Dance

You’re Grounded! Write Me A Story!

/ markmkane / 5 Comments

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The other day as I was walking through the local mall, I saw a mother unabashedly scolding her son.  He looked like he was about 9 or 10 years of age and completely embarrassed by the staring eyes of the mall’s patrons.

When the mother’s tirade ended, she forcefully grabbed her son’s arm and stormed away.  This scene was reminiscent of my childhood and all I could think of was what was in store for the boy when he gets home.

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I remembered whenever I did something bad, my parents would give me a good scolding and ground me.  “YOU CAN’T GO OUT AND PLAY AND NO TV FOR A WEEK!” is what my mom usually bellowed.  Back in my time, this was painful; I didn’t have the luxuries that the kids have nowadays.

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Being “grounded” meant just staying in my room doing nothing.  At that time there were no such things as cable TV, cellphones or video games.  All that I could do to pass the time away was listen to AM radio stations (because there weren’t any FM at that time).

Now whenever I did something “REALLY” bad, like playing with matches and burning things, I got a healthy dose of spankings.  My mother would get “the belt” and teach me an unforgettable lesson.

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Please don’t think bad of my mom; she’s the most kindest and caring person in the world.  Some of the terrible things I did as a young boy were REALLY BAD…trust me.  Remember, I grew up in a time when this was perfectly acceptable or “PC.”  Your neighbors and even teachers were allowed to do the same if you got way out of line…boy how times have changed.

As I was growing up, I wondered how I would discipline my children if they ever did something bad.  Well, cut to present day…as a parent of two, I decided to go the unconventional route.

When my children were young and did something bad, I made them write me a story and then read it to me and my wife.

“Don’t worry about grammar or spelling, just write me a story” is what I would tell them.

“What do you want us to write about?” my children would reply.

My answer, “Anything!  Just write me a story!”

For some unknown reason, this punishment really stressed them out.  Secretly I think that they would have rather been scolded or grounded.

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For the longest time, they would stare at a blank page and wrack their brains to come up with anything.  Their stories were simple at first but in time, they got to be more and more creative.  Their speaking skills improved as well.

Don’t get me wrong, they still got a good scolding if they did something really bad but I felt that I wanted to try and bring out their creativity at an early age.

This punishment benefitted them during their early school years and were recognized by their teachers whenever we had our annual parent-teacher conference.

Now that my kids are teenagers, this punishment is way too easy for them.  I need to come up with a whole new game plan.  Maybe I’ll make them come up with a dance choreography…yeah, I’ll do that!

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So You Think You Can Dance

/ markmkane / Leave a comment

Dance7 In an earlier post I had talked about my daughter wanting to learn how to dance…more specifically dance “K-Pop” style.  Well, it’s been three months since I started this quest to help fulfill one of my daughter’s dream and it’s been going quite well.

 We’re not quite where we want to be but I’m proud of the fact of how far we’ve both come along.  I’m not a professional dancer by any means but I think we’re getting the hang of this style of dancing. 

When my daughter wanted to learn how to dance, I originally anticipated her asking me about break dancing or popping.  I was ecstatic and brushing off the cobwebs in a portion of my mind of all the old routines I used to do back in my heyday when I was a B-Boy (I wasn’t the best but I clearly wasn’t the worst).

 Like I said earlier, when she wanted to learn “K-Pop” style, my mind went blank and I had absolutely no idea what that entailed.  “Where do I start?” and “How am I going to pull this off?” were the only things that ran rampant in my mind.

K-Pop dancing has very intricate moves; it’s almost as if you are doing synchronized choreography.  Dancing by yourself is one thing, but doing it at the same time with another and hitting your marks at the same time is DAMN TOUGH!  These kids nowadays have much more rhythm than the kids I grew up with…simply amazing.

The things that helped me to get over this hump was the fact that she wanted to learn a routine from a specific Korean pop song and YouTube.  YouTube is simply the best because you can learn just about EVERYTHING and ANYTHING on that site.  I knew that can find a lot of stuff on YouTube but…WOW!  Where was this when I was growing up?!

 There were tons of tutorials and people doing dance covers that truly enlightened me as to the style that me and my daughter were about to learn.

After endless hours of watching the tutorials and clumsily mimicking the moves, we were inching our way towards our goal.  Man, for someone my age, this quest is daunting.  Not dancing since my high school and college days also added to the challenge.

 Doing something like this with my daughter, however, is priceless.  I was glad that my daughter took an interest in dancing, something that I LOVED to do when I was her age. 

 We got a lot of work ahead of us to complete our goal.  And…“How long will that take?” Your guess is as good as mine but I take solace in the fact that we’ll get there.  AND when we get there, I know we’ll get that sense of satisfaction and accomplishment that we were striving for.  Hopefully it’ll be soon so that I can upload the video to my blog to show you the results and make you see that we can REALLY DANCE!

