Dips and Tricks and Breaks and Freedom
Feb. 10th, 2006 10:08 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
livingdebToday Robin and I went to a Dips and Tricks workshop put on by the university's ballroom dance club.
Fortunately, although the teachers did not emphasize leading, following, or fitting the moves into dances, they did seem to feel that doing these moves safely was a priority.
Warning: the following notes are not enough for you to learn these things. If you insist on trying them anyway and you sue me, you will only get a fifteen-year-old car and, um, this laptop computer I'm using right now, and you'll never get to read any more of my blogs again. (My fictional lawyer recommends trying this only on a king-sized bed your first time. Also my fake lawyer says jump--ahem--scroll to the last paragraph before the asterisks for things you can take away with you.)
We learned something called a lean, which looks a bit gravity-defying. Basically the leader lunges to one side while holding the follower on his other side. Both are facing the same direction, though at the height of the lean, they might look at each other. This does not look as cavemanish as I'm making it sound.
Important safety notes: The leader bends his outside leg only; the rest of him stays straight. The leader holds the follower tightly to his side. The follower does not throw herself against the leader but waits until he starts leaning (yes, she "follows").
Interesting things we noticed: Leaning pretty far makes it more likely that my feet slip out from underneath me; I definitely end up on only part of only one foot. It's best to have my weight balanced on the man's side rather than allowing myself to slide down his front.
Things we were told during the one-on-one portion: Use the J lead (or J-hook?). Rather than pulling the follower in at the beginning, moving his arm straight back toward him, the leader should drop his hand a bit and then move it in the shape of a "J." I don't exactly understand.
Next we learned the around-the-world. In this dip, the leader displays the woman's throat to anyone who might be looking. Oh, I'm not making that sound so great, either. The dancers get into full closed position, the leader twists his upper body to the left, then he bends his knees while the follower leans back, then the leader twists to the right, sweeping the follower in a semicircle around him, and then pulls the follower back up.
Important safety notes: The dancers must start together so that the follower is as close to the man's center of gravity as possible. The leader bends his knees to help him stay balanced. The leader holds the follower tightly and relatively low on her back. The follower does not lean back until the leader sends her back. The follower does not bend her knees (much) so her back won't hurt too much. The leader should lean back, counterbalancing the follower, not forward, following her to the floor.
Things we noticed: Leaning my head back and swinging in a circle is a recipe for a headache. The dancers' shoulders should be about one follower's armlength from each other. Start with weight on one food and end with it on the other.
Things we were told: The follower really is supposed to bend her neck backwards during this.
The last thing we learned was the death drop. The leader brings the follower close to him, then flings her to the floor, almost.
Safety tips: The leader must not lean forward. (Okay, they didn't tell us this, but it's true.) The leader must change hand grips while bringing the follower to him, then take her other hand in the same strong grip. The partners need to stay close so that the follower stays as close to the leader's center of gravity as possible. The follower should not start dropping until the leader leads it. If the leader does not feel ready, he should abort the move; even un-doing what you have started still looks like an interesting move. The leader must not straighten his arms fully with a new partner. (Oops, I didn't know your arms were that long.) The follower should sneak her inside foot underneath her so that she can support much of her own weight and do much of the work in bringing her back up. The follower should keep her body as straight as possible (except for that one leg) and never lean her head back.
Things we noticed: our arms are not so long that we can't straighten them (with each other, anyway). It's hard to slide my foot past his. I should bend that foundation leg more.
Things we were told: nothing; ran out of time.
You, my readers can come away with a few valuable generalizations. Don't do anything that requires you to trust someone without first getting a signal from that person that they are prepared for you to trust them. It's easier to keep your balance if you carry heavy loads close to your center of balance and bend your knees.
**
At work another tool I need broke, but then it was fixed only hours later. When you can't do any of your duties, so they just build and build beyond your control, it gets frustrating. Oh, well, I can always get more delegated to me.
Meanwhile, there seems to be a general philosophy that we should spend all our energy making everything prettier, and there are so many things that are so ugly that we don't have time to also improve any functionality while we are messing with it. New cube walls with less storage. New web page design with same old text and lack of functionality. New online forms that are just copies of the paper forms created decades ago. We're going to hire a new bossman soon, an his boss does not have this mentality, so it's quite possible that things will improve within the next year.
**
In the book I'm reading I'm still not learning much. I could go into a long list of negatives, but that gets tiresome. The one thing he's said that's struck a chord with me is that we should try to take more control of our cash flow. This way we have much more freedom. If our money is coming from working for someone else, that someone else is in control. If it's coming from stocks, we have no control over the company. He recommends owning your own business, and buying property from which you can collect rent.
