Story Time – “What’s the Point?”

For those of you, who may not know, I’m pregnant! Super exciting times, yes. But also, I’ve been strugglugling. The first trimester was ROUGH, constantly feeling sick and not wanting to eat anything. Sleep had been a struggle too between the body aches, restless leg syndrome, getting up to pee 4 times a night, and just general insomnia. I’m happy to say that some of these symptoms have subsided as I’m now in my second trimester, but your girl is TIRED! (Building a baby takes a lot out of you lol.)

I had stopped training at the gym for the first few months of pregnancy cause I just couldn’t. But now that I’m starting to feel more like myself again, I’ve begun to rebuild my workout routine with just 2 days a week at the gym, and I feel so much better, physically and emotionally.

Now what I want to talk about is two Saturdays ago, which was the day after the last Burlesque Infused Workshop: I was scheduled to meet Kristen (my trainer) at the gym at 9am. The night before I had only woken up twice, first around 2am then 5am-ish, but I was able to successfully fall back asleep (a huge win). So when I naturally wake from my slumber again, I slowly crack open my left eye so I can check my phone. IT’S 9:02AM!! I’m LATE! The WORST feeling!! I immediately got up to pee and then called Kristen to let her know what happened and see if she still wanted me to come in even though it would only be for 30 minutes. She said absolutely. So I quickly got my butt ready and headed to the gym.

You guys, the amount of anxiety dreams I have on the regular about being late or missing obligations is insane. I absolutely hate that feeling of not being prepared or letting someone down because of my mistakes. So to say the least, I was not happy to be 30 minutes late to a scheduled training with Kristen.

BUT!! The reason I’m sharing this story with you now is because Something Is Better Than Nothing. This is a phrase I’ve been holding onto for dear life these days. Me going to the gym to get some much needed lifting in for 30 minutes is better than me doing nothing.

There have been so many times is my life where I opted to not do something at all because I knew it wasn’t going to be perfect or what I considered “complete.” Like starting a dream journal for example – it’s something I’ve always wanted to do but I’ve already missed writing down hundreds of dreams, so why would I start now? But Something is Better than Nothing.

It’s not glamorous but it’s true.

So what’s something that you’ve been thinking about doing but stop yourself because you know you’re not going to meet the expectation you made up for yourself? Or maybe there’s something you’ve started but as soon as you made a mistake, you just threw the whole thing away? We see this concept a lot when we try to pursue a healthy lifestyle. Maybe you create a specific food plan and workout schedule for yourself that you’ve been successfully following for a week, but you had a rough day at work and ended up on the couch be the end of the night, eating a half gallon of Mint Ting a Ling out of the carton instead of eating the healthy food you prepped. (Hey, it happens.) But then the following day, you throw your food plan out the window because you’ve already “fallen off the wagon,” and what’s the point. The point is that Something is Better than Nothing!

We’ve gotta throw this “all or nothing” mentality away cause it’s not serving us. It’s keeping us away from the things we actually want in life.

So next time you find yourself saying it’s “too late,” remember: Colonel Sanders founded KFC at 62, and Vera Wang was a figure skater and journalist before becoming a renowned fashion designer in her 40s. So no, it’s not too late. Or may you think, “I’ve already messed up, what’s the point?” If you focus on perfection, you’re stopping yourself from any forward movement at all. Something is Better than Nothing. Say it. Embrace it. Go pursue the life you want even if it’s not perfect. Cause I don’t know about you, but at the end of the day, when I’m on your deathbed looking back at what I’ve done with my life, I don’t want regrets. I want to feel proud and content. Let’s do it, guys. Take the imperfect action.

Story Time – How to Fall in Love with the Journey

One of the most beautiful things I learned through dance is how to create an end goal or a feeling while I work on the details on how to get there step by step with intentional purposeful movement.

Let me explain so you can be clear on what I mean by that.

Whether I am choreographing, teaching, or taking a dance class my mind and emotions are always visualizing the movie and how it makes me feel in the end. However, being present in where I am in the process allows me to falling in love with every detail of each scene knowing the joy of box office debut.

I have probably shared something familiar in past blogs but I believe it is even more relevant now to share again as I witness students in our classes sometimes get caught up in the specifics of learning something new and get discouraged by making mistakes rather than embracing the process of learning. With that comes making those beautiful mistakes.

For me, there are so many new things in my life now that I knew nothing about that forces me to give myself grace and focus exclusively on each new lesson knowing the joy that comes with gaining a new skill I alway wanted to learn.

