Humble pie? You could just take Alanzo's class.

A good mama will always offer a nice old hunk of humble pie to go along with every advance we get in life. I feel like I have been offered a large slice of that pie just about everyday...and today seemed to be the largest slice yet, with some extra filling and maybe whipped cream.

Today I took one of the most physically and mentally challenging ballet classes of my life, taught by Alanzo King. Mr. King is a renowned figure in the dance world, as well as a radical choreographer in the art of ballet. The class was 3 hours long, beginning with a whopping round of ab exercises to expose our lack of strength and let us know how much stronger we need to become. The rest of class went pretty much like a regular ballet class, except for repeating each exercise at least three more times than usual and extensive commentary from Alanzo. This repetition did not fail to soak my leotard of sweat and remind me of how much there is to pay attention to in dance. But I have to tell you, I was so incredibly inside yet out of my body during his entire class. Even though I knew I was doing so many things imperfectly, I never wanted it to end! Alanzo King was intimidating, powerful, bold, funny, passionate, and humble. I remember him asking us, "How do children learn?" He was really just teaching dance from a very humble and genuine place. Yes, he was harsh and had little patience for mistakes, but that is only because he cared about us growing so much. He knew that the only way help us out and have us really improve, was not by spoonfeeding us the combinations and telling us how good we were. No, Alanzo knew that he had to tell it like it was, no sugar-coating, but RAW DANCE TRUTH.

And the truth of the matter was that we were lazy....in fact the whole world is lazy. We get comfortable doing things a certain way, and though they may seem legitimate compared to other lifestyles or habits, for us, we really aren't moving at the speed that we were made to move. Everything that Alanzo had to say was so true about dance, but also life.

No let me say, I have been struggling with this conflict of striving to improve in dance, because it requires me to muscle through a lot of things and put out a lot of effort. Isn't that what the gospel tells me not to do? Well, in a way yes. We are not put in this world to merely work out our own efforts, but instead let the Spirit within us carry our actions into righteousness. It is very easy to misinterpret what a worldly achievement is versus a spiritual one. I have been having a tough time deciding whether my efforts in dance are really worth while because they offer me satisfaction because of the efforts I put out. But this is where I am wrong. I put the effort out in my dancing because I have a passion for it. With this in mind, I have been learning everyday that the only was to advance past a certain point in dance is to relax. (Hmm...relying on something other than my personal effots...sounds awfully familiar.) It is the passion in my heart that is brought about because of a higher power that I have no control over. Suppressing this desire would not be right, because I would be denying something that is so True to my spirit.

God created our bodies out of matter...matter that needs food, air, water, and something to lift our spirits up. For me, dance is kind of essential to my body. It satisfies a different kind of hunger...a physical, spiritual and mental one. I learn so much everyday through moving, and usually the movement acts as a metaphor for the greater lessons that life offers me. Wow...I realize that I just brought the cheese again...I guess you are getting used to that theme of mine.

Anywho, Alanzo gave us a lot of words of advice, but there were a couple that I think anyone, dancer or not, could hear.

1. You need to want it. You need to know you can do it. You need to make yourself do it.

I know we are back to that whole 'succeed in this world' thing again. Right? Wrong. I mean, you can apply this to the 'successful business man' world, but try applying it to your relationship with God. You have to want you relationship with God to happen. You have to have faith in Him, yourself, and the potential to make it happen. And most importantly, you have to actually act upon it. This last part, the 'acting upon it' part, I feel people misinterpret. We do not 'try' to be good people, we just do it. If you are trying, then it is not natural. You are faking it, it isn't legitimate. The only way to actually obey commandments and not sin is to have full faith in God and let yourself give up your life to Him. Same in dance. You have to want to dance, know you can achieve things, believe in the capabilities of your body, and do the damn thing! It is so easy to let yourself continue to journal about God, read the bible, blog about life, and talk about finally giving your desires up for God, but never actually doing it. It is so easy to stand at the ballet barre and listen to the corrections, think about them for a while, practice them apart from the exercise, but never actually implement improvement when it comes down to knitty gritty work time. 'We have to want it.' I believe there are two categories of 'wants' in our lives. The ones that are true to the Law of Nature (morality and such) and the ones that aren't (selfishness.) Wanting things is not bad, just so long as you can tell which things you want are good and which ones are bad. Usually you just know, because the way of maintaining these 'wants' reveals the morality by whether or not you sin to get there. You can also tell by that natural way of just knowing good from evil. And do not tell me you do not know this...if you forgot, that thing called guilt can remind you.

