relearning

Why, hello, 5am. I did not expect to be meeting you here in the kitchen.

I remember (maybe wrongly) reading that perceived hunger is enough of a learned behavior that when you start or stop training your body has to relearn to be hungry for whatever you need. I vote we roll with this “science” no matter how bollocksy it is, since it explains why I woke up an hour ago so hungry I could not go on without this bowl of cereal.

Maybe after this I can go back to sleep?

We’ve remade my training room. It’s much improved – both over its most recent incarnation as an enormous storage closet for three people worth of stuff no one’s using and over its former life as an empty room with a matted floor. Plants. Mirrors. Places for stuff. A place to sit. It’s come to life in the past few days. Yesterday I hardly left it (and how awesome is it to get a day when I’m doing work-for-pay but also in my dance room doing that work?). Drills! So many drills! And then just dancing for fun.

Today I spent some more time in there, just doing ab work and loosening my hips. And then on to Erin’s sweet beginner Improv Tribal class. It is the best, coming to a beginner class after you’ve studied for awhile. She’s teaching technique so close to what I do but just different enough to need learning. The parts that are close make for more fun digging into the details of a step.

You rarely get to do that in classes if you’re pushing just ahead of what you already know. If I can find good dance classes, this is a thing I loved about traveling: you get to go back to basics. When I taught, people with intermediate levels of dance experience in utterly different styles often thought they should join an intermediate class. I’d like for them to know what I know now, Take the beginner class! Everyone’s basics are a bit different; some basics are a lot different. Coming back to the ground floor is valuable, for those differences and the new view they give of your own work. Best thing, though: the depth you can find in studying a technique when you’re not also dealing with the burden and thrill of learning it.

It’s exciting to be able to approach my whole body like that.

Cross-posted from i'd like four tacos, please.