Sooo I have returned to my dance practice after letting it lapse for a pretty significant chunk of time. I don’t have any immediate plans of performing professionally or teaching (and I may never do either of these) so it’s no big deal, but I like having a schedule of sorts and I like seeing the little improvements that nobody else but me notices (of course, it hopefully eventually culminates in an improvement that other people CAN see!)

Whenever I get lazy and try to get back into the swing of things I wonder why I would be so crazy as to stop practicing. My hamstrings are tight, I can barely keep my balance, I feel generally weak and stiff. By the end of the week I think I will be OK, but it is so freaking hard to start again. Today was mostly a symbolic practice – out of an hour of “practicing” I think I only got in maybe 20 minutes of actual work; most of it was spent fixing my headband, adjusting the AC, etc. I even yelled out “this is sooooo boring” to nobody in particular. But now that the ice is (somewhat) broken it will get easier to get into Practice Mode.

I’m not really sure what this blog is about but it seems to be loosely centered around (art) journaling, so I’ll stick with that: this is the exact same principle in journaling (or any creative endeavor. Or, you know, any endeavor really). You really have to do a little every day. It’s easier to notice with dance because there are physical symptoms of lack of practice, but it’s the same in journaling as well – the longer you don’t do it, the harder it is to get back into it. The more you do it, the easier it is to get into that mindset where you’re being creative and focusing on the process.

I guess I’m trying to get to that idea of the mindset: I think a lot of people (and I admit to falling prey to this as well) think that you have to sit around and wait for inspiration to strike, and in the meantime you can just watch cartoons or play The Sims, not that I waste hours doing things like that or anything. But I am way more productive and creative when I schedule in daily (or as often as I can manage) sessions – be it for dance or journaling. It’s hard and seems pointless at first, but once it becomes habit your body/mind will be ready for (and expecting) and it will be that much easier to cut through the crap and get to the action. Scheduling/structure and creativity are not mutually exclusive.  Plus, committing to sitting at your table doing throw-away collages is probably better than committing to nothing and ending up on the internet all night. Not that I’ve done that either.

I couldn’t resist this guy at B&N. The pages are that soft, good for nothing paper but I will see what I can do.  Limited amounts of glue and paint will probably work (I’ve already tried some with…results).  Worst case I’ll just write in it. Or just, you know, look at the cover.

No related posts.

June 15th, 2009 |