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Discovery: Something that surprised me in this chapter was the fact that the players that mainly helped Texas A&M win in 1956 undefeated for the first time didn't even attend that horrid camp that coach Bryant made the other players go to in 1954. It's also the fact that he still thought that the camp was the reason they got there.

Skill: A skill that I'm learning in Contemporary and Ballet that helps me do hard things is learning to focus on my breathing throughout every exercise or combo we do.

Book Takeaway: We must be taught first how to swim before we're thrown into the deep end of things.

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Feel: A self talk habit I found that in class is when I don't know how to do something or I don't think I'm doing something right I'll say I look stupid. That made me feel embarrassed because I don't like to look or feel stupid.

Figure Out: I notice that when my self talk is like how I stated above, I'm less likely to put in effort with whatever we're doing out because I feel self-conscious.

Book Takeaway: Using a callous view when thinking of toughness can cause more harm than good mentally and physically.

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Radiohead - Everything In Its Right Place [HQ]

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Lower the bar:

Repetition in my improv

Zoning out

Stamina

Raise the floor:

Skill: Keep going even when i'm tired.

Attitude: Stay in it.

Habit: Breathing.

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Appropriate/Authentic Goal: I want to work on stability throughout my body but more specifically in my legs, feet, and arms.

Define judgement and expectations: I can put forth the effort to always try to find stability when asked to do hard tasks such as lifting a high leg. I know I am not as flexible so I would just make the goal of finding stability even if my leg is lower than everyone else's.

Course-correct for stress: I feel like a possible stressor would be hard things such as flexibility which I know isn't a strength of mine, but I can course-correct this stressor by doing what my legs are able to handle.

Prime your mind: Come into class with a prepared mindset. I should warmup and stretch on my own so that in tune with myself before connecting with my peers.

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I'm not Flexible: I do what I can with my flexibility level and I try to stretch but I should definitely be doing it daily.

I can't always pick up choreography fast: I continue to go over the combination and I ask my peers or the instructor for help.

I overthink everything: I ask my mom for advice or sometimes I'll just force myself to make a decision about things and it sometimes is right and sometimes it's wrong.

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An area that I've grown in with consistent work is to keep going and trying to give it my all even when I'm exhausted.

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We're all human.

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Now or Never ft. Mary J Blige (Bonus Track) - Kendrick Lamar (good kid m.A.A.d city Deluxe)

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A behavior I can relate to that Magness describes in this chapter that I can relate to is how our levels of control changes how we respond to stress. This resonates with me personally because in everyday class it's okay for trial an error, but in classes like PDPR and the audition process I feel like I lose control because I know that whatever I'm given and how I execute it can determine where I'm placed so I get really stressed.

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I've successfully used the "Give Yourself a Choice" exercise before. This isn't dance related I did this recently with another one of my academic classes. I turned in a project late because of the requirements of the project and I knew I didn't want to turn anything half done in so I decided to take the 10% deduction for lateness. That was hard for me because I am very hard on myself when it comes to my work and grades.

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Leah, I think you use "Learn to Let Go" a lot in our classes by allowing us to explore movement that you give us. You might correct us after, but you allow us to interpret and figure out what you have given us on our own first.

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Pick a Toughness Maxim and describe a situation that you have encountered that relates to it.

"Feelings send a message, conveying information and nudging us toward a behavior."

I can relate to this quote because when I'm feeling tired during class that emotion sends a signal to my body to slow down or not to put as much effort into it.

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Describe a time within dance currently where you felt your emotions unapologetically. How did you react to the situation after you felt those emotions?

Last week during contemporary I was not feeling class because of some personal issues, so it was definitely a hard class for me that day and I really didn't put my best foot forward. After that class I went into the next class ready to go with a focus on why I'm here.

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Find a gif, image or song and change the padlet post to a color that describes how your feelings or emotions make you react to stress.

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I was a tour guide during the conference, so a mental habit I used to not get so nervous was just telling myself/trying to be my authentic self like how I am with friends or people I know because when I meet new people I tend to get awkward because I want them to like me. I think a new mental skill that I learned was to treat every class like how I take class during actual school, so I don't get as nervous.

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I took a contemporary class from a choreographer I had previously worked with before outside of UT and for some reason his class was just so challenging for me that day. I didn't respond well to it at all I actually had a breakdown if I'm being honest because I felt like I should've done way better considering I know how his classes are. I didn't apply any mental habits or anything from the book because again I had a breakdown about it.

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Something that I discovered during the conference that has made me aware of a horizon goal I want to work on is how much different our program is in a good way. My horizon goal is trying to continue to become more acquainted to the dance department in general because I feel that this year has been pretty rough for me personally with the department. I think I can begin working on this goal with current courses I am taking by really being attentive within the courses and interacting with my professors more.

