Last night, I took the second popping workshop I've been aware of ever being offered in Victoria.  While I know that there have been other workshops offered between this one and the last one I took (Jake Evans, from Nova Scotia, about three years ago), these are the only two that I have been aware of.  This is an indication (to me), that there is a real lack of means to get in touch with other dancers, and the Victoria hiphop community in general, and share this kind of thing.

After meeting and talking, last night, with other people that are passionate about popping in Victoria, I feel that I have at least one small purpose to contribute towards our small but growing hiphop community, and that is to help the network grow.  But enough about that, let's talk about the workshop.

The Groovy G's

The workshop was taught by two members of the Groovy G's, a popping crew based out of Vancouver.  The first time I heard about the Groovy G's was when I started searching the net for popping classes being taught in Vancouver.  I wanted popping lessons, but since we didn't have any classes in Victoria at the time, my only option was to head over to Vancouver.  I talked briefly with Jamieson, one of the two guys that taught the classes, but aside from subscribing to their blog, things didn't get much further (I really wanted to take classes, but that didn't change the fact that the only thing in my wallet was a gaping hole - it's not cheap to take repeated trips to Vancouver).

I actually heard about last night's workshop in a very round-about manner.  The Groovy G's posted a note about a funk theory workshop that they had just finished giving.  "Whoa", I thought, "I could easily make it over for one day-long workshop, provided I budgeted for it".  I wrote the G's to ask them if they could give me some advance notice the next time they were planning something like this, and whether or not they would be having another one any time soon.  From there, things just exploded.  Hector (I believe), wrote me back to let me know that Jamieson and Trevor were apparently teaching a workshop in Victoria in a few weeks.  I added Trevor and Jamieson on Facebook, started talking to the people over here that were putting on the event, and couldn't believe that I almost missed this.

Arrival

Brooke managed to drum up some good interest, and a number of familiar (and friendly) faces showed up at the workshop with us, including Jo, Guillaume, Vincent, Sean, Jack, and Max.  As soon as we entered the studio, I recognized one guy from VEMF last year that Graham and I had seen tutting, and a few people I'd seen on the ol' Facebook.

It's funny to see that a dance workshop is really no different from any other kind of culture.  As soon as we sat down,I commented to Brooke that there were three evident cliques: The Vibestreet Dance clique, the Boston Dance Company clique, and ..  one more (which I didn't know enough about to provide a label).  It's not that any of us are elitists or anything like that - it's just human nature to be apprehensive when in new social settings.

Cody Campbell had put some music on so I practiced a little bit with the kids while we waited.  The mood was very much that of everyone sussing each other out.  "Who's that over there?", "Hmm, I wonder if that guy's a good dancer", "Hmm, don't know them", etc.  Brooke pointed out various people that were prominent in our small but growing dance community and then it was time to start.

Intros

After we paid and I met some of the people I'd been chatting with on Facebook, Liz came out and did a quick intro of the two guys that were teaching us: Jamieson de Guzman and Trevor Chung.  I had talked to Liz over e-mail a few weeks prior, and she was awesome.  Super passionate, and really keen to help hiphop grow here in Victoria.

Once we got past the intros, Jamieson talked a bit about what popping is, and how it relates to dancing.  I've heard this many times before, and always attempt to imbue the same thing in my own students, but it's always good to have it repeated and internalized.  Time to start!

Popping

The first hour of the workshop, we spent on popping.  It's always interesting to attend different workshops with different instructors, as they have different fundamentals that they are teaching, and different approaches.  Jamieson stressed that three things you should work to pop are your arms, your legs, and your neck (yup, your neck).  Personally, I think that popping your chest and tightening your abs is also important and will further the power of your hits.  It could be that Jamieson was just providing the basic building blocks, and those last two sets of muscles can be added in later.

We drilled the basics for a while, focusing on the fresno, and mixing it up between singles and doubles (shift your weight on every beat, or every second beat).  Some people get impatient revisiting their foundation like this, but I can never get enough, and I was content to take it as an opportunity to tighten things up.  I actually felt pretty good about my hits from these basic positions - the work I've been putting in has helped keep things clean and tight.

I noticed things started to fall apart when we started moving into positions that I haven't trained at all.  Getting my legs to hit when I'm in poses that are new is quite difficult when I don't yet have the muscle memory in place.  Jamieson let us know that the general rule to follow was that you pop whichever leg has the most weight on it, and whichever leg you can straighten most easily.  That's a good general rule to have, but I still need to practice hits in various positions, like during walkouts.

As we went through the choreography, one move I had never seen before came up, called the popcorn.  You do the following:

1. Raise up one leg and hit
2. Lower your leg in front of you, place your weight on it, and raise your back leg (essentially taking half a step forward).  Hit.
3. Reverse the motion you just did so that you are now in the same position as in 1, and hit.
4. Put your feet back together, and hit.

Pretty simple really, but it creates a neat visual that I haven't seen broken down before.  I quickly realized that I needed to work on hits when I'm balanced on one leg - these are especially challenging, and the illusion is instantly broken if you don't maintain your balance throughout.

Likewise, while practicing walkouts, I realized that although I've drilled the movement, I haven't touched on actually hitting throughout it.  Another thing to work on...

Tutting

After Jamieson finished, Trevor took over the class, and we started focusing on tutting and waving.  The segment related to tutting was actually quite short.  Trevor mentioned the basics of tutting, although he didn't get as explicit as I would have (which is cool, all teachers are different) about what makes a tight angle, and things to watch out for.  He did only have so much time though, so it's possible he was just trying to cram as much in as he could.

Trevor showed us a bit about how he practiced (come up with a set of angles and transitions, and then drill that set), and went over some basic poses (like prayer stance).  After that, Trevor went through two different routines with us, and included some footwork.  I've been feeling pretty good about my tuts lately, as I've been working a fair bit on developing the discipline and muscle memory to keep clean angles.  The footwork was brand new to me though, and I had to keep myself from falling right over a couple of times.