2. As an artist, you must be willing to give your everything up.

Yes! As an artist, we must be willing to give it all away. Expose everything....our joys, sorrows, pains, gratitudes, we tell the whole world everything. Not only that, but we have to give up our comfort. As a dancer, this may mean being physically pushed to places that we thought were impossible. But then once you pass that threshold, the rewards for pushing yourself beyond your comfort zone are evident in the wider range of movement vocabulary your physical exertion has created. In other words, you dance better and you feel it!

Yes! As a person, child of God, we must be willing to give up the worldly comforts that separate us further from God. We get these inhibitions to live happy and safe lives because it is easy. It is even easier to think that these lives aren't easy, because we still have to work for money, stress about the future and control things in our lives. But that is just the thing, we are comfortable controlling things on our own. We can only do this for so long until our bodies and mind just get so tired of muscling through it. We break. If we had just given up this comfortable life to begin with, everything would have been so much easier. Once we passed this threshold, the rewards for pushing ourselves beyond our attainable and comfortable lifestyles would be obvious in a joy that never fades, lack of stress, and our ability to remain steady during the tough times.

I swear, Alanzo is preaching Gospel whether he knows it or not. His ballet class is breaking me down just as much as the words C.S. Lewis during my BART commute to the city everyday. Its so wonderful that we can totally be taken away from this world while we are still on it. During our class today, I was totally oblivious to the fact that San Francisco was pouring rain, I was incredibly dehydrated, and my body was at its edge, because something deeper was driving me to do it. Something deeper and truer than any sort of comfortable dream thought up of because of living in the 'real world.' With every exercise I realized more and more how imperfect I am, but how ok I am about it because that is why I take class. That is why I am here. I am here to become a better dancer. That is why I live. I am here to become a better person. There is a reason for this 'want' and it is not a comfortable thing to realize.

Identity..cliffbars?

Nowadays I feel like there is so much effort put into finding one's identity. I guess this makes sense, because it kind of drives peoples' source of action. But how do we define our identities? This is something that I have been asking myself for a while, and it especially hit hard last week. Really the possibilities to fine your source of identity are endless. We could go with your location....she is a california girl so that's why she eats avocados, dresses beach trendy all the time and says 'like' every other word, or maybe what you 'do'....she is a college student so she doesn't shower much, parties, and procrastinates until the last minute. How about ideological perspective? Well, she is a Christian, so she doesn't cuss, drink alcohol, let alone attend parties, go to bed late, or engage in sexual innuendoes. Could you imagine what would happen if we let these identities that shape little parts of our personalities control our whole self? Well guess what, we kinda do. This is why we spend so much time discovering our 'true identity.' We don't want to get it wrong. We don't want to identify ourselves with the bad parts of certain identities and we want to exaggerate the parts of others that we take pride in. Well I came to a lot realization this past week about my identity.

I am someone that would actually take pride in my lack of searching to define my true identity, but that is an identity in itself. I also unknowingly take pride in the knowledge I get from my education, my exposure of reading the news, and what I have been thinking about a lot lately...being a dancer. I arrived in Castro Valley one week ago to stay at my aunt Amy and unkle Kevin's house during this four-week dance intensive with the Line Ballet School. Even just writing down the name of what I am doing, there is an automatic sense of pride I get from being here...but now instead I should be so humble to accept this beautiful gift from God, yes God, not the gift of my efforts. Now if you are unfamiliar to the character of the dance world let me give you a little inside glimpse.

Your name is Suzy, you are an 18 year old dancer and your walking on the streets of San Francisco. So here you are, in your super stylish $65 Yumi leotard that you got delivered from Japan, covered by your worn out sweat pants, some sort of stylish top to show that you have a life outside of the studios, comfortable shoes (even if they are ugly) because you care about the health of you feet, carrying a loaded dance bag full of dead point shoes, man socks, needle and thread, a few cliff bars, vitamin water, and your hair pulled back into some sort of semi-neat bun...walking into Alanzo King's Lines Ballet school with a bunch of other dancers with very similar clothing habits that yourself. Your doing two things here: 1. don't admit that they are dressed the same to yourself because you are 'unique' and 'cooler' than they are. and you 2. Still try to see that you fit into the dancer 'type' with your choice of clothing. So basically you fit in and you stand out. Now is where the trouble starts, you figure out that the first day is an audition, and the faculty will be watching you dance all day with your name tag, taking notes on what your great at and what you such at. Then, they will judge their notes and decide whether you are good enough to be in the high level. If you are not in the level of your dreams than your a failure as a dancer and life as you know it in the program is over. The whole day you fight for a spot in the front, and it is a difficult battle because everyone else wants a spot in the highest level. In the meantime you know that it is not just your teachers watching you dance, but your fellow dancers. They are watching you, making sure that they are better than you...which they are not because we have already established that you are the coolest and therefor have the most potential. Wait a minute, you just landed that turn all wrong, you suck, no you don't just suck, your terrible and you will never get into the high level. Dance is not even cool anymore, it takes too much work and now you just look stupid. Everyone is watching you and judging whether or not you even belong in this training program!

