My 3 Month Stay

     Upon my return from my second trip to Jamaica, I made three pretty rash decisions. The first one, was I was going to go back to Kingston once again for an undisclosed amount of time. This, in turn affected my other two rash and risky decisions, which were 1) that I wasn't going to go back to my full time teaching job I had secured, and 2) that I was leaving Santa Cruz, the place I had called home for the last 10 years. It was a rush and a whirlwind. I knew full well that what I decided to do could definitely back fire because of  its riskiness. I also knew, however that I had to do it, and if I didn't, I would spend the rest of my life regretting it. 

    I finished up the school year and spent my summer squeezing in a summer school teaching job, preparing to move, and making loose arrangements for my stay in Kingston. It all happened so fast, and before I knew it, I was on the road, my car stuffed full to my new life. I stopped in San Diego to store random belongings in my family members' homes, and, before I knew it, was on a flight to Kingston the next morning. 

....

    My trip, of course, did not go the way I planned, but it did end up being one of the most memorable experiences of my life. I ended up staying there for three full months, which ended up making me feel like I actually came closer to living there more than anything else. In three months, I ended up being in both a music video and an extra in a British movie, lived in three different places, became closely familiar with the Kingston bus and route taxi system, and got seriously schooled in quite a few aspects of Dancehall culture, music, and dance. I hiked to the top of a mountain to see all of Kingston, went on a few rocky boat trips to the small island of Lime Key, explored, in depth, the beauty of Hope Gardens, crammed in a car with ten other people on the way to hidden waterfalls, and basked in the beauty of Paint Jamaica. I bought groceries in downtown, and became a regular at Uptown Mondays, Boasy Tuesdays, and Day Rave on Thursdays. 

I left completely alive, and thankful that I was lucky enough to have this opportunity more than anything. I'll go into more detail about this experience in the following posts. 

My Second Real Party

 Going to and arriving at a Dancehall party with mostly foreigners is a completely different experience than tagging along with Jamaicans. This is why I felt a separate account of my second experience was more than necessary. Going with my teacher and his teammates meant I truly was going to see this part of the culture through completely different eyes. 

When I went to my first party with my group of friends at the hostel, all who were white, foreign, and girls, everything was in tip top order, from us leaving our apartment all the way to the trip back home. We got ready together, put on makeup while talking loudly, and left at or around the same time we planned. Getting ready with my teacher was a completely different experience. When he told me we would leave at 2AM, I took that quite literally, and was all set and ready to go at 2:10. Of course, I didn't know him saying that actually meant that's when the alarm would go off after the pre-party nap signaling it was time to start getting ready, that the rest of the team would be there at 3, and the taxi would be there closer to 330 to drop us at the party by 3:45. How naive I was!

After spraying ourselves with half a gallon of perfume and cologne, my teacher, the rest of his team, (and his 14 year old neighbor that decided to tag along), piled into the cramped taxi and headed out into the night. I was given the low down that I would have to enter at a separate time as the boys, and wait for them inside, which I did with a little hesitation. As we walked in, I was told to stick with the neighbor kid, who was going to look after me while the rest of the group headed to the center of the party. 

Walking in to the party, I had a similar feeling as when I went with my friends a few months before; all eyes on me, entering with hesitation; nervous, excited, and a little overwhelmed. While last time I stayed with my girlfriends on the outside, observing, this time I was pulled to what was basically the outer core of the Dancehall. Just as the center of the earth holds the planet's energy, the inside circle does the same for the entire party. Dancing there, and observing everyone was an energetic overflow. I could literally feel it in my veins; the emotion and the fire that rose out of the dancing taking place in that circle was insane. All the while, the neighborhood kid, which in my eyes, age-wise, was a child, became more of an adult than me, transforming into my protector, watching over me as instructed by my teacher while he went to work.

When the party was done closer to 6AM, the exit was not as clear cut as the time before either. While my foreign friends and I made a smooth, clear exit the time before, this time, we stayed and participated in the entire post party mingling, greeting, and handshaking. When that finally ended closer to 7AM, we piled into the taxi once again to reach home just as the heat of the day crept in. 

After all of this, the dancing late at night, epic long party experiences, and sleeping and staying with a real Jamaican household it was still clear to me that I was not yet done. I still needed more time for this place to sink in. My teacher at this point had become more like my best friend, and his family soon became similar to my own, and now I knew I really and truly has a place to return to. 

A classic, post-party shot 

Staying in my first Jamaican household

 My experience in Jamaica very quickly transformed from a quick trip to take a couple classes into a full blown life experience that would transform the years to come. From almost the moment I touched down back in California, I already had my next trip planned and booked in less than a full season. Of course, this time was not any different from the last, in that the trip I had planned in my head was completely different than the experience that was thrown before me. 

This time around, I only had 6 full days in the country, which meant I had to pack even more in than I did that first time around. My "plan" was to stay with my teacher, and his family, and get a foundation in the Old Skool rhythms of Dancehall. It seemed simple in my mind, and, without much planning, I was stepping off the plane into the sweltering heat once again. Before I knew it, I was rushed into an old jalopy driven by my teachers' good friend and driven to the neighborhood that I was briefly introduced to a few months earlier. Stepping out of the car, I shed the whirlwind of my red eye flight and bumpy car ride, and could once again feel the calm that being in Jamaica brought me. 

