My favourite podcasts about ballet and contemplation

Now for a more practical blog: what podcasts would I recommend? I have started to listen to quite a few podcasts that inspire me a lot! Many of them are about ballet, kind of obviously ;-) But I think also the ballet ones teach me quite a bit about life in general. Let me walk through my current facvourites, sorted by topic:

Picture  by Michel Le Photography 
at Morlaix Ballet camp

Contemplation

- Mind & Life podcast (I was super-honoured to be featured on this one myself!) in which people are interviewed that work on the intersection of research and contemplative practice. I find these always such fascinating conversations!

- Open Question by Elisabeth Mattis-Namgyel, an amazing Buddhist teacher who presents a no-nonsense approach to asking deep questions in life

- The kind heartfulness podcast by Gomde Austria, an interesting series of conversations with Buddhist teachers and practitioners.

Ballet

- A dancer's mindset by Isabella McGuire, who talks about the mindset that is required to be successful at anything, but especially from the perspective of ballet. Lots of good advice, although I don't always agree with everything. I think she forgets that not everything can be controlled

- Athletistry by Shane Wuerthner, another ballet mindset podcast, which is also useful to anyone engaged in a difficult pursuit, such as academia

- Ballet Rising by Casey Herd: fascinating stories about people trying to bring ballet to the communities that not always get access to it, e.g., ballet in India and Africa

- Hard Corps podcast by Romee Adair, who talks with guests about the general dance industry and especially challenges within it. It's fascinating to learn more about how the dance industry works.

- The adult ballet studio by Elisabeth Blosfield, a series of conversations with people trying to make a space for amateur adult ballet dancers. So inspiring!

- The balanced ballerinas podcast by Georgia Dostal, a series of interviews with so many amazing people in the dance world. Again, so many interesting things to learn!

- Artists Becoming, another series of conversations with dance professionals, but this one is specifically focused on bringing out the artists, and challenges to that

- Moving Moments by Alicia Graf Mack: more conversations with dance arists. I just love hearing the person behind the dance artist!

- The turning: Room of Mirrors: a really interesting deep dive into the ballet choreographer Georges Balanchine. Very interesting although this one is a bit on the sensationalist side

- Broche banter by Julie Gill/Leung: all things adult ballet, including interviews with adult amateur ballet dancers. Lots of insightful stuff about how adults learn ballet

Academia

- Degrees of freedom by  Tassos Sarampalis and Marcello Seri: lots of philosophy and practical tips about teaching in academia.

I hope some of these are inspiring to you, and maybe you find some new ones to listen to!

What is a contemplative life?

I wrote this blog when I just attended the Mind & Life Europe Retreat and the European Summer Research Institute (ESRI), also from Mind & Life Europe. Both events took place in Pomaia, Italy. For me, these events are always very good because they make me ask what the role is of contemplation in my life, and other big questions about being human.

In fact, this time I started to ask a lot of questions about my identity. When asked who I am, I usually say something like "neuroscientist" or "computational cognitive neuroscientist". Yet, in the MLE retreat, and more frequently this past summer, my identity has become also "dancer". Of course I don't get paid to do it, but yet, there is such a strong force in me that makes me dance, and I have in recent time been able to do more and more things with professionals. Then in the MLE retreat and the European Summer Research Institute, I suddenly also became a "contemplative", when I taught the meditation and contemplative dance practices. As someone who has been trying to follow the path of a scientist-practitioner, this was a really interesting experience, which I am still feeling into.

Picture from Morlaix Ballet camp
By Michel Le Photographe

What does it mean to be a contemplative? During the retreat we talked about "continuous practice". With my busy job, I don't have the time to spend hours a day practising meditation, although I certainly practise meditation every day. But there is much more that bringing meditation into your life can mean. For example, I try to be aware of my motivation for doing things, and where possible bring this into an altruistic motivation, intending that whatever I do be for the benefit of all beings. At the end of the day, I try to dedicate my efforts also to the benefit of all beings. In addition, I try to take short moments of meditation during the "lost moments" of the day--when walking somewhere, when waiting for the traffic light, and so on.

