Robin is the author of this blog. He is a dancer, producer, and entrepreneur, and passionate about learning and behavior change.
“Well, I’m not a lawyer, I’m not an accountant, I’m not a chair….” -Sydney Skybetter
Like many of my favorite people, Sydney Skybetter (@sydneyskybetter) has a hard time describing what he does. In this amusing conversation, he describes the common themes between his work as a choreographer, consultant, and technologist.
Karen X Cheng (@karenxcheng) is probably best know as the girl in the viral internet video “Girl Learns to Dance in a Year” which has been viewed well over 5 million times. In 2013 Karen released a YouTube video showing her progression over a year of daily dance practice:
But this single video is far from the whole story. Before teaching herself to dance in a year, Karen changed careers after teaching herself graphic design. Her article on how she did remains Google’s #1 result for the query “How to become a designer.” And through her company GiveIt100, she went on to teach others how to take the little steps towards impossible goals. (Here are some of those success stories, which we discuss in the interview.)
Kim Nicol is a meditation teacher for Silicon Valley. When I think of somebody who can speak across boundaries, someone who is sensitive but also not afraid to hustle, Kim Nicol is among the first who comes to mind.
Every couple days I receive a text message containing details about my wife’s unborn child. Now to be clear: I don’t have a wife and she isn’t pregnant. But I do subscribe to the free service Text4Baby, and get simple things to do each day that one might to support the longterm health of a young child.
Now, why is this relevant? Apart from being a great way to end a first date – “Oh look! I should tell my wife to eat more spinach because she might be craving leafy greens” – I do this because I’m fascinated by early childhood development, and the little things we can do to ensure that each person reaches his or her potential.
Joining me today, I have the woman responsible for telling me about Text4Baby, and fellow early-childhood educator Teresa Gonczy (@teresaeg).
My guest today is Dara Blumenthal (@thisisdara), a management consultant who did her PhD on the critical theory of public toilet spaces. If you’re like me, and totally confused but interested to learn what this means and how it came to be, stay tuned.
Dara reached out to me in the spring of 2015 because of the theme of the Stanford conference I was organizing, which was “Dance at Work.” If you don’t know, I’ve run Design for Dance at Stanford since 2014 as a place to bring together people thinking about behavior change and movement. Dara, with her backgrounds in a variety of performing arts, somatic training, a sociologist’s eye, saw an overlap between the theme of “Dance at Work” and her work at the company Undercurrent, which was a creative design and management consulting firm. I became enamored of Undercurrent, Dara’s research, and the question of how to do we apply skills from the creative professions elsewhere in business. (If these things sound interesting to you, too, we’re continuing to talk about them in this “Dance at Work” group.
This interview was the first time Dara and I had ever actually met in person. We explore Dara’s upbringing and how she was taught as a young girl to ask probing questions. We discuss how the combined study of somatics and the academic discipline of critical theory together led her to ask hundreds, if not thousands of people, to share their stories about public toilets. We examine how that led Dara to study of guilt, shame and humiliation, and how now Dara is part of a new organization which seeks to remove those, and increase collaboration and creativity, within large companies.
My guest today is David Leventhal. David is a former dancer with the Mark Morris Dance Group (MMDG), who now runs Dance for PD® (Parkinson’s Disease). Dance for PD® started as a single monthly class for people with Parkinson’s Disease in Brooklyn, NY, and now encompasses classes in over 100 cities around world and host of other activities.
David has a broad perspective on the learning process. He began his study of dance as a young man and we discuss what it was like to face repeated rejection before eventually becoming an apprentice with the MMDG. David tells compelling stories about repeatedly failing to meet the standards set in auditions. Note how David fostered the mindset necessary to deal with these very personal rejections. Even if you have no interest in dance training, there is a great deal to be learned from David about overcoming repeated failure and developing what Stanford University professor Carol Dweck has termed a growth mindset.
“Tsakos is a talent of the next generation”
– Florida International Magazine
My guest this episode is Natasha Tsakos (@natashatsakos), TED speaker, recent graduate of Singularity University, and life-long performing and visual artist. Throughout this interview Natasha and I discuss what it means to be creative and to never stop exploring one’s own limits. Natasha has always been a performer, and describes using her imagination as an escape during her childhood. She graduated The New World School of the Arts in 2000, and has been performing on stages ever since. She has directed numerous one-woman shows, including this one on the TED stage in 2009:
Natasha has always had a rebellious streak. In college she needed to augment her academic arts education with street performance. Then, after graduating, she began self-funding her career through credit cards and creating art on any stage she could find, including one memorable show on the un-used stage of a strip-club on Miami Beach.
This episode of the Robin Zander Show is an interview with theoretical neuroscientist, technologist, and entrepreneur Vivienne Ming, PhD (@neuraltheory).
Vivienne was was named one of 10 Women to Watch in Tech in 2013 by Inc. Magazine and is the co-founder and Executive Chair of Socos, an educational start-up which applies cognitive modeling to deliver personalized recommendations to support learners.
When I first met Vivienne over tea in 2014 I was so excited by what Socos was doing that I volunteered to help. (I’ve since become director of operations at Socos.) In this interview we discuss the tools and philosophies by which Vivienne has shaped her life.
