Savvy Raj

Live Life Lovingly!

Category Archives: service


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Art of Dance Coaching

When dance lessons are adapted to suit the requirements of a specific group there is greater relevance in dance education and its application.

Here are 6 Valuable Tips while conducting Adapted Dancing workshops.

1. Empathetic Communication

Communication is a very important part of any dance education. Especially so in dance workshops in special groups. When addressing a session it is important to keep a clear and empathic tone to establish a sense of connection and care. Whatever the language of communication, maintaining appropriate eye contact provides the necessary connect of being spoken to in the session.

2. Simplicity of Steps

Breaking a pattern to teach by dividing it into simple steps or simplifying it all for every one by choosing easy to do steps makes it more relatable.
In case of dancers with balance issues it is necessary to initially modify / alter steps or reduce directional changes to suit these parameters and progress from there.

Ideally starting of with simply the foot work without working on the arm movements helps focusing on learning one thing at a time. The progression must be gradual in time.

Photo& Artwork credits Savvy Raj

3. Matter of Repetitions.

It is necessary to do a number of repetitive movements of the same steps in order for the muscle memory to form. Hence repetition helps more than switching to other movements.
Depending on the groups capacity to continue, taking a pause, interspersed with explanation or some motivation in between is also a good idea so that it does not get too challenging or monotonous.

4. Ease of Formations

There are different dance formations like the square circle and line etc. However conducting the dance workshop in circular formation is known to bring about a sense of community.
Adapting other dances creatively to this formation initially helps when the participants can see the instructors movements in the center.

5. Slower Music

Besides choosing appropriate songs even decreasing the tempo of the music aids in keeping up with the music Especially for new group of dancers and dancers with special needs.

6. Value of Inclusiveness

Most importantly ensuring everyone in the group is feeling included & addressed to, is positively impactful.

Coaching another and transferring skillsets is an art.

An art with responsibility!

Savvy Raj

Member International Dance Council


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A life well lived!

How is life well lived asked someone to me recently.

While each of us has an answer that is perfectly tuned for our souls purpose.

Yet life is well lived…

In the letting go
Of the unnecessary
For then we experience life best
In the lightness of being.

When we persevere enough to let go…
Let go of the little niggles along the way
Those that seem to bother for the moment
They will diminish in time
Let go for the need for self importance
Remember our uniqueness
There is truly no one like another.
Let go of over stretching,
to meet up to overcommitment,
And the over expectations of society.
It is a disastrous road not worth taking .
Let go of over perfecting
Every thing said or done.
It can be truly overwhelming .

Let go of unkind and inconsiderate behavior.
One cannot and need not please them all .
We are born to do better than that.
Let of the unnecessary squabbles and arguments.
Leave it for there are others who wish to do so.

In the letting go, gratitude and contentment begin to surface
From the depths of our being.
Let us be drawn by just our vision and dreams.
For they are related to our purpose of being.
Let’s continue on our path in
perseverance..
We will have a journey well done.

Savvy


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Reflections in Rennes

Life reflects itself through the things you do, the people you meet as well as in your passions and perseverances, in so many intriguing yet enthralling ways.

One such beautiful reflection I am experiencing is right here happening in France.
A sense of deja vu, a throwback to a decade ago, fond memories of teaching dances to people in the different places, all thanks to the magic of movements.

I am visiting Rennes France currently and last week I went to met my colleague from the world of dance, Celine Maheo who resides here.

Celine is a practicing clinical psychologist and an Argentine tango dancer.

What’s beautiful is that she is a dedicated professional who uses the dance therapy for helping Parkinson’s patients with their movements through Tango dance sessions.

My interest was piqued, as earlier I had been conducting similar dance sessions for Seniors, namely the Dance for Wellness workshops back in India.

So over a beautiful meet and greet sipping cups of hot herbal tea at the Les Grands Gamin at the heart of Rennes, ensued a free flowing conversation where we exchanged notes on each others life. Our passion for dancing was the visible to see as we hardly knew how moments passed by.

And when Celine invited me to her next Tango Therapy Workshop, it was an offer I could not refuse. I was actually keen to understand whether and how the cultural differences change the way of conducting and experiencing workshops here.

Dancing can improve the mobility and balance in senior adults.
Adapting the dance to suit the requirements of the group, like simplifying the steps, the placement of the feet, improves their coordination, mobility and balance.

The dance session was deeply engrossing & truly inspiring to witness and participate as well. The music played that day stayed with me well after the session.

So the next step turned out to be me conducting a Chacha session for them. The challenges of language barriers were surrmounted easily as Celine offered to translate my teaching from English to French.