Inspired by the MLE retreat and ESRI, one of my more recent practices is also trying to bring awareness of interdependence into my action. There is this interesting concept of "enaction", which means in my limited understanding something like that whenever you take action, you are just moving around in the sea of interdependence, you are never able to have a fully independent action.

In addition to continuous practice, another feature of a contemplative is some amount of renunciation. In the old days, contemplatives would live in monasteries. However, monasteries are not so compatible with a modern life. Nevertheless, during ESRI Martijn van Beek talked about new alternative structures such as Vaekstcenteret where he lives in Denmark. And even if you are not entering a very specific community, you can also live a monastic life at home. For example, Misha Belien talks about being a monk with a family in this very inspiring documentary. Also I myself try to live a simple life, without too many distractions. The monks of yore would say "ora et labora" (pray and work), and in some sense, that is what I try to do.

Happy new year: let's make it the year of interconnection

 In the last few days I have been reflecting on the past year. I don't really like to list my achievements of the past year because I think it encourages an unhealthy comparison mindset. In today's society it's so hard to not forget that the most important is not what you do, but how you are. In the past few days, I co-led an online winter retreat, and in my part I taught analytical meditation. During these sessions we explored the idea of interdependence. I think today's world is more interdependent than ever (a beautiful quote by His Holiness the Dalai Lama about that: "In today’s highly interdependent world, individuals and nations can no longer resolve many of the problems by themselves. We need one another. We must therefore develop a sense of universal responsibility to protect and nurture the global family, to support its weaker members, and to preserve and tend to the environment in which we all live." (from the Tibetan Book of Living and Dying, Chapter 3).

interestingly, many people say they feel disconnected, while objectively speaking we are more connected than ever through the media, and through the evermore complex production chains of goods and services. So why do people feel disconnected? I think it is because we don't spend enough time being and reflecting on our situation. Another answer, offered by Dutch comedian Micha Wertheim last night was that we all consume (social) media that are so hyperpersonalized that we don't have too many common experiences anymore. And we are no longer so used to seeing things that we don't like.

Picture from Morlaix ballet camp by Michel Le Photography

Whatever may be the cause, my hope for the next year is that I will get to experience the deep interconnection of ourselves and others more in the coming year. Because I found that when I manage to experience the interconnection of myself with others, nothing can be an enemy anymore, and this reduces my stress so much. When things are overwhelming, it helps me a lot to focus on how they are all part of a web of contingent relationships that allows everything to appear and disappear. Moreover, when i experience the deep interconnection of myself and others, the competitiveness no longer exists either. The challenge is just not forgetting this...

Like with everything, not forgetting means to again and again try to remember, while the rest of life is trying to distract you. First you will forget most of the time, but the more often you remember, the more easily it comes. The trick is also to find "hooks", small reminders. I found a wonderful one recently in ballet class with Broche ballet, where Julie, the teacher said: imagine that you are massaging the floor as you are doing tendus. Thinking in this way frames ballet not as an activity that I do by myself, but rather as a cooperation with the floor, and of course the rest of the world outside it as well.

Every moment of remembering is a moment of mindfulness, and every moment of remembering also makes that moment sacred. Thich Nhat Hanh talks about the notion of interbeing, where we see that the cow that brings the milk that produces the yoghurt that we eat produces the lesson we teach, and therefore the cow is in the lesson. In this way, everything is a seed for everything else. Every breath we take, we breathe in the oxygen produced by the plants, which connect us to the cosmos and to all other beings. If only I would not forget that, and if only more of us would realize that..

How to travel by train in Europe

 Since climate change is real and academics are increasingly starting to think about how to reduce their carbon impact, I have started to work on taking the train more frequently for trips within Europe. It is always an adventure but certainly not always easy. In this blog, I will describe the things I learnt so far.

