ian leahy

It’s been about 6 weeks since I first started on November 2, 2013. I dabbled with Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu back in 2009 while in Korea. This time I signed up for a year of classes. I wanted to make a long term commitment and it was cheaper than paying monthly. I plan on keeping a monthly report. This one is a little late.

I have been going about 4 times a week. I am getting beat up and getting quite a few bruises and scrapes on my feet. My knuckles are a little sore from all the grabbing. There’s been a few twists or minor sprains such as to my knee, ankle, and thumb. I expect those to continue to heal as I have been taping them before class.

What have I learned?

It’s kinda of hard to see my own progress, but I must have learned something if my instructor Romelo Melo gave me a stripe on my white belt. He does a great job. I am constantly sparring with people with more experience.

When sparring I often only have a vague idea of what can be done. I have an idea on how to do a couple different armbar joint locks and vague ideas on a few chokes: collar chokes, a triangle choke and a bow and arrow choke. Implementing them in sparring is the challenge as everyone has more experience than myself.

We’ll keep going and report back in a few weeks.

Injuries are a bummer. Not only do they suck when they happen some of them will stick around and bug you later in life. Over the years I acquired quite a few injuries playing basketball, snowboarding (a lot), and doing other activities.

A lot of injuries can be avoided. You just got to chill and focus. For example, if you are a snowboarder (more specifically a freestyle rider) or doing any other extreme sport then you’re entering an arena where there is a lot of risk. There’s a chance that you will get hurt. Life’s dangerous and even more dangerous when you’re doing extreme stuff.

Think about the long term. Is trying a back-flip today really important? Are you doing this to impress someone? Don’t do that.

So I mentioned that I have received a lot of injuries. And for the most part bones heal, but injuries to ligaments do not heal so well.

Here’s a list of some of the injuries that I have received:

1. Sprained ankle (basketball)
2. Torn MCL knee (snowboarding)
3. Dislocated finger (snowboarding)
4. Bruised ribs (snowboarding)
5. Cracked coccyx (snowboarding)
6. Torn rotator cuff (bike)
7. 2 broken noses (basketball and snowboarding)
8. Fractured clavicle (snowboarding)
9. Fractured arm in two places (snowboarding)

What healed and what didn’t so well?

Aside from the last one which was fairly recent all of my broken bones healed o.k meaning they don’t bother me anymore. The arm was in 2012 and my wrist gets sore now sometimes when I do Jiu Jitsu. I suspect that it will get better with time. As my fractured clavicle took about 2 years before I would say that it was 100%.

My ankle is pretty much fine. I sprained it when I was 18 and the only thing I can really say about it is that it is tighter now than the other. Once in a blue moon it might ache momentarily.

My left knee healed somewhat o.k after the MCL tear, yet within a few years the doctor told me I had developed patella tendinitis in it. That was on and off for a number off years then I twisted my knee again snowboarding and really I can say that I probably still have patella tendinitis. So my knee has bothered me fairly continuously since that MCL tear which was in (’96). Bothers me means that it doesn’t always hurt, but it cannot do squats, bear a lot of weight/activity or do a lot of hills without it hurting.

I am doing a program now to rehab it that includes some stretching, massage and exercises. The thing is when you injure something the whole body is affected. The muscles connected to that area are affected as well. Not only does my left knee hurt, but the muscles in my left quad have atrophied some, the iliotibial band is tight and the muscles in the calve are also sore. So I will continue to rehab it.

So I’d say that the muscles surrounding an injury contain some memory of the injury as they may have been over or under used following the injury.

My dislocated finger is fine yet sometimes a lot of grabbing like in Jiu Jitsu can make it hurt.

The shoulder with the torn rotator cuff is fine most of the time, but again overuse can make it act up to the point where I can’t do push ups or other strenuous activities well. It’s debilitated at the moment from overuse and if it’s like the past it will just go away and it will return to normal. Massage seems to be beneficial.

My advice is to stay healthy and think of the long term.