Vivienne is a visiting scholar at UC Berkeley’s Redwood Center for Theoretical Neuroscience pursuing her research in neuro-prosthetics. In her free time, Dr. Ming also explores augmented cognition using technology like Google Glass and has been developing a predictive model of diabetes to better manage blood glucose levels. She sits on the board of Our Family Coalition supporting LBGT families and speaks on issues of LGBT inclusion and gender in technology. Her work and research has received extensive media attention including the New York Times, NPR, Nature, O Magazine, Forbes, and The Atlantic.
Listen to the entire interview here:
“Some lack the fickleness to live as they wish and just live as they have begun.”
– Seneca
This episode of the podcast features an interview with prominent strategist and writer Ryan Holiday (@ryanholiday). I became familiar with Ryan’s work when a friend recommended his reading list, which remains one of the few newsletters I’m consistently grateful to receive.
Beyond being a prolific reading (and recommender) of books, Ryan has published three books and consulted on media and marketing with best-selling authors and musicians. The Financial Times called Ryan’s first book Trust Me I’m Lying an “astonishing, disturbing book.” I have used ideas from his second book Growth Hacker Marketing in marketing my own books.
After dropping out of college at nineteen to apprentice under Robert Greene, author of The 48 Laws of Power, Ryan went on to advise many bestselling authors and musicians. He served as director of marketing at American Apparel for many years, where his campaigns have been used as case studies by Twitter, YouTube, and Google and written about in AdAge, the New York Times, and Fast Company.
I admire Ryan’s strategic thinking and application of philosophy to solve practical life problems. In this interview we discuss how Ryan trained himself to become a media strategist. He has developed the marketing campaigns for best-selling authors including the controversial Tucker Max, Robert Green, Tim Ferriss, and Tony Robbins. This post by Tim Ferriss recounts some of the bigger marketing stunts Ryan did while he worked as Director of Marketing at American Apparel.
In the interview, we discuss Ryan’s most recent book The Obstacle is the Way and delve into the practical approaches to philosophy, and especially Stoics philosophy, that he lives his life by. I very much enjoy the no-nonsense approach with which Ryan tackles challenges.
Happiness is an overused term, and rarely well defined.
Usually, when we think of a “happy” person, what comes to mind? A kind-hearted, somewhat bumbling buffoon. Charlie from Flowers for Algernon in the earliest and latest stages of his development. And yet we spend most of our lives, in innumerable ways, trying to achieve fulfillment and satisfaction.
When I was eight years old I wanted to own a drum set and to be a drummer. Why? Because I thought that becoming a musician would make me happy.
When I was eighteen and had never been kissed, I wanted a girlfriend. Why? Same answer.
I’m twenty-nine years old and I’d like to think that my aspirations are a bit loftier. Certainly, I strive for a fulfilling personal and professional life, which includes financial success, satisfying relationships—all the usual. But I can want those things and still celebrate the moment. In short, I strive for happiness.
Define happiness however you like: fulfillment, gratitude, gratification, achievement, joy, or something more personal. But inevitably, we find that everyone is seeking the same thing. The toddler and the jihadist, though they seem to have nothing in common in their pursuit of specific goals, are actually both doing what they’re doing because that’s what they want to be doing. Because they believe it will lead them to more happiness, now or in the afterlife.
These are personal questions, without clearly defined answers. Consider them.
I suggest reading Stumbling on Happiness and Flowers for Algernon for two incredible perspectives on these questions.
My radio silence since early May is due to my recent work with the San Francisco Opera’s production of Les Troyens which opens this Sunday, June 7th. To give a sneak preview of what I’ve been working on, here is a video from the Royal Opera House’s production of this five-hour long masterpiece:
Les Troyens, written by Hector Berlioz in 1856, is based on Virgil’s epic poem the Aeneid. For me this is a long sought victory: the performance of my undergraduate Humanities curriculum on the national stage!
There are six of us acrobats onstage throughout the show: as Trojan and then Greek soldiers, builders of Carthage, hunters, and more. The entire opera is a huge endeavor with 12 dancers, 90+ members of the choir, children, and a stunning array of principals. The set alone weighs 32 tons.
If you are able to visit San Francisco in the month of June Les Troyens at the San Francisco Opera is a once in a lifetime experience.
Design for Dance is an annual conference founded by BJ Fogg and the Stanford Persuasive Technology lab on dance, behavior and innovation. The event, which I now run, is in its third year and will be taking place in Palo Alto, CA on May 7th.
The conference is a gathering for innovators, health organizations, educators and researchers who see value in getting people to dance more. To be clear, our focus is not “why dance?” (that’s understood). Instead, we focus on highlighting practical solutions and near-term opportunities.
Ultimately, our hope is to catalyze a rebirth of dancing in our culture and communities. This year we are focusing on the idea of “Dance @ Work” and presenting novel solutions for improving employee wellness and engagement through dance.
Over the last year I’ve met an amazing number of innovators, artists, and entrepreneurs all working around the theme of dance. Some of them are going to be presenting at this year’s Design for Dance.
A common part of many of these conversations have included the question “where do I start” for someone new to dance. It is easy for those of us with some background in movement to forget how scary it is to begin. To begin to tackle this question – for the novice just wanting to learn more – I’ve put together a curated guide including videos, people, products, and new ideas. I’m pleased to share Robin Zander’s first ever Guide to Dance (2015).
