Looks and sounds like you have amazing self-control and balance with grace and strength. Developing such mastery of the body is admirable. Loved this: "I will also spill all my damsel-to-dangerous beans across these pages in case my decades of being a recovering nice girl, people pleaser, and abuse victim/survivor can offer up any valuable nuggets for someone else’s journey."
In my best Wesley Dread Pirate Robert’s voice: thank you, I’ve worked hard to become so! And thank you so much for hopping aboard! It’s way more fun with mateys. And more enlightening. 🤩
Great piece, I liked the question and answer format.
I don’t do it anymore, but when people found out I did boxing, they would give me stupid fighter nicknames and ask me silly, “so you wanna fight” questions as well. So it was interesting to read about your experience of that.
Have you found that your martial arts training helped with your dance and vice versa. I found that doing boxing - especially the training - helped with my skateboarding (which I still do to this day).
Oh, how cool! Dang, now I wanna see. If you have any of that up on your Stack, please do link and I'll hit that one right away. (Boxing or skateboarding, video or writing.) And YES, 100%, they influence each other for the best. Of course, being a soloist or troupe dancer, instead of doing partner dancing like ballroom or swing, makes me really great at kata and choreographed self-defense. Alas, it means that when I have someone else mucking up my choreo-of-badassery with their own intentions, the over-developed choreo muscles in my scrambled brains get all cross-wired and short circuit. Hahaha! Reason #4 and #27 why I train: to get better at interpersonal dynamics, plus bonus neuroplasticity.
I don’t have any videos of me boxing at all, as I stopped when I was like 15 - right when skateboarding took over my life. But I have plenty of videos of me skating on my YouTube channel... https://youtube.com/@WheelMarks?si=uIGdjdddZBlKMtM5
And at the moment, I haven’t shared any of the stuff I’ve written about skateboarding on Substack, but lots is coming. In fact, I plan to make another Substack soon just for my skateboard writing.
That makes a lot of sense that solo dancing would transfer over to solo-style martial arts movements like kata’s. I find the idea of cross over abilities so interesting.
And, like you just mentioned, at first I noticed the more tangible crossover benefits, balance, coordination, etc., but eventually I realised that the mindset and perspective I adopt while boxing, skating, and now even writing are all very similar - the laser focused flow state of ‘doing’ without thought etc (if that makes sense...?)
Haha, umm I can’t remember too many of them, but I know people at school would call me “rocky” and “champ” but not in a positive way in a derogatory way.
Ugh. Whatever. Yeahhhhh...there were times when "warrior princess" was uttered derisively as well. Thhhhhhpt.
Oh my doodness! So cool! Yes, I hope you write about it for sure. Indeed, the balance and strength and flexibility and all that is the obvious one. And there was another that totally showed: you absolutely know how to roll when you take the hit of biffing it! Sooooo crucial in something like skateboarding. Just fabulous. So smooth. And YES. Flow state is absolutely the same in all the mediums, just a slightly different flavor, and it for sure helps me weave them all together into something unique.
Hahahah! As was said to me, welcome to the world of having multiple Substacks. BTW when I originally came here, I had two different profiles--the more instructional one under my dance name and the fiction & this one under Alexx. Le-heave-of-siiiiigh. Such a cumbersome thing having to sign in and out and subscribing under the wrong profile and...gak. One profile with the multiple Substacks is soooo much easier to manage. I know they suggest just using Sections so you don't compete with yourself, but I have found the freedom of completely segregating publications soooooo much cleaner! Because my Sections would then need Sections and dropdown menus to divvy up all the different stuff I write about in these publications. It's all interrelated, but sometimes has really different audiences. Substack makes all of this sooooo slick!
Haha yeah skating definitely teaches you to fall correctly.
Yeah, I’ve gone back and forth in my mind about having two substacks, because one seems easier, but people suggest ‘doing the niche’ thing, and some of the skate stuff will be written for and specific to skaters so I figured I’d make two.
But yes it is hard to organise writing into sections and genres and niches, especially when I feel like my writing is all over the place haha.
