Task 2b: Reflective Writing

Journal writing experience

Within this task I have looked back at my journal and have chosen 9 events, which I feel I would benefit a lot from if I reflect on them. I am hoping when reflecting on my actions, feelings and thoughts of a certain event I have been through, I will learn something about myself, which will help me improve the way I think in the future and overall improve myself as a person. We have been given a number of different ways on how to reflect through writing. I have chosen to write about specific events using a specific way of writing given to us from the handbook. Below I have stated what I felt helped, what surprised me, what I found interesting and what I feel I may use again in the future on each of the ways we were asked to reflect.

Description

Here, I chose to write about an event, where I was asked to teach a street dance workshop at, named “Manchester Collaborative Event”. The aim of this event was to bring all the local dancers from around Manchester together to train so they can work in a positive atmosphere and gain more knowledge about dance. There were three choreographers who including myself who taught. We all taught street dance routines, but all different styles of street dance, which worked very well as the people taking the classes got to learn more than one style, helping them on their versatility as a dancer. This opportunity enabled me to get good video footage of good dancers performing my choreography, which I can then put on my Youtube account, which as I explained in the previous tasks helps me attract more work etc. Also I was able to take the classes of the other teachers for free which enables me to train and improve as a dancer. I believe my workshop went very well, the atmosphere was amazing and I’m sure that everybody enjoyed themselves and most importantly learned from the experience. When writing the description about this I felt that I really wanted to go into detail about how I felt throughout the workshop but I was unable to as the task only wanted me to describe what happened, when and where. I found this very frustrating as there were a lot of positive and some negative thoughts and feeling I wanted to get off my chest but was unable to. And for this reason I probably wouldn’t use this tool again. I did feel however when looking back at this event in my journal, I noticed the thoughts and feelings I had about the day came back when reading through the events within the day. This did surprise me as if in the future I am rushing and want to write something in my journal then I can just write a short description and then come back to it later on in the day and maybe jot my feelings and thoughts down also.

Initial Reflection

For this writing tool I chose to write about just a small workshop I was asked to teach at Charlestown Primary School. I really felt that this writing tool helped me get both of my positive and negative and feelings off my chest. There were a few negative feelings from the event, which I will keep between me and my journal but overall was a great day. I felt I written a lot more when it came to describing the negative parts of the day, than positives but I believe that this may be because negative emotions always appear more stronger than the positive emotions. I felt after I written everything down I felt much more positive about the day and I also felt when reading back through what I written a couple of days later, I learned a lot about myself as a person. What makes me happy and what things annoy me etc. I can look at these points and try to change my way of thinking to consequently enable myself to be a more positive person. I felt this way of writing was extremely beneficial and I will definitely use this tool again through this course and also my career.

List

When I saw and researched this writing tool (www.listography.com) I felt this tool would be the most beneficial tool to me as I am always writing lists. Lists of goals, lists ways reach them goals, lists of things to do, things I need etc. I am forever writing lists! I felt writing the list was good for when just writing what events happened through the day but when I came to writing how I was feeling and my thoughts on certain topics which came about through these events, I felt that I wasn’t going into enough detail about how I was feeling and I never really gave an answer to why I was feeling the way I did. This for me wasn’t enough as I wasn’t getting enough of my chest for the journal to benefit me to is full potential. I would however use the list as a way to jot down events through the day as this was easy and to the point. This was the only task I written about “..Things people should remember about me”. I found this really hard to write as I didn’t want to sound “Big headed” even to myself, therefore I didn’t write a great deal and would like this to stay private to me. I did feel that this do boost my confidence up a little and made me feel very grateful to be able to pursue my passion as my job.

Evaluation

In this task we had to write “What did you think went well? What worked? Did you learn anything, discover anything, notice things to avoid?”. I felt answering these question did really help, as even when days were more stressful than others, after answering these questions, It made the day seem more positive by learning from my mistakes and also remembering what worked. After a few days when I read this part of my journal back to myself, I found it hard to recall all the events that happened that day therefore I think that this method of “evaluation” should be linked with another method such as “description” as then you’re bringing out the positives of the day and describing it more detail, for a better understanding. I will definitely use this method, especially when I’m stressed or feel negative about an event as it’s a good way to see the positives, learn and move on.

Graphs, Charts and Diagrams

I found this way of writing was good to compare thoughts and feelings, on different events, days, weeks etc. and also left me with the questions, “what should I do to ensure my days stay positive?”. It made me sum up my happiness. However I found this very time consuming and did not fit in at all well with my life style. I produced the graphs and charts on Windows Excel, but working our statistics and getting use to using the software took too long and I found myself instead of focusing on my thoughts and feelings, which the journal is supposed to help me do, focusing more on how to use the software. Maybe If I used this method at the end of every few months or the year to compare my feelings and thoughts over a longer duration would then help me determine how happy I am doing what I am doing. After this, If I was to use the evaluation method I would be able to assess what does make me happy and thing things I need to work on to ensure that I stay happy.

What if?

I found this task the most fun and interesting method of them all. When writing about the events that occurred in this way, I found my imagination ran wild! I started off with a little scenario and then by the end I was talking about a huge dream which I wanted to happen. I felt this way of writing helped me understand more of what I want to do in my life, which has really helped me choose which journey as a dancer/choreographer I want to go down. I have come to the conclusion through this method that my passion does lie in creating pieces of choreograph and teaching it to dancers, around the world and who want to learn. I think I have been forced to believe that being a street dancer I should automatically go down the commercial route, however I have been a part of many different commercial jobs and honestly I am very grateful for the opportunities but have enjoyed them, but I don’t think it’s what I love to do.  I still feel, for some reason though that I need to prove to myself, that I can hold my own, in this commercial industry. I’m not sure the reason behind this but hopefully further on in this degree course it may explain. Sometimes I find that I can go a bit off track in what I do and this way of writing is very good method, to get my feelings and thoughts off my chest and to also steer me back on track. I also go back to this section in my journal just to read it because it really inspires me. I will definitely use this method again the future.

Another View

I have this saying I always say to myself, and it goes like this “For all the gifts that God could give us is to see ourselves as others see us”. And this task really made me look at myself as a person. I used this task to describe a rehearsal that took place with my team “Soar INK” and I put myself in the shoes of a member of my team. I released that sometimes I say thing, for a reason which I don’t explain and as a result of this people may not see exactly where I am coming from and take what I say in the wrong way. At the beginning of this task I stated that I hope the journal would help me improve myself as a person, and I think this writing method really helps with this. I will now make sure that I explain what I say more clearly, so that the people I am talking to fully understand my decisions and the reason why I have said what I have said. Also I released that sometimes when I am stressed, that through my body language the rest of my team can see it and this can bring the vibe down in the rehearsal, which consequently leads to other dancers being lazy, with that “can’t be bothered” attitude, which makes things harder to get done. I must learn how to hide my feelings and thoughts better to ensure I get the most out of my dancers in rehearsals. This task surprised me on how much of an impact it has had on me as a person. I will definitely be using this method again in the future.

Conclusion

I found this task overall very useful as I now know how to make a positive situation from a negative situation, I am able to get me feelings and thoughts of my chest privately without anyone knowing, I can look at situations from other peoples perspectives, calculate my happiness, feel and appear more positive, learn what works for me and also learn from my mistakes. These all essential points I can take into practice to ensure I am working at my full potential.