Booking

• The first hurdle for train travel is booking. In contrast to flights, trains are not actually working with a unified booking system, which means that often for across-border travel you need to connect with various railway companies to book. I found that for the trips I have made, usually bahn.de has very comprehensive booking options. Another solution is to book with companies such as https://www.thetrainline.com I have not tried it, but someone I know has good experience with it. If you find that a ticket is not available with one railway company, it's often worth checking out whether it is available with another company. Some particular finds I have done in this department:
• in general, when a particular train is not available, try booking alternatives to find out what is and is not available. For example, what happens if you change the dates to further away and closer in advance? What happens when you change the booking to a different train station (for example, try one halfway the journey, because it may be you need to book the remainder with a different company)? This separate booking can allow you to find tickets. The reason this works is that different tickets of different companies typically become available at different times.  For example, for a trip to Poland I was able to book the intercity portion of the trip on https://www.bahn.com/en, and then had to wait to book the local tickets on the Polish website until only a few weeks before the journey. 
• to book an overnight train, you may need to book specifically with https://www.nightjet.com/#/home. I have now taken one of these overnight trains, booking an actual sleeping compartment, and the experience was veyr good. My compartment had a little sink, and a good toilet and shower were available in the wagon. There were separate male and female compartments, and the conductor was very nice. When you book these early, it's also quite affordable. The website also had good information about what train stations are and are not available and why. For example, when I tried to book Italy this summer, it was possible to go to Bologna, but not to some other Italian train stations due to engineering works. Once I figured this out, I booked the overnight train with  https://www.nightjet.com/#/home, the train further to the Netherlands with https://www.bahn.com/en and the trains in Italy with https://www.trenitalia.com/.
• When I tried to book a ticket to Poland, I had a lot of trouble: many of the websites I tried would show a trip, but then error out right before getting the ticket. Eventually I found that https://www.intercity.pl/en  allows you to buy intercity tickets in Poland. Although the website is only in Polish, you can use it in Google Chrome to automatically translate it. This still doesn't work for local trains in Poland, which need to be booked with https://bilkom.pl/
• One other booking hack is to make sure you leave plenty of time for important connections, especially when those involve different railway companies. This ensures that when there is a delay, you have less stress because you most likely will still be able to make it. And it also makes the journey more pleasurable, because you can visit some cities along the way and roam around a little or find a nice spot to have a good meal.

Travelling by train

• For travelling by train, I found it invaluable to download the apps of the respective train companies to my phone (for Italy I used the trenit app, which is in English, and gives detailed connection information). These apps give you information about whether the train runs on time, what platform you are arriving on or departing from, and what services are available at train stations. Importantly, when there are delays, these apps can allow you to find alternative connections (the bahn.de app is one that is particularly helpful for this. I also found this really helpful when travelling by train in India. Without an app (I used railyatra), finding the track is very hard, especially at New Delhi railway station, and with it, it's easy-peasy, and you even get real-time updates on whether the train is on schedule.
• Make sure you double- and triple-check the timing of the trains before you leave. Sometimes track works or accidents cause changes in departure times of trains. Often the railway companies warn you about this, but it may get lost and better safe than sorry. 
• Make sure to leave sufficient time when you arrive in the train station to find the relevant track. Sometimes the track organization is quite confusing, e.g., in Poland, but also some other stations such as Munich and Firenze.
• When making long train trips, it's also worth paying attention to whether there is food on board or whether you need to bring some. In the Netherlands there is pretty much never catering, but in the German ICE (high speed) trains the catering is quite nice. If there is no catering, it's worth bringing some food with you or buying it at a train station. In France you need to pay particular attention, because the catering services may be on strike. A positive exception of this is the Eurostar, where you even get served a small meal and a drink (at least in Standard Premier and up).
• Particular learning moment for Eurostar (train between Europe and the UK through the channel tunnel): they have some luggage requirements and actually scan your luggage similar to airports. I sadly lost a small knife, which I use to cut up fruits and vegetables, in this process. So if you travel Eurostar, check the luggage guidelines before you go. Other than that the train is a very pleasant experience.

