Hey everyone! The first 31 days of the year have passed and it’s almost the midpoint of Winter. That means it’s time to recap the month of January. Welcome!

We are less than a week removed from my Dancehall Freestyle Intensive. I can’t wait! On the one hand, I’m really looking forward to it, but on the other hand, I’m also a bit stressed because I really hope that everything is going to go as planned while knowing that not everything is under my control. This includes the location where the intensive takes place and the flights of one of our coaches. 

Over the last couple of weeks, I’ve been working on my lectures and training sessions that I will be teaching and coaching. I created slides, added content, removed content, rehearsed presenting the slides, and, as a result, removed some more content because I was talking longer than expected. 😬 For the training sessions this is not a real issue. I have the main goal of each session for which I created a set of exercises. These exercises build on top of each other. This means that if we do, for example, only the first 3 exercises instead of all 4 of them, then that’s not a real problem. The most important thing is that people understand the exercises really well, not that they see all the exercises. Quality over quantity.

In the last 2-3 months of last year, I was thinking about switching up my battle outfit for 2025. In the last few years, I’ve always worn the same one: camo or black tights, black shorts, a red or blue sleeveless T-shirt, and a beret. I wanted to change that. I don’t have a specific reason. It just felt like something that I needed to do. So I set out on this quest to find my new outfit. I looked at different brands, different pants and shirts, and different colours and accessories. For the brands, I wanted them to contribute to a sustainable society. That means that I was mostly looking at how much of the fabric was recycled. For the materials, I wanted something comfortable to dance in and not too warm. With regards to colours, I wanted something that caught the eye but that didn’t scream “I WANT ATTENTION”. For the shirt, I wanted something with a message. Before, I always wore something with my name, crew, and country on, but this time I wanted to share a specific message with the world. For the accessories, I was thinking about headwear to replace my beret. I thought about a cap or a bucket hat but so many people are wearing those these days that it’s not unique enough. A very specific style that I looked into was techwear and warcore. I like the aesthetics of it but eventually, I put that to the side because it didn’t seem to be very comfortable to dance in. And that is the most important thing. I don’t want to impose limitations on my movements through an aesthetic choice.

After considering the different options that I found while scouring the Internet, I made my final choices during the first 2 weeks of January. I went with the Nike Primary Fleece pants in the color blue and the Flower Tee White by Boys Get Sad Too, a Mental Health awareness brand that aims to use clothing to spark positive conversation. I decided not to include any headwear or accessories for the moment. This might change over time though. So I went with a pretty simple outfit. I hope that I can share my outfit with you soon! Maybe through a picture or video of me dancing at an event! 🤩

I want to finish this month’s recap by sharing with you my favourite Dancehall song of the month: Underground by Popcaan.

Thanks for joining my dance journey and for your support! Talk to you next month.