An ode to failure

Failure is the path to success. (I say this because I consider myself a consummate failure. I'm biased.) Yes, I know it sounds pat and perhaps trite. But nothing worthwhile is possible without failure and rejection and pain.

~

I started my college years in a graphic design program. I thought I belonged there because the only thing I was any good at in high school was art.

I hated the program. I didn't feel like my instructors actually taught anything. We did project after project without much direction. Only after we were in the very late stages of an assignment did we receive our teachers' input, and by input I mean criticism. Usually by then it was too late to do anything about it.

I made lots of Bs and I considered each one to be a failure. I wanted to be making As. I didn't care so much about the projects themselves, I just wanted to be successful and to be recognized as such. I hated being in front of people and having my shortcomings examined.

Excuse me, did I say "my shortcomings"? I meant the shortcomings of my work. Except I really meant mine, because in my mind they were one and the same.

~

After a year and a half I left the program to study horrible things that happened in the past as well as horrible things that are still happening today. I continued trying to make art, but grew more and more frustrated with my output. I felt I was not improving, that my technique had stagnated and was indeed growing worse. And eventually I quit drawing and painting all but completely. I very rarely do it now.

For years I couldn't think about art or design without feeling like a catastrophic loser. Only very recently have I been able to look back at that time without feeling ashamed.

No one told me to feel this way. I decided I sucked on my own.

After some time (as long as I could manage) I accumulated 120 credits and was made to leave college. I failed to find a job in my field (although what field that was I'm still not exactly sure) and ended up working as a secretary.

By this time my interest in dance had ballooned immensely. Dance occupied all of my free time and then some. I felt desperate to try to make it my career. And after only two years of full-time employment I quit, hoping I could perhaps work a part-time job and get by otherwise on dance alone.

This didn't work. I tried teaching as many as six classes a week at one point, desperate to reach out to students in different areas. At many of these classes, due to rent and gas, I was making a loss.

I felt like a moron for quitting my job. I felt like a delinquent for not having a job. I felt like a failure because my plan wasn't working. I felt horrible.

In 2010 I stopped teaching many of my classes. Simultaneously, my hours at my part time job were decimated. I had nothing to do and was bringing in next to no income.

I stared into the void. The void told me to write a novel about vampires.

No, I thought, that's a really stupid idea. I should try to get another job. A real job, with regular hours, where I put on normal clothes and go into a normal office with normal people. I did some listless job-hunting online and submitted a few applications to a few places. I never heard back.

I wrote the novel, still thinking it was a stupid idea. Then I rewrote it five times. I started teaching dance classes again. The classes grew. The classes shrank. I got a second part time job.

Now the novel is finished. I consider it my first successful project. Not that I have convinced someone to publish it yet (I haven't), or even to represent it (nope not that either), but because I love it from the bottom of my heart. It might be total crap, but it is my beloved crap, the crap I have poured my heart and soul into.

Why can I love this crap when I couldn't love most of my previous crap?

Perhaps because I saw it as an experiment, a way to express something weird within me, and not as a competition with some Platonic ideal of high art or literature. I suppose I failed to live up to that ideal so many times, eventually I was forced to realize that all I will do for the rest of my life is fail to live up to the ideal.

I accepted my status as a complete failure, said "fuck it", and kept working anyway. The time since then has been the only time in my life when I have ever been able to feel like I have accomplished any measure of success.

~

We define success or failure by our own version of the ideal. Now every time I feel trapped my by own ideals, I remind myself that I'm a failure and I get right back to work. And I'm almost always proud of what I manage to accomplish.

Since I've accepted myself as a failure I don't care so much about impressing other people. I've realized I'd rather communicate with other people, or at least entertain them, than impress them.

I would still love to make a living, or even half a living, from my writing or from dance. But even if I never do, it can't make me any more of a failure.

