal what good group choreography looks like).

And I can only thank this realization to Rin-san, the man heading the house/hip-hop group. He's a fun guy with a goofy smile, yet he holds a fierce seriousness about dancing and putting in the time.

"Get your shit together," is how he explained it to me. (Many more words were used, some much more eloquent, but that was the ultimate message)

And so yeah, Rin-san, I think I got my shit together. Am I nervous about tomorrow's performance? No. Not really. I've put in too much time to be worried. At this point it's letting my body go into auto-pilot and hoping there aren't any pot holes. (I'm pretty sure those ever-so-dutiful butterflies will find their way into my stomach tomorrow, but for now I'm keeping them at bay)

Time spent practicing this week: 20+ hours

Let's see what happens.