• 

  ballet class on Berlin railway station

  Sometimes you need to break up your journey for a connection by bus or metro. For example, Paris has multiple train stations, and you often need to take the metro or RER to get to another station. Leave plenty of time for that because it often involves substantial walking. Bus connections are often due to track works. In my recent trip to Italy, this was quite confusing, but by asking people, I was able to work this out without a problem. It's actually a really nice way to meet people!
• When your train gets delayed and you miss a connection, this is where things get complicated. Often it's worth asking the train conductor what to do. Sometimes your train app also gives an idea. In France, I found that I needed to go to the SNCF office at the arrival station, queue up and get a ticket for the new train. In this case it was quite helpful to already have searched a new connection on the SNCF app so this could be handled very efficiently. For Germany, you technically also need to go to the Bahn.de office to get a replacement ticket, but in my most recent trip I just boarded the alternative train and explained my situation to the conductor, who proceeded to check the situation to verify my story and let me on without a problem. 

After the trip

• If you have been delayed, many companies give you some kind of reimbursment. In some cases, e.g., the French SNCF, this information is even given when you get delayed in your actual train app with a link to the form you need to use to claim compensation. 

Despite all the challenges, I just want to emphasise that travelling by train is a great experience. You actually get to move your body during the trip, meet interesting people, and I often find the train one of the best places to work (especially when I book a first-class ticket, which especially on the German railways is quite affordable when you book early). In one of the pictures you can see me doing a small ballet class on a train station in Berlin. Moreover, it's really fun to watch the landscapes change as you proceed on your train journey!

Me in my little bed on the nightjet train

Cross-training for an adult ballet dancer, aka, how did I get such big arm muscles?

I discovered I can do ballet on
my balcony here at IIT
Roorkee in India

 Today I am writing a bit of a different blog: one in which I discuss my cross-training regime as an adult amateur ballet dancer. This blog is inspired by some funny experiences I have had. For example, last Summer, when I went to the bloodbank to donate blood, the lady behind the desk asked me whether I go to the gym a lot because I have such pronounced arm muscles. I told her that I mainly do ballet, and actually never set foot in a gym (other than to do ballet when I am travelling). She probably was not quite expecting that answer, and the next time I showed up to the blood bank she remembered that I was the ballet person. But all jokes aside, I do know I have quite pronounced arm muscles, quite unintentionally actually. How did this come about?

I think the story started many years ago when I still took class with Kip Martin in Philadelphia and I took a conditioning class for dancers. I noticed I sucked at pushups, so I figured I had to get better at those I just had to practise them. So I started to do about 18 pushups every morning (don't know where I got the number from, but somehow this is the magical number). It's great for several reasons: first of all, it's good to do something you don't really like first thing in the morning--then it can only get better from there and it trains your willpower (although the science on willpower is shaky, so I don't want to make claims that are too confident). Secondly, it's a great way to quickly warm up your body, especially on a cold day. And of course, slowly you will get better at it, and develop some muscles. It's amazing how far a little every day can go. 

In addition to this, I also work on muscle strength with a weekly ZhemFit class. ZhemFit is a type of fitness developed by Alexander Zhembrovskyy, former principal dancer with Dutch National Ballet (among others). It's a very challenging class, especially because you repeat the exercises many times. This has the advantage that you not only work the muscles, but also have the time to figure out the mechanics of movements. I found it to be very helpful to learn to better control my legs. Note that these classes are not just for dancers--in fact when I take an in-person class it consists of mostly non-dancers. But I am very happy they now have a website where you can take video classes.

Apart from ZhemFit, I also regularly like to practice Kniaseff floorbarre. My teacher India Rose likes to say it's a bit like programming your body into the right patterns so they are there when you stand up and actually practise at the barre. Also in India's class I very much enjoy the fact that she repeats the exercises a lot so that you not only get warm, but also have the time to figure out the coordination, which she facilitates by giving lots of detailed instructions. India teaches Zoom classes, and she also has a few on-demand classes with Broche Ballet.

