November 2016 – ian leahy

How much money do street performers make?

Are you wondering how much money street performers or buskers make? I can only speak for myself. I think a lot of people lie or don’t want to tell the truth about what they make.

I asked a few in San Francisco before I started and they didn’t seem to want to tell me, one did and another I think told me a lie. Then I found a video on Youtube with the title “Make $800 a day as a street performer”.

That’s a good click bait title. But obviously a lie if you watch the video and read the comments.

It really depends on you and what you do and how you do it. I make anywhere from $0 an hour to $20 an hour. But really most of the time the average is probably a bit less than $10 an hour.

It’s not lucrative for the most part. I have made over $130 bucks in a day on several occasions, but that came with like 7-8+ hours worth of work.

Some days suck and I might go out there and spend an hour and make no money.

It’s also up and down and erratic. A lot of it can depend on the time of the year, the time of the day and day of the week. Relatively few people tip (a small percent).

The more of a crowd that you can gather, the more you ask for money then the more money you can make.

How To Meditate – Using Your Breath

Here is a simple guide on how to meditate using your breath. This is a basic meditation. One of the first things that you will need is an alarm.

If you are just starting off I’d say it’s best to start with a few minutes. Let’s say 5 minutes for starters or you could try two if that’s daunting.

I have practiced yoga for 16 years and have been meditating about 40 minutes a day since 2009-ish.

I highly recommend that you start it now and remain disciplined about your practice.

It’s like anything if you want results you have to be consistent.

You breath controls your emotional state. Your breathing is different if you are happy vs. angry or depressed vs. calm.

So to meditate:

Sit somewhere comfortable.
Straighten your back.
Relax your body and face.
Inhale slowly through your nose.
Pause.
Exhale slowly through your nose.
Continue until your alarm goes off.

My 2nd Jiu-jitsu Competition – Facing fear

It’s kinda scary. You feel those nerves starting to twitch days before the competition whenever you start to think about it. Come the day you start to think why am I doing this? I don’t have to do this.

But you do it. And it’s pretty intense cause the other guy is probably just as scared and is trying to throw you, choke you or get you in a shoulder or arm lock.

Here’s a video of some of the highlights from the competition.

I got 3 submissions (armbars from mount). If you get the guy to tap out by arm/shoulder lock or a choke then you win.

You can also win by points, but they are secondary to a submission. Certain positions are considered more dominate and you can get points from those like mount, back, side control.

Then you can get points from sweeps (going from bottom to top) and guard passes (getting out from between the guys legs).

I just focus on trying to get the submission as I think that is more martial art like versus a sport.

I won 3 and I lost one by points.

The guy I lost to had a wrestling background. He was pretty athletic. He won because he got 4 points for a mount position, but I got out. I had only 2 points from a hip sweep.

My friends said I was only a second away from winning. I just got my leg out but just a hair of a second too slow as the buzzer went off.

I guess losing is not really a loss. For one he didn’t submit me. So losing by points is not like losing from tapping out and avoiding a broken arm. It’s a game.

It’s still not quite as tasty as a win, but there’s something to learn from it. I saw my technique for guard passing towards the end to be pretty sloppy and there were a few things I would do differently.

It’s more intense than practice. You get tired really quickly if you are going 100%.

It’s cool to watch the matches over and over again. You can see what you did wrong and what you can do better next time.

My judo throw

I did do one judo throw called harai goshi and followed it with an armbar. You can see it in the video above at 1:36.

Face your fears

That’s why I did it. That’s what my teacher said was incentive to do it.

It’s a lot more intense than class. It’s more like a real fight with a few rules.

It’s scary, but fun.

I got nervous, but being around your friends makes it fun too. And then after our teacher took a bunch of us out to Chinese. It was a great time.