Life is about experiments. If we visualize something that we want and if that is something we have never done before, then achieving that thing will come with an unquantifiable amount of mistakes before there is alignment with that goal.

It’s inevitable, especially if it is skill based. Your body has to be trained to create what you see in your mind and your spirit has to align with those parts of yourself to bring a level of expression that makes it a reflection of how unique you are as a person.

A trip to early days of dreaming….

I remember when I was 6 years old laying on my grandmother’s roof shirtless in the middle of a Saturday Night in Barrett Town Jamaica watching the well-lit, larger than life cruise ships pass by thinking about where I am right now. I had no idea what my journey was going to be but I knew how I would feel when I achieved it. And I knew a big part of that was coming to the United States.

The tools You need to fall in love with the Process.

Fast forward to the present. I am now 43 and my journey has been such a beautiful one. In the process of getting to my goals I have learned to stay the course no matter how long it takes, keep an open mind in the process, be emotionally invested but not enough where expectations get the best of me, learn how to plan ahead, trust my intuition, evaluate my performance, analyze my strength as well as my weaknesses, practice till I cant get it wrong, trust the process, remember the reason why I’m doing it, find people that are serious about working on similar goals, show up refreshed with a genuine, authentic joy for opportunity to learn, and live the experience in full. These are the tools of how I fall in love with the journey.

If you use these tools you will experience results along the way that wasn’t even apart of the end goal. That is what makes the end goal even more beautiful.

Story Time – 9 years of a Dance Dream

Was owning a dance studio always in the cards for my life? The real answer is, not at first but meeting two very special people forever change the trajectory of that possibility.

I’ll start with this. Dance has always been apart of my life. You can’t spell Jamaica without dance in it. I am Jamaican and dance is a huge component to every special life event even funerals. Dancing has just always been a way I expressed myself. Whether or not I believed I could do anything with this skill did not make sense to me until my freshman year of college.

My college roommate

I had a brief conversation with my college roommate recently through Facebook messaging. My roomate’s name is Michael Hensel but I call him many names such as: Superman aka Clark Kent aka the Disney Movie Guy and aka Mr. Jack Daniels. He was the 1st person to encouraged me to dance in an Open Mic Night Event during my Freshman Year at Niagara University. The real story is that I wanted to sing ‘My Girl’ by the Temptations and I was struggling bad with the notes in the 2nd verse. So he suggested I dance and it all made sense after he said it.

He expressed how proud he was of me for all the things I am doing. It made me a little emotional because I knew exactly where it was coming. He was there when I spent 8 hours on Thurdays Morning starting at 1 AM planning my semi freestyle/choreography performance that had to be 6 minutes long. While he went to bed I went down stairs to choreography/plan my performance for the first time ever in my life. Like I expressed, it took me all night to put this performance together. I didn’t realize how much work went into choreography, especially a 6 minute performance. I was exhausted when it was completed but it was one of the most fulfilling feelings I have ever experienced.

All I could say was thank you to my roommate because he recognized a special light in me when I danced and he believed I could do more with dancing rather than trying to hit a note that was out of my range.

Ms. Teach me how to Dougie

If Susie did not enter that dance studio to ask me to teach her the dougie Musicality Central would not exist.

I had been teaching for a few years at this point but I still had so much room to grow. Susie was more familiar with counting music and music theory so she challenged my feel based method of teaching. She would ask me specific questions that forced me to be accountable for my timing. For years I struggled with that. However, I knew If I wanted to do more with dance I would have to learn this skill.

To not get into granular detail, Susie K was my most consistent student. She showed up every single week without fail and continued to challenge me to get better at the skill of teaching beyond feel. After a while it was inevitable because of the natural skills she possessed with music that teaching was the next step for her. I encouraged her to start teaching and after years of saying no, she agreed that she would teach.

I would take her class and give her notes on her choreography and her delivery. With every class she got better and better. However, within that short period of time the studio that we were both teaching at began their transitioning to a new phase. That means we had to find somewhere else to teach in the interim.

That is when the idea of Musicality Central began it’s journey. We didn’t quite see it yet but circumstances created the opportunity of our own space. Before Musicality Central we hosted monthly workshops series and it was wildly successful. We identified a need in the dance community and we did everything to make it real thing.

After multiple successful workshops in the interim, finding spaces to accommodate these workshops, and experiencing the joy people experienced from those workshops we decided it was time for our own space.
Susie activated her excel superpower. She made a list and from that list we found studio 990. That is were the magic of consistency began.