Waving

After tutting we moved on to waving.  I've been putting a lot of work into waves lately, and I'm pretty happy with the progress.  There's infinitely more room for progress, but at least I'm seeing some changes that I'm happy with.  Trevor went over the details of what makes a good wave versus a bad wave, and what it is that leads towards an aesthetically-pleasing wave (the secret is that wherever the wave is not, remains stationary.  This is the real key to a good wave).

I noticed that the one thing Trevor did not teach was the isolations of a wave.  His approach was more intuitive than mine, using techniques like visualizing the path that your hands and arms are taking, imagining there is a bar that your hands are travelling over, and so forth.  I made a mental note to incorporate these kinds of visual metaphors in my teaching as well, so that both types of learners can benefit.

Trevor provided some names for a few types of waves that I've been working on lately, but haven't had a name for them.  The main one was a track wave, wherein you move your hands and arms as though they are travelling along a rollercoaster track (or any kind of path really).  Once you've done this, you can reverse the wave and travel back in the opposite direction - the key is that you travel back along the same imaginary path.

One of the most helpful ideas that Trevor put in my head was the notion of setting up a specific geometry with your body, and then waving within that geometry.  Eg, put your arms up in some kind of shape.  Then, run a wave through that shape.  Think about the way a wave might travel through that geometry, and mimic this path.  The example Trevor provided in class was holding your arms out in front of you, with your right arm pointing straight up, and your left arm held out so that it is parallel to the ground, with its fingertips touching the elbow of your right arm.  In this position, a wave will travel:

• Down from the fingertips of your right arm to your elbow
  
• From your right arm's elbow through to the fingertips of your left arm
• From the fingertips of your left arm up to your left shoulder
• From your left shoulder, through your head/chest, to your right shoulder
• Out your right shoulder, to your elbow, then back up and out the fingertips of your right arm

It's not necessarily complicated, but setting up various positions like these and then waving through them is part of how you turn waving from a simple technique into an actual dance that you can innovate and improvise using.

Putting it all together

The last hour of the class was devoted towards putting everything we'd learned together into a set of choreography that Jamieson and Trevor made up on the spot as we went along. Before we started this though, we drilled our hits a bit by doing something Jamieson called "copy cat".

Copy cat is fairly easy - the leader starts by taking a pose and hitting on it for four beats.  Then the class does the same thing.  Then the leader takes a new pose, and the class then repeats that pose. It's not complicated (but then, most of this stuff isn't - it just requires dedication), but it's a great way to work with the class.  Ironically, I'd been planning something very similar out in my head for when our classes start again in Fall, so it was really nice to see that this is a valid approach that works well.

Once we'd finished this, we got going on actual choreography.  I struggled a bit with this, as I have some difficulty remembering all of the parts of choreography when you're putting it together quickly.  I was definitely getting frustrated by the end of the class.

The other thing that I would have liked a little more would have been to spend more time on some of the additional techniques that they were including in the choreography.  We ended up including some techniques like boogaloo that I would definitely have appreciated getting more time to work on.  But that's the way things go when you only have three short hours to work with a group of people.

Boston Pizza

After the workshop was finished, I met up with the Jamieson, Liz, Trevor and a few other people that had taken the workshop.  I was a little bit hesitant to do this initially, as I generally don't like just diving into a group of strangers, but I was glad I did.  It was a little weird because noone but me was drinking beer (I stopped after the first one once I noticed that), so things were slightly awkward (bunch of strangers, but no social lubricant).  However, I met some new people, got some e-mail, and got a chance to chat a little more with Trevor and Jamieson (interestingly enough, they started the same way I did - through raves).

Take-aways

So, what did I take away from the experience?  I learned a good deal about teaching and some exercises and techniques that can be used, and I definitely picked up some new moves to practice on.

One thing that was interesting was talking to the other people that were in the workshop, afterwards.  My friend Jo mentioned that she found Trevor's more visual and intuitive approach easier to work with.  So rather than breaking up an arm wave into the various isolations, just visualize your hands travelling up, over, and around a metal bar.

Unlike some of the classes I've had, most of the knowledge that I gained from these three hours came from taking what we were shown during workshop and reflecting on it.  I'm cool with that - I love spending time reflecting about new knowledge, and figuring out where it fits into my existing understanding of the way things work.

All in all this was a really great workshop and I'm really glad to see these kind of things happening in Victoria.  I came away with a few new friends, some more ideas to work towards, and inspiration.

A Border Collie With Nothing to Do

I've been off of the squash courts for just shy of a month now.  I'm meeting up with Rob to do some light training for the first time in what feels like ever, so I anticipate some frustration due to seeing the skill I trained so hard this Winter to acquire slipping through my fingers.

Not playing squash has been very frustrating, as I really love the sport, and I do things because I want to improve.  Being removed from that element means that I have to watch that improvement slip away and a heap of rust develop in place of the game I'm used to having at my disposal.  It's especially hard because I trained very hard this Winter and Spring, and really felt like I'd reached a new level in my game.  Oh well - all things come to pass, and it is the fool that doesn't listen to what their body is telling them.

In order to avoid going completely bucknuts-mental, I've been spending most of my time biking, working out, and dancing, in order to stay in shape and keep myself occupied (ever seen a border collie without anything to do?  That's a pretty good analogy to the way I operate).  Additionally, for the previous three weeks, I've had access to the dance studio whenever needed, which makes the act of practicing vastly superior to my other options.

About eight years ago, near the very start of my degree, I took it upon myself to practice dancing for thirty minutes everyday.  Even before that, Graham and I would practice whenever the whim struck us.  Lately, I've had more motivation than ever before to get down and actually put in some serious practice time, but as soon as I started, I noticed that my practices felt very unstructured.  I would skim from technique to technique, getting distracted and never spending enough time on any one thing.