Everything fell in place beautifully and voila time flew again.We danced a bit of Chacha that day and also some more in the next few sessions as well. I was told later by the learners how much they enjoyed it!

It was an amazing experience sharing the joys of movements and I thank Celine for her inclusivity in requesting me to conduct the dance sessions as well. And I deeply appreciate all her beautiful learners that I met,connected and danced with. It was a truly warm and wonderful time spent with them all.

As dancers, our every endeavour to bring smiles from the heart is a beautiful and creatively fulfilling experience.

Savvy

After the sessions we would gather together and discuss opening many facets of the learning and imbibing. It was a beautiful way of empathising and understanding each other.

Some of the beautiful souls I got to interact with in these few months…

Dance has a way of soothing your entire being and bringing forth and connecting you with the depth of who you are. That is when dance begins to feel meaningful and transforms life.

The dance connects established here in these sessions will be a beautiful memory etched in my heart, that I will take back home with me and cherish forever.

Today is 8th March 2020 and celebrated as Womens Day all over the world.

I dedicate this post to my friend and colleague Celine Maheo and all the women in the world who are making the world a better place, with every step in time.

Savvy Raj


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You are enough!

As women we put off taking a stand

We may choose to stay on the shoreline

Too often we put off till tommorow

What needs to be done today.

Choose to chance the unexpected

Dare to dance with spontaneity

To dance is to be powerful enough

To express yourself as your self.

To be all you want to be.

Experience this power in you.

It is yours for the taking & sharing

Be happy, be you, today and every day!

Happy Womans Day’ today and every day to all the Women reading this.

Savvy


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No room for I, Me & Myself

In a world that is literally shrinking globally,
In a world where respect for cultural diversity,
Is paramount to humanity.
In a world where inclusivity is a necessity,
In a world where businesses are adopting empathy driven approaches.
In a world where love, kindness and faith is needed much more than ever,
In a world that is changing states quo…

There is need for all of us to come together.
There is need to value connections.
There is need to understand each others vulnerabilities.
There is need to be inclusive in the diversity.

When we move beyond the I
And envision the Us
When we see the world as ours than mine.
When we care to collaborate together,
In mutual respect of the differences
When we acknowledge the strength of unity in the diversity.
When the, Me and Myself
Shifts to Us beyond the Mine.

Artic Circle Rovaniemi Santa Claus Village. Image Credits Deepa Rajesh

The world will evolve for the better of all.
Let’s know, how interweaved we are!
For that’s where our true strength lies
In this very interconnectedness.
No matter the distance of space or time.
So, in a world where it is right now
There is no room for the I, Me & Myself anymore.

Savvy


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The Creative Flow

Curvy Road of Ideation to Solutions

When creativity is put to test…

The process of creation to finding targeted solutions in the world of products to services is a long and winding road in creativity. The general assumption is that of a direct and linear way to creativity. While one thing leads to another it is not always a straight linear road.

It is the very nature of creativity to retrace, rewind, edit and reframe until it makes sense.

Non judgmental understanding and
empathy is crucial to creating solutions.
It is important to set aside ones own assumptions to gain understanding of another’s perspectives and needs.

To brainstorm you need a direction so it is important to give a clear sense of flow and the perspectives gained in understanding and emphasizing with the needs, helps to streamline the flow of thoughts towards ideation.

Ideation is a result of many thoughts, many questions, in analysis, synthesis and deductions.There are so many paths in the process of creative ideation like for instance…

Brainstorming : This is a group creativity technique by which efforts are made to find a conclusion for a specific problem by gathering a list of ideas spontaneously contributed by its members.
BrainWriting : Another collaborative creativity concept at work. Here the ideas are all recorded by the creator and then passed on to the next person who can use it as a trigger for their own set of ideas..

The Worst Possible Idea : This is a creative design thinking technique where team members seek the worst solutions in ideation sessions. This eases the pressure and boosts the confidence of the team to challenge assumptions and find better and better ideas

SCAMPER : This is an acronym and each letter stands for a thinking technique: Substitute, Combine, Adapt, Modify, Put to another use, Eliminate, Reverse.

It is important to know what to focus and what to let go as there will be many plenty of ideas that may come up in the process of ideation. Hence keeping focus on what the actual problem is, helps in finding solutions to address and resolving it.

Then comes the part of checking out whether the ideas are actually a perfect solution by examining the quality checks, fault testing and cross questioning so that the idea can be then accepted or rejected as a solution.

New issues can come up that can challenge the process flow. There would also be new opinions and opportunities to explore and refine more.

So however curvy or zig zag the truth is, the road is full of potential and myriad possibilities in the making. Such is the truth of the creative flow.