I’m sure I’ve missed dozens of people, products, videos, and innovations I absolutely should include. Please suggest them in the comments or send me an email with your ideas. W will be accepting applications for speakers for Design for Dance 2016 in a few months. In the mean time, if this Guide to Dance is useful, share it with someone you’d like to dance with more.
¡Buena suerte!
Robin
I’ve never considered myself a sophisticated business person. Several years ago (albeit, after interviewing more than a dozen MBAs) I decided against going to graduate school in business, focusing instead on a less tradition career of which business is more the necessity than the focus.
That said, I enjoy learning. And “business” – encompassing everything from tax law through client sales – have increasingly become a part of my daily life. And still I’ve carried around the idea that compared to those who make the study of business their life’s work, I’m an amateur.
So it was that after 4 cups of coffee on a recent flight from New York City to San Francisco, as I was stretching in the back of the airplane that I got to talking with the flight attendant. He had a menu displayed on his computer and we started talking. It turned out that he and his partner run a Soul Food Truck in the San Francisco Bay Area, and I began to ask questions about his food, employees, marketing efforts, revenue and more.
In 2014 I’ve read more books than in any previous year of my life. That includes the Reed College humanities curriculum, which is just ridiculous. I chalk up the depth and breadth of my reading to the combination of my infra-red sauna, Amazon Prime, and the fact that I’ve been writing. These are some of my favorite books, and miscellaneous media, from 2014.
A Fighter’s Heart – A must read for anyone who has tried a martial art and everyone on the other end of the spectrum who has asked the question “why fight.”
Apollo’s Angels – Your primer in the history of ballet. Also, a national bestseller..
Average Is Over – Read this book! Think of it as an investment in your future. The best future-thinking and economics book I’ve read in many years.
Daily Rituals: How Artist Work – A series of short epitaphs looking at the daily habits of artists, writers, and scientists.
Flow – The book that popularized the term. Now its time to understand what flow really is and where to find it.
Fluent in 3 Months – Fascinating tools, applicable for learning a language and for learning anything else with great rapidity
How To Do A Handstand – I wrote my first book this year, which has since become a Japanese National Bestseller.
The Moment with Brian Koppelman – A podcast explore creativity, presence, the arts, and more.
The Monkey Wrench Gang – A classic which is responsible for my love affair with the desert. Also useful if you’re feeling a bit rebellious.
The Morning Pages – This workbook is the most useful tool I’ve discovered for unearthing obstacles. I think of it as a tool for getting my crazy out on a page, so I can spend more time doing productive work.
The Number of the Beast – Heinlein is responsible for coining the term “grok” and the “Heinlein” crater on the moon. This book is a wild romp through time, space, and mathematics.
The Obstacle Is the Way – No nonsense Stoic advise from throughout history on getting through the rough spots.
Twyla Tharp’s The Creative Habit – Dance choreographer Twyla Tharp tackles the question how to be more creative, more regular, more diligent and more productive. Hard work, clear thinking, and a lot of sweat. The specific tools in this book are invaluable.
Well Fed – Whether you’ve considered the Paleo diet, read cookbooks for pleasure (inconceivable to me), or just want to talk about food this is among the best.
I hope you enjoy whichever of these books catch your eye. Each has served me well in 2014, and I’m looking forward to many more discoveries in 2015. On a related note, if you’re interested in a similar exploration into a diverse array of topics, try my Learning List emails.
During the winter of 2013 I learned to draw. Even though I grew up around the arts, I had never really tried putting pencil to paper. My first attempt was as rudimentary as I would have expected…
Fortunately, I had excellent tutelage in the form of the book You Can Draw in 30 Days, a comprehensive introduction of the art of drawing by Mark Kistler. Mark’s instruction embodies many of the aspects of learning I frequently discuss, including small steps and celebration.
The progressions that Mark described were well considered. After attempting spheres, he taught some practical applications of drawing circles.
While my spheres aren’t world class, by immediately putting into function simple tools like spheres and shading, I was more confident and eager to apply future lessons. I moved into drawing perspective, which, of course, began very modestly.
I’m thrilled to announce the FREE release of my second ebook today: Unstuck. Check it out on Amazon!
I’ve been hard at work on this project for many months, and in many ways it is actually the work of a decade. In Unstuck I describe the trajectory of my last ten years of physical activity and exploration, breaking down specific tools I’ve cultivated in a wide variety of sports and physical activities.
Here’s a condensed version of my History of a Compulsion
1998 – I began as a runner by attempting and failing to keep up with family marathons
2000 – Competed in my first cross-country race
2002 – Achieved Varsity Cross-Country status, high status among runners but not in high school.