This isn't necessarily a bad thing, as it's an indication that there are a lot of ideas that I have in my head that can legitimately evolve into dance moves and techniques.  However, if I want to see and feel real improvement, it's important to be able to focus when I set out to practice.  More for the sake of posterity than anything else, here is the practice routine that I came up with, along with a few notes describing why each part is there.

Routine vs Innovation

Before I go further, I think it's important to mention that routine and innovation are both important in any practice regimen.  Innovation is an opportunity to let yourself do whatever your body and the music are telling you to do, and is where you're going to find the most creativity.  Routine is where you will practice the fundamental movements that are core to the style of dance that you are pursuing (or even any activity in particular - scales for a piano player, for example).  Routine provides you with a solid set of fundamentals upon which you are able to actually create and innovate.  A good dancer needs to have a significant amount of both of these elements, so be sure not to neglect either of them when practicing.

Brainstorming

Before starting to plan out my routine, I wanted to do a braindump and get everything in my head out onto paper.  There's no magic to this technique - you just sit down with a pencil and paper, and write.  Don't question anything, just write.  After you've sat there for three or four minutes without writing anything, you can be reasonably assured that you've gotten everything immediate down.

The results of my brainstorm look like this:

• Waving
• Tutting
• Popping
• Fresno
• Choreography
• Glides
• Floats
• Flexes
• Foundations
• Experiments

So, there's nothing particularly groundbreaking here, but I have an idea of the kind of stuff that I want to fit in to a standard ninety minute practice session.

Note also that I wrote down Experiments.  This is the placeholder for setting aside some time specifically to work on experimentation.  Not practicing anything in particular, probably just ten minutes or so doing whatever.  I may end up hating everything that I come up with in those ten minutes, but, on the other hand, I may discover a new type of movement that I hadn't considered before.

Practice Routine

The total amount of time I felt was reasonable for practicing was around ninety minutes.  Anything more and I'm devoting more time than I have available.  Anything less and I really don't give myself much time to innovate.  When I first started practicing, I figured that it would be a stretch to get through forty-five minutes, however, once I actually force myself to overcome the inertia and actually get started, time seems to fly by pretty quickly.

So, what do I have planned?

• Fresno and Variations (15 minutes)
  

This one is a natural starting place.  The Fresno is the technique upon which everything else in popping builds, and is the starting point for the dance itself.  Practicing the Fresno provides the opportunity to practice good isolation, good hits, getting funky, and being creative.  No matter how good I get, I will always be able to practice the Fresno, come up with new variations and tightening it up.

Some specifics I want to practice are:

• Tight, crisp hits and isolations
• Walkouts
• Broken walks and hits into and out of the Fresno
• Transitions from the Fresno into other techniques (waves, tuts, etc.)
  

• Tutting (15 minutes)

Tutting is the newest technique I've worked on, and as such, there is a lot of room for me to improve.  I need to practice not only transitions to and from various poses, but also just making the poses themselves clean and tight.  Nothing looks worse than going into a box stance and having the box look more like a shitty oval.  Don't settle for a shitty oval.  Go for a nice clean box!

Specifics I need to work on:

• Tightening up poses
• New poses
• Transitions to and from various poses
• Footwork throughout

(I have learned most of my tutting so far without footwork, but you're not dancing if you're only moving half of your body - I need to work on this)

• Waves (15 minutes)

Waving is one of the trickier techniques for me, in terms of practice.  I have a fairly good grasp of the fundamental concepts for good waves, and I've practiced arm and body waves quite a bit.  However, I feel that I'm really letting myself down when it comes to actually being innovative with waving, and having a deeper understanding of the techniques.

For example, I know enough about waving to be able to use it when I'm freestyling, sending a wave up from my feet through my body and out my arms, but that's as far as it goes.  I've never taken the time to sit down and practice sending waves in specific directions, or as specific transitions.

So, that's part of what I'm aiming to do here.  Some specifics:

• Foundations (practice the individual isolations)
• Body wave (focus on isolating the hips)
• Waves through my legs and feet
• Waving into and out of various poses (eg, into King Tut pose), and transitions from waves to various other techniques
  
• Kick wave
• One-sided body waves (wave travels only down one side of the body)
• Variations on Phil Chbeeb's wave (view here at 34 seconds)

• Glides and Floats (15 minutes)

I've never really put enough time into learning to glide well.  Part of that is because until recently, my practice sessions have been exclusively on carpet, arguably the worst surface to practice gliding on.  They're also been inside, which means I can't practice with shoes on, which makes it that much harder (less support for the toes).

Gliding is a very frustrating and tedious technique to work on.  Having the correct floor and footwear makes things a little easier.  Specific things I intend to work on:

• Sideglide (specifically from left to right)
• Basic float (the foundation for most gliding)
• Snake glide
• Box glide (but work on side glide first)
• Forward glide
• Stationary glide

Nothing much to elaborate on here.  Gliding is the technique I'd like to see the most progression on - there's a lot of stuff I could be doing that I don't because I've never focused on this technique.

• Flexes (15 minutes)

Flexes are a technique that I never really learned properly the first time around.  After Dillon covered them in one of our classes, it dawned on me how valuable it was to correctly learn these fundamental ways of segmenting and turning your body.  A twist-o-flex may not look astonishing when done at normal speed, but the foundation can fit in with almost everything else that you do.

Specific flexes I want to work on:

• Standard twist-o-flex (with 4 pivots)
• Twist-o-flex with 5 pivots (add an additional head pivot in)
• Twist-o-flex shown here at 4:50 (thanks Guillaume!)
• Neck-o-flex
• Master-flex (I need knee pads to work on this one)
• Standard twist-o-flex, done backwards.