~

Failure is an intrinsic part of making art. Artists transmit ideas into reality, but it isn't a download kind of process; the works we create will never and can never perfectly match our ideas of what the work should be. Our mediums are flawed. Reality and the mind don't mesh perfectly. Even verbalizing an idea distorts it somehow.

You must accept that you will fail and then make the attempt anyway. Every attempt will result in failure.

I lied to you earlier. Failure is not really the path to success. Success is just a particularly appealing brand of failure. Failure is all that there is.

I look back and I am glad for all the ways I have failed. I look forward and hope to keep failing with my whole heart.

Accomplishments

2011 was kind of awesome. Despite my neuroses and crippling attention deficit disorder I managed to get some good work in. Let's take a look.

• I finished Redlisted!!!!!!!!11 After going through a months-long period where I couldn't stand to even look at the manuscript, around September I suddenly got the inspiration and the urge to write the last draft, which I actually like and can show to people without cringing or wanting to hide in a hole. I am so happy that I got past the stage of wanting to disown it slash erase all traces of its existence.
  
• I produced a show, Doomsday Cabaret, all by myself and it didn't suck. In fact, I've heard people liked it.
  
• I taught a workshop at a regional festival for the first time!
  
• I got a new part time job and have managed to hold on to it despite sucking at it really, really badly. I am being serious. I am terrible at this stupid job, but I am proud of myself for sticking it out and trying my best.
  
• I wrote a short story! NO! TWO SHORT STORIES! Oh wow!
  
• I performed outside the US for the first time!
  
• I got accepted to perform at TribalCon 2012. I was scared to even apply, so this was kind of a big deal for me.
  
• I started writing a novel I am pretty much in love with.
  
• I made myself start going to a writers group despite my severe anxiety at the outset. It was totally worth it.
  
• I forced myself to start submitting Redlisted to agents, again, despite my fear of everything and my constant feelings of dread when it comes to anything related to the writing industry.
  
• I made some awesome costumes! Best costumes yet!
  
• I feel like my performances came a long way. I am satisfied watching my videos in a way I haven't been in the past.
  

YES! HIGH FIVES TO ME.
I would really like to hear what YOU did this year that you are proud of.

Resolutions

2012 is coming. I better get some stuff done before the world ends. (John Hodgman says it will and I find his books to be totally credible. In fact they are pretty much my most trusted sources of information, ever.)

Last year I went insane with monthly checklists (you can easily find them in the archives) and all kinds of related self-flagellation. This resulted in a hardcore burnout period, especially after I got my second part time job and said goodbye to a good amount of my free time.

I've transitioned into a kinder "do what you can" philosophy since then. I try not to stress about the things I'm not getting done because that list is infinitely long and contemplating it too deeply will make me go insane. Instead I might as well try to enjoy life and feel good about myself from time to time.

Still, there are some things I'd like to get done in 2012. Here are some of them.

• I would like to finish the first draft of my second novel. Right now it's about half done, and I think if I make it a priority for a few months it will materialize.
  
• I would like to produce another Doomsday Cabaret show.
  
• I would like to get in better shape. If possible I would like to be able to run a ten minute mile. (That may not sound too fast, but, let me tell you, it would be an improvement over the current situation.)
  
• I'd like to write a few more short stories and it would be great if I could get a short story published.
  
• I want to spend less time on Facebook and more time reading.
  
• I'd like to make at least one more bellydance costume.
  
• I want to feel good about what I perform at TribalCon, which will mean preparing well.
  
• I'd like to teach some workshops out of town (although I don't have much control over whether or not that comes to pass).
  
• I'd like to write an article about bellydance and publish it somewhere.
  
• I want to save more money and eat more fruits and vegetables. (Exciting!!)
  

And of course, I wish and hope that I will find a good agent for my book, and I'm going to try my best, but in the end it's not up to me. If I haven't found an agent by the end of 2012 I will probably go ahead and self-publish on Amazon, and I'm excited that possibility for its own reasons.