2003 – Began juggling, which did not elevate my social status but did introduce me to the world of circus arts
November 2003 – Walked off the cross-country team at my peak, began rock climbing, fencing, enrolled in dance classes, discovered gymnastics
November 2008 – Landed on my head on a trampoline, thereby ending my aspirations of a career with Cirque Du Soleil
November 2012 – Hesitantly reentered a gymnastic gym
2013 – Mastered my gymnastics giant, front and back flips, handstands, and more
2011 – Hesitantly walked into my first Blues dance venue
2012 – Co-founded Fuse, a social dance performance company
2013 – Took multiple trips to Buenos Aires, Argentina to study tango
1995-1998 – Repeatedly bullied in middle school
1999 – Helpless in the face of a pit bull attacking me and my dog Sandy
April 2013 – Attempted to learn 12 martial arts in 1 week
2013 – Continued to study and compete in Muay Thai, and Brazilian jiu-jitsu, despite leaving sessions shaking with fear and adrenaline
2014 – Wrestled with a pit bull, fearlessly
December 2013 – Took my first ballet class since 2009
January 2014 – Abandoned gymnastics, jiu-jitsu, Blues dance, and all the rest in favor of classical ballet
August 2014 – Joined a pre-professional ballet training program 30 hours/week
April 2015 – Contracted to perform with the San Francisco Opera
Fair Warning: This post is more personal than many of my solution-oriented articles. If you are more interested in specific tools for cultivating successful habits, the blog is full of them. I think it is only fair to share stories of challenge, too.
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I have fallen over more times that I can possibly say. Literally, in my variety of movement disciplines, and figuratively, into wells of recrimination and despair – I am no stranger to feeling like shit.
One particular evening a few weeks ago I rushed out of ballet class early to see the dance company Batsheva. The performance was simultaneously inspiring and deepened the gulf between where I am and what is possible.
That performance was the capstone on a challenging couple of weeks. I had been trying and failing bring all of my attention to ballet, and learn as quickly as possible. Instead, I was floundering through four hours of ballet technique every evening in a self-referential cycle of feeling awkward, making a mistake, and then feeling worse. To compound matters, though my professional life and dance life are mostly not directly overlapping, some of that despondency did seep into my workdays.
I’m on the mend from a whirlwind of activity, action and misery, and I’m excited to report that there’s bright sunlight at the end of this tunnel. Every tunnel I’ve ever been in the midst of seems to eventually reveal sunshine.
In reflecting about my experience of that period of a few weeks that culminated in the Batsheva performance I notice that this fall into a descending cycle, like the last and all the others, wasn’t any easier. I’m quite as capable of making myself unhappy as I was as an angst-ridden teenager just beginning to date, or a hormone-heady early-twenties scared of my place in the world. If anything, these days my unhappiness is more nuanced and more complicated. I’m more aware, and feel like I have more to lose. It turns out that falling down doesn’t get any easier.
There is an upside to this story. From the middle of my ballet upset or in watching Batsheva and wondering how I could fall so far short of what is possible, my assent to joy seemed impossible. And yet through my writing practice and asking myself a few loving questions, I realize that no matter how inadequate I feel, I will keep on trying.
It is probably a combination of the passage of time and application of specific tools I have cultivated, but I am pleasantly surprised at my rapid return to normalcy. While the fall was no less arduous than any I’ve experienced, the return to comfortable action was. Through practice, we can get better at picking ourselves back up and trying again.
Habits are the future of our health and livelihood. While you might not think in terms of the word “habit” you probably recognize that you are pulled between nearly infinite information and how you chose to spend your time. Current educational systems are unable to change to teach to 21st century challenges quickly enough. The solution to modern problems are up to us, and the individual choices we make. Even more simply, the habits that each of us build into our daily lives are going to shape the future.
Consider the number of ways that you might receive communications each day: instant messages, text messages, Google+ messages, Facebook messenger, Snapchat. And we haven’t even begun to consider email or phone calls. The amount of information is enormous and we have very few tools for handling the influx. For those of us who decide that we aren’t 1. Going to completely cut ourselves off from the modern world or 2. Approach these problems with a lack of attention and let the industries that create these products and services dictate how we use them, there is only one option. We have to be the ultimate arbiters of how we consume information, what kinds of information we decide to process, and when we say enough.
The future is going to be determined by those best at self-motivating, at moving themselves in the directions they want to go instead of letting their fates be decided by the tools they use, the world they grew up in, their current socio-economic status, or their health. In Average Is Over economist Tyler Cowen paints a stark vision of a future where people are divided into three categories: self-driven, those with money who can afford expensive personal coaches and boot-camp like schools, and the rest. Habits and learning are learnable skills, that we can all use to self-direct and self-regulate our educations, relationships with people and technology, and futures. Short of epiphanies, which I, for one, don’t know how to trigger, or magic pills, which I don’t believe in, simple interventions in our daily lives that have lasting impact are the quickest, easiest way to foster change and growth.
It has been repeatedly demonstrated in scientific studies that small adjustments can create life-long changes. A famous example is a study for which families of severely underprivileged toddlers in Kingston, Jamaica were educated in simple nutrition, social and motivational skills. Twenty years later those individuals were found to be indistinguishable from more wealthy populations (Gertler, Heckman, et al., 2014). Those simple interventions were able to effectively erase the fact that those children came from impoverished backgrounds.
Another example is the oft-cited marshmallow study, in which a child’s early-life ability to delay gratification has been shown to be predictive of life-long measures of success (Mischel, Ayduk, et al., 2010).