• Choreography (15 minutes)

Although choreography could technically fall as a sub-item into each of the above categories, I made a point of devoting at least 15 minutes in my routine purely to practicing this skill.  If I don't, I end up spending all of my time working on fundamental movements.  It's never a bad thing to have a really strong foundation (and there's ALWAYS things that I can find that need improving), but the only way to improve at choreography (and realistically, a complete dancer) is to spend some time working specifically on this skill.

One of the things that I've been working to appreciate is that choreography doesn't need to be something complicated. It can be as simple as putting together some Fresno movement, and then sending a wave through my arms, down one side of my body, up the other, and lastly, out my other arm.  This isn't difficult choreography, but until I actually put it together and practice the sequence, it will never be as tight as it needs to be.  And therein lies a small part of why choreography matters to me.  Freestyling, to me, is the opportunity is to make use of anything that I have come up with in the past.  Choreography is the opportunity to tread new ground.  Once I've done that enough, it can become part of my freestyling repertoire, but not until.

Specific things I want to work on:

• Various routines from the Fresno
• Waving choreography
• Tutting choreography
• Some choreography including glides
• Some choreography including footwork for both tuts and waves

So that's basically my practice routine for the summer.  If I get tired of working on things in this manner, I can always mix it up and change.  That is the power of my mind - look upon its works and despair!

I'm attending a popping workshop here in Victoria put on the Groovy Gs (of Vancouver) this coming Saturday.  I'll definitely have some thoughts to post at that point, so check back soon.

It's been a little longer than normal since my last entry.  That's mostly because I've been keeping myself fairly busy.  The stuff that is keeping me busy is stuff that I don't really want to set down only to come home and spend even more time writing about (don't get me wrong - I'm extremely passionate about dancing, I just haven't felt inclined to write about it lately), and I haven't really felt inspired to write beyond that.

However, this Saturday was the end-of-year wrap-up for Vibestreet Dance, and so it seems a good time to reflect a little bit on how things have gone.  When I look back to only two months ago, when I first started taking popping classes from Dillon, I can barely fathom how much things have changed.

The Show

Before I talk about my own thoughts, it's probably worth talking about our end-of-year show.  Three weeks before the show, Brooke mentioned that our breaking instructor would be putting together a routine for it, and it would be great if I could as well.  This would pretty much be the first time I'd ever done any choreography, so I was a little bit nervous - I spent about a week putting things together, and then went over it with the class.

In retrospect, I over-simplified certain parts, as I wasn't sure how quickly the class would pick things up.  It turned out, really quickly!  All of the kids were great, but I was obviously especially proud of the kids that I had been working with, and was really happy to see how well things went.  I think that in the next year, they're going to start to really take off.

Although it's nice to pretend that the instructor gets a lot of the credit for the progression of the students, I think most of that credit belongs to Guillaume, Jack, Max and Vincent (along with Olivier and Sean, who weren't able to come to the later classes, and thus participate in the portion I put together) for being such great students.  Kids like these guys don't come easily, and their dedication and hard work make everything easier.

I also bumped in to two other guys that had been popping for about a year as well, got them out into one of our cyphers, and then got their information and told them to come out to the jam sessions I'm trying to get going.  All in all, the show was awesome.

Instruction

The biggest change that has occurred since starting at Vibestreet has obviously been that I've moved into the role of teaching, from that of a student.  Teaching is something that I've always wanted to do, and that I've always enjoyed.  My own experience has been that teaching people the art that I am interested in is one of the best ways for me to gain a better understanding of it myself.  Breaking techniques down requires thinking about each part of the technique and understanding it at a very fundamental level.  I've always felt this way, and indeed, studying calculus with friends in University, I always appreciated being asked for help with various questions.  My friends would apologize for bugging me with another question, but I was secretly being selfish and gaining from the questions they were asking me.

Back in the very early days of the world wide web, a friend and I ran a dance website called "Shaddup and Dance".  It was a piece of garbage, and would make web browsers explode from having to render the sheer ugliness of colours that we jammed onto that page.  Not only that, but there was also negative feedback from the original gangsters that took exception to my tutorial videos (many of them were indeed quite poor), or our attitude that just because you'd been around for a while didn't mean that you were above critique.  Still, there was an awful lot of positive feedback that accompanied the negative, and the opportunity to provide some advice and direction to other dancers that were attempting to learn the same techniques I had was one that I relished.

The first day that I started teaching was with the junior class.  I hadn't met any of the kids before, and I had no idea what they had learned up to that point.  Brooke told me that they were passionate about popping, which was promising, but I didn't realize how accurate she was.  These kids have been awesome, and really stuck it out with me.  They were patient with my fumbling starts, and have given me lots of inadvertent advice that I have taken to heart.  The opportunity to work with them (and hopefully to continue to do so), has been really great and has provided ample opportunities to learn myself.

Working with the adults has been slightly easier, though no less of a learning experience.  It's been easier because adults are generally more willing to focus on the foundation, and because I had the benefit of being attending the four classes previous to my taking it over.

When Brooke asked if I wanted to keep teaching, I didn't even have to think about the answer.

Choreography

Starting to think about choreography, and to actually apply that to the lessons I'm teaching, has been a completely new experience for me.  In the ten years that I have been dancing, I have always focused on building and practicing foundation movement.  No fancy moves, no fancy vocabulary of choreographed moves to draw from, just foundation.  Personally, I like this, as it means that I can very quickly adapt my dancing to work with whatever the music is asking of me, and when I focus on foundation, it is much easier to take in new influences and apply those to the existing foundation.

However, choreography is a very important aspect of dancing, and freestyle dancing is essentially coming up with choreography in real-time.  Taking on the role of teaching has required me to re-evaluate my relationship with choreography (a sentence that sounds exceptionally lame).  Seriously though, while working on foundation is essential for anyone that really wants to become a great dancer, not everyone is geared the way I am, and most people want to actually do something cool as they're learning.

