Hiding vs. Being Seen

Recently I led a qigong workshop in my neighborhood. Setting up the workshop proved to be much harder than I expected, especially having to promote my teaching. I had to get my website looking good! Set up my Instagram links! Make little Instagram reels to promote my class! Jump back onto Facebook to invite people!

All of these tasks felt really difficult, I think because I haven’t had to promote myself professionally since 2016 when I stopped working to take care of my kids. Imposter syndrome came to visit, and I struggled to get my class materials ready. But I did it, the class happened, and it went well.

But boy, was all the setup stressful. Once my class was over, my first thought was, “Ahhh, well, now I can focus on music for a while.”

So that’s what I’m doing.

There’s a part of me that knows I need to start my band in earnest before my martial arts school gets going. Not like one will lead to the other, more like the band is the part I want to do the most, the most fun part. Once that is going, and I’m feeling happy about it, I imagine getting the rest of the school set-up will be easier.

The band is Madam Ant Band, a glorious cover band dream I’ve had for a few years now. I will be Madam Ant, a frontwoman version of Adam Ant, the deliciously cheeky British artist who had big fame in the 80’s. I love his look, his costumes, his devotion to having a good time. I created Madam Ant so I could both hide inside of Adam and celebrate his music (and music of artists in a similar post-punk vein.)

For the band, I won’t have to promote myself, I’ll promote the Madam and her ant band. Madam Ant is ferocious and kind, colorful and loud. She stands for fun, joy, and encouraging self-expression. Her band are people who love to play music and have their own wild expressions in need of expressing.

She is a way for me to hide inside a different version of myself.

I like the idea of hiding in a really flashy costume. To hide while drawing attention to oneself. It sort of takes the self away, so all that’s left is the art.

It sounds exciting, but also safe and cozy, this costume, this band idea. I’ll keep moving forward with it and report back.

Welcome to Monday

This week I’m beginning to promote my first qigong class offering in Portland, Energetic Grounding, a Shanti System class I’ll be teaching at a great neighborhood movement studio called Ready Set Grow. I’m writing this post to share my process in doing that. (My big, scary inner-critic is trying to make the process more difficult than it needs to be, and writing through the fear helps.)

Today I would like to promote the class on my Instagram and on my personal Facebook page. How do I do that?

First of all, I need to look at the promotional materials they gave me. Yay! They gave me the link above, which I’m using on this page 🙂

Hmmm, I’m noticing there’s a difference in the time than what I was expecting… I need to get in touch with them about that. I’ll do that now.

Email sent. I’ll wait to promote the class once that issue is straightened out.

For Instagram, I would like to start posting 3-5 times a week to start introducing people to what I’m teaching in the class. I can post a video of the daoyin, stuff about Taiji philosophy, movement stuff, training pictures, my logo-making process, all that fun stuff. Social media is supposed to be fun, right? Right. Have fun, Michelle!

For Facebook….oh God, I’m scared of Facebook. So many people with opinions about stuff are on there, it’s terrifying. BUT, I think I might get some class signups by telling some long-lost friends who are on Facebook about it. It’s a great business promotion tool, and I don’t intend to hide from it forever.

The big thing I’m trying to figure out on Facebook right now is whether I need to have a business Facebook page to have a business Instagram page. I think I might, I think they might need to link through the “Meta Business Suite,” as it’s called. Yikes. I can make a business Facebook page, though, it will help. I’ve done it before. I’ll try to do it now…

Ah ha! I’ve already done it. I spent some time just now putting photos and a couple posts on my new Portland Martial Arts & Crafts FB page. Yay!

OK! I just checked email and the time issue has been cleared up with Ready Set Grow. I can move forward with promoting the class! I think I’ll make a big announcement tomorrow morning on my Instagram & Facebook accounts. For now, I need to send my teacher the link to the class. Ah! And I need to add a PMA&C page on this blog so I can put my teaching bio there. I’ll start that next.

ONWARD!

Setting Up to Teach

I’m planning to teach Qigong workshops and classes this spring. I don’t have my own studio space in which to teach, so I will be looking for studio spaces that I can rent or use part-time.

I had a plan to teach a two-hour workshop at a yoga studio near my home at the end of April, but that seems to have fallen through. The people at the space needed my class description and bio six to eight weeks before the class was to run, and I didn’t get it to them in time. Part of the reason I didn’t get it to them in time is that I didn’t know when they needed it. The other part of the reason is that it was unexpectedly difficult for me to write the class description.