What are your resolutions?

Sara Beaman, Re-Animator

So I'm going to try blogging again. Let's not talk about the hiatus and my related feelings of shame. No one wants to hear about it, least of all me.

Instead let's talk about my current projects.

The old obsession rears its (ugly? fabulous? combo of the two?) head.
After a months-long hiatus, I am working on the fifth draft (sane, normal, balanced decision) of my vampire novel, which henceforth shall be referred to as Redlisted as I have decided that will be the title.
I got really burned out on Redlisted earlier this year and didn't think I would ever want to work on it again. For reasons I can only speculate about, within the last week I have suddenly become eager to work on it again.
I'm going to be integrating major changes that I think will improve the book, to make it more coherent, to bring out the nature of the characters and to make the plot more interesting.
SO EXCITED.

I am also working on a second novel. It's not about vampires.

I am putting together an anachronistic variety show, the Doomsday Cabaret. It will have bellydancers and hopefully other kinds of performers doing fun and interesting things, and will take place on Friday Dec. 9. Please come if you care about my feelings. And let me know if you are interested in performing or contributing to the administrative aspect of the show.

I'm going to be giving another lecture about bellydance history at UNC next week (most likely, it's still tentative).

I'm teaching a benefit workshop for the Wake County SPCA on October 9.

And of course I am teaching class, performing, etc etc that sort of thing.

I recently started a second part time job as well. So I'm having to teach myself some stricter time management techniques. But it's starting to work out all right, and it's nice not to have to be super stressed out about money all the time.

And there you have it.

Teaching bellydance, part 3

This is Part 3 of a 4(?) part series on teaching bellydance. Part 1 (why to teach, and what to expect when you start teaching) and Part 2 (resources for new teachers) are available at the links.

Part 3: Cultivating Uniqueness

So you've started teaching, or you're considering it. How are you going to distinguish yourself from the other teachers in your area and create a niche for yourself? In other words, how are you going to avoid needlessly duplicating someone else's instruction, especially someone else with more teaching and dancing experience than you? These questions are important-- maybe even crucial-- to your success in the long term, but they're not always easy to answer. Here are some steps to help you cultivate your own unique teaching style and vocabulary.

For the Love of God Don't Plagiarize
What follows is the truth, not my personal opinion. Choreographies, including combinations, are the choreographer's intellectual property. If you are teaching another dancer's combinations or choreography without their consent, you are plagiarizing from that teacher! This is wrong! It's basically stealing.
ASK before you teach someone else's stuff. If you can't ask, or don't want to, don't teach it. If you desperately want to teach someone else's stuff and can't get permission, it's your responsibility to make major changes to it before you teach it. You should still say that your version of the combo or choreo is inspired by the person you learned it from.

Diversify
Everyone gets their inspiration from somewhere. Most of us get it from other dancers. There's absolutely nothing wrong with taking inspiration from other people, but if your dance gene pool (so to speak) is too shallow, it will show. To avoid looking like a weak imitation of another dancer, open your eyes, mind, and heart to new sources of inspiration.
Investigate other dancers. Never stick with one teacher; at the very least, take workshops from different people. It's best if you can take classes long-term with more than one person whose work you respect.
Investigate other styles. Don't assume that classes or workshops with a dancer whose style is not what you're interested in will be worthless! Instead, use them as an opportunity to broaden your knowledge base and your skills. What can you learn from someone whose style is totally different than yours? How could you adapt their moves and combinations to look more at home in your own style?
Investigate other dance forms, at least over YouTube. You might not want to use moves or combinations from other forms of dance, but it helps to watch videos with a critical eye. Some elements of dance are universal. What makes a dance interesting? What poses and lines could you adapt for your own dance? What about traveling patterns and group formations?

