Hey guys!
Welcome back to Lavendaire.
Today I have a special treat for you.
I'm visiting my friends at STEEZY.
So I'm gonna ask them questions about dance that you guys submitted,
and they're gonna ask me questions about creativity and motivation.
So we're just gonna do a little Q&A sesh while exploring their office.
Let's go.
[All] Hi!
Jessie: Welcome!
Aileen: Thank you, hi!
Clay: Hi hi hi hi.
- Cool space.
- Thank you, thank you
- Is this Clay's drawing?
So sad.
- Thanks so much for coming through today, Aileen.
We're super excited to share our tips and to get yours.
But I know that before you started Lavendaire, you actually used to dance competitively.
Can you talk about how you got started?
- How I got started, actually, was around middle school.
I asked my mom to sign me up for dance classes,
so she found these community classes at the local community center.
Me, my cousin who's about my age, and then my mom and my aunt.
So it was two older women and two younger girls
learning the snake and basic cheesy hip hop moves.
So that's how I started dancing, and I loved it.
That's where I found my passion for it.
And then when I was in college my freshman year,
I knew that there was a hip hop team at school.
I went to the pre-audition to learn the choreography.
And I practiced it, but I felt so insecure and not confident in myself that –
the actual audition day came, I chickened out basically.
I didn't go, and that was it.
I was like, "You know what? Maybe I'm just not good enough."
I saw my other friends audition and make the team.
And then I was kinda sad about it.
I basically regretted it for an entire year.
The following year, I was like,
"Okay, Aileen, finally this is your second chance." - You can do it!
- "You gotta do it." - Live your best life.
- So I made myself audition and then I made the team.
It was C3 at USC, and from there, after C3,
I competed and then I jumped on a few other teams.
But I guess that's what started it all.
- Awesome!
I actually have a very similar story
where I used to take these studio hip hop classes when I was in high school.
And I was really intrigued by the dancers on the song team and the cheerleading team at high school.
But I didn't want to be just another dancer there.
So I actually became the mascot of our high school.
And it was super fun, putting together all these creative sets and being able to entertain people
And I think my interest in performance came from that.
But I didn't really understand what styles were or anything really seriously until college,
where there was a choreography team on campus.
And I auditioned for it, and then from then on,
I just went on to different teams, tried out different styles.
And yeah, still dancing, still taking classes.
- Mine was weird because I grew up in Atlanta, Georgia and I moved here –
I didn't dance in Atlanta.
And then I moved here to California.
When I went to high school, I found the freestylers club.
It's cool, it's a club where people were battling each other and stuff,
which was really weird –
- Not all high schools have them.
- Most high schools, actually, just don't have them.
We happened to have that there.
Me, I fell in love with it because my whole life,
I was bullied really intensely for being Asian and overweight, right?
And I moved to California, which is very Asian.
And then all of a sudden, my school – I had these people who are just so accepting of everyone,
so accepting of you just having fun and dancing.
No one has to be great at it,
and everyone just enjoyed the exchange in this club in the French teacher's room.
And yeah, just kept doing that from then on.
I've joined some teams and I still love freestyling, still love battling.
- So your confidence grew through that freestyle team.
- Enormously.
I had the lowest self esteem.
- And you didn't dance before that?
- Never danced beforehand, just nerdy kid in musical theater.
- That's awesome.
So the reason I wanted to start with that is, a lot of people out there have asked:
How do you get started with dance?
And there's so many different ways.
It sounds like we kind of started a little younger.
So what if people are a little older?
How can they get started?
What are the resources out there?
- I think the main thing is that, age, when it comes to doing a creative hobby –
a majority of them, age doesn't really affect as much as we think.
You can be 20 years old and think it's too late.
And you can be 6 years old and be like, "I can't do it!"
Or 50 years old.
I just think, overall, if you're trying to just start something at a later age,
you just have to think of it like anything else in life.
It's just a fun moment.
Am I just going to treat this like I can just do this thing for fun and fit it into my day no matter what?
It's just…entertaining.
- Right, so you're saying it's never too late.
Just do it because it's fun. - Never.
Exactly, just like anything.
- And you can start dancing alone at home.
I mean there's online resources like YouTube videos, or STEEZY obviously.
- Exactly.
