Who am I? Have I lost my identity?
I'm thinking a lot of decisions in life, about active choices and those who are randomly "just happening". I've been an endurance athlete almost my entire life but since 2 years ago I've change direction a lot and nowadays I'm basically saying I'm a dancer. But I still FEEL like a cardio athlete, an adventure racer, skiier.... and so on. When do I stop being that kind of guy? Do I ever stop being that kind of person? Variety is the spice of life but I know I have to spend some extra work into some things to actually improve and making progress....
From XC skiing it's just a smaller step becoming an orienteerer, biker or adventure racer... Ski biathlon too and neither rock climbing is a too big step. I always try to challenge myself and am looking for new ideas and "things" getting into whenever I'm worn out of something, but so far I'm found just more fun things to split my time into before I've found anything too boring. I'm just the kind of guy who appreciate everything! It's nothing I don't like doing (ok, I don't like sitting on my ass doing nothing, alone, like every night 7 days a week).
So, the step into dancing is definitely one of the bigger steps and decisions I've made but it's still been a gradually decision that has grown stronger over time and it's nothing I regret so far. But I still love doing outdoorish things, and I probably have spent such an extremely high effort into dancing this fall just to increase my bottom level to an acceptable level, so now I start feel I can afford doing something else than dancing every once in a while... even if I prior dancing higher than most other things.
Dancing is challenging me. In most things I'm used to catch up really fast but the last couple of years I've started to doubt about my theoretical skills. My master in engineering physics is challenging me more than I want and start feel I'm not in the top layer anymore, as I use to be, and also in the dancing I've felt I'm so new into this and cuz of my non-existent coordination training and body control my previous years, I've felt slow about catching up dancing. The more I think about it though, I think I'm not retarded but the guy who actually are brave enough to challenge myself in an area I technically shouldn't have the optimal conditions to succeed in but still do my best and know I make progress in my own speed. Because now I've danced long enough to have one understanding of the dancing and I think it's comparable to learning new languages.
The problem for a lot of things in my dance is knowing how to move my body, having control of every small movement of every part of my body, and be aware of how it looks like. My register of "body-moves" was extremely small in the beginning and the more I dance, the better I get about the basic movements I've learnt. But I'm also quicker to catch up new routines than before, I know what to focus on and I'm falling back into other "known" movements I know how to do. I imitate and try modify already known things... Back to the languages, after the age of 18 you can't learn new how to make new sounds. Instead you just fit the sound you think you heard, into the most appropriate sound you already know from your native language. That's why most people hardly can get rid of their accent from their home countries. So the parallell I was looking for, is that you have to know the base before you can add on. To learn your first language, you need to be able to do make sounds like your mum and dad are doing. Then you need to know the basic words in a language to make up the skeleton, and after that you keeps adding with stronger muscles, skins and so on.....
Most people who are growing up "in a sport" have learnt the basic movements in a young age, kept adding things every year but also repeated the basic movements over and over for such a long time. When you try to get into a totally new thing like dancing, and don't have the basic sounds, neither the words or grammar, you catch up in very different way. Because some things you usually don't learn the first couple of years, but maybe after 10 years of kicking a ball, you think you can do that so fast in dancing and YES, often you can do it - but the style how it looks like sucks. I've kind of made up some kind of register of moves, dances, styles and so on that I'm using right now but I over and over try to fall back, analysing myself and accepting that I have to come down to a 10 year old boy's level, and practicing eg. spinning over and over till I know it good enough. But I can't catch up like 10-15 years of dancing in just 1-2 years, I accept that, but it's about finding the average of creating my basic blocks I need for dancing but also learning things higher in the chain that builds on the block I still don't know very well, too keep having fun. If I learnt it the "original way" I could have spent many years, letting it taking time, together with friends that I share this kind of life with.