However, interventions, when poorly designed, can have contrary effects. In a lesser-known variant of the marshmallow study, prior to being given their first marshmallow the children were promised crayons or similar enticement by an adult who did not deliver on the promise. In all of the cases of this reneging on a promise, children ate their first marshmallow right way (Kidd, Palmeri, and Aslin, 2013). Children were trained to take what was available because they could not rely on a future promise, which has implications for the long-term future of those children.
Characteristics like the ability to delay gratification in the marshmallow study are a part of a broader theme, namely meta-learning and the ability to learn how to learn. Meta-learning encompasses learnable skills include creative problem solving, critical thinking, and collaboration. Education often fails to teach to these goals, instead focusing on training domain-specific knowledge under the assumptions that these more complex skills will come about naturally. Specific knowledge is valuable, but in the modern era information is abundant and relevant knowledge changes very quickly. What actually matters most is the ability to learn whatever new information may be important, and to use it productively.
Habits can be learned, practiced, and improved. Wether you are starting from a very basic perspective of looking for simple solutions to improve your health, or have already read Getting Things Done, mastered “Inbox Zero” and want to further optimize your efficiently systems, the skill of habit building is worth developing. You can never get too good at building better systems. Just like neural connections can be improved and myelinated in the brain through increased use, habits can be trained, strengthened, and improved. The end goal is empowered people, capable of making their own informed decisions and acting with clarity of purpose. This comes of an understanding of yourself and the learning process. All of which starts with small habits.
If this sort of post is interesting to you, please let me know in the comments!
I’m spending all of my waking hours working on these topics. My next book “Unstuck” will be coming out this November. I’m project managing, putting out fires, and studying meta-learning at the educational start-up Socos. I’m organizing Design for Dance, exploring the impact on learning, creativity, and health through dance in the workplace. Oh, and I’m training classical ballet 30 hours a week, which is about as on-the-ground as learning can get.
In the last 12 months I have failed to launch two separate books. It has been a process of being eaten to death by ducks, which I consider to be a somewhat humiliating way to die. While I am proud of how I have handled myself in the face of numbers difficulties, I have regrets for the impediments to action.
In November 2013 I was preparing to launch a Kickstarted publication containing worksheets and tools for special needs families. I postponed this launch (perhaps indefinitely) to better be of service to my friend Raun Kaufman’s book launch.
In April 2014 I was preparing to launch a free e-book consisting of interviews with special needs parents. Days from publication I canceled this launch at the request of a lawyer. Regardless of legal right, I preferred to maintain cordiality with the organization that I was promoting.
It has been an amazing process and I have discovered deep love of writing, publishing, and promotion. What I will examine, though, is the underbelly. The reasons behind why I failed twice in six months to publish resources that I see a need for in the world. I hope these will be useful to inspire others towards learning new things, and help avoid mistakes and especially the fear of failure.
There is no one moment that I can point to and blame. There is no person to blame but myself. Each decision was my own and it is useful to see where decisions lead. Instead of tiny steps towards the end goal, in the last weeks before launch I took tiny (unintentional) steps away. There was a conversation with a friend where we discussed postponing by a week. There was a conversation with a lawyer where I had to consider my next moves. All decisions and responsibility rested with me, but by taking tiny steps away from the end goal I was eventually subsumed by minutia and failed to launch.
I am extremely self-motivated. When I set out to do a thing I get it done. And one of the problems I have discovered with self-publishing or internal deadlines is that then I am responsible only to myself. By having no one outside of myself monitoring the launch dates of my Kickstarter, of example I was arbiter. By having no one else dedicated to a specific date it was well within my jurisdiction to postpone. If, instead, I had had commitment to backers, my clients, etc. it would have been harder or impossible to postpone.
This is one of my greater mistakes. I have studied with several amazing teachers and mentors, but have been limited by what is available within their protective umbrella. Unfortunately, some of these teachers have also been very protective of their specific domains such that when I go to promote their work through unusual means or create under their auspices, I have been readily shut down. We are social animals and it is important to collaborate with others on projects bigger than ourselves. But I have learned to choose more carefully the people with whom I want work and the projects that I will work on.
I love the study of how humans learn movement, and practical philosophies that can expedite the learning process. As a result the topics of all that I was writing about and promoting fit within my domain of expertise. While my enthusiasm for specific projects waxes and wanes, my dedication to the overall studies that are summarized in my works has never faltered.
I recently did publish my very first book “How To Do A Handstand.” And I have more on the way. I suggest staying staying tuned via my mailing list, where I send out periodic updates and a monthly learning challenge I’ve tackled.
I started dancing in my early 20s, about the time my peers were pairing off into their chosen careers. While my 20-something peers didn’t condone dancing, I grew up in a town where football was king, and pick-up trucks pulling donuts in the High School parking lot was considered an excellent form of after school entertainment. To say that a man dancing was socially unacceptable is to mistakenly called getting covered in rotten eggs (which also happened) a slightly uncomfortable experience.
But my humiliation around dance didn’t stop with the lack of my peers’ judgement. I’m pretty sure I was my own worst critic in my first ballet class, surround by beautiful, experienced ballet women, wearing corduroy and completely unaware of the french techniques being described. Somehow I survived my childhood, and my college ballet class mortification and have only danced more every week in the ten years since.