Teach what you've Learned
In other words, don't teach what you don't understand.
If something doesn't make sense to you, even if it comes from the mouth of someone you deeply respect, don't teach it. Maybe it will make sense to you in time, but until then, don't just parrot the words to your students. What if someone asks you a question? How can you elaborate on something you don't comprehend?

Give It Time
I usually "sit on" new info from teachers for a while (say six months), integrating it into my home practice over that time, before I teach it to my students. This way I can teach from my own experience. Sometimes I come home from workshops or intensives with stuff that's too exciting not to share right away, but in most cases I think it's best to let things stew for a while before you give them to your students.

Adapt and Integrate
There is no one perfect way to teach each move. It's a calculus; you approach 'perfect' for each person by adapting and refining your teaching strategies over time. Part of this is integrating what you hear from other people.
Don't get complacent. Don't keep teaching basic moves the exact same way each time, and for the love of God, don't just teach what your teacher taught verbatim. Meditate on basic moves on a regular basis. Think about how and why they work.
Read books about anatomy. Understanding body mechanics can help you dig in to your ideas of how to explain both basic and advanced movements.
Take lots of workshops and classes. Look at lots of videos. Listen to how the moves are being taught, don't just learn how to do them. What aspects of each dancer's instruction work for you? What tips and metaphors are really helpful? What parts DON'T work? Make notes, go home and think about what you learned. Think a lot.

Learn from Your Students
Observe your students. Their ability to understand your instruction is the bottom line. Whether or not your techniques are effective will be pretty obvious if you really watch what's going on with each class.
What questions come up again and again? What problems do most students have? Does this reflect on your teaching strategies? How can you adapt to make progress easier for your students? What issues are outside your control?
Encourage your students to give you feedback and to ask as many questions as they need (unless they get way out of control and start asking questions every fifteen seconds, which happens very occasionally).
Don't obsess over the progress of individual students-- sometimes one student or another will face obstacles to improvement that you simply can't control. If most of your students are improving, that's the best you can ask of yourself. If most of your students are not, ask yourself why.

I hope these tips help. Please feel free to leave questions or further advice in the comments!

Teaching bellydance, part 2

Resources for New and Aspiring Teachers
If you want to teach, but you're unsure about how to lead a safe warm-up, how to help students avoid injury, how to explain safe alignment, and other such concerns, these resources can help.
If you are a teacher, and you know of a helpful book, website or DVD I haven't included in this list, please let me know in the comments!



Anatomy of Movement by Blandine Calais-Germain
List Price: $29.99
If you are only going to buy one book about exercise science, consider this one. Its companion, Anatomy of Movement: Exercises, includes concrete ways to integrate the concepts into your classes.
This is a clear guide to human anatomy written in layman's terms and heavily illustrated. It's the most helpful book on anatomy I've ever read.




ACE Group Fitness Instructor Manual
NOTE: If you buy this book from the Amazon affiliates I've linked to, it will be much cheaper than buying it from ACE themselves.
This is a comprehensive guide to leading group fitness classes. Were you planning to teach an aerobics class, everything in this book would apply to your goals one hundred percent. Of course, you're not; you're planning to teach a dance class. It's still extremely helpful, but not everything in the book will really apply to your needs. (You probably don't need to know how to lead a class in freezing temperatures, for example.)
It's a large book, and not particularly fun or interesting to read, but it has a lot of very important information that you might not get anywhere else. Topics covered include the biology of exercise, how to lead a warm-up and cool-down, safe stretches for different kinds of exercise, and how to accommodate students with different health issues including pregnancy.




Belly Dancing for Fitness by Tamalyn Dallal
List Price: $14.95
This book is written and marketed as a self-instruction manual for students who want to learn bellydance at home. However, it would still be helpful for anyone who wants to teach beginner classes and is unsure where to start vis a vis lesson planning.




