what about us.

Mia Michaels: the most intimidating human being I have ever met.


Her name might not mean much to everyone else, but she is huge in the dance world.  You could say she has won a couple Emmy awards..  She was also a judge and choreographer for So You Think You Can Dance.  Anyway, I am taking part in Jump, which is a huge dance convention.  Dancers from all over travel to take classes with master teachers, such as Mia.


What surprised me the most about her is that she wasn't stuck up and annoyed about having to spend her weekend with teenage kids.  She was committed and seemed to genuinely care about us and what we wanted to get out of her class.  She taught us a dance to the song "What About Us" by ATB.  The song was really interesting and different and the choreography was amazingly difficult and rewarding.  In the middle of class, Mia stopped everyone and gave a speech.  Usually inspirational speeches just don't do anything for me, but for some reason hers really got through to me.  She talked about having an intention behind everything we do as humans.  She didn't say anything cheesy like "everything happens for a reason" but that is kind of the message that she got across.  We only had an hour and a half to learn an entire routine with her and she kept reminding us that we only had that small chunk of time.  At first I didn't understand why, but by the end of the practice I got that she was pretty much trying to say live in the present and commit fully to whatever it is you're doing.  She also used some analogy about a mountain and that feeling of anxiety we get before completing a difficult task.  For a person with a lot of trouble with anxiety, this was really relatable for me and it is going to change the way that I approach daunting, strenuous situations. 


Tomorrow I have to wake up and go back to the convention for another 9 hours, which is example number one of a daunting, strenuous situation. 


In addition to Mia Michaels, the convention hosted master teachers such as Bobby Newberry who has more sass in his left pinky fingernail than I have in my entire body.  He taught us a jazz routine that I am going to post a video of underneath this along with a video of some of Mia's work.