I share these early experiences so that you, the reader, might understand that you don’t have to be born in a culture that accepts dancing, to be able to dance. I hear regularly, when asked what I do, some version of admiration followed by self-denial. “That’s great that you dance so much. I couldn’t ever, I have two left feet.” This is my manifesto and the message is simple: you, too, can dance. And you probably should.
Doubters, read this first:
The way I learned to dance need not be the way you go about beginning. I don’t recommend getting egged, or doing ballet wearing corduroy. Instead, start simpler.
Congratulations, you just danced.
I am organizing Design for Dance, a conference put by Stanford University’s BJ Fogg and the Persuasive Technology Lab. If you are interested, sign up for my mailing list and I’ll keep you apprised of the details!
This week continues to be a wild ride! On Monday, I published my first book, “How To Do A Handstand” which hit the #1 Fitness Ebook on Amazon! In case you missed the excitement, here’s the description and cover photo. Below, you will find a ton of additional resources, including a Slideshare I created to teach handstands, and 36 short videos which detail all of the incremental steps. You can download the book for FREE on Amazon through Friday.
Handstands are a common exercise that are almost never learned correctly. Balancing upside down is something most people tried as children, but which adults have long since given up on. When handstands are attempted by adults they are done so in just one way: push up against a wall and hope for the best. Handstands need not be learned through this method of repeated failure.
Those who do attempt to learn handstands as an adult do so through throwing themselves up and hoping that they’ll be able to manage to balance. The result is discouragement, embarrassment, and pain. No one has been taught the simple steps necessary to learn to balance, or the mental and physical impediments they will encounter along the way.
In How To Learn A Handstand Robin teaches all of the steps necessary to go from novice to expert in 20 days, and shares the 3 reasons most people never master a fearless handstand.
How To Learn A Handstand includes a day-by-day breakdown for learning how to balance a handstand in 20 days. The book includes 36 videos, 50+ images and a worksheet which details every step.
You don’t have to fail repeatedly in order to eventually succeed. Follow this 20-day plan and make gradual progress to master your own fearless handstand. You will come away with the concrete knowledge of how to progress from where you are to the next level, overcome any fear you have of being upside down, and have fun! Download now, and begin to practice your own fearless handstands.
Slideshare presentation on several of the most important topics covered in the book.
The day is here! My e-book is live and FREE on Amazon. Find it at http://www.fearlesshandstands.com. To celebrate the release of my first book I am offering something special, in addition.
Everyone who downloads “How To Do A Handstand” TODAY (Monday, September 22, 2014) and sends proof that they have done so, will get 15 minutes FREE in-person or video coaching with me in the next month.
Simply download the ebook, take an image of the confirmation page, and attach that image in an email to handstands@robinpzander.com.
It would mean the world to me if you would leave a short review of the book on Amazon! Go to http://www.fearlesshandstands.com, click “reviews,” and then “write a review.”
Taking small steps towards the ultimate goal is the fastest way to progress in any new skill. Unfortunately, handstands are almost never taught according to this dictum. Especially with a physical feat as unusual as standing or walking on your hands, every student and most teachers want the outcome, the end result of balancing upside down, very quickly. It is human nature to see a goal and attempt to accomplish that outcome now. But in the case of handstands, this impedes our progress.
Consider how infants learn to walk. They take innumerable incremental steps, while maintaining a sweet curiosity that keeps them from becoming overwhelmed. We’ll explore the value of curiosity later (it is an important skill), but for now know that if you fail repeatedly and then get frustrated, this actually keeps you from quickly achieving your ultimate goal. Instead we’re going to look at all of the incremental steps that make up learning handstands, just like an infant learns to scoot, crawl, and cruise before walking freely on her own. Have patience, and follow the steps. I promise that if you do, you’ll learn your fearless handstands very quickly!
As part of my new book “How To Do A Handstand: Learn To Balance a Fearless Handstand in 20 Days or Less” I have created 36 short videos, which teach all of the incremental steps necessary to learn handstands.
You can watch the complete Handstand playlist here:
Some of my favorite videos include, how to make a game of moving around on all fours. Everyone takes handstands seriously, instead of ‘playing’ and enjoying being upside down. Kids learn by having fun. We can, too:
Handstands are often practiced up against a wall. There are (at least) two different ways of using a wall to practice – facing away from the wall…
And facing towards the wall, which is more representative of how it feels to do a handstand without the wall for support.
Facing towards the wall in a handstand is more complicated maneuver. It is possible to carthwheel into this variety of handstand…
Or, perhaps easier, is to walk the body up the wall.
Posture is also essential to learning a safe and fearless handstand. Fortunately, handstand posture is very similar to standing posture, and includes 2 primary elements.
The pelvis, and what I call the “bottom-back” maneuver:
And the fingers, which is how to make subtle adjustments in handstands:
If you like these incremental steps to learning handstands, check out my new book at http://www.fearlesshandstands.com
Most people believe themselves incapable of doing handstands, and even those who can balance invariably learned in the worst possible way. Traditionally, students are taught to throw themselves against a wall and hope that they don’t fall over. The result is that almost everyone gives up in frustration, and those who don’t get injured.
Handstands need not be learned through iterated failure. It was for this reason that I’ve written “How To Do A Handstand: Learn To Balance A Fearless Handstand in 20 Days or Less.”
