Throughout the year in a half that I’ve been dancing, I’ve learned so much thing’s and have taken in so much, in so little time. Dancing is just so intriguing to me, I remember thing’s more easily when it’s dance-related, not only dance itself but names of people, history, styles etc, compared to other subjects. It’s like my capacity of learning suddenly boosts up when I’m learning anything dance. I have so much passion for it. I guess that’s the reason why I learn stuff with more ease when it comes to this subject. In the state of mind that I’ve gotten now, I really am proud of myself to have gotten this far in learning all these other factors of dance, I’ve gathered so much information and to this day I would have never though that I would have enough drive in me to get this far. I’m currently learning new thing’s as well, I’m learning more and more about choreography, which I initially started with, foundations and styles, basic grooves & fundamentals, significant names in the dance community, inspirational choreographers, history of modern and jazz. Starting with the funk styles I’m learning popping, locking and boogaloo. I’m so happy to have come across these styles, it helped me better express myself through free-styling and definitely helped me with choreography. I’ve also been learning more of housing and wacking. These styles made a big impact to how I see choreography now, It’s way better compared to how it was before. I feel more freedom when I make choreography because of these styles, free-style is the essence of choreography. Other thing’s that I’ve been learning are modern and jazz at my college, and are contributing as well. In modern I’ve learned to be more flexible, have more balance and also be more agile with my movements. My jazz class has taught me the basic fundamentals of hip-hop and jazz moves which I haven’t encountered before, what I like about this beg. hip-hop jazz class is that it’s giving me a strong base by learning most, if not all of the basic moves of hip-hop. The biggest influence of new-style choreography.

Another subject that I’d like to go through in terms of dance is the discipline that I received through dance, it made me more focus not only in dance but in the other thing’s I do. Man It gave me such a positive attitude and outlook on thing’s. The hard-work, always pushing myself that there’s always always ALWAYS! something to improve on, and this statement will always be correct, I’ve said it multiple times in this blog. We can never be at the point where we have learned everything in dance, there’s so much thing’s out there and it’s consistently evolving. people create-people innovate-people learn it’s perpetual growth to making ourselves the best of ourselves. We continually grow and well continue to improve. Man we are more capable in doing thing’s that we think ourselves, we have so much potential. We shouldn’t let that go to waste, hard work’s pays off. But hard work is key, because more than the time you put in dance is nothing compared to putting effort and determination in that amount of time.

In my efforts to learning dance it was definitely a bumpy road, I had my ups and my down. There was a few times that I was ready to give up on it. Somehow every time I gave up something always pulled me back to dance again. At first it was my hobby, something I enjoyed doing I started it off learning by myself and having nothing but watching videos from the dance community to guide me. Little did I know I was innovating their moves, cause at the time since I was a beginner my knowledge on moves was very little, but watching videos helped me create moves influenced by the videos I watched. As I continued, it became more fun and it became something I really liked and enjoyed doing. I then started a dance group that year and formed another group the following year and became a leader/student. I enjoyed being a student more since instead of stressing myself creating thing’s with the little experience I have, I was learning so much thing’s that helped expand the vocabulary of my dance moves.  It didn’t stop from there I tried out free-styling for the first time in a rave at a Fanime convention. That gave me a big boost of confidence. The thrill of dancing in front of a crowd, not focused on remembering moves and just freely vibing to the music is so much fun. And made me love dance even more to just learn about these different branches of dance, and there it became my passion. Dance is something I can fully express myself in, it’s where I met a group of people, different set of individuals who carry the same passion. Knowing the thing’s i know now took time and effort, especially the technique styles. These were thing’s that took time to be able to do, being a very impatient person, there were so much instances that I wanted to give up. But then each time I just suddenly get the urge to try even better. I continued learning it and despite what time it was was, hunger & thirst, how much I was sweating, I still eagerly tried learning these styles. Came weeks of trying I was getting results, until finally it started to look right. At that moment doing it became more fun and just consistently doing it helped made it better. Thing’s didn’t come easy, I worked hard for it. One of the styles consisted a move that got me really frustrated. It was the which-a-way, a locking move. There were times that I cried because I was so mad I couldn’t get it down. I was watching myself in the mirror for about 2-3 hours attempting to do the move while playing some locking music. I was always discourage every time people respond when they see me doing it. But what I realized is that I’m just learning the move, What do you expect? most of us look horrible when we try out new things especially when it consist technique. But that shouldn’t be the reason to stop, just cause someone discourages you, cause really when you put your heart into and continue doing it, you can prove them the fuck otherwise of where you’ll be after countless of effortful tries. Never give up, Forget even that the word exist.