- So when you're starting a new creative hobby, whether it's dance or anything else,
you're not going to be amazing at it the first time you try it.
And a lot of people get insecure about that.
Do you have any tips for getting over that insecurity?
- Yeah, first of all, if you're starting anything new, obviously you're not going to be amazing at it.
I think everybody sucks in the beginning, unless you're an anomaly or a genius or something.
But most of the time, you suck, and you have to be willing to suck.
You have to be willing to be get through those sucky parts
in order to get better at whatever craft you're doing.
So with dance or any other creative hobby, practice makes perfect.
The more you dance, the better you get and then the more confident you get.
So it really is a lot of practice.
But if you're insecure, you can also practice at home by yourself in front of a mirror or
just keep it to yourself until you feel confident enough to slowly put yourself out there in the world.
It really just takes time and practice.
There's no other way around it.
- Just keep building yourself.
- Yeah.
- Remember where you came from.
- Never forget.
- Remember where you started. - Exactly.
- So actually, a lot of questions that I got were:
How do you balance a creative hobby like dance with school or work?
Because we all have school or work, we're all very busy people.
How do you fit in something like dance?
- I have actual ADD.
I had to take medicine in high school for it.
The idea is, I have to keep my body active.
In fact, I keep moving to think.
It's a weird part of my body that I actually don't know why, but I have to move a part of my body.
But I'm someone who likes to fill up my time in a good way,
when I'm not doing a lot, when I am doing a lot.
And so, for instance, let's say I wake up in the morning and I'm brushing my teeth.
There's so much time when you're brushing your teeth when you're doing nothing.
- I'm like, "I don't think so."
It's like two minutes.
- It's two minutes! - You get bored, right?
- Oh, I get so bored of brushing my teeth.
So I'll brush my teeth and I'll practice tutting.
And then at a certain point, I'll be like– I'll stop brushing my teeth
and I'll be like, "Oh no!" and I have to remember to resume this.
And it's just one of these brain exercises.
For me, these are pieces of my time that I could practice things.
But for me, it's not even practice.
It's just like, "Ooh, can I do it?"
- Personal challenge.
- Exactly!
I love these mini-challenges.
It's harder to schedule things when you think of things as this giant obstacle, this thing that's coming towards you.
For me, I like these mini-goals, these little feelings, these little dopamine rushes to be like, "Oh yeah, I can do this."
Or like, "Can I lift my finger and do this while talking to people?" and maybe move my feet.
- Whoa!
- Wow!
You're different.
- I'm a weird person! - I have to ask Jessie this question.
- I don't know if this is going to help anybody. - There's nothing relatable.
- Well I guess what you're saying is you can fit dance into little pockets of your time throughout your day.
- Exactly, because these are innately me, right?
And everyone has their own way of approaching these situations, everyone has their quirks.
For me, maybe I just happen to be a little quirkier in these situations.
But everyone has a way to fill their time.
- Everyone has free time that they don't know they have.
- Exactly.
- Or repurpose your teeth-brushing time.
- Yeah, exactly!
- Do you have any tips?
- I think, similarly to that, before when I was on a bunch of teams and I was going to rehearsals,
I would think of rehearsal time as a separate block, and that was my time to train.
And then I didn't dance any other time.
But I think, getting overwhelmed with work, that is inherently –
you're not dancing all the time, you're sitting in front of a computer, I crave that.
So I will be listening to music and even if I'm not physically moving at my desk,
the music itself– - You feel it.
- It's a part of it, yeah.
And then when I get into my car, I just go off!
- Yeah, that's me when I'm driving!
I go off when I'm driving.
- I go the most full out that I've ever done, in my car.
- Nobody ever sees.
- And you'll catch someone's eye and be like –
- Hey!
Oh my god, I love it.
- "Just practicing for Coachella, backup dancer for Beyonce."
So I think you just start to think of dance as being embedded in your life in different ways
and not as its own separate thing that you have to make time for.
- Right, it's not like a little rehearsal compartment.
- Yeah, yeah.
I mean you can have that too.
- Yeah, structure is good if you really –
- If you like it.
- Because it's so social too, when I go out,
I don't think of it as "Okay, I'm going out. That's not dance training."
If I go out, I will dance.
- Because it's fun.
- Yeah, exactly.