When we started teaching out of Studio 990, a small studio that had a max capacity of 12 dancers, we averaged 1 student in the first 3 months. That means there were plenty of days we had no one. That gave us an opportunity to get better at teaching. Despite some days without a single student, we showed up anyway and taught each other the choreography we had for our classes.

Our consistency turned into 2 students, then 4, and before we knew it the room was not big enough accommodate our growth. That is when we considered moving to Mod Dance Studio. This is where we are now. We experienced new growth in the beginning, the pivot to online classes due to Covid, the rebuild of our following after Covid, and where we are now after yet again staying consisten to what we offer the dance community.

Thist month we celebrate 9 years, yes 9 years of Musicality Central. That is 1 year away from a decade. I am proud of what we have accomplished. We have cultivated an atmosphere using the vehicle of dance to promote growth, authenticty, genuine support, and a strong sense of community.

So my journey began with an Open Mic Nite redirection that became dance. Since that moment the trajectory of my life changed. With the help of one of my most consistent student Musicality Central became a living breathing opportunity for our Buffalo Dance Community. As we prepare to celebrate this month, I want you to remember that you won’t get the support you need at first but continue to be consistent. Show up every day passionate wirh the belief that you are living your dream and the right people will show up to make your dream a reality.

Happy 9 years of Musicality Central

Story Time – Time to hold up that mirror

“What do you do, and why is it important?” I recently heard these questions posed to an interviewee at the beginning of a podcast I was listening to. These intro questions struck me immediately. I think we all want to find meaning in this life, and most of us probably want to have importance or make some type of impact. So let’s be real with ourselves and check in….

What do you do? And why is it important?

This is how I personally would answer these questions: I teach dance, of course. But it’s through dance that I connect with people. I help them find their inner confidence and break out of their shell. I help them find their voice and be unapologetically themselves. During the day, I also do Vendor Resiliency work in the banking industry. Sure, the work I do is for the purpose of risk management and helping to ensure the bank remains operational in the midst of a “disaster”, but to be honest, that doesn’t resonate with me insofar as “importance.” I realize that’s because I equate importance to impact. Because for me, having a positive impact on those around me is so important. That said, what I also do in my day job is intentionally connect with people. I have real and genuine conversations with them in a way where they feel heard, valued, respected, and seen. But this is who I am. It’s not specific to just my day job. My general MO in my day to day life is about connecting with people, whether I’m at the grocery store, the studio, my work, hanging with my family…. Anywhere. So that is “what I do”….. Create genuine connections with people.

Why do I think this is important?

With the way society is insofar as social media, technology, as well as politics, we are all so disconnected (generally speaking). This can leave us feeling isolated and overall unfulfilled. There are so many potential negative effects that could come out of that disconnect and isolation – feelings of sadness, loneliness, or depression which can lead to hurtful decisions such as violence, abuse or even suicide.

Now obviously I’m not a doctor nor a researcher, but I certainly didn’t make these notions up. I think we’ve all experienced disconnect from the people around us which may have led us in a downward spiral towards negative feelings, which then impacted how we moved through the rest of our day. Although I know I’m not responsible for other people and their feelings, my hope is that I’m able to have an impact on their lives that can create a better domino effect than if they never met me. Because you never know how what you say to someone might impact their lives.

Here’s a cool example that I was able to witness with Rishone the other day – We were talking to one of our favorite baristas at Coffee and Stone, asking her about what she’s going to school for and what she wants to do with the degree. She told us that her big “end goal” dream is to be a detective. Rishone proceeded in asking her what her last name was just so he could say “Detective (Smith)…. It has a ring to it.” Her face immediately lit up, and she replied that she had never actually said those words out loud before. Of course we don’t know if that specific moment or interaction will end up being a pivotal moment in her life, but it very well could be a catalyst for her belief in herself to make it to her big dream of being a detective. In that moment, Rishone spoke life into that dream. It was beautiful.

Now let’s think about you! What do you do and why is it important?

You may immediately have thoughts like “Well I’m not a doctor.” Or “I just work at a bank… What I do isn’t “important.”

If you had thoughts such as these, I would challenge you to not equate yourself and your identity to your job title. You and what you do and who you are are so much more than only your job!

Now I’m going to ask – What is important to YOU?

If How you spend your time and live your life do not align with what is actually important to you, it’s time to start reevaluating. I’ve got to keep it real here. I’m not saying you need to do a complete overhaul of your life and quit your job and move to a new city and make all new friends. I would simply challenge you to truly reflect on what’s important to you and think about how you might be able to live in your truth of importance on a day-to-day basis.