Looks and sounds like you have amazing self-control and balance with grace and strength. Developing such mastery of the body is admirable. Loved this: "I will also spill all my damsel-to-dangerous beans across these pages in case my decades of being a recovering nice girl, people pleaser, and abuse victim/survivor can offer up any valuable nuggets for someone else’s journey."
In my best Wesley Dread Pirate Robert’s voice: thank you, I’ve worked hard to become so! And thank you so much for hopping aboard! It’s way more fun with mateys. And more enlightening. 🤩
Great piece, I liked the question and answer format.
I don’t do it anymore, but when people found out I did boxing, they would give me stupid fighter nicknames and ask me silly, “so you wanna fight” questions as well. So it was interesting to read about your experience of that.
Have you found that your martial arts training helped with your dance and vice versa. I found that doing boxing - especially the training - helped with my skateboarding (which I still do to this day).
Thanks
Oh, how cool! Dang, now I wanna see. If you have any of that up on your Stack, please do link and I'll hit that one right away. (Boxing or skateboarding, video or writing.) And YES, 100%, they influence each other for the best. Of course, being a soloist or troupe dancer, instead of doing partner dancing like ballroom or swing, makes me really great at kata and choreographed self-defense. Alas, it means that when I have someone else mucking up my choreo-of-badassery with their own intentions, the over-developed choreo muscles in my scrambled brains get all cross-wired and short circuit. Hahaha! Reason #4 and #27 why I train: to get better at interpersonal dynamics, plus bonus neuroplasticity.
Okay, so what were some of your nicknames???
I don’t have any videos of me boxing at all, as I stopped when I was like 15 - right when skateboarding took over my life. But I have plenty of videos of me skating on my YouTube channel... https://youtube.com/@WheelMarks?si=uIGdjdddZBlKMtM5
And at the moment, I haven’t shared any of the stuff I’ve written about skateboarding on Substack, but lots is coming. In fact, I plan to make another Substack soon just for my skateboard writing.
That makes a lot of sense that solo dancing would transfer over to solo-style martial arts movements like kata’s. I find the idea of cross over abilities so interesting.
And, like you just mentioned, at first I noticed the more tangible crossover benefits, balance, coordination, etc., but eventually I realised that the mindset and perspective I adopt while boxing, skating, and now even writing are all very similar - the laser focused flow state of ‘doing’ without thought etc (if that makes sense...?)
Haha, umm I can’t remember too many of them, but I know people at school would call me “rocky” and “champ” but not in a positive way in a derogatory way.
Ugh. Whatever. Yeahhhhh...there were times when "warrior princess" was uttered derisively as well. Thhhhhhpt.
Oh my doodness! So cool! Yes, I hope you write about it for sure. Indeed, the balance and strength and flexibility and all that is the obvious one. And there was another that totally showed: you absolutely know how to roll when you take the hit of biffing it! Sooooo crucial in something like skateboarding. Just fabulous. So smooth. And YES. Flow state is absolutely the same in all the mediums, just a slightly different flavor, and it for sure helps me weave them all together into something unique.
Hahahah! As was said to me, welcome to the world of having multiple Substacks. BTW when I originally came here, I had two different profiles--the more instructional one under my dance name and the fiction & this one under Alexx. Le-heave-of-siiiiigh. Such a cumbersome thing having to sign in and out and subscribing under the wrong profile and...gak. One profile with the multiple Substacks is soooo much easier to manage. I know they suggest just using Sections so you don't compete with yourself, but I have found the freedom of completely segregating publications soooooo much cleaner! Because my Sections would then need Sections and dropdown menus to divvy up all the different stuff I write about in these publications. It's all interrelated, but sometimes has really different audiences. Substack makes all of this sooooo slick!
Haha yeah skating definitely teaches you to fall correctly.
Yeah, I’ve gone back and forth in my mind about having two substacks, because one seems easier, but people suggest ‘doing the niche’ thing, and some of the skate stuff will be written for and specific to skaters so I figured I’d make two.
But yes it is hard to organise writing into sections and genres and niches, especially when I feel like my writing is all over the place haha.