Relieve Stiffness and Feel Young Again with Undulation by Anita Boser
List Price: $24.95
This book is more than what it looks like. The first two chapters provide a fairly comprehensive framework for working with students who are out of shape or in chronic pain. Moreover, it includes a lot of wisdom about spinal alignment, learning to relax, and overcoming stiffness and mobility issues. The rest of the book is dedicated to a series of exercises that work well as light, enjoyable conditioning to help students increase their range of motion and warm up their bodies for class. It's easy to read and many of the exercises are illustrated.




Dynamic Alignment Through Imagery by Eric Franklin
List Price: $30.95
This book is almost the opposite of the ACE manual; it's a treasure trove of information about teaching dance, but not all of it applies to teaching bellydance. However, it's still extremely helpful, especially as a resource for teaching intermediate and advanced students. It's heavily illustrated and includes a ton of exercises to help students increase their body awareness and make their movements clearer and stronger through visualization techniques.

Together with lots of dance experience, these five books would provide a comprehensive basis for any new (or experienced) bellydance instructor.

While you're in research mode, don't neglect to learn about the history and culture of the dance form you're teaching. These two books are a great place to start:
Belly Dance: Orientalism, Transnationalism and Harem Fantasy by Anthony Shay and Barbara Sellers-Young
A Trade Like Any Other: Female Singers and Dancers in Egypt by Karin van Nieuwkerk

Teaching bellydance, part 1

I've been getting my thoughts together for some private lessons on teaching. I thought I'd post about it, since I'm trying to organize my mind over it anyway and the easiest way for me to do that is to write.
I've been teaching since 2004, which is not that long. I'm not the final authority on anything. Everything in this article is just my opinion, nothing more.

That being said, let's start at the beginning: making the decision to start teaching bellydance.

Good Reasons to Start Teaching
While there are a million other great reasons to teach, I think if you don't fit into at least two or three of the statements on this list, you might want to reconsider the idea of teaching, at least for now. Continue your training and continue growing as a dancer, then come back to the idea further on down the line.
Some good reasons to start teaching include:
- You have something unique to teach in your local market.
- You have the blessing of your own teacher.
- You have a good amount of experience being a teacher's assistant.
- You have a background in exercise science and/or you have experience teaching other forms of movement.
- You are genuinely excited about the idea of helping other people learn how to dance, even if that means they might take what you've taught them and do it better than you.

Bad Reasons to Start Teaching
There are just as many bad reasons to start teaching. Here are a few.

#1: To make money. Unless you are already well-known in your area and have a fan club of people that are dying to study under you, or you are in an area with no bellydance instructors where people are dying to study under anyone, you will most likely not make money off your classes at first. If you rent space for your classes, you'll probably start off making a loss. If you teach at a fitness center, you'll get paid, but most likely not much. $25/hour sounds pretty good until you realize as a new teacher you should be doing at least 2 hours of prep work outside of class for every class you teach. And you have to pay for gas. And fliers to promote your new classes. And a website. And et cetera. During lean months (August and December come to mind), even established teachers with a solid student base have trouble making money.

#2: To increase your cache in your community. If you have a dance community in your area, you will be competing against established teachers for students. If people don't already respect you as a dancer and a human being, this will not make them feel any better about you. It will not make them take you seriously. In fact, it may make them respect you less. ("Did you hear so-and-so started teaching? But she's only been taking classes for six months!")

#3: To bolster your sense of self-worth as a dancer. What happens when one of your students decides to switch over to someone else's classes (and they will)? Do you want to become one of those psycho bitches who gets all possessive? No. You don't. But if you don't have a strong sense of your own worth that isn't predicated on the number of students you have in any given session, you just might.

#4: Because you've learned all you can from your current teacher. Yeah, that seems like it should be reason enough, but it's really not. In fact, I believe that people who have only studied with one teacher have no business teaching, except to teach as that dancer's assistant. Why? Because without multiple points of reference, when you start teaching, you will be parroting what your teacher taught you. In essence, you'll be putting yourself on the market as a watered-down knockoff of your teacher.
If you've learned all you can from your current teacher, go take lessons with someone else. If there's no one in the area, look up your favorite workshop instructor (you have taken some workshops, haven't you?) and see if they'll do lessons over Skype.