Sounds like a good idea?

Savvy


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Ethics & Conscience

To get ahead no matter the consequences

Not bothering to care

Not caring to understand

Not understanding to reach out

Not reaching out to help

Not helping as there is lack of knowing how.

Fumbling through life without focus

Fudging grades in education

Feeling one as more important than another.

Favoritism nepotism

Ego raising its ugly head.

Corrupt practices, red tapism at work

Muddling & messing with others

Lack of knowledge of what matters

Until it all comes back to haunt

This is the truth of life lived without ethics.

This attitude is the root cause of the collapse of a collective conscience of a community.

Interestingly while writing this post I happened to come across this beautiful quote below by Mahatma Gandhi in a post by Beth

https://wp.me/p27iYj-55m.

What is the answer?

Educating hearts as much as educating minds.

As there is no one without the other.

Savvy


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On Sharing Beyond Limits

A beautiful video came my way today

Please do watch it fully.

There is so much of learning in sharing

But when you share beyond your comfort.

When you give beyond your means.

When you choose to care beyond your own abilities.

When you help irrespective of your disabilities.

When your action speaks much of kindness emanating from the heart

You choose to make light of your own discomfort.

You have surpassed all human foibles

You show the strength of your true character through your compassionate ways.

Savvy


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When Creativity Dares

Today I complete my 500 days of writing consecutively here on WordPress, with my 500th post. Special and heartfelt thanks to all my readers and followers who have supported me in this journey of writing.

I would like to mark this day by writing about one of my favorite topics Creativity.

Creativity is fueled by the fire of passion. Often instinctual and deeply captivating, it is an expression of your innate potential. With it you are in touch with your deepest core. You are consciously awakening to the infinite abundance within, in every channelling.

Creativity spurts in the most unexpected ways.

It surges forth a river of possibilities

It amplifies the potential within

It leads you to rethink and challenge the norms.

It dares to question the accepted and projects perspectives.

It explores and creates paths for evolution.

It defies conventions to envision out of the box ideas.

It justifies the necessity of freewill through the art of movements

To create resolutions in times of confusion and chaos.

To manifest simplicity in times of complexity.

To innovate and change the statuesque in times of staid compliance.

To design and redesign towards efficiency and effectivity of purpose.

When creativity dares it is in communion with infinite abundance.

It is creativity that stokes the fire

It is creativity douses the flames.

Creativity has a solution for every problem.

Savvy


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Life & Living

All one needs to do

Is experience the journey

Cos the destination

Takes care of itself!

Savvy


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Nurturing nature.

All it took is a random picture,

And it bought me immense peace.

Simply seeing it made me feel so good.

Sharing it here and hoping it infuses the same serenity I feel in seeing it, to you readers.

There is something grounding in the giving.

There is something nurturing about nature.

There is something compassionate about caring.

There is something gladdening about green living.

There is something enabling in our environment.

There is trust & faith in nurturing life.

There is connection in the care…&

There is hope in every heartfelt share.

Savvy


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Empathy Matters

Today’s ever changing corporate environment calls for new kinds of people management skills.
From managing teams to peoples problems and handling customer service,an empathetic approach helps create a positive difference and transform work culture.

So what is empathy after all?
Empathy is about being able to perceive and understand another’s point of view using their frame of reference.

To sense the flow of the moment with another.
To communicate with & be able to understand another’s perspectives insecurities and pain points.

Empathy is a positive approach aimed at improving teamwork and building teams , bridges gaps of communication implementing changes through appreciation, support & encouragement than unnerving others with negativity & criticism that can be rather demoralizing.

Empathy can create and build trust and rapport that you can tap into. In using empathic responses, problems can find meaningful and lasting solutions.

In using empathy with skill, you show respect & value for another.

There is a huge wave of empathy oriented approaches in businesses across the world. This is truly valuable and must be encouraged.

After all empathy is a main contender in a list of skills that show emotional intelligence quotient of an individual.

Savvy


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Handling Emotions

The Boss was retiring

Everyone had tears in their eyes on the day of his farewell.

One of the employees said,
“Sir, there is one thing we want to learn from you.
You worked here for so many years.
Leave aside about scolding your subordinates,
we have never seen you even shouting at them.

We have scolded our subordinates on the pressure of work or for other reasons.
We want to know about the seed of your patience.”

The Boss said,
“This all comes from the incident of my childhood.
My father was working as a lower-level employee in an office.

He was a very nice person.
He was respected very much in our family.

It happened one day,
I was studying in the 4th standard.
I had gone to the office of my father for some reason.