Eyes Wide Open

/ markmkane / 1 Comment

When something life changing happens in our lives, we no longer see the world as it once was.  We tend to take things a little slower, take deeper breaths, smile more and soak in all the mundane and ordinary stuff that we normally overlooked in our hectic lives. 

 Why does it have to take something so drastic for us to stop and truly appreciate all that we have in life?  We get so caught up in paying our bills, material things that we don’t really need and disregarding the time that could be spent with friends and loved ones.

 Our society has us so desensitized as to what we really should be paying attention to.  That’s just wrong.  Granted there are a lot of terrible things happening in the world today but that shouldn’t stop us from really taking stock in what’s most important in our lives. 

 A good laugh, reminiscing on all the great times we’ve experienced, watching your kids growing up, hugging and kissing your spouse, spending quality time with your parent, give thanks for our parents for raising us, cuddling your pet, getting soaking wet in the rain…just the simple things.

We all need to get out of daily routine once in a while and truly enjoy what we have around us.  If we could just do that every so often, our lives will have much more meaning…much more value. 

 Please don’t let a tragedy occur in order for us to really see all the great things in front of us that we ignored.  Enjoy life because it really is too short.  Do what makes you laugh, smile, sing or dance.  Thank God for the life you’ve had and for what you’ve got.  Help those around you in need of assistance.  Create a bucket list and starting living before life has passed you by. 

 Love Hard, Laugh Hard and Live Hard!  Live for yourself, live for your loved ones…live without fear and unabashed enthusiasm!

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Dance like no one is watching

/ markmkane / Leave a comment

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I could never fully understand the phrase “Dance like no one is watching”, guess I’ve always loved to dance so it never really mattered.  Never took a single dance class in my life but learned from going to all those high school dances and watching other dancers from nightclubbing or from TV.  I mimicked their moves and then put my own flair to it.

 More than anything, I’ve always let the music dictate how I moved on the dance floor, sidewalk, bedroom or hallway.  Never really cared if I looked funny, I was free to dance to my heart’s content.  Really didn’t practice except when it came to popping and break dancing.  Those were the only type of moves that needed to be perfected so that you didn’t look like crap.

French B-Boy Lilou (R) competes against Japanese B-Boy Taisuke at Jamsil Arena during the Red Bull BC One World Final, Seoul, Korea on November 30th 2013.

But going back to that phrase, the reason why I brought that up was because my teenage daughter wants to learn how to dance.  I thought to myself that this was a golden moment, I’ll offer up my services and in the process have a little father-daughter bonding experience.  How hard would this be; she took dance lessons for a couple of years but that was back when she was 4 and 5 years old.

 I asked her to show me what she remembered but she drew a blank.  Then I asked her to show me any type of dance move and she was too embarrassed to do so.

 I said to her “If you want to learn to dance, you can’t be afraid to show what you know even if it looks weird or stupid.  If you get over that inhibition, then your body will be able to move more fluidly.”  I’m not a dance teacher or professional by any means but in my opinion, if you’re not afraid of making an ass of yourself while dancing then you shouldn’t dance.

 I asked her again, to just show me anything.  There was a hesitation at first but then she “manned up” and showed me what was in her dance repertoire.  It was a bit rough and her coordination was slightly off but was impressive nonetheless.  I commended her for doing that and assured her that the hard part was over and I can teach her what I know.

As I was about to display some of my “go to” moves, she blurted out that she wanted to learn hip hop.  I thought to myself “I can manage that, it wouldn’t be the greatest but it shouldn’t be a problem.”  I came up with a move in my head and was about to display it when she added…”It has to be k-pop style.”   

 WAIT!  WHAT?!!!  K-POP STYLE, WHAT THE HECK DOES THAT MEAN?!

She wanted to learn a dance routine from a k-pop group that she thought was cool.  Now I had to check this out; I immediately went on YouTube and called up the video.  I had to admit, it was pretty awesome but way out of my league…but as a father trying to impress his child, I would never admit that.

 “I can teach you that.  Just let me watch it for a while and we can get started” I told her.

“Cool” was her only reply.  And with that she buried her face into her phone and was off in her little world.

So now I am tasked with learning an intricate dance routine and breaking it down into simple steps to teach my daughter.  What have I gotten myself into!?  This was surely a daunting task but I’m up for the challenge.  Don’t know how long it will take but I’m making it my mission to making my daughter mimic those moves fluidly and in the process adding more moves to my dance repertoire.

I’ll update my progress in future blogs and hopefully will post a video of the end result.  Here’s to a victorious end…TALLY HO!