If being there for your family is important to you, but as you reflect you realize you only see them on major holidays, what additional ways can you be there for your family. Maybe video chats with them on a regular basis, sending them care packages, checking in on them when you know they’re going through a tough time, surprising them with something that would make them smile….

Or maybe being creative is important to you, but as you think about your current life, you realize you have no time for creativity because you’re always on the go trying to do everything for everyone else. So maybe you can make some small adjustments and carve out some time for you to sit down and write that poem or paint that picture.

I didn’t realize this when I initially had the idea to write this blog post, but the real purpose of this blog is to put a mirror up to ourselves to ask what is important to you and do you feel fulfilled in your current life… Sheesh, that got heavy. But it’s real.

I would encourage you to ask yourself these questions and if you find that you’re not feeling fulfilled, you begin to make small adjustments to make sure that your day to day activities align with your values and what you actually find important.

Cause at the end of the day, I truly believe that if we are all true to ourselves and living in alignment with what is truly important to us, it will make for a better and more complete world. And that you individually will live a happier life. Cause I think we can all agree; this world needs more genuine happiness. And I think that happiness will spread and have impact in ways we couldn’t even imagine.

Story Time – Is it ok to not have any New Year Goals?

Where are my goal getters out there? Anyone make goals or set intentions for 2025?? Since becoming an entrepreneur, I have been introduced to the world of setting goals, and to be frank with you guys, it is something that I’ve struggled with. Certainly the concept of perfection has held me back in the past where I would set a goal, and if I “fell off the wagon” I truly struggled to get back on because, what’s the point? I already failed.

I’m happy to say that I’m not quite in that mindset of being trapped by perfection anymore, and I’m okay with failing and then restarting again. However, I have also come to terms with something beautiful for myself as I look into what I want 2025 to look like. But before I can talk about this discovery and my new year goals, we’ve got to talk about my 2024 review.

In recent years, I’ve gotten in the habit of reviewing the year that just ended. What did I spend my time on? What did I achieve? Did I enjoy my day-to-day? Is there something that I wish I would have done differently? I take time to review my calendar appointments and look through my photos from the year to see just exactly what my year looked like as I think through these questions. (This also creates space for gratitude.)

I have to say, 2024 was a MAJOR year for me. I got married to the love of my life. I got a new job after being with my previous employer for over 10 years. I got to take my first international trip with my husband to an all-inclusive resort for our honeymoon….

Those are some of the big ticket items, but as I look through the nitty gritty, day-to-day schedule from 2024, there’s not much I would change. I genuinely love the life I’ve built. And yes, I picked those words very carefully. The life I’m living is based on hundreds and thousands of choices (intentional and unintentional) that I’ve made. I’ve created my reality. To be able to recognize this brings me more joy than I can explain. But I’ll try.

Of course, there are things that I want to make adjustments to, or tighten up, as I move into the new year. Certainly health is a key focus. Yes, I do work out on a regular basis already, but I know that my body needs more. So one of my intentions for the new year is to work out in different capacities at least 5 days a week. I also look forward to continuing to swap out different products in my house for cleaner versions. I’ll tell you, I don’t have any weight loss goals for myself. Being a certain weight is just not my focus right now. As I get older and recognize the overall increase of disease and cancer as well as my family’s medical history, my focus is truly on creating a healthy life. Sure, that could lead to weight loss. Or not. Either way, I simply want to continue down this path of a healthier life.

Something else that I reflected on in my 2024 review was how much joy I have when I spend time with my husband. Obviously, I want to do more things that bring me joy, so we have decided to make sure that we have a date night at least once a month.

Another intention I have for the year is to continue down the path of personal discovery and development that I’m already on. Again, this is something that I was introduced to back when I started my first entrepreneurial endeavor back in 2014, and it has been a journey since then. I can look back and see how much I’ve grown, and I intend to continue that growth this year through continuing to work with a life coach as well as completing a 52 week “Transform Your Life” guided journal.

I want to point out a key factor within each of these new year intentions on mine – None of them are new to me. They are all things that I have been working on and building over the past several years. The reason I am not trying to completely overhaul a certain part of my life is because (like I said above), I love my life. I am so happy with the people in it and how I spend my time, a lot of it I wouldn’t necessarily change. But I will work to continue to make my life even richer by diving deeper into the things that bring me joy.

Why do I share all of this with you?