Choreography provides students with a direct relationship between the foundation that you have them working on and actually dancing (honestly, it's difficult to understand how you are going to turn a chest hit until a dance until you've practiced it enough).  With a little bit of choreography, it is easy to take some basic foundation and put them together to make something that looks kind of cool, and provides a direction to train towards.  This should be one of the key goals of anyone attempting to teach - to instill in students not only the value of foundation, but also some ideas for the direction that they can take those foundations.

Friends

Finding Vibestreet Dance has been a lot like finding Victoria Squash Club - a whole new community of people to meet and interact with, and that share interests similar to mine.  Although finding people that shared my interest in squash was a bit of a challenge, I have literally been searching for ten years for people that are as passionate as I am about the styles of dance that I love.  It's not that those people don't exist, it's just that the hiphop scene in Victoria is so dry, and it's very difficult to find events that support maintaining that kind of culture.

In all of the people that I've trained with and taught, I've discovered new inspiration, and it really is extremely energizing.  Nothing inspires creativity like being exposed to more creative people.  In Brooke, especially, I've found a new friend with which I can talk about new observations, epiphanies I've had while practicing, and complain about the things that have bothered me in dancing culture for as long as I've been a part of it. 

I can (and do) share many of these things with Bay on a more abstract level (as we can discuss dance with each other at a level above any particular style), but it is refreshing to be able to talk to someone else about things that have, up until now, existed solely in my own head for the last decade.

Dancing

Although I started to develop a love for popping from watching hiphop videos and tapes put out by Mr Wiggles, it was raving that actually really got the ball rolling.  For all of the negative stereotypes (many of them accurate to some extent) present at raves, good dancing is appreciated, and if that's what you're into, there's space to do it.

Not only that, but every party, I would run into the same people that were there to dance.  We knew each other, and it presented a constant drive to keep improving.  I really wanted to rise to the top, and to bring something new to the table everytime that we met.  There were many days of the summers that Graham and I would spend alternating between playing Tekken and practicing dancing.

However, raving is not really a sustainable activity, and as time went on, going out to clubs stopped being one as well.  Without either of these options, there really wasn't any outlet to fuel my desire to improve.  I would practice from time to time, but to what end?  My friend Michi can apparently derive his motivation out of thin air, but I'm not that way.

Teaching is exactly the factor that I have been missing for so long.  Having students that are thirsty for new knowledge presents an incredible amount of motivation.  With other people to be accountable to, my drive to continue progressing is stronger than ever before.  This doesn't surprise me, but it is extremely rewarding to feel that way again.

With Brooke being gracious enough to let me use the studio for practice when it's not in use, I find myself heading there at least twice weekly to work on new ideas.  Although I am still at the stage where I am planting a lot of seeds, I really feel that the coming year will mark a huge wave of progression on my part.

On top of that, I'm taking hiphop classes, a style of dance that I've never really had any exposure to aside from watching it being performed.  These classes have given me an opportunity to appreciate new ways of moving around the dance floor, new postures, and a greater appreciation for choreography in general.  Watching Brooke teach the class has given me a chance to glean as much knowledge as I can from her own wealth of experience.

Summer and the Future

It is difficult to know exactly what the future will hold, but now that I've found a dance culture that I can partake in, I will hang on to it like grim death.  The summer is already filling up with exciting opportunities, including dance camps and workshops that I am planning to take, which will really open my eyes up to new ways of moving and keep the ball rolling (I just hope I can keep pace!).

I'll be posting updates as we move further into the Summer.  Until then, stay tuned!

When I graduated from University, my parents offered to get me a graduation present, or to just give me some cash to do with as I pleased.  My family is very practical this way; you can ask for gifts and have us find something along the lines that you are asking for, or simply get the money and spend it how you choose.  Some people think that this takes away from the spirit of gift-giving, and if that's how you feel, that's cool.  We've always found that it eliminates those awkward situations where you hint about something all year round, then get annoyed when you open something that is not at all what you wanted.  I've also found that there's plenty of room left for surprise in this approach, so it's all good with regards to that.

Anyhow, I'm digressing.  The point is that about 5 years ago, I got a bike for graduation.  For the first three years of my post-university life, Bay and I rented apartments that were very shy on storage space, and we had to leave the bike at my parent's place.  As a result, it really didn't see much use.  The next year we moved into our condo, in the process of moving, painting, buying furniture, and everything else, I kind of forgot that I even had a bike waiting for me. 

Towards the end of Fall this year, I remembered I had a hog waiting for me at my parents and brought it back with me.  I started riding the bike the same way I do everything - gradually.  However, as time has passed, and the weather has improved, I've become more and more enamoured with the sport, to the point that I no longer see it as simply a way to cross-train fitness to play better squash, but as a something worth pursuing on its own.

I'm going to mention some of the benefits of biking, and give a quick run down of what your options if you think you may be interested in getting a chopper yourself.

The Benefits

Biking offers a number of obvious benefits.  Chief among those is that it's an excellent form of cardiovascular workout.  Cardiovascular workouts are ones that keep your heart rate at a moderately-elevated range for a decent amount of time.  They exercise and strengthen your heart and your lungs, and are efficient workouts to burn fat (and we all want that right?). 

Biking gets you out of the house, and it doesn't require a lot of preparation on your part to start.  This might seem like a small benefit, but the longer and more involved the process is to actually begin your workout, the more chance you have to talk yourself out of actually doing it (I'm sure we can all remember times when we've talked ourselves out of going to the gym, simply by thinking about the annoying walk there before we even start the workout).  Grab your bike and your keys, and leave the house.  Start riding.  Worry about where you're going to go once you're on the bike. 