I didn’t grow up in the circus, and took my first gymnastics class at 18. I began learning handstands, just like everyone else, through trial-by-failure. But, eventually, I realized that repeated failure isn’t the most effective technique for learning, and broke handstands down into their components parts. I realized how much fear of being upside down was holding me back, and took steps to alleviate that, as well. I’ve created a simple process for learning handstands without the usual struggles and pain.
“How To Do A Handstand” comes out on Amazon on Monday, September 22, 2014 and I couldn’t be more excited! The book includes more than 50 instructional images and videos. I’ll be linking to several related resources and guides over the coming weeks. And, best of all, the book will be FREE for the first five days of release. Stay tuned…
When I started in the martial arts I went a bit extreme and tried more than a dozen forms in under a week. After that wild skirmish, I came away practicing Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu (BJJ). This is a violent sporting form – which means it is designed to submit without incapacitating the opponent permanently.
Since I first started Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu I have learned a lot about attention. It isn’t enough to want to win, or even to have perfect technique. It is important to pay attention to what you are doing, too. I have noticed three categories into which practitioners fall, depending on their experience: adrenaline-fueled fight-or-flight novices, especially aggressive intermediate practitioners and the very advanced practitioners, who are almost always very calm, collected and intentional. I have heard it said that “crazy” wins every time, and it is my experience that when I feel like I am fighting for my life I will do so twice as hard, and often overcome by sheer force of energy more advanced opponents. But against the most advanced, who are invariably calm in the face of my high-energy, I don’t stand a chance. This is due to the amount of attention that these most advanced students bring to bear on a situation: they are better at seeing what is actually in front of them, not put off just by high energy assaults.
The value of attention has extended well beyond the martial arts into many other areas of my life. Since noticing how quickly I failed against the advanced opponents, I have begun to be more aware of similar fight-or-flight instincts that I have outside the sparing arena. By observing my patterns in jiu-jitsu I have become aware of how I engage similarly in the rest of my life. To give just one example, I recently went in to a job interview that I very much wanted. As I entered the door I felt a surge of adrenaline and experienced an almost hallucinatory experience of being outside my body. I recognized the amount of adrenaline I was experiencing and considered the consequences of such behavior in jiu-jitsu. Invariably, the novice will not see the next attack coming and lose. By realizing what I was experiencing in that moment, I took a couple of deep breathes, reconnected with my enthusiasm for being at the job interview and proceeded more calmly.
Awareness has the power to dramatically improve our result, on and off the mat. Practice being aware of your habits in one environment, and they will transfer elsewhere in your life.
I will begin this conversation about blues dance with an introduction to the dance form. This NPR interview by my friend Lindsey Lee sums it up beautifully. Blues dance, more than any of the other dozen or so dances I have tried, fosters connection between partners. I have learned, literally, to be more sensitive. For an American male, this is a lesson worth learning.
When I tried blues dancing for the first time in 2011 I had sweaty palms, couldn’t breathe, and almost certainly looked the part. That was almost seven years after taking my first dance class but up until 2011 I had only ever been a solo dancer – breaking it down among break dancers at Portland’s Goodfoot or taking modern dance classes at ODC. The idea of taking responsibility for another person’s movement – especially a charming, attractive woman – and getting her to do moves like everyone else on the dance floor…? Impossible.
Probably what drew me back after that first nervous night of blues dancing was the friendliness and forgiving nature of most of my partners. I stepped on toes, lead my partners into other dancers and generally made a fool of myself. But once or twice that first evening I lost myself in the music and the connection with my partner, and I returned to the dance venue for more of those intimate experiences.
Dance has the capacity to teach us to listen to another person, subtly, delicately and intimately in a way that most people never get – or perhaps only experience through intimacy with a lover. In a litigious world where nearly all physical contact is sexualized, we rarely have the opportunity to learn how to touch with delicacy. Especially for men who might have little other experience with physical connection, learning how to touch a dance partner and learn to lead without pressure is one of the most useful lessons I know.
In the last 5 days more than 5 million people have viewed this video of American Ballet Theater controversial soloist Misty Copeland perform in an advertisement for Under Armour.
Her performance and sheer physicality are stunning. But there is more to this exceptional piece of viral advertising than just good dancing.
In stark contrast, my friend and teacher Robert Dekkers’ company Post:Ballet performed a several exception pieces of contemporary ballet, including a World Premier, all at a full but not sold out Yerba Buena Center for the Arts in San Francisco.
I’m excited that Misty has gained even more notoriety. If the best in the world in an industry aren’t noticed, those below them certainly aren’t going to be! I’m also not disappointed that Robert’s company wasn’t more well received – from their intended audience Post:Ballet received rave reviews.
But there is something more going on here.
First of all, who is the intended audience? Misty’s Under Armour ad is targeted at populations who can relate to her: anyone who wants more from their bodies, who has been told no, has overcome an obstacle of any kind. The message is designed to be internalized by a wide audience. Under Armour just comes across as the backer – an organization the audience can trust to back their winning underdog.
Post:Ballet addresses contemporary issues, but does so artistically. The narrative of the final piece in this season’s show “ourevolution” shows a progress that can be equated to human evolution, and leaves me personally feeling inspired while considering our species future. I’d call that a successful performance! And yet, even I am more likely casual recommend Misty’s performance.