What You Need to Start Teaching
It's a long list.

A lesson plan helps, but it's only a start.
You also need to be able to cultivate a warm, inviting, and respectful classroom atmosphere.
You need to know how to lead a safe warm-up and cool-down.
You need to know how to accommodate students with a history of chronic pain and/or injury.
You need to know how to explain safe posture AND how to recognize when students are in unsafe postures.
You need to be able to recognize when students are executing movements in a potentially harmful way.
You need to feel comfortable giving corrections to students regarding their posture or technique.
You need to be able to explain each movement you plan to teach at least two ways-- the way that makes the most sense to you, and an alternate way in case your students don't understand the first way. (Not everyone learns the same way, so the descriptions and metaphors that worked for you might not work for other people.)
You need to be able to gracefully acknowledge questions you can't answer. ("Well, I'm not sure, but let me get back to you about that next week.") In other words, don't make shit up just to look smart.
Similarly, you need to have the humility to acknowledge the things you aren't ready to teach. For example, I don't teach backbends, because I'm not sure that the way I execute my backbends is entirely safe.

Note how a lot of those requirements have to do with safety. Well, I'm obsessed with safety, partially because I've injured myself doing things that my teachers told me were safe. I never want that to be the experience my students have in my classes.
You may not really care whether or not your students get injured, but remember... people can sue.

It's Not All About You
Your classes should be about your students and your students' experience. Sounds great, right? Well, it is, mostly. The vast majority of bellydance students, just like the vast majority of people in general, are awesome.
And then there are some that are not.
Be prepared to handle the following:
-Occasional psychotic episodes from students; students who are inappropriately confrontational, either with their peers or with you.
-Students who ask questions constantly and, in essence, demand private lesson levels of attention during group classes.
-Students who are vastly more experienced than you showing up to your classes for reasons you can't surmise.
-Students who think they are vastly more experienced than you and attempt to correct or augment your instruction during class.
-Painfully shy students; students who seem totally disinterested; groups of friends who chatter with each other while you're trying to talk to the class.
-Students who take six weeks of classes with you and then try to teach. (Thankfully, this has yet to happen to me, but it's happened to some of my teachers!)
-Students who ask questions such as "How many classes do I need to take before I'll be a professional bellydancer?"
-Students who will do anything not to pay you; students who always have some excuse as to why they can't pay you today; students who steal class supplies such as hip scarves, either accidentally or on purpose.
-Students who talk shit about other students in the middle of class.

As much as it might seem lame and stupid, it helps to have print-outs of class rules and policies on hand at all times. Decide what you think acceptable behavior is for your classes and write it down, then give it to each new student as they arrive. It's much easier to say "you're in violation of the rules so I need to ask you to leave" than "you're acting like a psycho bitch so please go away".

The bottom line is, being a good teacher is hard. You can't ever be prepared for every eventuality, but you should do your best to prepare for things you know will happen.

Students will be self-conscious; you need to be friendly and draw them out of their shell.
Students will do things incorrectly; you need to be able to correct them without making them feel bad.
Students will ask questions you can't answer; when that happens, you need to be able to be humble and tell them "I don't know".

It might sound from what I've said that teaching is just a huge pain in the ass, but if you put the right kind of energy into it, it's extremely rewarding. Seeing your students grow into confident, body-aware, self-possessed dancers is magical. I always tear up when I see my students perform!

I will leave you on that happy note.

In Part 2 of this article, I plan to talk about resources for new teachers, and how to integrate what you're learning into what you're teaching.
In Part 3 of this article, I plan to talk about creating a niche for yourself, understanding the teacher you want to be, and identifying the kinds of students who will mesh with you as a teacher.