I don’t think so, yet some people I encounter seem to consider busking/street performing to be the same as begging. Once while I was all painted and dressed up in my garb I had a cop say to me “you can’t panhandle here.” Another beggar once referred me as “us panhandlers.” I told him I don’t consider myself a panhandler.

I think of a beggar or a panhandler as someone who doesn’t do anything except ask for money. A performer is actually doing something. That’s the difference.

If I am a beggar then so is Wikipedia and all the non-profits in the world. How does Wikipedia raise money? Well instead of putting a can out there to collect tips they ask. It’s not any different really. Both a performer and Wikipedia provide a service and then ask for money. Wikipedia provides an information service and performers such as statues, mimes, puppeteers and musicians provide an entertainment service.

There are people out there though that think of it like that. So if you are planning on performing on the street and putting a can to collect tips you’ll encounter that at some time. To some people it’s considered pretty low on the totem pole of status and they’ll look down on you for doing so. But I think it’s pretty cool to see people doing that at least when you like what they are doing.  The bottom line is people appreciate art. So continue to make art and who cares if some snobs think it’s begging.

The amount of money that I make from street performing is irregular. It’s hard to predict what a day will be like. Yet it’s not that irregular. I usually make between $5 and $10 an hour, yet I can make more or less. An hour could pass and you might not make a thing or close to it and those are the lame days, not just because of the money, but also because it’s not any fun without an audience.

That’s  boring, the days when I am making more money are usually the fun days, because they’re active and you connect with people. Usually picking a place that’s busier helps, but it’s not the only ingredient in my book. I have had days that were busy – lots of people out and about, but I didn’t make much.

All of this is coming from my experience as a performer – mime, story teller, mannequin, beatboxer, etc. So it probably won’t be yours. I did meet one trumpet player who made it sound like he made a similar amount.

Should I change the location?

Sometimes changing your location is a good thing. I find it breaks up the energy, so if things aren’t going well then I might try moving to a new spot. You don’t want your energy to go down and get negative. You want to stay positive. So if you think moving may help then do it. Also take a break if you need it. Sometimes I go home to meditate or eat something.

However. sometimes it is not going to make a difference. Like I said before it’s irregular and there are high moments and low ones. So sometimes changing your location isn’t going to help. Sometimes it’s better to sit still and wait because things will improve.

How much do people give street performers and buskers?

In my experience most people will give you a dollar, yet some people will give you their change and every week I get around 5 or 6 $5 bills in tips. On a couple of occasions I was tipped more than $20 by one person. But the average tip for me is over a dollar.

Should you show how much money you have made?

Most of the time that won’t matter. I use a can that people can’t see through. People usually decide how much they are going to tip without looking to see what other people have tipped. A few people though have tipped me just because other people have. Some people have asked how much should they tip. I don’t say anything and usually they’ll tip more because of it.

I have seen people look in my can and say “wow, that’s a lot of money” and then they pull out their wallet and tip. So if you are wondering whether you should leave some bills in your can I’d say it doesn’t matter. It won’t make a big difference. When I take a break I usually take all the cash out of my can and put it in my pocket. It’s probably safer that way too. You don’t want some thief to take your money.

 

I got my start as a street performer in San Francisco in April 2013. All roads lead to street art or die, lol. It was meant to be and was (and still is) exactly what I had to do to survive and quite possibly thrive. I knew San Francisco had potential before I came here, yet I didn’t know exactly what it was. I looked day in and out for two months for a job here while considering teaching abroad again.

I didn’t really find a job that I was interested in or a job that I wasn’t interested in which seemed to be all the above. I was burnt out on looking for a “job”. I saw street performers and talked with a few and just thought if they can do it then so can I. I am creative and I knew I could make it work. Sure I had my doubts and difficulties and still do, yet I applied myself and it worked out.

So there is something with the environment and I knew that SF had something and I was right. I couldn’t do this everywhere. The environment helped me.

