Inspired #20

By Emeroy Bernardo

1. Rocky's Speech

This particular scene in Rocky was just popping up in my mind throughout the weekend and last night I listened to it with my girlfriend. I think it's truly an amazing speech.

It makes me think of how children are: free, curious, courageous, honest and so much more. Growing up a lot I remember being told that I could be anything I want to be and that anything was possible. But somewhere a long the way, I heard that not all dreams come true, that I have to be "realistic." I was told what I can and can't do and I believed it. I was taught to be afraid to take risks for fear of judgement and rejection.

Fear is a learned behavior.

But not anymore, I'm connecting with that inner child. The child that was care free, did what he wanted when he wanted, and wasn't afraid of being judged. Be childlike, not childish.

2. Team work

I have been experimenting with having my students work with each other for my dance classes. The great thing I get to do as a dance teacher is not only teach dance, but I get to teach them some life lessons through dance.

There's more to life than dance. There's more to dance than dance.

One of the things I've been wanting to teach them since last year was getting them work together.

The results were amazing. All I did was set the ground rules and what I wanted them to do, and throughout the span of an hour, students learned something new, further progressed their mastery in the dance style, and developed relationships with each other.

I'm not going to use it all the time, but it's definitely a new tool I can use to develop the students in their dance.


3. "Your belief determines your action and your action determines your results, but first you have to believe." -Mark Victor Hansen

I was speaking with a friend of mine from Fam Biz this past weekend. I was sharing that freestyling is going to be a part of rehearsal. I know for a fact that he isn't comfortable freestyling because he's told, but I see in him a lot of courage. I know how scared he is going into a freestyle circle because I see exactly the kind of fear I had when I started freestyling. I remember thinking to myself I can't do it and thinking to myself that I suck.

Guess what? I was right. I believed that I couldn't do it and I believed I would suck. It lead to sucky results which either was me not going in at all because I let fear paralyze me or me doing a sucky freestyle because I let fear flow in my dance instead of my love and passion for it.

My friend has taken a first step in overcoming his limiting belief about his freestyling and is coming out to take my Tuesday night class. I'll keep you all updated!

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