I won't be taking any of his extremely minimal specific advice. For example, if I'm getting money from a company, I want someone who knows what they're doing to be in charge of that company, not me. And if you have your own business, you still have to do what your customers want, not just what you want. And if you're charging rent, you still have no control over the economy or even the property market in the area.
And I have no interest at all in starting businesses until I get it right or buying properties until I learn how to do that right. I'd much rather have the freedom to not have to do that.
I'm more comfortable taking control of my spending rather than my earning (of course, since any monkey can do that--dang, I wasn't going to go into all these negatives). But that doesn't mean I shouldn't try to increase my choices in income-producing methods. Here are some methods I'm using now.
1) Have job with amazing pension, which gives me great freedom later. Although this pension is invested in stocks and bonds, just like some of my other, there are additional pressures to pay us anyway somehow.
2) Have additional savings so I don't have to rely on my pension and Social Security so much.
3) Buy a house and pay it off. Then I'll only have to pay taxes and insurance, which should be cheaper than rent, right?
4) If I move to a different house, keep this house and rent it out because rent really feels like a different basket (than the stocks and bonds baskets) to put some eggs into.
5) Have some stocks because in the long run, they're bound to exceed inflation; also capital gains and dividends are taxed at lower rates than earned income.
6) Have some money in a Roth IRA so that some taxes are already paid ahead of time. If (when) taxes go wacko, I can have some money that can no longer be taxed. Except via sales tax and property tax and any other non-income tax. Oh, well.
7) Have some money in inflation-indexed thingies in case inflation goes wacko.
8) Have ideas for extra ways to make money. I've done "consulting" as a typist, transcriptionist, and tutor of elementary college statistics. And I'm high on a list of people called for teacher certification test scoring. I really should think of more things like this and do them. I think I might be able to sell the occasional magazine article.
9) Keep expenses low so that the assets I do have can last a while, even if events outside my control shrink my finances.
And there is one warning from the book that I am taking to heart. The author mentions that within certain investment vehicles you don't have much flexibility. Specifically, in 401K plans, you can't take your money out early without paying huge fees, even if the stock market crashes. But you do have to start taking money out at age 70.5, even if the stock market is crashing. One of my mutual funds is with a company that has many other options. But I need to educate myself on my options in my Roth IRA. I bet it takes days or weeks to transfer money from one fund to another--it would be nice to at least know the procedure sometime before I need it.
Fortunately, although the teachers did not emphasize leading, following, or fitting the moves into dances, they did seem to feel that doing these moves safely was a priority.
Warning: the following notes are not enough for you to learn these things. If you insist on trying them anyway and you sue me, you will only get a fifteen-year-old car and, um, this laptop computer I'm using right now, and you'll never get to read any more of my blogs again. (My fictional lawyer recommends trying this only on a king-sized bed your first time. Also my fake lawyer says jump--ahem--scroll to the last paragraph before the asterisks for things you can take away with you.)
We learned something called a lean, which looks a bit gravity-defying. Basically the leader lunges to one side while holding the follower on his other side. Both are facing the same direction, though at the height of the lean, they might look at each other. This does not look as cavemanish as I'm making it sound.
Important safety notes: The leader bends his outside leg only; the rest of him stays straight. The leader holds the follower tightly to his side. The follower does not throw herself against the leader but waits until he starts leaning (yes, she "follows").
Interesting things we noticed: Leaning pretty far makes it more likely that my feet slip out from underneath me; I definitely end up on only part of only one foot. It's best to have my weight balanced on the man's side rather than allowing myself to slide down his front.
Things we were told during the one-on-one portion: Use the J lead (or J-hook?). Rather than pulling the follower in at the beginning, moving his arm straight back toward him, the leader should drop his hand a bit and then move it in the shape of a "J." I don't exactly understand.
Next we learned the around-the-world. In this dip, the leader displays the woman's throat to anyone who might be looking. Oh, I'm not making that sound so great, either. The dancers get into full closed position, the leader twists his upper body to the left, then he bends his knees while the follower leans back, then the leader twists to the right, sweeping the follower in a semicircle around him, and then pulls the follower back up.
Important safety notes: The dancers must start together so that the follower is as close to the man's center of gravity as possible. The leader bends his knees to help him stay balanced. The leader holds the follower tightly and relatively low on her back. The follower does not lean back until the leader sends her back. The follower does not bend her knees (much) so her back won't hurt too much. The leader should lean back, counterbalancing the follower, not forward, following her to the floor.
Things we noticed: Leaning my head back and swinging in a circle is a recipe for a headache. The dancers' shoulders should be about one follower's armlength from each other. Start with weight on one food and end with it on the other.