This is the only subject that allows me to write so much in such a short amount of time. My brain just continually sends experiences and thing’s I’ve learned in dance. Anyway focusing more on the how I got connected with dance by getting to know the community. It all started when I learned that my cousin dances in studio429. Former dancer of Formality and now currently dances with Choreo Cookies. So the dancers in that studio were the very first source of how I got into dancing. Then thing’s just started to branch off from there, I’ve learned about the connections of other known choreographers, until after watching so much dance videos I just learned that there was this big community that connects all these dancers. It was crazy, something I thought that I would get into, It just looked really fun to me. Then my other cousins invited me to take some classes in that studio, but I really wasn’t into dancing at the time. I HECKA BLEW IT! Now I’m hella crazy about actually being able to take class from the studio. But one strong event that helped me make a big step to dance was watching the Family & Friends 2009 Expo. As I continued watching videos from these significant choreographers, they became a big impact to my life in dance. I learned so many different values in beliefs but in a way they all connect, and over time I have eventually developed my own set of values and beliefs. Btw if your just starting dance, getting to know the community is a really really REALLY big help! To name some of them starting from the one’s I initially started watching: Philip Geniza, Sy Bartolome, Paul Ross, Darryl Belarmino, Arnel Vasquez, April Rodriguez, Ellen Kim, Erik Saradpon, Kyle Hanagami, Elm Pizzaro Gigi Torres, Emmet Agapay, Keone madrid, Brian Puspos, Jun Quemado, Mariel Martin, Sh*t Kingz, Shaun Evaristo, Ian Eastwood, Galen Hooks, Jillian Meyers, Bam Martin, Lyle Beniga, Jeka Jane, Patrick Cruz, Chris Martin, Vihn Nguyen, Kristine Aguinaldo, Dom Byrd, and so much more. In the future I plan to take classes from these amazing choreographers. So far I have taken a class from Shaun Evaristo and Ian Eastwood, there was a Q&A portion and one of the question for Shaun was “were you naturally born a talented dancer”, and his answer hit me. He said that for him, he worked hard to get where he is now, it didn’t come naturally for him. Nowadays people fail to realize that most of the known dancers now, had their time as beginners. Most didn’t just start out to be naturally good dancers, they put time and effort in it. In my opinion, I think that’s why most people give up because they fail to realize so. They just want to get to the top in the shortest amount of time possible. Which bring the question that Shaun mentioned, “You’re either passionate about being known or are known for how passionate you are” because I know from experience that if you have the passion for it, you’ll take your time in learning, no matter what the case may be. It’s good to take your time because you developed a strong base and foundation which will better support you in the long run. Learning foundations is basically the healthy way of growing as a dancer. You take the baby steps as you did before you walked, you didn’t just started walking right away, you crawled first. It’s just a way of doing things so you won’t get hurt, well in some cases like Modern, Break Dancing, Ballet etc. Dance to me is a physical discipline, and a way of understanding my body, It is a way to see how much potential my body has and a way to express my self through body language. Dance is my PASSION and forever will be. It has become my best friend and something I can turn to whenever I need it. Dance has become a pretty big part of my life and I consider myself very lucky to see and appreciate how beautiful it is.

I know this is super long and hardly anybody would read this but this is self beneficial, I love expressing how far I’ve gotten in terms of dance and just dance itself. I have so much to say about this subject and will continue to have do so because I love it so much. YOU DON’T EVEN KNOW!

I took my time off choreographing in 2011 because I felt I wasn’t ready to do so, so I wasn’t as productive in making pieces but rather focused in learning different styles, learning my own movement and getting to know my style. And this 2012 I feel as though I’m ready to get back in to choreography. I have great expectations though already, I can’t wait!