If you’re someone who is thinking about New Year goals, I would encourage you, first do a review of your life from 2024. If you don’t understand where you’ve been, how can you figure out where you want to go? So take some time to look at your calendar to see how you spent your time. Was it on things that helped you move the needle with your goals and projects from last year? Was it on things that make you happy? Were there things that you did that you wish you didn’t do it all? Think through these questions and even write your thoughts down by creating different buckets like “needle movers”, “joyful times”, “flops,” etc. From there, you can start to really think about how do you want your life to be different (or stay the same for that matter). You might find that you simply want to make small tweaks to adjust what you already are doing to make your life richer. Or you could find that you need to pivot completely and create brand new goals and habits for yourself. Either are fine as long as the decisions are intentional.

I’m gunna circle back to something I said earlier. We create our own reality. Of course, I can’t be oblivious or ignorant to the fact that sometimes we can’t control everything in our lives. But what will you do with the things you can control?

Take time to think about what your ideal life would look like – Contemplate things like how you spend your time with work, with family and friends, with yourself… What makes you happy? Are you doing those things now? If not, what is something you can change to bring just a little more joy into your life today? Maybe you need to set a specific, measurable goal that you can see and stick to to ensure movement in the right direction. For example, if you realized that seeing a certain friend brings you joy, but you only hung out with them twice last year, set an intention to see them at least once a season (or once a month, if possible), and let them know! Or if you realized that you need more quality time with yourself, make sure you have at least 1 self care item in your calendar each and every week, whether that be a massage or time carved out to go to your favorite coffee shop and read a book.

Whatever you do, I want you to understand that you have the power to create your life. And it’s through decisions that you make that determine what this looks like. So take some time to figure out what brings you joy, what you want to achieve, and how you want to spend your time, and then make that your reality. One day at a time. Your life won’t necessarily transform immediately. But I can tell you now, the happiness that I feel when I look at my life that I’ve intentionally worked to build throughout my adult life is like none other. And I can only hope and wish that you get to experience this happiness for yourself too.

If you’ve gotten this far, drop a comment with soemthing that made you happy in 2024 and something that you want to experience/achieve in 2025.

Story Time – Share & Dance with a Joy that is next level and your people will find you

I was blessed to share my story at the farmers market this past weekend. Judith, a friend of the honey vendor right beside me, was dancing to a Christmas playist provided by the Christmas Cookie Lady. I joined in to keep myself warm, because it was Buffalo cold and it sparked a ‘dancer to dancer’ connection.

She caught a couple moves I did and gave me the approval face of ‘not bad’ you seem to know what you are doing. She watched me dance a couple songs and then share my vinaigrette with a few clients before her friend told her I used the clover honey in my vinaigrette. After a few songs and down time in between customers, she made her way over to started a conversation that lasted about an hour.

She was truly impressed by my dancing but also impressed by my sale skills. So I told her that I own a dance studio, and then it a made sense to her. She said, “That’s why you move so well.” Then she asked about my product line and how I became a chef.

Most times, I give the short version of my life story because people tune out after a while, but she was interested from the moment I opened up my mouth. She appreciated what I was saying and the creative things I have done with my business over the years. So I took her through the moment I fell in love with food with my grandmother in Jamaica, to my career in the pharmaceutical industry, to the present moment of me creating a product line to sell at the market.

As I told my story I could tell her interest was building which normally doesn’t happen. She wanted to know more, and I could tell she was getting ready to pitch a way that she could help me with this new addition to my business. She said, “Hi I am Judith, and I affiliated with the IC success program at the Innovation center at BNMC.” She proceeded to tell what the program was about and how it could help me take my product line to the next level.

Why am I sharing this with you? Because I want you to be yourself, do things that align with your higher self, and go after the things that truly move you. Maybe this program does take my product line to the next level or maybe it teaches me things I have been wanting to learn. The thing that matters most is that because I was dancing to Christmas music and dancing fully invested in sharing my product line with everyone at the farmers market, I gained a connection that genuinely wants to see me succeed. I was once told that you never know if the next person you meet holds the key to your success. So believe in what you do and share it with joy. Will this conversation lead to more success? The only answer to this question is beyond the new door that was opened through a dance connection.

Story Time – How I Discovered My Gift

“The world needs that special gift that only you have.” – Marie Forleo

I heard this quote several years ago, and the sentiment of it sounded so nice. I wanted to buy into the idea, but deep down I didn’t know that I could truly believe that for myself. I believed that I was a good person who people enjoyed being around, and maybe I had some things I was moderately talented at. But to say that there was something about me that was so special that only I had and that the world needed?…. That felt so far-fetched.