Riding also fits very easily into other parts of your life.  Although I initially started riding to train my cardio, I quickly started making it my primary means of transportation.  Instead of driving to my friend Steve's on a Friday night, I started asking myself, "Why wouldn't I just bike there?".  Instead of driving to the store to pick up a few select groceries I need for dinner tonight, why not bike there?  Why not bike to dance class instead of driving?  Once you start hopping on a bike regularly, you'll notice a couple of things: you start to see other places where it makes sense to take your bike instead of a car, and it takes a lot less time to get somewhere on a bike than you might think.  Riding from our place downtown to Town and Country shopping center, near the start of the Island Highway, takes roughly the same amount of time on a bike or a car, given that a bicyclist has the benefit of taking the Galloping Goose trail and avoiding all traffic.

Unlike jogging, the motion used to propel yourself forward on a bike is one that is impact-free.  Don't get me wrong - I like jogging a lot.  It's just murder on the knees, especially if you're on pavement.  A biker doesn't have to worry about these problems.  Riding every day will strengthen the muscles around your knees and activate the joint, ensuring that you retain mobility for a long time to come.

One of our favorite things about biking is that we see so much more of the city that we live in.  When you're walking, you're constrained to a small area, as you can only cover so much ground in a given amount of time.  When you're driving, you're focus is on the road, other drivers, and getting to your destination.  But on a bike, you can explore.  You've got the time to seek out new areas that you haven't been before, and explore new streets.  Since starting to ride, I've become much more acquainted with Uplands, James Bay, Esquimalt, Ten Mile Point, and Oak Bay.  It may seem trivial, but it is kind of neat to develop a familiarity with your home town.

Your Choices

Okay, enough wanking about the reasons to start biking.  What are the choices you have when buying a bike?

Your choices are generally three-fold, with some less-common and more trendy variations on top of those first three.

The Mountain Bike

A mountain bike is a bike that is specifically targeted for off-road riding.  They generally have a well suspended frame, which allows the bike to absorb a lot of shock that comes from riding on rocky terrain and taking drops as needed, and a frame that can take some (lots of) punishment.

Mountain bikes also come equipped with a hefty set of tires, in order to better grip the uneven ground that you'll be riding on.  You can take a mountain bike on the road, but you're going to notice some disadvantages.

For one, the extra thickness of the tires, and the multitude of treading, is going to mean that you have extra friction with the road, which will slow you down.  It won't feel like riding in sand, but it'll feel a fair bit soupier than if you were on one of the other options.

The heavier frame on the mountain bike is also going to lead to added weight that you need to pedal around.  On off-road terrain, this isn't going to be a problem, as you don't really have any other choice, and your riding is more geared to short spurts than to longer endurance riding.

The suspension on a mountain bike's frame will mean that riding on a road feels a little soggier.  Every time you turn your pedals, some of your downward momentum is going to be absorbed by the suspension.  It won't wreck your ride, but again, the little things add up.

A mountain bike is a great choice if you're a thrill seeker and like going for that kind of ride.  Downhill, highly technical riding, with a potential to fly over your handlebars and hurt yourself.  It's not for me, but it's a lot of fun for those that like it.

The Road Bike

Road bikes represent the antithesis of the mountain bike.  Their frames have zero suspension, because they are designed specifically to be ridden ... on the road.  Our roads are designed so that they provide as smooth a ride as possible, and so suspension is only going to slow you down.

The frames on road bikes are much lighter than those of a mountain bike, as you will not be putting them through much abuse.  The alloy that they use to make the frame will also be more rigid.  The composition of the frame and the lack of suspension on a road bike means that they won't be able to withstand nearly the kind of punishment that a mountain bike could, but they will provide a much crisper and responsive ride when you're on the terrain that they are intended for (roads, obviously).  When I talk about "punishment", I don't mean something akin to riding off a sidewalk's curb.  I mean taking the bike off a six to ten foot drop.  Road bike frames can handle some abuse - just not a lot.

The tires of a road bike are optimized for riding on the road, which means that they will have narrow tires with as little tread as possible.  The width of the tires are optimized to minimize the amount of friction you have to overcome, but provide enough that you can accelerate and pedal at a good speed.

Road bikes often come with a set of drop handlebars, which are designed to allow the rider to lean forward when they ride, creating a streamlined shape.  The handlebars are also closer together, bringing the hands closer, and creating a V shape relative to your elbows.  This also serves to streamline the rider and allow for faster rides.  Road bikes obviously come with shifting and braking components that work with these kind of handlebars.

All of the features of a road bike make them great to use in the confines of a city, where you are guaranteed well-maintained roads.  These features also make the bike suck as soon as you get off of pavement.  While it's possible to take a road bike on to trails, even the slightest bit of loose gravel can cause problems for your tires ability to stay in contact and provide you enough friction to effectively pedal.  The rigid frame and lack of suspension on a road bike will make a ride on a bumpy trail quite a bit less comfortable, as each shock will be transferred up through the frame and into your arms and legs.

The Hybrid Bike

A hybrid bike represents the midpoint between the two bikes mentioned above.  The frame is slightly less rigid than a road bike's, and will usually have some form of shocks on the front forks, and possibly on the seat.  These shocks will often have a feature allowing them to be locked out so that you can turn them off when you're riding on the road, which means you can have the benefit of shocks when you need them, and turn that off when you want the more responsive ride on the road.

The bike's frame will be a fair bit sturdier than a road bike, but not as much as a mountain bike, providing a good compromise between the ability to take some abuse and a bike that isn't too heavy.

Hybrid's usually have handle bars that are more similar to those of a mountain bike, and are outfitted with tires that are smooth in the middle (allowing for good riding on the road), and treaded on the outer edges (giving you good grip whenever you dip to the side, especially useful on trails).

If you don't have a specific use in mind for your bike, I think the hybrid is your best choice.  It's never going to be a good as a mountain bike for off-road technical riding, and you'll never be able to ride quite as fast as a lightweight road bike on the road, but you won't be prevented from doing either of these activities.