Finally, I like to do prepointe classes with Broche Ballet, even though I have been on pointe for many years. Prepointe teaches a lot about how to use your toes, how to strengthen your toes and ankles, and how to coordinate all of that, Sometimes I feel like it's such a long way from my brain to my toes, and it's fascinating how hard it is to figure out these coordinations. But of course, everything gets easier with practice. So there you have it: my cross-training regime!

My productivity routine

 As I always find I have too little time, I am also continually experimenting with my productivity routine. In case it is useful for others, let me share what I have currently converged on. The main trick with productivity is that you need to keep an overview of tasks on different time scales--years/months, weeks and days. For each of these time scales, I tend to use a different tool. Before diving into that, let me also mention that sometimes I cringe a bit by the term "productivity" because it has this strong capitalist focus that everything has to be completely efficient, forgetting the human dimension of things. Nevertheless, if you want to do good, productivity is important as well, because it helps you accomplish the goals you have and make the most use of your talents for the benefit of all. So productivity is also quite compatible with altruistic values.

The obligatory ballet picture ;-)

My weekly overview of tasks

Until this year, I felt quite happy with my data-to-day management, but I felt like I was losing an overview of the biggest tasks, so this is why I started creating a gantt chart (see picture) to keep track of large projects and events across the whole year. This also allows me to keep track of conference and grant deadlines. Then every week, I am using this "Eenvoudig leven agenda" (Simple Living Calendar) that I mentioned before. At the beginning of the week I check my gantt chart for the big picture tasks, and copy those in my weekly tasks section. I have subdivided those into 5 sections: organization, grants, supervision, teaching and papers, in line with the main requirements of my job. I enter tasks according to these subdivisions (see picture). For example, for organization I have every week "make planning". For teaching, it may include "prepare lecture" or "grade assignment 2". At the beginning of the week, I then try to plan those tasks in my calendar at times that I don't have other responsibilities. This allows me to have a reasonable idea of what I can accomplish. I also try to ensure that I have some "free time" every day in which email can be dealt with and unexpected tasks. One trick I really like is to reduce the volume of such unexpected tasks by asking students ahead of time when they expect to complete things, which would require my feedback. In then book slots in my calendar to give them feedback at those times. This benefits the student, because they have a more strict deadline, and it benefits me, because I won't be able to book that slot in my calendar with more meetings (and in my career stage, meetings are the things that tend to completely overcrowd my calendar--sometimes I feel like I am in a continuous fight against meetings, even though I also enjoy talking to my lovely students and colleagues. It's just that this makes it hard to get anything done). Then finally, at the beginning of every day I check what's in my calendar, what things did not get done previously, and I make a todo list for that day. The most satisfactory bit is crossing off things of my todo list!

Extract from my gantt chart, which is still work in progress. Different colors reflect different kinds of things: teaching courses, grants, PhD students. Every column in this Excel document is a week of the year. I so far have only done it for this year, but when I find some time I want to add more years so I can already write in commitments for upcoming years.

People who know me may wonder where ballet fits in all of this. So far I talked about work. This is very simple: ballet classes have been booked already in my calendar with the "repeat weekly" feature, so they are automatically scheduled as appointments with myself, which I pretty much never skip.

A related tip on time management is that I really like touse the toggl app. This is an app that runs on your desktop, and which you can use to track how much time you spend on tasks. This is very insightful to get an idea of how much time you spend on tasks (right now I am using it as well to see how long the blog writing takes). This allows me to improve the realism of my time estimates for tasks over time. I also use that at the beginning of every week to review the preceding week, together with the review pages of the calendar (see picture). In the review pages you write down how much you achieved your goals, what challenges you faced, and how that relates to your habitual tendencies, as well as how you feel about the preceding week. Last but not least, it reminds you every week to "take a moment to love yourself. So important!" This is especially important as it remains a continuous struggle to avoid overloading myself because I am just too interested in things, and also really enjoy being helpful. So it is important to keep a sense of humor and not give up.

