Zen Stripping Part 1

We’ve been doing a lot of thinking about this topic the last couple months and really tried to analyze the nights that dancers, even newbies, brought home major bank.  We’ve asked others their opinions and what was going through their heads on those nights, and how they walked out of the club with huge wads of cash.  We’ve narrowed it down to one single factor, and it’s something any dancer, at any level, can make happen. Maybe you’ve even touched upon it a time or two on your very best nights of work. Here’s how it is for us when we experience it.

One with Now

During our time working, we often can get distracted by conversation, the music around us, by something that happened the other day, or maybe by a bill that is coming due shortly.  Whatever it is, we lose focus for a minute or maybe hours, and our productivity decreases.  This happens in all areas of life, not just at work.  But, have you ever had a time in your life where you just lose track of time, where everything else that is stressfull or on your mind just fades away?  When we have our best nights at work, that is what happens to us.  Everything just clicks, because we are completely present to what’s going on.  This may start to sound like some psycho babble, but stick with us a bit longer here.

Maybe you’ve tried multi-tasking chores around the house, or even at other jobs you’ve had in the past.  While it seems you are accomplishing many things in a short amount of time, you are not focused on any one particular thing.  This leads to distraction, and the quality of your work possibly (more likely probably) suffers.  You may miss small things or details, or completely forget to do a step in the process.  Giving your full attention to any activity or process tends to lead to successful completion of what you are doing.  Dancing isn’t any different.

When you step out of the dressing room, whether it is to go on stage or sell dances to a customer, distractions of what’s going on in your life or drama with somebody else can easily interfere with your work.  It’s happened to all of us many times.  Maybe you just had an arguement with a loved one or you have a sick child at home.  Those things are important to all of us, but while you are at work there isn’t much you can do about it.  Giving complete focus to what you are doing keeps you from missing an important step when dealing with a customer, or missing that step when you are getting off stage (and consequently tumbling off on your face in front of everyone).

When you are having a good night at your work, time seems to go quickly and you might wish there was more time left in the night to do more.  When you are having an amazing night at work, you completely forget time and don’t know it’s over until the lights come up.  You are one with your environment and it has your complete attention.  Giving your complete attention to the present includes eliminating thoughts about the past and the future, which is going to be a totally separate post in the very near future.  Eliminating those two aspects, can literally change your life, that’s why it’s important enough to garner it’s own topic space.

But, back to being one in the present, you might be asking yourself “How do I go about doing it?”  That’s an important question and we’re going to tell you how you can begin.  The first thing to do is eliminate all physical distractions.  Television, cell phones, computers, and even other people are great examples of physical distractions that you will need to get rid of to start the focusing process.

The next thing to do is stop mental distractions from happening.  Mental distractions are the times your mind wanders and jumps from thought to thought.  When you are trying to focus on a task at hand, these types of mental daydreams or distractions can be devastating to performance.  The key here is to have total awareness of the situation and realize what’s happening when you mind begins to wander.  However, once you begin to understand the times your mind is getting off course, then you will begin to truly focus on whatever task is at hand.

How does all this relate to dancing exactly?  Put away the cell phone.  Forget the drama with other dancers.  Truly focus on the conversation and sales process with each and every customer.  Listen to what they’re saying, not what’s on the television behind the bar.  You’ll find yourself selling a ton more dances in the process when you start doing these things on a regular basis.  Be present in the moment and what you desire will become more achievable.

Josh & Chandra

Present and Accounted for

Related posts:

1. Zen Stripping Part 2 This is the second part of a two part series...