Fast forward several years to today, I’m happy to say that I have FULLY bought into this idea for myself, and I believe it’s true for every single human being. That might sound cheesy or cliche, but stick with me here. I wanna share some things I’ve been reflecting on…

I recently left my previous job of 12 years at KeyBank in order to find new career opportunities. It was a bittersweet farewell, cause after I put in my notice at Key, I received an overwhelming amount of emails, messages, and calls from my coworkers about how sad they were to see me leave and how much I would be missed. One individual called me to share that in his 20 plus years working at Key, I was one of his top 5 favorite people to work with. That blew my mind, because he wasn’t someone who I worked with every day or even every week. I probably spoke to him maybe once a month at most. He strongly emphasized what a joy I was to work with and that Key would be losing a great asset. I cried after I got off the phone with him. I had no idea the impact I had on him and so many other people at work. And it wasn’t something I was necessarily trying to do; I was just being me. That’s truly when I realized what my gift is – My ability to authentically connect with people and make them feel seen. But I didn’t always know how to tap into this gift….

I absolutely love talking with people, one-on-one. If you’ve ever been in class with us, there’s a good chance that I’ve pulled you aside at some point to ask all about you and your life. I genuinely enjoy these conversations and learning about other others.

But I will say, I didn’t always have the skill of knowing HOW to connect with others. That skill is something that I’ve intentionally worked on over the past 15 years or so after feeling inspired by how some important people in my life made me feel.

I want to give a shout out to my second family, the Coles, who had a huge impact in my life. I met them in my teens where I was a happy and kind but also a very shy human. The Coles were anything but shy. They were charismatic and unapologetically themselves. They also genuinely loved and cared for people. They’re they type of people who would literally give you the shirt off their back of you needed it. I had never experienced this type of infectious and loving energy that could only draw me in.

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I observed how they interacted with myself and others and how they made everyone around them feel welcome and loved. I decided I wanted to do that. I wanted to be that for other people. So I intentionally started to put my shy self out there by being outgoing with others. It was uncomfortable at first, but it slowly became more natural. As I focused less on myself and more on others, I began to truly develop the skill that I have today of being able to talk to pretty much anyone and take a genuine interest in their lives and what they have to say.

Anytime I have a meaningful conversation with someone, I leave with such a full heart. Knowing that I have the potential to impact others the way the Cole family has impacted me literally means the world to me.

I’m sharing this with you all, because being able to fully process and understand this gift is something I’m excited about, and I want you to be able to experience this excitement for yourself with your own gifts that make you special.

So I want you to ask yourself; what is your special gift? If you’re not sure yet, I highly recommend you watch this Marie Forleo video to help you get your wheels turning.

And the advice I would give is to take note of the things that naturally light you up, then lean into those things. It may be someting that is natural within you but that you need to develop in order for it to be able to shine. But believe me when I say, you have the ability to make an impact in this world in a way that no one else can. And I can’t wait to see you lean into your gift and own it unapologetically.

Story Time – No more thinking… Be about that action

There was a time that I wrote about the possibilities of living my dreams, now I write about living my dreams. What does that even mean Rishone? Let me explain. I’m a far better writer and thinker than taking action. This is something that I had to intentionally figure out how to change. I would tell myself stop thinking about it, writing about, reading what you wrote, and doing nothing about it. All these beautiful ideas would be in my head and then I would write about them on paper but never do anything towards making it happen in this lifetime. I would lead my life with the dreamers phrase, “what if?”

This is how most of us live our lives. We create these what if visualizations in our heads and sometimes we may try to make that vision a reality but after the first failure or mistake, you throw that vision in the trash so prematurely with the follow up phrase…”What was I even thinking?”The truth is that you weren’t thinking, you were doing and while you were taking action, it gave you the rush of truly living. Most times we get so distracted by a mistake or what seems like failure that we quit on ourselves just because we didn’t get it right the first time or the 2nd time or the 3rd time. I think the culture we live in has made us truly believe that success is linear so we stop ourselves from enjoying the journey if discovering new parts of ourselves. Especially when we dont experience success after a few tries. As humans we are designed to make mistakes and fail multiple times before discovering the beauty of achieving what we dream of.

I spent most of my 20s in my head. I wrote about my dreams and living life in the most beautiful stories I could create with my pen. Then at about 27 I truly started to live my words. I took action. I wanted to get my career started so I lobbied for a position that represented that. I wanted to learn how to be a better dancer and performer so I auditioned for so you think you can dance. I wanted to become a better chef so I auditioned for Master Chef. I wanted to present myself better on camera so I made youtube videos, auditoned for commercials, auditioned for a live musical, and made instagram stories. I wanted to be better in so many areas of my life that I wrote or thought about obsessively that I was now at a point where taking action was the only viable next step.