Misty’s performance is the ideal length for spreading: short. But when intermission came at the Post:Ballet performance I had a moment of feeling cheated, thinking that the show was only a “paltry” 50 minutes. Misty’s performance is also free, whereas I paid $25 for an evening of Post:Ballet.
It is easy to see why Misty’s performance has been viewed (and largely admired) by 5 million, whereas Post: Ballet has not gained thousands of new adopters. It is easy to tell the story of Under Armour’s success and Post:Ballet’s predictable audience. But what about the reverse? What about the controversy around Misty and reasons why Post:Ballet isn’t gaining audiences like Beonce (who was also performing in San Francisco the same week).
Misty is a controversial figure in and out of ballet. Even within this specific performance I can see some reasons for concerns. Either she is a genetic abnormality (arguably the case for any dancer at the highest level) or she is unhealthily low on body fat. I have hear a lot of comments about her “beautiful physique” but simultaneously her calves are bulging with muscles to a degree I have only ever seen on collapsed Olympic sprinters. What kind of message does those calves send to already physically insecure viewers?
In contrast, Post:Ballet’s piece “ourevolution” could well become a draw for a younger audience looking to express themselves. While the dancers are extremely talented and experienced professionals, they are relatable and led by a young Artistic Director. For a young, affluent San Francisco audience looking for expressive outlets, it is conceivable that they could find such in a company that promotes itself as being what comes after ballet.
As a dancer and advocate of many of the benefits that dance can bring I’m left with more questions than answers. (To anyone who knows me and my love of questions, this will come as no surprise.) But I see a dilemma if we want there to be more local high quality performances and performing artists.
From these two performances it is clear that physical prowess speaks to us all. And there are some smaller stories about viral growth that are further reinforced: small spans of attention are easier to engage than large, the experience of awe is one that spreads. I’m glad that Under Armour and Misty are promoting dance, and that Post:Ballet puts on live performances for me to see. Beyond these facts, I’m curious what the future of dance will hold.
What are your thoughts?
When I find something I like – a new sport, person, company or restaurant – I fixate. Culturally we usually discuss fixation only in terms of “addiction.” I’ve discussed before the benefits of enthusiasm for special needs children and non-attachment for overcoming hurdles. There is utility to the boundless (perhaps incessant) enthusiasm that accompanies discovering a new passion.
Children fixate beautifully. When a child discovers her fingers for the first time, her delight in her own experience is all consuming. In adults, this behavior would be called self-centered and selfish, but we’d never challenge a child in her explorations. Enthusiasm can be all consuming, and some of the richest learning experiences are to be had when 100% of the learner’s attention is fixated on the object of study.
Many are the times that I have discovered a new fixation. Sometimes this just looks like somewhat obsessive behavior. For example, I have eaten the same type of burrito for lunch for several years. In other situations, fixation can become a problem. I think of myself in a specific college relationship with exasperation – refusing to admit that it was time to move on. The word “fixate” tends towards negative connotations because of situations like this last: times when we completely shape our behavior around a non-healthy focus or endeavor. Ignore the potential outcomes of fixation at your peril; go in eyes open, knowing that there are downsides to forming new habits.
Perfection is an unachievable state. There is no “there” there because as soon as you have accomplished your goal, the objective has shifted and become even higher. Dancing ballet for me is a constant struggle between seeking perfection, and the impossibility of achieving that state. There is no achievable “perfect” ballet technique. Unlike my burrito habit – which hasn’t changed much in years – dance is always new and challenging. And while I fixate like a child discovering her fingers, dance is an outlet in which I can continue my pursuit without negative side effects. Dance has provided a point of fixation where the focus is not a succeed/fail endeavor. As a result I can relentlessly strive for perfection that can never be fully attained.
Find a fixation, and constantly strive to improve in that domain. Forming habits has a downside, but fixation can also serve you well. Get curious and discover a new depth of learning.
Dance had been around for as long as humans have inhabited the Earth, and is common in cultures around the world. Unfortunately, we currently live in a world that doesn’t promote dance and particularly in the United States dance isn’t viewed as especially beneficial.
Dance is among the most deeply ingrained forms of expression we humans possess. We live in a world that is increasingly disconnected by the very nature of our interconnectivity. Digital communities and channels allow us to communicate instantly around the globe, which is an amazing asset and simultaneously dangerous: it is sometimes easy to forget that we are physical beings. There is no human without a human body. We get used to expressing ourselves through our words and voices, and don’t consider that we could do so in a larger way through our whole bodies. Dance serves as an easy way for aiding physical communication. By use of more than just words, faces, and voices, dance allows us to communicate more fully, often first discovering and then expressing through more thorough use of ourselves.
When we think of exercise what usually comes to mind is gyms and treadmills, or if we are lucky cross-fit and sports. But there the conversation ends. Maybe we play a sport, or actually enjoy running, or are among the fortunate few to have been able to take a childhood passion for football into an informal adult league which we squeeze in among a busy work schedule. But even though our physical bodies are fundamentally a part of ourselves, for most people physical activities are secondary to the main activities of life. In short, our bodies have become a burden.
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