Tuesday 27 February 2018

Getting into Kizomba

I struggled with Kizomba. I'd already been learning Cuban Salsa and Bachata for a while when I went to that first Kizomba class. Most of us there were Salsa dancers, and were told that we were learning a dance that was decidedly African, rather than Latin, so there would be marked differences.

Something still felt off. The first thing I had to get over was close physical contact with people I either didn't know very well, or that I'd come to think of as friends. That's still not easy for me. At least a part of my difficulty with Kizomba is nervousness. For some reason, I just wasn't connecting with the dance. Occasionally, a song would be played which was somehow easier for me, but I didn't understand why that would be.

When I dance, I try to picture where the dance comes from, and where it would be danced. With Cuban Salsa, or Bachata, I may be in a bar or a club in the North of England or Wales, but I mentally place myself in a club in Cuba or the Dominican Republic, or maybe I put myself there emotionally. I've never been to these places, but the feeling of being there is what's important. I don't know if that makes sense to anyone, but at least it makes sense to me.

I have difficulty remembering sequences of movement, and I'm not the most technically gifted dancer, but I try to connect with the feeling of the dance.

I couldn't place Kizomba. I bought a few compilation albums, to try to get a sense of what the music was saying to me, but it didn't seem to match up with the dance. Then, I started listening to an internet radio station which plays this kind of music.

A lot of what I heard was similar to what I'd heard before, and this placed Kizomba in a city at night, which didn't feel right to me. Some of the music, though, had quite a different feel.


I didn't really know the difference between Kizomba, Tarraxinha and Semba at the time. I assumed that what I was hearing was another style of music, but I tried dancing the basic Kizomba I knew to it. This was where I finally connected with the dance. The music gave me the feeling of dancing in the open air, in a town at the edge of a desert, as the sun was going down. Is that Kizomba? I honestly don't know, but the imagery gave me a feeling that I transmitted into the movements, and it felt right to me.




A video by a highly respected Kizomba instructor stated that most of what we hear as Kizomba music in this part of the world is actually Ghetto Zouk. I'll admit that a smile came to my face when I heard that. There had been a valid reason for me not being able to connect the music with the dance.

I'm not for one minute saying that there's anything wrong with Ghetto Zouk. It's likely that, if I danced that style, I'd connect with the music in that way. It's also likely to be the style of music I have to dance to in Kizomba rooms, but that's okay. I know how Kizomba should feel now, even though I'm still not that competent, and I still get nervous about the close contact.

What bothers me is that I bought Kizomba compilations which actually contain little or no Kizomba music. To me, that feels disrespectful to the genre, and a little disingenuous of the people producing the compilations. Getting my hands on real Kizomba music seems to be difficult.

Saturday 24 February 2018

Surprise!

I got a pleasant surprise today. Reading the blog of a close friend, I realised that she had mentioned me in one of her posts. The reason it affected me was that I hold the belief that no one really thinks of me when I'm not there, and learning that someone had - someone I hold in high esteem - felt good.

What was more surprising was that she credited me with helping her, in some way, through a difficult time. The truth is, I was going through a difficult time myself, so I'd doubted whether I had been much help to her. To hear that I was is great.

Even though it's now evening, and it's dark outside, my day feels a little brighter.

Friday 16 February 2018

Recovery

Everything that's going on right now has brought me to the point where my emotional health has hit the floor again. I think about the things I've said, and the way I've been behaving lately, and I know that I'm heading for trouble.

The fact that I don't know how to explain it, or what to say, tells me that this is my old friend burnout, and I probably need to limit my contact with people for a while. I've been giving too much of myself, and it needs to stop, now.

Thursday 15 February 2018

Incomplete thoughts; suppressed feelings

In psychodynamic therapy, there's the concept of splitting, or seeing things in terms of absolutes. It most often presents as a tendency to see others, and ourselves, as either wholly good or wholly bad. When we examine this, there may be a need for us to see ourselves as wholly good, because experience has taught us that being seen as bad comes with consequences. As a result, we might find ourselves projecting those things we find unacceptable in our own character onto others, and becoming irritated by some of the things we see in them but to which we are blind within ourselves.

