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...

Crossing the Border

Before I left for Mexico, I couldn't quite remember what it was like to have "free" time on my hands. In the last 26 years, the most time I had gotten off from work or school was the summers from ages 0-14. Even then, I was usually whisked away to summer camp or at rehearsals all day while my mom was at work. When I got to high school, my free time was either filled with a load of homework that could take over my whole, desk, room, and floor, my part time job at Cold Stone Creamery, or both. After college, the only component that was taken away from that equation was my part time job, that was eventually replaced by full time work. My early mid and late 20s, as described in my last post, was filled with my grown up job in during the day, and my dance training at night and on the weekends. Needless to say, I had no idea what it was like to have chunks of my day completely free, and I sure as hell had no idea what it was like to just be at home by myself.

So, it's definitely safe to say that I had some pretty severe moments of personal growth during my months in this new place.........

The  plan I had when I decided to move to Guadalajara, Mexico with my friend to train full time was as follows: Move to Mexico without knowing anything about the city I was going to, hope and pray that my coach, Juan actually has a place for us to rent, and wasn't joking, and train 4 hours a day.   That was all I knew before I stepped on the Vivo Aerobus plane going from Tijuana to Guadalajara.

To say the first leg of the journey was "shaky" is a severe understatement. My friend and I had planned to do the entire leg of the journey from Santa Cruz to Guadalajara together. When she called me from a two day long traffic jam coming out of Burning Man, 2016, saying she probably wasn't going to make it in time for our road trip down to San Diego, and definitely wasn't going to make it for our flight out of Tijuana, I couldn't say the word fuck enough times to get me through the anxiety attack that was about to ensue. I had definitely traveled by myself before this, but never with this much uncertainty of exactly I was getting myself into.

To everyone's surprise, I made it through all legs of the journey safe and sound. Crossing the border to Tijuana by myself was not as scary as I thought, the janky $50 round trip airline I chose to take there got me there safely, and Juan, my coach kept his word and met me at the airport. My friend was also able to get a flight down two days later, so it all worked out.

Juan let us rent out an old photography studio owned by his parents that was turned into an apartment for $200 per month. Our bedrooms were only separated by a plate of glass, but we got our own kitchen, bathroom, and a giant patio. To add to this, we lived right in the center of the best part of the city ( the barrio with all of the clubs and bars).

Our little makeshift apartment and patio 

My first handstand in Guadalajara. Proof that I made it. 

We had two options for transportation: the bus that cost 30 cents or an Uber that cost $2.00. An Uber was obviously more convenient, but the two of us took pride in figuring out public transportation. We ended up figuring it out, but not without learning that you could in fact get stranded at a Mexican Walmart with hands full of groceries, that bus rides were more like roller coasters where you weren't really sure if you were going to survive, and that bus drivers never really made a full stop, but more of a rolling stride to let you get out. This was one of the many quirks that came with learning a new city.

Our days were structured the same for the most part. We would wake up by 8 AM, be on the bus by 9:30, be at the gym by 10 AM and train like beasts until 2 PM. Our journey home was a silent, bumpy ride of dehydration and exhaustion followed by eating as many calories as we could to make up for what we had lost.

Because our mornings had structure, I could easily factor that into the reality I had experienced before. Afternoons and weekends( where we didn't have an excursion) were harder for me to grasp. My friend handled not having structure a lot better than me, and couldn't quite understand my restlessness with my newly found free time. I would find myself going to the grocery store to buy couple items at abnormal times, awkwardly wandering around random places in the city, and making the same 10 feet trip from our living room to the kitchen 10 + times a day. It took my a few weeks to realize that what I really needed to do was dance. Full time aerial training was great and exactly what I wanted to do, but it couldn't fill that spiritual void inside me.

One of my views on my aimless walk figuring out what to do

I ended up finding a few different dance studios where I could go and train in the evenings and on weekends. While I missed the cultural dances I was able to do in the Bay Area, the city strongly lacked these disciplines, so I found myself dropping in to hip hop classes to take advantage of what was available. While it was great just to get my body moving in that way again, I found myself desiring something more specific.

A collection of cuteness from Guadalajara

Before I left for Mexico, I had developed a strong love of Dancehall music and dance. While there were no Dancehall teachers in my small town in California, I had started following teachers in other cities to get inspiration, and motivate myself enough to go train with them some day. To my surprise, with enough searching in this new, big place, I was able to find a class in a studio all the way on the other side of the city. I found myself going every week without hesitation, and with this new dedication to this dance style I had so longed to pursue, my empty space of time I had worried so much about filling, began to shrink.

As committed as I was to my aerial training, I became equally committed to learning Dancehall. I'd come home from training and instead of taking a nap, I'd look on YouTube or Instagram to watch and learn different choreographies. I started following every dancer I could, and figure out where exactly in the world they would so I could go train with them someday.

Weirdly enough, the end of my journey in Mexico seemed to take on a different form than I originally intended.  When I got to Guadalajara, I had an idea that when I left, I'd pursue a career in aerial and circus, have dance on the side, and have that be my path. When I left, however, I felt a reaffirmed attachment to dance, grateful for the fact that I gotten so much stronger, but 100% committed to the love of a new dance form I had gotten the space to explore. While part of me was confused about this dramatic shift in such a short period of time, I realized deep down, it was bound to happen. I came there to get a break from the unfulfilling grind I was experiencing in my small town, and to see how much I could discipline myself physically without the conflict of a 9-5 day job that took all my best-used energy. What I really needed more than the physical training, was the space to explore the possibilities of my potential as an artist. And I found it.

My final handstand in Mexico