Alright, so maybe I was having a little to much fun with Suzy's story and it is obviously kind of an exaggeration, but you kind of get where I am going. The point of Suzy's story is that sometimes we get so caught up and lost in these little worlds that we live in that we completely forget that we are humans and capable of so much more than one identity has in store for us. What if Suzy just went to this training program as Suzy? Suzy, a daughter of Christ, within her lives the Holy Spirit, when she begins to fall deeper into the tangible world she remembers that God is with her and all of sudden her dancing is coming from a new place, a true place, it is coming from her soul. And I can bet you a million dollars that this change of identity source would completely take over the way she dances and what she gets out of the program. She doesn't even notice that people are watching her, or that she is even placed in a level, these are just minor details about the world. What Suzy does notice, is that Mary is sitting alone before class starts and looks kind of nervous. Suzy begins a conversation with her about her hometown and soon they find out that they have more in common than their north face jackets and cliff bars, but actually enjoy talking to one another.

Last week I thought a lot about why I dance. I came to the conclusion that I have let myself become a slave to a lot of the superficial sides of dance that I have just poked fun at, but that is not the reason I dance. I do not dance to define myself. I dance, because there is something that lives inside of my heart that needs to dance. (Get prepared for some cheese) It allows me to express my deepest feelings, discover what is going on in my life, and seriously, just let me be with God. If dance was taken from me, I'd be sad and broken , but I know I would be healed with time. That is because I identify myself with Jesus Christ. I may be a dancer, but I am Yvette. I am daughter of God, follower of Jesus, and one that prays for the Holy Spirit. There is no single language that can communicate the whole truth of God. To me, dance is another language to supplement the Gospel. That is why so many broken people that dance, do so well....because everyday they get to embrace the truth of their spirit, whether they know it or not.

In the dance world, it is tough, because we let it be tough. We say yes to allowing judgement characterize our mood. But that is not what is about, and its called muscling through it. By muscling through it, there is a great chance that you will improve your technique and ultimately your body will become the perfect mechanic of movement, but by muscling through it, where is the soul? Yes, there is a great deal of work involved in improving, but with true motives, it won't be work. I know this, because today at Lines, the day finished in the blink of an eye, and I left the studios wanting more of this 'work' right then.

So my identity? Its pretty important to me, but its also pretty simple. I am nothing but my true self. This self comes from Christ, because Christ created all things (including me), He is above all things (including me), He is in control of all things (including me), and He is setting all things right (including me). I live in the name of Jesus.

It has been a struggle for me to accept these truths, because I am so attached to being the maker of my own successes. But then that would also mean that I am the maker of my own failures. That aint the truth yo! I am humbled. I am taking every entree in front of me with a grain of salt and not wasting single crumb. Life is not about me...no matter how much I trick myself into thinking it is.

So, God is kind of really rad. All week I kept getting this word of identity. Not just through my own personal thinking, but through a book a friend gave me, Reality SF's message yesterday, an extremely inspirational ballet teacher preaching love through dance, and a text message pretty much summing up this whole blog today. I can be sure that I will probably get more word to remind me to keep my head lifted but my feet on the ground, and of course simplifying this whole identity thing. Its not that hard, unless you get too carried away and lost in this world. But seriously, just get lost in God, because he's got your answer. He'd tell you. He told me. I'm simply Yvette.

My past and the teabag

I am going to start off by blatantly saying that today was the best day of my life. I know this is a bold statement, but if you haven't noticed, this blog begins with the word 'fire' so just expect nothing less. I am Yvette Lindsay Johnson and my outlook on life has been radically transformed over the last few months. I remember talking to an old friend one year ago about our beliefs, and really lack there of, and proclaiming to be an atheist. I was not interested in searching for something to 'comfort' my insecurities that I could not tangibly see and know for sure existed. Yes...I denied any existence of God. Little did I know that during this time I WAS worshipping a god....a god with only temporal powers that could not provide the truth to everything. I was living for a god called me. By living for me, I attained happiness and satisfaction through the little successes of things I could have control over. When things didn't go my way I grew impatient, upset, and worried, or I gave all of my efforts to control and alter the situation into fitting into the ideal image I had in my head.