A more holistic approach would be to recognise that people are capable of being both good and bad at the same time. We are not without either vice or virtue, and the same can be said of others. Also, our perception of what is good and bad has been given to us, at least in part through values we have inherited from parents and others who have had a marked effect of our view of the world, and in many ways will be wholly ours, and ours alone.

Ideally, we will learn to accept our perceived shortcomings, and those we perceive in others. It will quite possibly be uncomfortable for us, but all lasting change has that same quality.

I'm as guilty of this as anyone. During a recent car journey with a friend, I talked about the faults I found in a number of other people, and judged them to be bad. As I'm trained to be non-judgemental, and practise this quality on a regular basis in my work, it seems surprising that I'd act in such a way. The worst part of it, for me, was that I knew my friend was feeling the need to withdraw from the company of others for a while, and my negativity probably wouldn't have helped matters. Actually, I'm concerned that I may have made matters worse.

Within minutes of saying goodbye to my friend, and being alone with my thoughts, I realised how judgemental I had been. Then, I considered that I hadn't been merely judgemental: I'd been downright nasty. I felt bad, and my mood dipped. I felt that I was a terrible friend, and a terrible person. As much as I valued her as a friend, she'd be better off without me. The downward spiral continued, and I ended up thinking that I should isolate myself from others, because I was clearly a terrible human being.

There were mitigating factors, but those aren't for exploration here. The important thing is that I was seeing some people as wholly bad, and voiced this to someone who probably didn't really need to hear it. I then felt guilty for doing this, and immediately labelled myself as a terrible person. I blocked out all the good that I may have done, and focused instead on the feeling that I was bad, wholly bad, with no redeeming qualities.

Again, there were mitigating factors. Again, I'm going to put them to one side, because identifying them will get in the way of what was going on for me in the moment. I went on the attack. That's the truth of the matter. Why did I do that? It was because of a general feeling that I had come under attack myself. In my own way, I was trying to voice this to a friend who meant a lot to me, but rather than owning my feelings, and identifying the hurt I felt, I sought to highlight how the actions of others had led to me feeling that way.

In reality, my friend already knew what had been happening. I didn't need to add any more detail. I didn't need to go on the attack. I still feel that I let myself down there. What really mattered, and what I should have been open about with my friend, was how I was feeling about it all. It was just easier to focus on others.

I have to accept that those I see as my enemies may have their good points, which I'm not able to see. Likewise, I may be blind to some of the qualities my friends possess which are not so good. It seems like a very personal manifestation of a kind of confirmation bias (weeding out things which contradict our beliefs, in favour of those that do).

So, the question is not what happened, but how I feel about it. I feel that other people have let me down, whether it is actually true or not. I own that as my feeling, rather than an accurate summation of what has occurred (it might be, but that is another matter). I feel hurt by the actions of others. Again, I have to recognise blaming, and shift to owning my feelings instead. So, I feel let down and hurt. I also feel alone. Strange then, that my reaction to seeing myself as inherently bad was the thought of further isolating myself. Is there, behind it all, a feeling that I deserve to be alone? Is seeing myself as bad a justification, or rationalisation, of feeling alone? Is justifying my loneliness a reaction against, or rejection of, an underlying notion that the loneliness is fundamentally unjust?

Splitting is a defence mechanism: it is a defence against exploring unconscious processes which may cause us pain. I believe I've given a good example of this. In my case, I concentrated on the behaviour of others, and used this focus to actively avoid exploring what I was feeling.

What is causing me the greatest pain, right now, is the belief that I have to be wholly good and, just as importantly, the belief that my idea of what is good is wholly accurate. As hard as it is, I have to let these things go, and concentrate on accepting the parts of myself that I currently find unacceptable.