Bla bla bla... one conclusion is that the reason some people seem to have the dancing so "natural", is probably a combination of genes but also their first 20 living years and how the challenged their muscle memory and what body movements they learnt. I don't look at myself as I have the dancing very natural, but if I can spend time enough practicing in an effective way, I can probably become some kind of dancer in less than 20 years. I don't get the order of my building blocks for free, I don't have a coach telling my that "today we're learning to spin", after knowing how to step in rythm for many years and listen to the music. Instead I have to find out these blocks on my own, trying to catch up as good as I can, but again, I experience more and more basic blocks I wish I had more time to train on.
So... who am I? I'm a curious, ambitious person. I like to meet people, I like making progress, I love to do things. What person would be my perfect partner? I don't know. That's probably a lot of potentially good girls, but when I don't feel I'm in any kind of branch, but in all branches, I don't feel miss-fitted to anyone. Why are some people more appropriate than others? Values.... ambitions.... will to live? Brave enough pushing the boundaries... Am I very different from other people? Probably I'm very unique, I hope... does it make me incorrect to most girls, because no girl will match my history? I don't think so. As long as you have a desire to learn, having fun in life, I don't care about what one's past is... but it will probably tell me a lot about why one is the way he/she is today.
I don't think people should be the same to fit each other.It's important having individual interests and goals. But of course you need some kind of common goal in life, something that keeps both of you along the same route, where ever you wanna go. I test new paths every day, sometimes I have to return back to the last division but that's part of life, making up my own long journey. I still want someone to share the route with though, whenever it's gonna happen.
From XC skiing it's just a smaller step becoming an orienteerer, biker or adventure racer... Ski biathlon too and neither rock climbing is a too big step. I always try to challenge myself and am looking for new ideas and "things" getting into whenever I'm worn out of something, but so far I'm found just more fun things to split my time into before I've found anything too boring. I'm just the kind of guy who appreciate everything! It's nothing I don't like doing (ok, I don't like sitting on my ass doing nothing, alone, like every night 7 days a week).
So, the step into dancing is definitely one of the bigger steps and decisions I've made but it's still been a gradually decision that has grown stronger over time and it's nothing I regret so far. But I still love doing outdoorish things, and I probably have spent such an extremely high effort into dancing this fall just to increase my bottom level to an acceptable level, so now I start feel I can afford doing something else than dancing every once in a while... even if I prior dancing higher than most other things.
Dancing is challenging me. In most things I'm used to catch up really fast but the last couple of years I've started to doubt about my theoretical skills. My master in engineering physics is challenging me more than I want and start feel I'm not in the top layer anymore, as I use to be, and also in the dancing I've felt I'm so new into this and cuz of my non-existent coordination training and body control my previous years, I've felt slow about catching up dancing. The more I think about it though, I think I'm not retarded but the guy who actually are brave enough to challenge myself in an area I technically shouldn't have the optimal conditions to succeed in but still do my best and know I make progress in my own speed. Because now I've danced long enough to have one understanding of the dancing and I think it's comparable to learning new languages.
The problem for a lot of things in my dance is knowing how to move my body, having control of every small movement of every part of my body, and be aware of how it looks like. My register of "body-moves" was extremely small in the beginning and the more I dance, the better I get about the basic movements I've learnt. But I'm also quicker to catch up new routines than before, I know what to focus on and I'm falling back into other "known" movements I know how to do. I imitate and try modify already known things... Back to the languages, after the age of 18 you can't learn new how to make new sounds. Instead you just fit the sound you think you heard, into the most appropriate sound you already know from your native language. That's why most people hardly can get rid of their accent from their home countries. So the parallell I was looking for, is that you have to know the base before you can add on. To learn your first language, you need to be able to do make sounds like your mum and dad are doing. Then you need to know the basic words in a language to make up the skeleton, and after that you keeps adding with stronger muscles, skins and so on.....