And I don't have to think of that even as "Oh, I'm gonna get better.
I'm gonna go out and have some drinks and let loose and then that's gonna be my training."
It just is so fun and you get to share it with your friends.
And who knows?
I probably did get a little better, or a little more comfortable after that, after that night.
- So could you share a little bit about how you can be original,
find your unique voice in dance and also outside of dance?
Because it's all inter-related anyway.
- You know, a lot of people, they think of these big pictures
where this person is this way because they've been through some sort of crazy training
and they just have the answers to "This is how I'm going to be this really interesting version of myself."
I think, a lot of times in dance especially, people are asking,
"How do you do this big blow-up power move?" or "How do you do crazy arm waves?"
Remove those.
Remove those little excess frills to your life, and start thinking about "What do I like?"
Right?
That's a really simple thing.
Jessie always mentions things like this.
Music, right?
You talk about how you just pick the music that you like and start dancing to it.
But for me, my originality comes from what I enjoy in life as a base.
Like we mentioned, I love anime and I like nerdy things.
I use math as a part of my dancing, right?
And I'll always explain it like that.
I just think, what I innately am, what I innately fall towards and naturally choose
is what happens to be my choices in dance.
And in turn, the frills are a result of these base ideas.
As opposed to me thinking of the frills first.
- Right, so you take inspiration from all the things you genuinely like.
And I think, like with everything else, creativity is expressing the core of yourself.
And the more that you know yourself, the more original or unique you seem to other people.
You're just so comfortable with what you like.
So you guys get pretty quirky in your videos.
I know your personalities are really fun and wild.
I'm just curious, have you always been that confident?
Where did you grow comfortable with your own uniqueness?
- Well, I was born this way.
Absolutely not.
I think, as Clay was mentioning earlier, you have to really understand yourself –
like you said, you have to understand yourself.
I think I was the opposite.
I was very top-down in my approach.
I was very much the person that was like,
"Okay, I'm going to take these elements and these people that I look up to
and then make this version, and then aspire to that."
And I think, I'm not sure if it's, what exactly the trigger point is.
It may just be getting older where you kind of just stop caring.
I don't know, whatever the reasons were, I kind of stopped caring what people thought.
I found the things that matter to me, and I care what I think of myself.
So it's kind of the same philosophy as –
You know, you put your makeup, you do your hair, not to impress anyone else.
It's to impress yourself, so you can feel good.
The more real you are, it's not just that people will recognize that.
It's refreshing and it's a very freeing way to live.
So stop caring.
- I agree.
You have to stop caring about what other people think.
I had to go through that too, because I used to want to be liked as well.
You want to seem "cool", but at the end of the day, it's more freeing if you stop caring.
You can be yourself.
I think if you do something with a level of confidence,
then it just seems cool no matter what, no matter what it is.
You could dress – Fashion is so subjective, as long as you're confident in something ugly,
it's super cool.
- The more committed you are.
Like if you don't believe something's cool, then no one else will.
- Exactly.
It starts with your own belief.
- Aileen, thank you so much for coming.
- Thank you!
- Thank you guys so much for having me.
And you guys out there, if you're interested in dance, make sure you check out STEEZY.
I'll have all the links down below so you can subscribe.
And if you're not subscribed already,
subscribe to Lavendaire for all the knowledge and inspiration on how to create your dream life.
Alright, see you guys next time!
- Bye!
- So, shall we?
- Let's go.
- Oh, we're in the office!
- Oh, what?!
- We're rolling.
3, 2, 1.
- Okay, so when you're starting a new creative hobby, even if it's – oh, sorry.
[Rewinding sounds]
[Camera thud]
- Kev, you've done that so many times today.
- Dude, like all day.
- It's a tripod, not a trip-od.
- We're rolling, right Kev?
- Not yet.
Oh, I'm a dirty liar. It's on.
- Oh, it is!
- "Oh, I'm a dirty liar."
- Aileen, thank you so much!
- Appreciate you coming.
That was weird.
One more time.
- Aileen, thank you so much for coming.
Really appreciate it.
- Thank you guys!
So you guys out there, if you're interested in dance, check out STEEZY.
Scrub – sorry.
- S-s-s-s ... Suh, dude?
- Okay, one more time.
Thank me again.