These are the main three types of bikes, but there are a few more esoteric offerings out there as well.

The Townie

Townie bikes have been popular in the past five years or so, especially with women. Townie bikes are designed as commuter bikes, and are designed for comfort.  The handlebars are generally built for the rider to sit fairly upright, rather than bent forward, and often come with other attachments like handlebar baskets, or a basket behind the seat.

Some people refer to these bikes as commuter bikes, and I think that's probably fair.  If your primary intent in owning a bike is to get from point A to point B, this is a bike that will do you well.  The upright design of the handlebars will provide a comfortable ride, and this type of riding is rarely about pushing yourself. 

These bikes have a very romantic appeal to them, and evoke images of cycling through Paris streets on a sunny weekend, with fresh-picked flowers in the handle basket, along with a couple of baguettes.  If you primarily intend to use your bike to ride casually around the city, this is a great choice.

However, the things that make this bike romantic also make it impractical for serious exercise.  Upright handlebars create a poor rider profile for getting any decent speed up, as you will not at all be streamlined.  If you want a bike that looks cute and is comfortable, this is the one for you.  If you think that you may want to use this bike for an actual workout, I wouldn't recommend it.

The Single Gear and the Fixie

The Single Gear bike (not the correct name, but I don't know what it is) and its counterpart, the Fixie, have started to replace the townie as the latest trend.  Both of these bikes have grown out of the minimalist and bike courier movements, and are in abundance in Victoria.

The single gear bike is exactly what it sounds like.  A bike with just one gear position available to the rider.  Bikes like this will be lighter than most bikes, because the added weight of a the gears and a shifting mechanism are not present.  These bikes will typically come with drop handlebars, and two brakes, and that's it.  Pretty minimal right?  Although these bikes are certainly very trendy, I don't personally think they are a good idea.  Having gears allows you to make your mechanical work as efficient as possible.  I'm a big fan of minimalism, in general, but I think that this approach unnecessarily cuts out a useful function on a bike, and by buying a bike like this, you limit where you can take your bike.  Having said that, I suspect that bikes like this would probably cost less, due to the fact that there are less components being purchased.

Think that sounded minimal?  Well, the fixie goes one step further, fixing the pedals to the rotation of your tire, meaning that one full circle of your pedals correlates directly to one full rotation of your tire.  For this reason, fixies do not allow the rider to coast or back-pedal, and are not as mechanically efficient (meaning you require more energy input to achieve the same amount of work) as bikes with a system of gears.  Some claims have been made that this encourages better biking as the rider is forced to pedal through corners and adjust their speed appropriately.  I personally think this is a needless contrivance, but if people enjoy riding them, that's cool.

Depending on how far you want to take it, fixies can be found with two brakes (one for each tire), only one brake (I'm not sure which tire you would put this on - presumably the back?), or no brakes at all (in which case you are completely reliant on using your legs to slow down the rotation of the tires).  As of late, it has been popular to replace the drop handle bars with a completely straight handlebar.  This is about as minimal as you can get: Two tires, a frame, a piece of metal for a handlebar, and pedals.

Although minimalism and trendiness certainly have their appeal, it's still possible that the single gear bike may serve you well.  However, I don't personally see the value in a fixie, other than for aesthetic appeal.  If that's your game, then go for it.  If not, treat the purchase of your bike as an investment, and go for something that will serve you in the short- and the long-term.

Get a bike!

That about covers as much about bikes as I'm comfortable discussing with my own knowledge.  If you consider your options and choose wisely, a good bike is an investment that will serve you well for a very long time, and, provided you are the type of individual that will use one if you have one, will directly correlate to you leading a healthier, happier life.

As I've mentioned before, I'm a big fan of little things that increase the efficiency of things that I do frequently.

Below are a few programs that I have installed on my machine at work that enable this for me.  The machine that I have to use at work runs Windows XP, which sucks, because I truly believe that OS X is a vastly superior operating system when you care about efficiency and productivity.  However, without further ado:

• AltDrag

This is a simple, low memory-footprint program that does one function on Windows: Hold down the Alt key, then click anywhere on a window to move it around your screen.  Seems unnecessary, but it adds a little bit of efficiency when you don't have to go hunting for a title bar.

Once you've used this application, you'll be annoyed every time you have to sit down at a computer that doesn't have it installed.  You can download AltDrag here.

• WizMouse

Same idea as above.  A low memory-footprint that does one function on Windows: Whenever you use your scroll wheel, that event is drilled down to whatever window is directly beneath your mouse, rather than sending the event to the active window.  This doesn't change the focus or Z-order of your Windows. 

This is very handy, especially when doing things that require having something like an Excel spreadsheet and a web browser both open, both requiring scrolling.  WizMouse can be downloaded here.

• KeePass

This guy is a really tight password manager that I came across on Lifehacker.  KeePass allows you to keep strong and unique passwords for everything you need, and ensure that you never encounter a situation where you arrive at a website knowing you have a login, but unable to remember what it is.  KeePass creates an encrypted database file that you can also sync this across all of your computers using Dropbox, which means you just need to remember one strong password for KeePass, and one strong password for Dropbox.  Once you've got that, you can ensure that you maintain strong and unique passwords for everything you sign up for. You can download KeePass here.

• TopDesk

A simple application that allows Windows to mimic the expose functionality that exists in OS X (Macintosh's operating system).  Once you start using expose, you will rarely alt-tab again (although it's still the best way to quickly bounce back and forth between two applications).  You can download TopDesk in evaluation format to try it out, but it's worth paying for the full version.  You can download Topdesk here.

These programs will need to stay resident in your memory in order to function (with the exception of KeePass), but all of them are very low in terms of memory-footprint, and should not cause any significant problems.  Give them a shot and see if you like any of them.  I have gone as far as to install each of these on my thumb drive so that I can run them when I'm helping out a friend with their computer - they've become such a convenient part of my daily work that I can't stand having to work without them.