Most people who are growing up "in a sport" have learnt the basic movements in a young age, kept adding things every year but also repeated the basic movements over and over for such a long time. When you try to get into a totally new thing like dancing, and don't have the basic sounds, neither the words or grammar, you catch up in very different way. Because some things you usually don't learn the first couple of years, but maybe after 10 years of kicking a ball, you think you can do that so fast in dancing and YES, often you can do it - but the style how it looks like sucks. I've kind of made up some kind of register of moves, dances, styles and so on that I'm using right now but I over and over try to fall back, analysing myself and accepting that I have to come down to a 10 year old boy's level, and practicing eg. spinning over and over till I know it good enough. But I can't catch up like 10-15 years of dancing in just 1-2 years, I accept that, but it's about finding the average of creating my basic blocks I need for dancing but also learning things higher in the chain that builds on the block I still don't know very well, too keep having fun. If I learnt it the "original way" I could have spent many years, letting it taking time, together with friends that I share this kind of life with.
Bla bla bla... one conclusion is that the reason some people seem to have the dancing so "natural", is probably a combination of genes but also their first 20 living years and how the challenged their muscle memory and what body movements they learnt. I don't look at myself as I have the dancing very natural, but if I can spend time enough practicing in an effective way, I can probably become some kind of dancer in less than 20 years. I don't get the order of my building blocks for free, I don't have a coach telling my that "today we're learning to spin", after knowing how to step in rythm for many years and listen to the music. Instead I have to find out these blocks on my own, trying to catch up as good as I can, but again, I experience more and more basic blocks I wish I had more time to train on.
So... who am I? I'm a curious, ambitious person. I like to meet people, I like making progress, I love to do things. What person would be my perfect partner? I don't know. That's probably a lot of potentially good girls, but when I don't feel I'm in any kind of branch, but in all branches, I don't feel miss-fitted to anyone. Why are some people more appropriate than others? Values.... ambitions.... will to live? Brave enough pushing the boundaries... Am I very different from other people? Probably I'm very unique, I hope... does it make me incorrect to most girls, because no girl will match my history? I don't think so. As long as you have a desire to learn, having fun in life, I don't care about what one's past is... but it will probably tell me a lot about why one is the way he/she is today.
I don't think people should be the same to fit each other.It's important having individual interests and goals. But of course you need some kind of common goal in life, something that keeps both of you along the same route, where ever you wanna go. I test new paths every day, sometimes I have to return back to the last division but that's part of life, making up my own long journey. I still want someone to share the route with though, whenever it's gonna happen.
A good weekend in Stockholm
I and my dance partner flew south on Friday and just north of Uppsala we went to our 2nd dance competition in bugg, in Olunda. It was fun and out of 16 couples we made it from the quarters into the semi finals where we didn't place for the final. We finished 8th and the 7 first couple could dance in the final.
I'm a bit dissappointed but I can't say anything else than that the other couples were better and we need more practice, especially in competing. I'm mostly blaming myself and my "inexperience" of competing and moving every part of my body in the way I want the good thing about it is that I can keep practicing as hard as can find time to and I'm not necessarily in "need" of anyone else to improve a little bit.
So... afterwards we went to Stockholm and had an awesome swing night at SSS - Swedish Swing Society - where I met some old friends, made some new and also learnt a few new moves when I danced as a follower.
Today I flew back to Luleå, had a good training with lots of music adjustment of the dance at LBS training and also had some good social dancing with Stil this night, in parallell with calculating some math....
School is busy, things are rolling.... fast. Time to sleep...
I'm a bit dissappointed but I can't say anything else than that the other couples were better and we need more practice, especially in competing. I'm mostly blaming myself and my "inexperience" of competing and moving every part of my body in the way I want the good thing about it is that I can keep practicing as hard as can find time to and I'm not necessarily in "need" of anyone else to improve a little bit.
So... afterwards we went to Stockholm and had an awesome swing night at SSS - Swedish Swing Society - where I met some old friends, made some new and also learnt a few new moves when I danced as a follower.
Today I flew back to Luleå, had a good training with lots of music adjustment of the dance at LBS training and also had some good social dancing with Stil this night, in parallell with calculating some math....
School is busy, things are rolling.... fast. Time to sleep...