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My helpless child appears when taking class and having to learn and show combos or during the PDPR auditions having to learn stuff really fast (I don't pick up that fast) and the showing it immediately after. My helpless child just tells me that I'm scared, I can't do it, or I don't know it and in those situations I start to shut down and then I'm not able to be my authentic self as a dancer.

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The Ambivalent parent would say to me "you got this", "dance the way I know you can", or "all that matters is that you're doing the best you can". The faithful friend would tell me "you're amazing already so just show them what you can do", "it's okay to mess up just keep going", or "you got this ari".

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I honestly think this helps because I tried it during one of our contemporary classes and it honestly made me put more energy into the movement we were doing because it was like I was encouraging myself but when I talked to myself in third person it made me feel like I had extra support.

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I think self talk is but isn't an effective tool. I honestly just think it depends on the situation. I think an encouraging tone helps the most when it comes to self talk. I honestly never thought about negative self talk being the motivator, but I definitely think positive self talk has always been the right kind of self talk for me. Negative self talk just makes things worse from own experience because I'm an overthinker and when I overthink it's normally negative things and it stresses me out.

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Chapter 8 - Exercise: Turning the Dial: Increase and Decrease the Volume 

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Chapter 8 - Exercise: Turning the Dial: Increase and Decrease the Volume 

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I did this activity when I went to the dining hall and I noticed before I even left my dorm building my attention went straight to my phone while waiting on the elevator because I had nothing else to do but wait. So for half of my walk to the dining hall I had to keep telling myself not to look at my phone which was hard honestly because that's what I naturally do when walking around campus. When I zoomed out on my walk and went back to being on my phone I noticed that it was easy to keep my focus there because it's my entertainment and it's natural for me. I think this was an interesting exercise and I'm going to have to keep working on the zooming in portion to really grasp that concept of having the ability to direct and let go of my attention with things.

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My takeaway from this chapter is "We need to put ourselves in a situation that elicits negative thoughts, sensations, or emotions, then utilize mental skills to work our way through them, to convince the brain that it's okay and doesn't need to go down the well-worn path of a freak-out." This is an important takeaway for me because I can't really figure out how to fix the negative self-talk until I put myself in those anxiety inducing situations and test out what mental habits work for me when it comes to dealing with that stress.

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Chapter 9 - 4. Temporal Zooming: Imagine the Future

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Chapter 9 - 4. Temporal Zooming: Imagine the Future

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I did this when I started to feel overwhelmed with the amount of work I had to complete last week and it really did help. I kept thinking about how much work I had to do, but when I applied this exercise and told myself once you get it done you won't be stressed anymore, I was fine. I kept telling myself this literally won't matter in a week let alone the next six months so there is no reason to stress over something that you know you will take care of and feel better about once it's done. Everytime my mind would go back to that negative space I would just remind myself of this exercise.

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A takeaway that I am taking from Chapter 9 is "Flexibility to use different strategies". I thought this was an important takeaway because being in different situations where I might be spiraling sometimes the same method might not work everytime. I might have to have more than one or just a completely different method in order to pull myself out of that spiral.

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I talked with my mom about the topic of how to keep making progress and I told her about how I was feeling personally in dance and some of the negative experiences I've had here so far and if it's worth it to continue to feel how I've felt these past two semesters. She told me to just keep being myself and to not stop advocating for myself as I have been doing. She said that it's okay not to have everything figured out and to just to keep pushing and stay determined. She also told me that a lot of the things I am going through currently is stuff that she has experienced, but just not as young, but that it's a good thing because I will be able to handle these things with grace at such a young age. It felt normal to talk to my mom about this because she's always the first person I talk to about things because she's the person who understands me the most. (Also I know this isn't a recent photo my mom just isn't here as you may know lol)

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My takeaway from this chapter is "Having a strong purpose acts as a turbo boost. Whether that purpose comes from God, family, playing for your teammates, or a mission that holds deep importance, when our pursuits match with our purpose, we persist much longer." I feel like this really resonates with me personally because I feel like dance is my purpose and I feel like that's what constantly keeps me going even after I have encountered so many negative experiences. Performing as a dancer has really just kept me going for all these years.

Something that I've been working on intentionally from this book that has helped change my ability to do hard things is identifying and working through my personal inventory:
Lower the bar:

Repetition in my improv

Zoning out

Stamina

Raise the floor:

Skill: Keep going even when i'm tired.

Attitude: Stay in it.

Habit: Breathing.

I think this honestly just helped me set a main goal for myself throughout the semester to hang on to and continuously work on which I feel like really helped me to lock in on everything we were doing in class.