As a writer I’m familiar with the hiccups of the writing process– the blocks, the need to write clearly, the effort it takes to make good re-writes. Writing this particular class description, though, felt like the emotional equivalent of trying to walk through a boulder. Last fall I taught classes to martial artists, and writing those class descriptions was easy. I think they were easy because martial artists have a common vocabulary and understanding of qigong and tai chi principles. But this class was taking place in a yoga studio. Writing the class description for a different audience, one that might not share a common vocabulary and understanding, felt like a project on a different scale. Do I have to define terms in my writing for them? Would yoga people want to try qigong? Am I introducing people to a whole new modality? It felt heavy.

Part of the heavy feeling was also the fear of putting myself out into the world again. I hid from the world a lot during covid. I stopped doing Facebook, I fell out of touch with a lot of friends. Part of me is scared that nobody will come to my workshop, nobody will care, that I’ll mess something up, that people will think I’m a phony, and that I’ll fail. All of this was weighing on me as I tried to write the class description.

What I’ve realized since I learned that my description was received too late, though, is that I can’t focus all my energy on setting up to teach only one workshop at one place. I need to set myself up to be able to teach many workshops at many places. I need to create the foundation of my teaching business. Creating the foundation includes:

• Getting liability insurance (done!)

• Having professional headshots taken (scheduled!)

• Creating a logo

• Getting business cards

• Creating a business Facebook page (maybe?)

• Making my business Instagram more inviting and informative

• Posting videos of what I will teach (probably)

• Writing a standard teacher bio

• Getting my business debit card working again

• Writing three or four descriptions of different classes I can offer

Once I have all of these materials in place, I can then reach out to possible teaching locations from a place of security in what I’m offering. Locations could include yoga studios, community centers, and martial arts schools. I could also teach directly to businesses or in public or private schools. A Lyft driver recently reminded me that I could also potentially get government or military contracts. He was ex-military, and said that martial arts and self-defense teachers are always in demand in that sector.

The fact that the class isn’t going to run bruised me a bit, but I actually feel much more secure in what my next steps are now.

Onward!

The Stuckness

I recently started working with a new counselor. At our first session last week, I unloaded everything that’s been going on: My dad died in 2020. My mom had a major stroke in 2021. My husband and I have been working through relationship challenges. Motherhood has become really stressful. I haven’t been able to get my martial arts teaching career off the ground.

All of these challenges had become an alphabet soup of confusion, a cloud of overwhelm, a sea of tribulations with no shore. My counselor said, “I think that all of these things are part of the same problem. Does that make sense?” Yes, it did. It felt as if all these threads of my life had mixed and tangled, and I couldn’t get the knots undone anymore.

Thankfully, that seems to be what therapy is for, for untangling knots and moving forward more healthfully. My therapist asked me to write a vision for my life as my homework, and I did that homework yesterday. Beginning the vision, the part before I started writing, was the hardest part. The part before the writing is always the hardest part. It’s as though there is a mental and emotional hurdle that must be overcome if one is going to start writing something potentially difficult. Once I started to get things onto paper, though, the vision came out more streamlined and simpler than I could have imagined.

What surprised me the most about the list is is how concise the martial arts teaching part was. That, and how that section takes up so much space compared to the music section. I thought I had wanted music to be part of my “work” the way teaching is, but it turns out it’s a much smaller category.

It’s smaller because it doesn’t need to be thought out as much, I don’t need to make money at it, and I think my music practice will unfold naturally as I continue to play with friends. How relieving.

So, my next steps are to continue to flesh out what I want my teaching practice to be. To pull all of my dreams and possibilities out of the clouds of my imagination and onto the ground of reality. To start moving forward slowly, purposefully, with clarity.

I can do it!

New Year’s Day

Is a good day to start a new habit, like posting on your blog every day for as long as you can.

I am about to go watch The Lego Movie on the couch with Alex and the kids. It just got to the part where Emmet builds the double-decker couch. I had the opportunity to buy the Lego toy version of the double decker couch once and I didn’t.

It’s something I wish I had bought at the time. They’re really hard to get now.

* * * * *

Anyway, I listened to “New Year’s Day” by U2 today, and had my kids listen too. “Wait, it’s by YouTube?” “No, they’re called U2,” I told my daughter.

I be a lot of kids her generation would say the same thing.

Happy New Year!!