Was I successful in achieving everything thing I pursued in the above paragraph? The answer is no but also yes. I didn’t make it on SYTYCD but i became a better dancer becasue of it. I learned multiple new styles of dances and styles I didn’t even think I would enjoy like ballroom disciples. I also started Musicality Central and continued to improve as a choreographer and instructor. I didn’t make it on Master Chef but I became an incredible chef because of that experience. Now I own my own private chef business of 10 years. However, I did get the position that lead to sucessful career path as a validation engineer. I did make it into a few commercials one being a superbowl commercial. I did star in a musical in which I played 3 different characters. And Yes, I did make 100s of Instagram stories that allowed me to find my authentic self on camera. The best part about doing all of this is that I fell in love with the journey of who I was becoming. The journey of becoming someone who did it despite being nervous and someone who took action despite knowing my efforts might not be even close to a finished product. I learned from my failures and mistake because I knew the next 50 to 100 steps or tries would eventually lead to a version of success that I dreamed about.

I’m sharing this with you because I know from experience that we get caught up in thoughts way too much. It takes up so many years of our lives. The fear of making a mistake when we are in the process of doing cripples of our most resilient quality of being human. That is getting up and trying again or finding a way no matter what obstacles you are faced with. We do this in so many areas of our lives because we love the comfort of our own thoughts being unfulfilled and we just let them be that way.

When you decided to join us in our dance classes for the first time or maybe you’ve been taking classes with us for a while, remember that one or even 10 mistake doesn’t define your entire experience. The routine you learned may have had a total of 100 moves and you executed 90 of them well enough but there may have be 10 moves that tripped you up. That is Ninety(90) moves that you didn’t know how to execute prior to being in class. However, you processed that as a complete failure and decided that something you spent so much time dreaming about is no longer for you. Then the phrase “what was I thinking?”comes back with a vengeance. Take a second and truly think about how absurd that is. This describes our process on a very small scale of things we want to accomplish in our lives. Why did I bring this up? Because I also wanted to incorporate how we look at learning even from a dance perspective.

To wrap this up expeditiously, start taking action in your life. You are only here for a short time. Do the thing you have been thinking about for days, weeks, months, years and for some decades. So what if you make mistakes or fail a few times. Try again and remember that it is a journey about learning and evolving into the final product or goal you always had in your mind for yourself. Stop thinking and enjoy dancing even if it is to your own beat. I am still in the process of making mistakes and experiencing failures as I go after my goals. However, I am enjoy this journey that is shaping what I use to write about. Now I’m sharing with you how I’m doing on this journey while I am living it.

Story Time – Bringing things Full Circle

I started out my dance journey as a freestyle dancer. Someone who purely danced for that freeing feeling that music gives me. Growing up in a Jamaican dance culture, it was all about individuality and dancing with girls. That was probably my first introduction to choreography, because I had to match the rhythms of the hips of the girl I was dancing with. Thinking about it now, I didn’t even know I was doing that; it just seemed natural.

Then after watching dance videos of Michael Jackson, MC Hammer, and my neighborhood Ghetto Boys Dance Crew I got hit with the dream of wanting to learn choreography.

I was a dancer that operated from a place of feel 100% of the time. I enjoy music so I didn’t even think about the rise and fall of an 8 count, slower rhythms as opposed to faster rhythms, the lyrical component of an artist, how a vocalist can change the feeling of music with words, tones, textures and so much more.

I thought the only way to dance was to feel music and let your body naturally move to that feeling. Then I started taking classes in my early 20s and realized that there was a whole new world I knew nothing about. A world that has brought me to the full circle of my dance journey.

I remember my first attempt at teaching choreography to my kids as a Hip Hop instructor at my 1st dance studio. I didn’t have no business teaching at that time because I barely knew anything about the relationship between music and choreography. I always go back and forth in my head trying to figure out what happened but I always ended up with this fact. I was not confident about my understanding of music or the ability to teach something I naturally feel, so I listened to voices that told me to simplify my movement to make it consumable for my kids. Which meant think of the most basic form of what I do as a dancer and teach that to my kids. However, I was skeptical of it and half way into the season I realized I made a mistake but could not make any changes because I didn’t know how to. Then I saw what that looked like on stage and for the first time in my life I couldn’t watch dance, especially something I created. I was embarrassed, disappointed, and upset at myself for not giving my students the authenticity of the knowledge as well as love I had for dance so that they could show that love on stage.