Things we were told: The follower really is supposed to bend her neck backwards during this.
The last thing we learned was the death drop. The leader brings the follower close to him, then flings her to the floor, almost.
Safety tips: The leader must not lean forward. (Okay, they didn't tell us this, but it's true.) The leader must change hand grips while bringing the follower to him, then take her other hand in the same strong grip. The partners need to stay close so that the follower stays as close to the leader's center of gravity as possible. The follower should not start dropping until the leader leads it. If the leader does not feel ready, he should abort the move; even un-doing what you have started still looks like an interesting move. The leader must not straighten his arms fully with a new partner. (Oops, I didn't know your arms were that long.) The follower should sneak her inside foot underneath her so that she can support much of her own weight and do much of the work in bringing her back up. The follower should keep her body as straight as possible (except for that one leg) and never lean her head back.
Things we noticed: our arms are not so long that we can't straighten them (with each other, anyway). It's hard to slide my foot past his. I should bend that foundation leg more.
Things we were told: nothing; ran out of time.
You, my readers can come away with a few valuable generalizations. Don't do anything that requires you to trust someone without first getting a signal from that person that they are prepared for you to trust them. It's easier to keep your balance if you carry heavy loads close to your center of balance and bend your knees.
**
At work another tool I need broke, but then it was fixed only hours later. When you can't do any of your duties, so they just build and build beyond your control, it gets frustrating. Oh, well, I can always get more delegated to me.
Meanwhile, there seems to be a general philosophy that we should spend all our energy making everything prettier, and there are so many things that are so ugly that we don't have time to also improve any functionality while we are messing with it. New cube walls with less storage. New web page design with same old text and lack of functionality. New online forms that are just copies of the paper forms created decades ago. We're going to hire a new bossman soon, an his boss does not have this mentality, so it's quite possible that things will improve within the next year.
**
In the book I'm reading I'm still not learning much. I could go into a long list of negatives, but that gets tiresome. The one thing he's said that's struck a chord with me is that we should try to take more control of our cash flow. This way we have much more freedom. If our money is coming from working for someone else, that someone else is in control. If it's coming from stocks, we have no control over the company. He recommends owning your own business, and buying property from which you can collect rent.
I won't be taking any of his extremely minimal specific advice. For example, if I'm getting money from a company, I want someone who knows what they're doing to be in charge of that company, not me. And if you have your own business, you still have to do what your customers want, not just what you want. And if you're charging rent, you still have no control over the economy or even the property market in the area.
And I have no interest at all in starting businesses until I get it right or buying properties until I learn how to do that right. I'd much rather have the freedom to not have to do that.
I'm more comfortable taking control of my spending rather than my earning (of course, since any monkey can do that--dang, I wasn't going to go into all these negatives). But that doesn't mean I shouldn't try to increase my choices in income-producing methods. Here are some methods I'm using now.
1) Have job with amazing pension, which gives me great freedom later. Although this pension is invested in stocks and bonds, just like some of my other, there are additional pressures to pay us anyway somehow.
2) Have additional savings so I don't have to rely on my pension and Social Security so much.
3) Buy a house and pay it off. Then I'll only have to pay taxes and insurance, which should be cheaper than rent, right?
4) If I move to a different house, keep this house and rent it out because rent really feels like a different basket (than the stocks and bonds baskets) to put some eggs into.
5) Have some stocks because in the long run, they're bound to exceed inflation; also capital gains and dividends are taxed at lower rates than earned income.
6) Have some money in a Roth IRA so that some taxes are already paid ahead of time. If (when) taxes go wacko, I can have some money that can no longer be taxed. Except via sales tax and property tax and any other non-income tax. Oh, well.
7) Have some money in inflation-indexed thingies in case inflation goes wacko.
8) Have ideas for extra ways to make money. I've done "consulting" as a typist, transcriptionist, and tutor of elementary college statistics. And I'm high on a list of people called for teacher certification test scoring. I really should think of more things like this and do them. I think I might be able to sell the occasional magazine article.
9) Keep expenses low so that the assets I do have can last a while, even if events outside my control shrink my finances.
And there is one warning from the book that I am taking to heart. The author mentions that within certain investment vehicles you don't have much flexibility. Specifically, in 401K plans, you can't take your money out early without paying huge fees, even if the stock market crashes. But you do have to start taking money out at age 70.5, even if the stock market is crashing. One of my mutual funds is with a company that has many other options. But I need to educate myself on my options in my Roth IRA. I bet it takes days or weeks to transfer money from one fund to another--it would be nice to at least know the procedure sometime before I need it.