If your creative process isn’t uncomfortable you aren’t progressing in your artform

So many people come and go from street dance, which is normal. However, I think this is one of the main reasons why a lot of people that get into freestyle dance don’t really stick at it for a long time, it’s too uncomfortable. Why? Because you have to learn to be vulnerable, look like crap and feel like crap about yourself as a dancer. If you aren’t being mentored right and don’t have the correct mindset coming into dancing it can be damaging to your ego, I’ve seen it affect others and I too have experienced it first-hand. To the point of dancing being more stressful and frustrating than enjoyable and therapeutic. These emotions came from a few things and aren’t very healthy in this realm which are;

• Comparing yourself to high-level dancers, your teachers, mentors or more experienced dancers. This is a big no-no because this discourages you UNLESS you know how to use the gap between you and them as fuel and motivation to keep dancing and training to close the gap.
  Session as much as you can! Lab as much as you can to understand what your body can do now and train it so you can do more in the future. Battle as much as you can, but I’d advise that you actually prepare for your battles and not just rock up and not come prepared, otherwise you’re not putting in the work prior to the battle. And to think that just battling on the night is enough is the wrong mentality to have, you must train and lab in your own time.
  

• Having creative blocks. The thing about “blocks” is you either don’t have the correct tools to execute/express your ideas, you’re thinking too hard and not allowing yourself to flow or to be ok with where you’re at and what’s flowing through you or you’re about to break through that barrier and explode with creativity!
  You must allow everything to be ok especially if you’re new, but do challenge yourself and your mind creatively. There are so many ways and ideas that you can use to be creative - your creativity is limitless, the only thing that may be limited is your range of movement and understanding foundation and technique. Plateaus are normal, just keep going and trust that you will break through. 
  

• Feeling like you’re doing the same things. Dance is just as much of a mental training modality as it is physical. In training, we have to use our minds so that we can create new material and use new ideas to elevate our expression, even our connection to music.
  So that when it does come time to let go in a session or a battle it’s easier to get there. It’s important to explore your body and drop the mind too. You have to balance this out. Training is one thing, labbing is another and dancing is another thing altogether.
  Training consists of drilling, training your body to understand the movements that you’re doing, classes, repetitions etc.
  Labbing is the exploration of your ideas and applying what you know creatively. Squeezing from your mind the ideas that you envision and create from, to create art. It can come easy to you or it may not, but for sure over time it will become easier.
  Dancing is literally a ‘letting go’ of the mind in totality and being free with your movement and connection to the music. Trust that you will feel great and expand your movement without even thinking about it. Just be aware of what feels good to you and catch that feeling more often so that you can remix/revisit it later.
  

• Not progressing, plateauing is one of the shittiest feelings and mentalities to have and it fluctuates, it comes and goes. But I would like to impress upon you that “not progressing” is a story that you’d be telling yourself, you feeling stuck is a story that you tell yourself because of the comparing you’re doing, the over analysis and the over-thinker that you may be or the highly self critical thinking that lingers.
  It is totally uncomfortable and you must remind yourself, especially in these times that you are where you need to be and what you’re going through is what you need to feel. They are fuel for you to draw from and express so you don’t have to hold onto and harbour those emotions and thoughts against yourself, let them out and express them however YOUR BODY wants to when you dance. Don’t train them out, dance them out.

To wrap this up, embrace the uncomfortability of the journey and where you’re at in your journey to progress faster and further.It is more enjoyable this way. Remember why you’re dancing and what it does for you over being the best and winning everything. Dance is a competitive sport and a lot of people in the culture train really hard to be great in their specific style but it doesn’t have to be the main or only reason unless you are ok with that and it isn’t detrimental to your street dance journey. Remember, sessions are about vibing and the transferring of energy with others and battling is about exchanging energy through movement, like a conversation.