to you, sixteen months from now
Hi, story time!
Almost two years ago, I visited San Francisco for a creative's event out at Fort Mason.
At the time I was writing a fantasy novel, so I connected with the other book writers at the event - one of them was writing a book about the preservation of an Oakland original street dance style.
We connected over the books but I also happened to mentioned in passing that I liked dancing - but I only did K-Pop choreo at the time since those were the only classes that were available in my area.
"That's so cool! Do you want to see a dance battle happening this weekend?"
I raised my eyebrows because I've never even heard of a dance battle, and the battle was happening past my flight return date to Virginia -
But something told me I had to witness this, so I followed that feeling, rescheduled my flight, and went to check out the battle.
What I saw changed my life forever.
For the first time, I saw people DANCING.
Not the rigid and perfection-driven structure of choreography, but the raw and free expression of self that it street dance.
This was my first time ever witnessing people MOVING as themselves - I have never met any of the participants, but I felt like I could understand their entire story and reason of being.
It was incredibly moving, and I'm not ashamed to admit I definitely shed a couple of tears just being in awe of what I what witnessing.
I went back home, and somewhere in the back of my mind I was deciding whether or not to make the choice to leave my hometown and try my luck somewhere completely new.
I was deliberating between New York, Chicago, and Los Angeles at the time - but after seeing what I did at that dance battle, I ultimately decided on San Francisco.
5 months later, that same friend that invited me to the dance battle help me find my first apartment in Oakland, and the rest is history.
If you told me a year ago, I was going to travel to Europe for a dance retreat and later enter in an international dance competition, I would have absolutely called you a liar.
Yet here we are, and I couldn't be more in awe of my own progress.
It definitely has not been an easy journey, and there has been an incredible amount of downs for such long periods of time that I definitely considering the idea of quitting dance altogether multiple times.
But I still kept going, because I wanted to chase after that feeling I saw at that very first dance battle, but most of all, I wanted to find that feeling within myself.
Somewhere along the line, the shame and embarrassment I felt watching my old dance clips CHANGED, and instead of focusing on everything I was doing wrong, I instead became eager to find the moments that really felt like ME, like I was finally seeing myself for the first time.
There's still a tremendous amount of work to be done, but this dance pilgrimage gave me so much inspiration and made me realize just how big the world of street dance really is.
(If you saw my meme post about the top 48 locking, that's definitely the more tangible goal I'm chasing after next.)
But I want to take a moment to thank some of the pivotal people that have help support and guide me as I traverse on my own dance journey.
A small shoutout list:
My community mentors: Byron, TornadoDave, Francis C, Intricate, Jose
My locking mentors and inspirations: Clay, Chaz, Ignatius
My house mentors: Nikki, Michaela, Rama
My hustle mentors: Amanda, Brandon, Marquee, Mirabel
Hosts to my fav sessions: Alan, Coflo, Bloom,Eric,Lauren M, Mindy
My ops: Dionte
And my beloved friends: Jackie, Rose, Allie, Alex Ark, Alden, Ashley, Annalisa, Adrian, C-Wub, Christian, Ohio Christopher , DannyG, Ella, Eliana, Evan, FrancisA, Jazz, Jooliah, KevinArmin, KevinLa, Kenza, Khang, Hutch, Jiahai, JohnNeth, Luke, Marcus, Mahtab, Miguel, Patrick, Riebel, Reyna, Risa, Rui, Tin, Tammy, Tin, Vanya, Wana
All the Elevation Homies
@getlifted.ny and @cydanceworks for hosting the dance battle that changed my life
and especially Nat and Joe for being my first guides, mentors, and friends in the bay area street dance community
Still thinking of the best way to end this post, but I guess I'll just say what's really on mind all the time -
I can't wait for the next time we can dance together!