The weekly review section in which you can reflect on the past week. Initially I would never do that because I felt I did not have time, but actually  it can be done in a few minutes. And taking a moment to reflect is really helpful so you can learn from your mistakes  but also appreciate what you managed to do.

Finishing the Lojong series with applause--or maybe not?

 I think we humans are hard-wired to look for other people's approval, maybe especially those of us on social media. This is where the last slogan of Lojong, number 59, is interesting: it encourages us to "do not expect applause". 

Waiting for applause at the end of this variation at
Morlaix ballet camp 
Picture by Michel Le

The reason that social media is so addictive is that by posting something we can accumulate other people's approval in the form of likes and probably dopamine in a way that is much faster and easier than other ways of accumulating people's approval that require actions in the real world. 

There is obviously nothing wrong with seeking approval--it is actually quite adaptive and when it does not work, it is associated with mental disorders such as depression (where the reward and reward learning system are blunted) and addiction (where rewards other than the drug of addiction are blunted). Yet, if we rely only on other's approval for our happiness then we are in shady territory because we cannot control it. This is why I very much appreciate the Buddhist idea of focusing more on motivation than on outcome (including the outcome of approval): you can control your motivation but the outcome is mostly outside your control.  I think that's also what slogan 59 encourages us to do.

Maybe sitting meditation itself is an example of a practice not focused on doing, waiting for rewards, but rather on being. We are encouraged to actively notice how a certain way of being makes us feel, so slowly the being rather than doing becomes more rewarding. Once you have spent more time paying attention to your own internal landscape, it therefore also becomes easier to motivate yourself based on your intention and the process itself than the outcome. Nevertheless, it does require quite a lot of self-confidence to ignore other people's applause, but if you keep practising, bit by bit, your confidence grows, together with your stable happiness that comes from inside. A beautiful place to end this series! Maybe next time you are hoping for applause, you can ask yourself: "do I really need it?"

Some tricks for managing strong emotions

 I think the next Lojong slogan, number 58, is the reason that the stereotype of a Buddhist is a very peaceful person. This slogan namely says "don't be temperamental." An important Buddhist value is being relatively equanimous, which means you don't easily get angry or display other strong emotions. Just like the previous slogan, I think it is important to avoid suppressing emotions, because in the long run, that is not going to fly. Nevertheless, it is beneficial to try to avoid getting too much caught up in the emotions.

The dancers of Morlaix Ballet Camp putting on 
a chuckle at the end of the first act of Napoli
Picture by Michel Le

In my previous blog I mentioned how Khandro Rinpoche talked about keeping it short when emotional reactions come up. For me there are two strategies I use to shorten when emotions come up. First of all, I literally dance with it, if I am in a place where that's possible. Secondly, I will use the Buddhist teachings on emptiness: examining the nature of circumstances you see how these emotions are just ever-changing manifestations in a continuous dance of things rising and ceasing. Whatever evokes the emotion is usually conveniently put in our mind as the only cause of our anger, but if you think about it, they are also at the mercy of all these circumstances, so it is actually quite unfair to point at them for being the only cause for these emotions. Probably somewhere in there we too are to blame as well. Somehow changing perspective this way really helps me create some mental space, and frequently a chuckle as well.

It is worthwhile to think about how to manage your strong emotions, because they can create a lot of trouble. For example, for me, when people get angry I get quite stressed, and cannot think so well anymore. There is interestingly also some research on this, showing for example how more angry managers in companies were associated with reduced ability to learn from failure. This is quite consistent with my experience, where an environment where a teacher explicitly says it is OK to fail helps a lot (thanks Julie Gill for mentioning it is OK, and even good to wobble and fall over in balancing class because this is how our body learns). In short, managing strong emotions takes quite some effort, but in the end it makes our life a lot easier.