That is when my journey of learning music truly began. I worked harder at listening to music. I came earlier to the studio to take the beginner classes. So I took ballet classes with the adorable infant dancers, the jazz classes with the more seasoned dancers, the contemporary classes with the even more seasoned dancers and observed the tap classes because I didn’t own tap shoes. I needed to learn more about choreography so I did everything in my power get more familiar. I watched countless hours of instructional videos that broke down Hip Hop foundations and how they applied to music. Then I incorporated them into my library of movement by countless hours of practice.

Needless to say, the following year despite the disapproval of the few parents, and the concern of the studio owner with my new direction of instruction, I was able to appreciate what I created and taught my students. After that recital, I think they appreciated it too because it sure was a struggle for them to see that Hip Hop required just as much foundational work as ballet throughout the season. Though I would love for my kids killing the stage was the resolution to the climax of my dance journey, that was only the beginning.

To make a long story shorter, I spent so many years learning how to teach choreography that I often forget to teach what made me want to dance in the first place. That is that undeniable feeling that music gives you that makes you want to move. Now I teach with absolute appreciation of music and how it inspires movement that I naturally enjoy.

If dance is something you have a goal to learn recreationally, know that it is a journey and I believe in you. You do have to enjoy music and be brave enough to enjoy your own movement regardless of what others think. However, if your goal is to become a best dancer you can be, then a high level understanding of music as well as your natural connection to music is necessary to reach your goal.

That has been my full circle realization. My career as an instructor reflects my journey with music. I taught dance in respects to my level of understanding of music for many years. Now I’m back to where I started, loving how music makes me move and appreciating why it makes me feel the way I do. Lastly, being in a position to share that on a weekly basis is the absolute best feeling in the world.

Story Time – What I Would Say To The Younger Dancer in Me

I wish someone would have told me that learning choreography in a class setting was completely different from copying my best friend’s moves at the club or dancing at a wedding. As a confident freestyle dancer, who always wanted to break into the world of choreography, I struggled in my first few classes for almost 2 years with learning set pieces of choreography. However, struggling was never going to stop me from taking a dance class and if I focused really hard I could figure out this new way of learning dance.

Why did I struggle though? In reflection, now as an instructor for 2 decades, I know exactly what made me feel lost and/or sometimes out of place when I should have felt right at home. I struggled for a few reasons. First and foremost, I didn’t know how to count music or that all music was even written in an organized way. I only knew how music made me feel and I danced through that measure. All trained dancers who grew up in a dance studio know this.

After taking a Popping class with Kid Boogie

I also didn’t know how to track movement throughout my body without looking like I was trying to analyze a calculus problem as an instructor is demonstrating choreography. As someone who freely moves to music, I would always move to a specific song or how music made me feel. With absolute confidence, I knew it accurately represented what the song or music was telling me to do with my body. I never tried to remember a series of movements unless it was a popular move. There are many other reasons why I struggled, but the main reason I was having a hard time was because I was unaware of all the tools a dancer that trained for most of their childhood has.

I could have stopped taking classes and be content with where I was as a dancer but my goal was to learn choreography in a dance class and be good at it. I am writing this blog to share something with you that I wish someone shared with me in my first experience with choreography.

If you are looking to take your 1st dance class, there are some things you don’t know yet. What if I told you there was a language that helps you remember everything without trying to use your brain. What if I told you that how music makes you feel correlates to understanding the language of movement. What if I told you that the more you let go of memorizing moves the faster you learn choreography and the faster you learn how to dance.

The only thing is that it takes practice to get better at learning anything new. And if your plan is to learn how to dance in a choreography setting then you have to find instructors that will guide you through this secret language that I found out is necessary for you to feel confident about learning dance. Most dancers that give on dance when they first start, give up for this very reason. We do our best to combine this language seamlessly into how we teach dance but if you somewhat knew these skills beforehand you would fall in love with dance over and over again.

This is why we created Choreography Breakdown, a session that allows you to learn about a language that will fast track learning how to dance. We recognized why new dancers were struggling and developed a 4 week session to teach them exactly how to use the skill that no one really talks about in a normal dance class. Why, because it’s assumed that you already know this.

We really want you to succeed and Choreography Breakdown is the one thing that I wish I had when I first walked into dance class to learn a routine to ‘Blame it on the Alcohol.’ So if you are reading this and you want to learn choreography without struggling with memorizing moves or you want to rid yourself of some of the unknowns about taking your first dance class consider our 4 week session as a gift from a younger dancer that wants to see you be the best dancer you can be.