Day 10 | Pride and Ego

Like I said, Try and Fail but don’t Fail and Try. Good Morning, Mi Gente.

8 hours of sleep sounds fantastic. With an amazing kuduro class yesterday, made sure my students got home tired as hell, and whipped on their last class, with their egos hurt and new prospects of growth.

Let me take it back on my salsa days in Amsterdam with my master aka Gabriel Mambi. One thing this man taught me and taught me really well is how to break your ego, understand that you are nobody, bring out the inner competition and never stay in your comfort zone. As I was teaching my kuduro class yesterday, I noticed that my students were not dancing or not giving one thousand%. I started to feel that they were getting a little comfortable with the steps and the energy. I had a particular student that was very sick yesterday, but just to see her going harder than the average student, I couldn’t take that lightly. So I made them do a face off, one by one, with this sick student. And she destroyed everybody. Literally and physically. That equals a mental atomic bomb explosion if you are not ready for defeat, of course. That is the beautiful story about ego. Everybody has ego, everybody has pride. But that same ego and pride is what stops us from accomplishing our goals. Because it limits what we can fully maximize as our potential. Now, to see the face of someone that had to take over 10 pills just to stand up and go to a dance class and was dancing like their life depended on that particular hour, that is something to salute. And standing beside that same person were healthy motherfuckers that didn’t encounter the same challenge on that particular day…that equals comfort. I want you to really think on it. I want you to really imagine, if you can still walk off a stage, that means you didn’t give your full energy to a performance. That type of warrior mentality is what I am injecting into my dancers. Never get comfortable, always on your tippy toes. Always ready. Reaction, 159 watts. That goes a lot to our youth these days. And when I am talking about youth, I am talking about motherfuckers my age that forget to grow up and hide behind their profession and think that is life. No, boo boo. You forgot to grow up. Because growing up is a trap and requires accepting defeat. But don’t think defeat is permanent, defeat is temporary. Your job don’t determine who you are because there is more in life than position, material possessions, and thinking you know but you have absolutely no idea. When you’re laying down in bed, with a thread between life and death, that is when you realize that your job ain’t shit and love is everything. Bitches.

On another positive note. Not everybody takes defeat easy. It’s a learning process. As well, yesterday, one of my students walked up to me after class and stared me in the eyes and told me “Manuel what are you doing on Friday?” Why? “I need to book a private”. Okay…? “Because this shit is not gonna happen again”. That put a smile on my face. Why? Because of how she took the defeat. By basically saying fuck that, today I took a loss, but it wasn’t like that. Next week, I’m gonna be back on my grizzle, and I will get these steps for shizzle and never gonna be on the weak spot again. Now, THAT’s a doctor mentality. A motherfucker that love to roll with punches. Yes baby, bring it on.

As you see, Mi Gente, today we dedicated the post just to talk about practices, motivation and growth. I hope you can use this post and apply it to your normal, regular life, regular life for your benefit.

This message is approved by your boy Dr Kizomba. Peace out, bitches.

#soberdays | #day10 | #defeat

First published on Facebook on February 27th 2018