I believed that people turned to God and religion to find comfort in knowing that there was something on the other side, to find meaning in their lives, and to know that they had some sort of nonsensical purpose. I was incredibly unattracted to the hypocrisy I witnessed among 'believers' in the church. Empty actions. Not what I was about. I may have been living for myself, but I did this because it was the only Truth I knew of at the time. I was raised in a family that periodically attended Catholic Mass, praying every so often before dinner, and turning to God when things 'got tough.' Once I got to college, I realized how much of these actions meant nothing to me. If it is one thing I held dear to me, it was the value of life itself. I do not like wasting time, and so I was going to soak up the most that this life had to offer, and that did not mean seeking truth in a God I do not believe in, submitting to arbitrary rules imposed by others, and going beyond my comfort zone of 'success' in the 'real' world. I was going to eat up everything that life had to offer because I was in control of everything that was coming my way. It was all about me, how much I could do, the impact I could have on the world, and the work that I put into it. Notice the constant 'I' theme going on here.

Well I did that for quite a while. I even told my parents of my denial of God. My mother was crushed, just absolutely heart broken. She never really spoke too much about it to me, mostly because I would just always beg her not to bring it up. I never lost love, and I sure loved my parents all the same as I love them today. I did not want a difference of ideology to separate us. So my mom eased up on the God-talk, feel-good bible Emails, and stopped forcing any sort of theological questioning when I visited. It was totally comfortable. I was able to go to my mom about ANYTHING. Nora (my mom) was there for me ALWAYS and so incredibly patient with me. Even though I lived seven hours south, our love grew stronger than it ever had been before as we totally spilled all of our feelings out to each other just about everyday in our morning Emails and weekend phone calls. I would call her at 2am crying, and she would be there with the perfect answer. Little did I know that this was my way of crying out to God. It was my gateway to finding truth, in an indirect and earthly way. Being all that I knew as true, Nora guided me through some of the most uncomfortable times and gave me wisdom that I now find in the Bible and prayers. God was using her, speaking through her, and growing our relationship so strong, that I could later realize the infinite love that He had for me.

Thus my quest for truth prospered. I was living in a temporarily rich life. I valued my relationships with my friends and family, my passion to soak up life, my deep love for dance, and my appreciation for living. I found even more identification with modern philosophers, especially the writings of Nietzsche, and thought that this 'valuable' life of mine was enough. I had goals that I would attain and an adventurous life to look forward to share with all of my beloved friends and family.

The end of my Fall Quarter this past school year proved to be a long stretch as dead week finished with a double feature show, full technique classes that I never wanted to miss, and warm-up classes added onto our already busy schedule. I got hurt...and not just a little injury I can ignore until it goes away. I unknowingly broke a rib on my right side, the same side where my partner, Sean, had to hold be numerous times during every performance during our duet. Partnering wasn't the only thing that hurt. I felt so much pain stretching my right side, exalting too much energy, and even deep breathing. I was broken...physically and emotionally. Here I was, in a situation did not satisfy me, and no matter what I did, I did not possess the power to control things and fix them myself. I had been waiting all quarter for this performance, and really to perform in general. Dancing is what I live for and for once, I was feeling like a slave to my body. So I did the only think I knew...I called Nora. After asking all of the unimportant logistical questions about my pain she told me that she would pray for me. Instead of rolling my eyes and ignoring this statement like usual, I said...."please do!" I tried to be 'strong' and tough it out, but the intense pain persisted throughout the week. On the night of dress rehearsal my friend Meredith noticed that I was upset and not feeling myself. I told her about my pain and she said she would pray for me too. For some reason, I trusted Meredith's faith and somehow believed that a 'believer' like her might actually make fix me. I rode my bike home in the dark and cried. I felt pathetic. I looked up at the moon and said hello to God for the first time in years.

On opening night, my pain was still there, I was scared but somehow I knew that I was going to dance. When I went into my beginning position, I thought about my dance and the dance alone. I felt no pain on my right side, even when all of my weight was pressed on it into Sean's hand. I soaked every moment of that piece and indulged in every movement to its fullest. The next week my pain completely went away and a layer of bone grew over where it hurt, I found out then that it had been broken.

That same week of finals, I sat alone in my apartment studying and drinking tea, as I usually do in my room. Now let me tell you, I took my tea bag quotes very seriously. They consisted of quotes from philosophers, artists, the bible, and really any sort of important influential figure in the world.

"You must live for something higher and bigger that you."

That was it. The first hint I got. I started journaling, realizing how much I really do live for myself and not really anything higher. Yes, I lived for my goals, my passions, and my desire to make the world a better place...but where did this all come from. Why did I want these things? Why was a living? And the fire was lit.

I went on to take my final that evening, biking my way to the end of Isla Vista to the other side of the UCSB campus, totally consumed by this thought. As I looked up at the mountains on my bike ride, I knew that there had to be something more, but I was afraid to invest my devotion to something false. 'No half-assed' actions, I would say to myself. So I continued to live in wonder for a while.

There was one thing I did know for sure at the end of Fall Quarter, there was something greater and higher that existed. It controlled what I valued and how I decided to live my life.