I saw that my father was not on his seat.
I waited outside.
After some time,
the door of the Boss opened, my father came out of the door.
I saw the face of my father had turned red.

He went straight to a corner and stood there looking outside through a window.

He had not seen me.
I went to him and called him slowly.
He was taken by surprise and turned back to look at me.

I saw a stream of tears flowing down his eyes.
He was slightly disturbed seeing me. He did not find time to wipe out his tears.

Can my father cry anytime?
He was the strongest man in the world for me.
It was out of my wildest imagination that someone could hurt him.

I ran straight to the room of the Boss.
Father was calling me from behind.
But, listening to nothing,
I went inside and asked the Boss,
“Why did you make my father cry?”
The Boss was also surprised.

Thereafter, my father tried to make me understand.

But, that day I had decided to take revenge on the Boss.

From that day I decided that I will study well and become a Boss one day,
but I will not make my subordinates cry anytime.

Because, they are not only the employees of my office, they are also respected and dear father or brother or somebody of their families and belong to someone important.

People say it is not possible to control others without scolding them.
I say, what is love then for?”

People who come to work are the ones who devote their best and quality time of the day to work, leaving not much time for their families. They do deserve better treatment from their surroundings._

Ships don’t sink because of the water around them; ships sink because of the water that gets in them. Don’t let what’s happening around you and your circumstances get inside you in your mind and weigh you down.

Make your life such where peace becomes your priority and no negativity can exist in your life.

*Just because you’re angry that doesn’t give you any right to be cruel.*

*Anger, on the other hand, doesn’t solve anything, it builds nothing, but it can destroy everything.*

*Neurologist claim that every time you resist acting on your anger, you’re actually rewiring your brain to be calmer and more loving.*

*The less you respond to rude, critical, argumentative people… the more peaceful your life becomes.*

*Explain your anger instead of expressing it, and you will find solutions instead of arguments.*


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Making people feel special!

In my earlier stint of working in the aviation industry, I had the privilege of working with a multitude of passengers day in and day out.

Handling VIP passengers, tough customers and dealing with difficult situations was an everyday affair. But it taught me patience and adaptability on the job and most importantly how to maintain a cool and pleasant disposition no matter the time of the day or the shift you are in.

Beyond the glamour were the grind and the rigours of the conformity in the service industry.

However, there were some amazing takebacks & learnings for a lifetime with regards to people management especially customer service.

Sharing a few thoughts on Customer Care:

The best way to express customer care and what you can give any customer is your undivided attention.
It can be in the form of kind words, pleasant voice, empathetic smiles, nods and eye contact that work to show that you understand their needs or issues.

Psychologically it is equivalent to giving personal time, it aids to comfort people, reassure them, and make them feel good especially in moments of crisis, delays or disappointments.

Remember to avoid mechanical responses, choosing some people as favourites and treating them better.
Aim to treat every one of your customers as important.

Be understated and avoid embarrassing the client with too much emphasis on the care you are giving. Aim to be classy and not overly effusive that it looks unnatural. Customers may even start apologizing for taking your time…

Aim to do your best every time. Your customers may not remember how you did it but remember you made them feel special. And that goes a long way!

Savvy


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Art of Management

Dancing and Management

What’s dancing got to do with management
Everything!
Oh, she is a dance teacher!
What will she know about managing a business?

This is the common perception of people in business setups. They have a dismissive attitude towards anyone who comes from a non-aligned field like arts for example.

Personally speaking, as a dance professional for more than two decades, I can certainly say that the experience trains you into a lot more than dancing. It helps develop & cultivate people skills, culture and mindsets, and the ability to empathetically understand attitudes that can be observed in life and living.

Besides, there are common skills that go beyond business management and enter life skills that one needs to navigate life effectively.
Here are a few skills that come to mind immediately…

  • Time Management
  • Code of conduct
  • Space management
  • Body language awareness
  • Self Expression
  • Discernment
  • Discipline and Focus
  • Alertness
  • Respect
  • Collaboration
  • Teamwork
  • Mindfulness
  • Authenticity
  • Precision
  • Adaptability
  • Planning
  • Creativity

Dancing movements can open channels of flow which translates into greater energy optimization.

And each dancer may have explored the art of dancing in different forms and its application would have the potential to create a greater depth of understandings.

The value of art may be high, yet the possibilities and the potential application of art are yet undervalued and undermined.

There is so much scope in the art of movement that we can realize. It’s high time to accept that dance education and application has much to offer the world beyond just a stage performance. Great to see radical shifts in the way dance is being perceived across certain parts of the world. But it has to percolate to where all it can matter.

Time to think beyond and open up to these yet underutilized but valuable life management skills.

Savvy