How I did it

I looked at my skills and interests and decided to take an interest – beatboxing to the streets. It’s pretty new. I never beatboxed in front of people before and I would say that I am not an expert by any means, but I am learning and getting better. In all honesty I am probably better at other things such as drawing, painting, dj’ing and scratching records. But at the time the dj’ing is not ready to hit the streets (mainly the expense of powering them). Something that I am planning on, but it is not yet ready.

The art is an idea that I have tried a bit on the streets, but you can’t legally sell art without a permit. You can mask it by asking for a donation before you give it yet that takes a lot of energy. Solicitors and cold callers have a pretty high failure rate. I have other ideas for that yet, I decided to focus on the present and in the present as I walk about town I amuse myself by beatboxing.

It’s perhaps a result of not having music – an iPod or my turntables set up at the moment. So I bought a little amp and a mic and I took it to the streets with my can.

How did I do?

Not good, the first few days I tried it I don’t think I made any money and if I did it was just a few dollars. Money was running out what was I going to do? I realized I couldn’t beatbox for long neither before I my ears started to hurt or I got tired, so I had to do something different.

I thought maybe I could tell a story or do a show and integrate it. I also thought I could make a costume for visual appeal. I did so and after a few weeks I started to make some money. It wasn’t much and it still isn’t, yet it’s getting better.

I played around quite a bit with different locations in the city. After a lot of trial and error I found my sweet spot more or less. It turned out to be the neighborhood that I also liked the best more or less. There are two different areas in the city that I found to work for me, yet I prefer one more for a variety of reasons. I make a similar amount of money in both places, but prefer one which is actually a bit less touristy and busy.

Busy is part of the equation of making money, but it is only part of it.

To be continued…

“Never quit” is a catch phrase, yet it’s not very wise and it’s not going to guarantee you success. The truth is that you’ll have to quit some things in life. Take for example smoking, should we not quit that? Or how about relationships. Should we apply that to all of our relationships.

The truth is that there are some things that you should quit and some that you shouldn’t. But how do you know what or when you should quit? Here are two key points to remember:

1. Quitting for the short term is usually a bad idea.
2. Quitting for the long term is usually a good idea.

Is the pain that you are experiencing now worth the light at the end of the tunnel? These thoughts are inspired by Seth Godin’s book The Dip.

 

In my recent experience as a street performer I have realized that people make snap judgements based on very little information. Like Seth Godin said in All Marketers Are Liars people decide before they buy whether they will like something or not. For me as a street artist before people “push play” – the sign I wear on my chest, they have already decided. I can see that by the look on their faces, their attitude and body language.

A few play the role of the critic and immediately cross their arms just as the performance is beginning. They haven’t even seen anything, but they have decided. On the other hand my favorite people to perform in front of are the happy ones. They have smiles on their faces before they “push play”. They have decided as well.

Then there are those who make a snap judgement based on a piece of information. Just a piece. Miss one beat and then suddenly the average joe says, “even I can do better than that.”

Don’t judge a book by it’s cover. Your first impression is like one page in a story. You don’t know the whole story by looking at one page, so if your first impression is poor keep your critic to yourself.

You can’t judge yourself based on other peoples perceptions. Most of the time don’t give up. Know that in the beginning you will fail, but keep the goal on the horizon and don’t let the little stuff knock you of course. If it fails look at it, examine it and know that something must change if you want things to change. You can’t expect things to change if you do not change.

Take a new action, add something, tweak it, etc. Ask yourself why and look at the what, where, and how. Remember to remain objective and don’t let a temporary emotion take over. Keep your eyes on the horizon.

Here’s another technique for dealing with our friend failure. We all fail and we all make mistakes. But those mistakes can’t crush you. They are all part of the process. The process of learning.

Stop saying, “if only I had done this or that.” Stop, “I should have, I could have, etc…” These are known as subtractive thinking. Use additive thinking. Additive thinking focuses on how you can make an improvement or find a solution for the next time. Subtractive thinking reinforces the mistake and additive thinking introduces a positive solution that can be used in the future.