While my last trip had been an introduction to Jamaica as a whole, this trip was my up and close introduction to the way of life in Kingston. The house was small, with three makeshift rooms that each led into one another. At least two people slept in every room, except if there was family visiting, which increased the number to 3 or 4 . The yard, where classes were held, was all dirt, leading to a pathway of chicken coops and clotheslines. With music playing at least 12 hours a day, and the almost twice a day video game gatherings, personal space was considered a luxury. Despite me being a complete stranger, I was welcomed as a member of the family. My six days were spent eating an Easter dinner of fried chicken and pasta salad, playing video games with the group of neighborhood boys, kicking a soccer ball with the little kids, hanging up laundry, and participating in the occasional class led by my teacher in the yard to a group of foreigners passing by. So much was packed in, with time flying by and standing still at the same time. 

When the lively chaos of the day time subsided, the magical evenings set in. My first night of learning took place on top of the entry gate to the house. As people in the community passed by under the darkness of the night, my teacher explained to me the different time periods in Dancehall music. We started with the beginning, with Old Skool and Rock Steady, to the Mid Skool era recounting the radio war between Vybz Kartel and Mavado, ending with the New Skool era we are in right now. The next few evenings panned out the same way, this time dancing to the steps. We covered about 20 in total, with my teacher struggling to break down the barriers of my current movement style, often throwing up his arms, confused why I moved like a "cardboard box". We were able to break through some, thankfully. I learned to pick my feet up more, put more detail into my movement, and actually started to feel the tiny nuances that went into step. 

We skimmed the surface, which was the best that we could do in 6 days, and although I wanted to come back from this trip completely transformed, I knew the depth at which I wanted to explore Dancehall would take significantly longer. 

But first, I had to go to another party...

The Long Road Ahead

Spain was such a whirlwind of experiences, that I came back to California thinking I had lived three lifetimes already. It was almost as if I was one of those characters who disappeared into a magical land, came back thinking years had passed and for everyone else, it was 10 minutes. Even though I had managed to teach my Worldanz classes in Spain, I still only had about 6 months of dance experience under my belt, so I still had a very long way to go. After all, I'm not writing about my experiences to explain how easy my journey has been, I'm here to tell about the process.

My friend was generous enough to give me one of her classes at the gym where she was teaching and where I had first started coming to her classes. I realized very quickly that building my classes and being a successful teacher didn't just mean showing up every week on time. It also meant putting in the time every week to practice the dances I was teaching, training myself to be more fit and strong so I could make it through a class without getting light headed, and not taking it personally if only one person showed up to to my class. The most crucial thing I realized during all of this was that I still had very far to go as a DANCER, so as a TEACHER I had double the road ahead of me.

My first performance back in Santa Cruz during that first year of teaching

I learned this the hard way by making all the mistakes I possibly could that first year of teaching. I have to be honest and say that back then, part of me thought I had already learned what I needed to; an easy mistake to make as a beginner. I would show up up not having practiced any of the dances I was supposed to lead, and still lacked a lot of the technique that I was teaching other people. I got so ahead of myself, in fact, that my teacher had to have a heart to heart with me about seriously changing my tune if I was to continue teaching and working with her.

The thought of not being able to do what I has set out to do when this all started, just wasn't an option, which means I had to completely rework my whole approach, and begin to put the time in to what was about to become a lifetime practice. I very soon started religiously attending almost any technique class I could in my small town. I took Afro-Haitian, Senegalese, Afro-Brazilian, jazz, and ballet on a regular basis, and was the first to sign up for any workshop hosted by a master teacher passing through. I started taking aerial dance and circus classes to strengthen my body, and yoga to work on my flexibility. I would wake up at 6 every morning, get ready for work, work all day, then immediately race to classes at night. My weekends were full of practices and rehearsals, and my evenings at home were basically non-existent. My pure exhaustion at times was only coupled by our exhilaration because I could feel myself improving every minute. Going from someone who, at 20, couldn't do a push up, definitely couldn't touch their toes, and could barely follow a routine in a technique class, to someone at 25, who could do all this things , and more, was only accomplished by my pure dedication and drive to get better.

This was taken about 2 months into doing aerial.  You can clearly see my beginner technique :)

While the process towards self-improvement that I went through in Santa Cruz completely served me in the time I needed it, I soon realized that I was outgrowing the small town. I started hitting a wall with both my physical training in aerial, and my technique training, at times feeling bored and unsatisfied. Being 25 and working an office job where everyone around me was married with kids made me feel restless, and consumed by so many thoughts that mostly were along the lines of "Is THIS going to be my LIFE, for the next 40 or 50 years?!

This was taken 2 months before I left for Mexico at a dance intensive in Santa Cruz dancing Afro-Haitian.

I dwelled in this place for months deciding what to do. I mean I was 25, I still had so many options of where I could go and what I could do. I debated saving to go to professional circus school, debated moving to New York to full dedicate myself to my dance training, and also toyed with the idea of moving back to San Diego to be closer to family and get a different experience in a big city. The answer eventually came from a spirited conversation between a friend of mine and I after a late night training session. The answer was....... Mexico!

My aerial performance right before I left for Mexico. You can see the improvement in technique from the first photo. 

In the time both of us had been training aerial, we had a visiting coach that would come up from Mexico, and basically condition us so hard we couldn't walk or squat down for 3 days straight. He was a champion of perfect technique, and stressed the idea that in order to be successful at aerial, you had to be strong; not 10 push ups in a row strong, but more like 20 pull ups and a back flip strong. He had made the offer to come train with him in Mexico (for cheap) the previous time he had visited. Now that we were both in a place to make a big change, we took him up on his offer, and made plans for the next big move. For me, this wasn't just a chance to "level up" my aerial training, it was an opportunity to make my desire of being a full time artist and athlete, a reality.