Discovering Your Talents
Talent is often defined as a natural aptitude or skill. However, in truth talent is really when you have the opportunity to use or apply your skills in a variety of methods. For example let’s say you draw and are recognized as artistic but lets say you are asked to prepare the meal for an upcoming family get together. Talent would be taking your ability to draw and creating pancakes that have each family members image cooked in them. Wow, that would be something truly special and long remembered but for you it might be kind of humbling because for you, although fairly creative, it really only required you to apply your skills and maybe learn a little bit more about pancake batter and aspects of temperature.
Recently, Mr. Robinson enjoyed being involved in a wonderful event. If you have followed any of the social channels of Attitude First you have heard a lot about the “Dancing for Arizona’s Children.” A charity event raising funds for the child welfare programs of Arizona’s Children Association. Mr. Robinson, the Facilities Manager for Arizona’s Children was selected to be the employee representative for the association.
Mr. Robinson worked with his dance instructor Julianne Dibacco Daniels. As they were designing the dance, Mr. Robinson shared with her that he didn’t have a ton of dance experience but had trained in the Martial Arts for several years. He also had a lot of experience with competitive performances. Julianne quickly determined to use the Paso Dablo and throw in a little Tango as these dances are very dynamic with a Martial Arts type flare.
“Julianne chose a Matrix type theme to also allow for some Martial Arts to be a big part of the routine.” Mr. Robinson explained. “She then related everything we needed to do to meet the standards of the dance styles back to the Martial Arts.”
Mr. Robinson further stated that Julianne was always speaking our language. Talking about stance, posture, vision. The interaction between the two participants was like a “fight.” The male plays the matador and he is in a dance/fight with the female dancer who represented the “bull.” She further reminded him during lessons about confidence and commitment. Representing passion and “compassion” in your movement.
In the end Mr. Robinson captured both the Judge’s and People’s Choice Awards for the Male divisions. Note: this wasn’t an actual dance contest but three of the four celebrity judges were professional dance judges.
“When getting ready, Julianne continually reminded me to believe in myself and allow my skills to come to the forefront. I hadn’t really considered myself talented but in reality applying my skills was the talent. Something I remind my students of in every class. It was exciting to get to be a student again and apply my own lessons to myself. Again, Julianne was a huge inspiration and knew just how to get out of me what she wanted.” Mr. Robinson explained.
As we develop our skills for self defense through the Martial Arts it is important that we look for ways to use them in our day-to-day needs. This is where our talents will begin to shine and the levels of success we can achieve will be immeasurable.
