I’m wondering, “how do we plan?”
We plan our schedules, what competition or showcase to do, what costume to buy/rent, what food to buy, what car to buy, who to marry (one of the more involved ones I dare say!) and the list goes on.
Plans can be for the purpose of organizing, working through a problem and setting short term and long term plans which often become goals. Goals exist to push us towards thinking about what we want, what satisfies our psyche.
Personally, I always hated making long term goals – it scared me because I was afraid of making the wrong goal!
How crazy is that?!
Being a dancer/arts program type of person without business acumen, I felt comfortable being a responder rather than a pro active planner.
But by setting a goal, I’ve learned that I can commit to it in a way that then allows me to rethink, or abandon it altogether opening the door to something new and more meaningful. Changing our goals can be the best plan.
The alternative is to be swayed by culture, parents, friends, bosses and the many other influences that we can be too heavily dependent upon. That is not to say that these are not valid influences, rather that they are contributing factors that color the outline that is created by us and us alone.
It’s interesting that the goal I set for myself many years ago – becoming certified in the Alexander Technique – helped to clarify the making of long term plans by learning to make very short term, in the moment plans.
Stay with me here!
By using a simple plan to initiate movement (e.g. a lunge) by lengthening, and not contracting into that movement, I discovered a template for facilitating a change in general, including the process of deciding a longer term goal, like finishing my college degree decades after I started.
In dancing terms, while recognizing that I was losing my uprightness while working on hip action, I put in place my practiced plan to use my brain/thinking to counter this habit of contracting. It was such a wonderful relief to have a simply worded plan that I could call upon, whenever I chose.
And here’s where the other side of a simple plan comes in. The simple plan; to use words that say “yes I want to do this instead of this” was effective yet continually challenged by the feeling that my old familiar habit was right!!.
Changing habits is never a quick process, but an incredibly worthwhile one. The method that I have learned to help you to address all matter of physical challenges is contained in a mental box full of wonderful new tools that improve health, promote a sense of ease and a reduction of pain and discomfort.
This is what I do, create a mind to body environment that includes a simple plan, easily implemented by you, along with my guiding hands.
If you have back/neck/shoulder pain that hasn’t responded to conventional methods and would like to learn more, book a lesson with me to decide if what I love to do can help you and your ballroom dancing. Please use my contact form, tell me about yourself and leave your availability. I will respond within 24 hours.
Happy Dancing! If you know other dancers who may benefit from reading my blog, please forward.
To get my free 10 Steps to Competitive Greatness in PDF format, click here. Stay tuned for my upcoming expanded FREE booklet on the 10 Steps!