It's been around two months since I started leveraging Macintosh's Stickies to act as my digital task management system.  As all good processes should do, my system has evolved over time in order to better accommodate the things that I find necessary, and to prune out any unnecessary parts.

Up to this point, my system has evolved as follows:

• Attempt to implement a paper tickler system, similar to what I use at the office

This attempt failed fairly quickly.  I don't enjoy amassing large amounts of paper around the house, I don't have a convenient place to put a tickler file that isn't ugly (I don't spend a lot of time in our office, preferring to do most of my work in our dining and living rooms), and I wasn't checking it on a very frequent basis.

• Implement a rough system using Terminal windows
  

This step represented my change from a paper-based system to a digital one.  Not a bad start, but a long way to go.  You can read about this step and the one following here.

• Change over to using Stickies to manage tasks

This marks the start of my system actually becoming fluid and working well with my own tasks.  It is within this framework that the majority of the rest of my tweaking will occur.

The last step looked like this:


The latest evolution looks like this:



The changes I have made are not massive ones, but the little things make a difference over time.  A quick summary:

• Only the TODO window is fully expanded

The old system had four windows expanded by default - TODO, Blog, To Buy, and Projects.  However, this creates four windows that demand my attention by default.  By changing to a paradigm where I start and finish with just the TODO window being expanded, my eyes are immediately drawn to this location whenever I load up my system.

There wasn't really a need to have the other windows open either - if I want to make sure that I blog soon, I simply put "Blog" as a todo item on my list.  When it comes time to actually write, I just expand my blog window and look over the potential topics that I've recorded, choose one that interests me, and get writing.

Likewise, items under projects simply require my review from time to time.  Whenever I feel like I have enough time on my hands that I can begin to tackle one of them, I open up the window and choose one of them.  Items that I need to purchase, can simply act as a list that I reference when Bay and I head out the door on the weekend to run errands and possibly spend some money.

As an aside, I highly recommend maintaining a list of items that you intend to buy.  Having those items written down and made tangible really makes it easier for you to focus on what you will be sacrificing when you spend your money frivolously.  If I check this list before heading out the door on a Saturday, it just makes it that easier to think "Hmm, this thing is cool, but if I get this, I'll have to wait even longer to get those bike gloves I wanted".

• Location Tickler has been expanded

I'm still trying to figure out the best way for this tickler to work.  The location tickler started to accrue a number of items that were related specifically to people, rather than locations.  Tasks that require another person are generally a little easier to act on than a specific location, as I can complete an item marked "Lend book to Davin" when I either go to Davin's place, or when he comes to my place.  On the other hand, a task marked "Drop clothes off at Salvation Army" requires that I physically be at the Salvation Army.

It is possible that over time these two items will merge back together.  For now, I maintain the two ticklers separately (though physically close to one another on my screen) because I want to be able to check only the People Tickler when I have people over, and both the Location and People Ticklers whenever I'm leaving the house.  The goal here is to make the process of reviewing the ticklers as efficient as possible, in order to encourage myself to actually use them.

Don't underestimate this last point - I'm still working to develop the habit of actually checking the ticklers whenever Bay or I leave the house.  I have an active item for Vancouver that says Bay and I need to return some items to Ikea.  However, Bay left the house to head over to the mainland this Friday, only to realize that we'd both forgotten this needed to be done.  That's okay, it's just another aspect of working to learn a new habit.

• List section

The list section just holds a number of lists that I maintain.  Ideas for dates, gifts, vacations, and other things that I think up, want to remember, but haven't had a place to store them up until now.  Whenever I have an idea that falls into one of these categories, I capture it wherever I am, and then add it to one of these lists when I get home.  If I don't yet have a list for this particular idea, I create one and add it to that.  Easy.

• Dance Lessons

Writing ongoing lessons means that I need to keep a stock of fresh ideas and techniques to teach my classes.  The process by which I do this usually involves jamming at the studio, Steve's place, or my kitchen when cooking, and playing around with various techniques.  Whenever I do something that strikes me as worth pursuing, I make a note in the appropriate sticky.  There are a number of different stickies under the dance heading, because there are a number of different techniques that all fall under the Popping umbrella.

When teaching a class, I find that it's better usually to stick to one or two of these techniques, in order to get people familiar with a couple of different ways of moving throughout the class, rather than jumping all over the place.  Having these stickies makes it easy for me to sit down during the week and say "What do I want to teach the class this week".  I can review the items that I've captured, grab a couple from each list, and then put together a lesson plan based on that.

• More meaningful use of color

When I initially put together the sticky system, my use of different coloured notes was more whimsical than anything.  I tried to apply colors that helped separate the open windows from one another, and to denote headers for various lists, such as the Location Tickler.

This time, I've updated the use of color to follow a more specific pattern.  Headers are generally coloured green to make them stand out a little more.  Beneath these headers sit the actual contents of each category, such as the names of people I need to talk to, specific locations, etc.

Any person or location under a tickler that has active items associated with them/it is colored red so that I can quickly get a feel for where I have tasks with just a glance.  This is in addition to updating the sticky itself to note how many active tasks I have.  So, for example, I have one active task with my friend Rob.  His sticky is coloured Red to indicate this, and there are also the words (1 ACTIVE) beside his name.  At a glance I can quickly determine where tasks are piling up.

That's the bulk of the changes that I've made so far.  As always this is an iterative process, so the more I use the system, the more refined I anticipate it will become.  Eventually I will get things to the point that I no longer really need to make changes in order to have it function in a manner that is most efficient for me on a daily basis.

A final note about the mobile counterpart to this system.  This is the voice-recording application that I've been using on my iPhone.  It was one of the first applications that I came across when I searched the app store on iTunes for voice recorder, but fortunately it's fit the bill perfectly.  Here is a screenshot of the application: