Dancing, performing and connecting to the world. I have created a space to express, a space to do what I want to do, yet I am not always aware of how lucky I am. I am in a place of gratitude and compassion because despite coming from Venezuela with everything happening there, I went to a good school and then to a great university. I have the support of my parents to move forward. Yes, I could see that my days were not always simple, but I have seen some interesting things. I am even scared you could not handle them. I have some fascinating stories that I would love to tell you but I am honestly scared that you will not be able to understand, but somehow I know that eventually, I will be able to tell you soon enough. I always felt like I had some kind of manifesting superpower, that I could literally create anything I wanted in life. I have to be honest, I wish I was more specific because sometimes things were not exactly the way I imagined. Close enough but not exactly, then I also manifested amazing things that I was not ready to maintain or take care of. One of the most useful things that come to my mind is the practice of winning and getting used to winning practice with little victories all alone. This was not my strongest feature. In my life I just basically push through pride and stubbornness, it works but it is quite taxing. I would prefer small wins.
I guess I need to start with a story, a story just to tell you a bit about me. When I was growing up and I was around 6 years old, I used to go upstairs to the 7th floor to my abuela Marcela. She was not my grandma, but I loved her like she was, so lucky for me that I grew up surrounded by 3 loving abuelitas. She used to be a teacher and my parents took me to her every day. Not sure about the arrangement, but I am sure that I loved to be there learning about Math, Biology and practising my Art skills. I remember a few moments, I showed her a drawing of the human organs. I do not imagine anything flashy and amazing, but I remember feeling loved and appreciated. I remember being so proud of this painting, similar to how I feel when I am on the beach watching the sunset. I went from addition to subtraction and from there to multiplications and I had just turned 6 years old. She made me believe that I was capable of anything. She took care of me with love and sparked in me a deep appreciation for myself, an appreciation that I often forget. This appreciation appeared consistently later in my life, always about showing and believing that I was capable of growing, learning and improving. I have been telling many stories, and also repeating those stories in my mind.
One traumatic story, like when I found out that Gonzalez has an accent on the “a” González. In fourth grade, I stood in front of the class with shame and embarrassment. In the same way, I imagine little Pedro in Abuela Marcela’s kitchen and I want to hug him and tell him great job. I want to go to 10-year-old Pedro and tell him how amazing it is that we learnt something new, that I understand how he feels, and that it is very good that we are learning and moving forward. Stories are great opportunities to stand beside our younger selves and spark a little insight that brings light to some dark moments. But some stories have a light to expand all over our mind’s kingdom.
I have admired so many people and one of them is Shawn T. A fitness instructor and creator of Insanity, a fitness program for insane people. His next program was called the Asylum. I love his programs, because they were about pushing yourself to the limit, they were about believing that you were capable of creating the body that you wanted. Insanity was shot on a basketball court. It was surrounded by a bunch of people that eventually became friends, like Tania. Back to the point, Pedro.
I have a poster of him behind the door of my room, wishing to be like him. Believe it or not, that fitness program ended up becoming the root of my fitness centre where I taught around 145 fitness classes a week using a copycat of that program, where I became the Shawn T of my town. I am from Venezuela, so we do not have a lot of knowledge about rights, so at first I called it Insanity, and later it became PA Fitness. I ended up teaching, inspiring and motivating hundreds of people in my hometown, by running fitness classes on a basketball court for almost a year. I jumped, screamed and trained very hard beside all of my clients. It was a great rewarding moment in my life. I just wanted to be like Shawn T and without realising, I became him. I did not notice that this happened. Yes, it was not a flashy gym in LA. Just a rundown gymnasium in my primary school hometown. I will say it still counts.
How can we become a bit more aware that we are living the life that we dreamed, the life that we once thought we wanted?
It seems that I fill this blog with three different topics that could be books by themselves… Love this.
Small wins. When performing on stage, I am often presenting a very complex work with lots of complicated patterns. But literally, they all started with one brick and the awareness of enjoying that first brick, I am choreographing around 7 routines at this time and I am very proud of the progress that they are showing at this stage. Despite being complex and involving a bunch of people, I can see that the most important things are that everyone involved is enjoying the next little bit of learning choreography and that everyone can connect with the beauty of believing in oneself. I am now finding out that this is very important because then when you finally perform the finished product you will be ready to enjoy that moment. Of course, a little win will allow you to believe in yourself and enjoy yourself. But being capable of bowing at the end of a show and being capable of feeling proud of yourself is one of the best things about them.
Gracias for reading,
Pedro