We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Amy Kubat a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.
Amy, thanks so much for taking the time to share your insights and lessons with us today. We’re particularly interested in hearing about how you became such a resilient person. Where do you get your resilience from?
My resilience, my ever lasting motivation to keep moving forward, comes from a complicated childhood, with a Dad who did not want to be a Dad, and a Mom who took on both roles without help from her family. Growing up without resources and easy cash flow, my Mom was constantly problem solving and it instilled in me that it’s really up to me to carve out the life I want. It’s up to me if I give up. It’s up to me to recognize my problems and solve them. There’s always another river leading to that ocean and it’s up to me to find a different river when the one I was on has dried up. I also feel I have an innate optimism and confidence in myself that lends to my resilience. I truly believe that life is happening for me to reap the benefits, if only I find the right avenue. And I have always felt that I could do anything I put my mind to. I am very good at learning anything I study, so shifting my path to a completely different one is not an uncommon thing for me to do.
Thanks, so before we move on maybe you can share a bit more about yourself?
I have been training as a professional dancer since I was 18 in 2004. I’ve worked and danced in Massachusetts, New York, Vermont, and California. I love dancing, and I’ve used it as a deeply needed emotional expression since I was 8, but I really love researching and nerding out on the science of dance. Anatomy, Somatics, the Physics of dance technique, and how the body works. That’s the never ending well of joy for me and my dance career. I have been a dance teacher in many genres at studios, I’ve been a director, I’ve been a curriculum writer, I’ve been dance faculty in higher education, but I’m starting to feel a deeper need to talk and share about the nuances of training and working in dance, both stressful and traumatic and also joyful and satisfying. While I was getting Masters in Fine Arts in Dance, I started studying, quite deeply, the three nervous systems, or as I call them, the three brains of the body (the brain, the heart and the gut). And how there is so much more going on with dancers than just treating our bodies like an instrument. So, I’ve partnered with my close friend and colleague, Eileen Kielty, to create a podcast called M.O.V.E. with Eileen and Amy. We talk about all the topics that might come up with a dance focused theme. And it always and never surprises me that all the topics we discuss can apply to non dance life, too. I am also currently collaborating with another friend, Tori Olney, to create a Boudoir Photography Company called Hot & Bothered Boudoir. One of my favorite things about dance is it’s potential to bring empowerment and trust and celebration to people, and I want everyone to feel that sense of empowerment, especially when it comes to people’s sexuality and sensuality.
Looking back, what do you think were the three qualities, skills, or areas of knowledge that were most impactful in your journey? What advice do you have for folks who are early in their journey in terms of how they can best develop or improve on these?
One of the qualities that I have leaned on the most is never being afraid to try something completely new. Like forget everything, let’s try something totally different. That’s one of the biggest factors in the two businesses I recently started. I am not afraid of being a beginner. I’m not afraid of being bad at something. This goes back to my undying confidence in myself. I know I may not know everything, or know most things, but I KNOW I can learn. Speaking of learning–another quality that I use all the time is being comfortable with being in process. I am in love with and obsessed with the process of building something. I do not believe in ‘arriving’ or ‘finishing’. I have had to unlearn my perfectionism tendencies and what that has done is made me see that everyone and everything is always in process of becoming or unbecoming. That takes a lot of pressure off of me to immediately know what I’m doing and to do it ‘perfectly’. The last skill that I’ll name is my tendency toward collaboration. Don’t get me wrong, I love independent play, and group projects can be the worst, but I see all of us as holding our own puzzle piece to the bigger picture, and we can’t benefit the people outside of us if we keep their contributions and skills and ideas at arms length. I love working with people because it makes my work so much more than I could make it on my own.
Any advice for folks feeling overwhelmed?
When I feel overwhelmed with the amount of study or work I have to do, or the lack of success I’m feeling, I use my research in the three brains to help me connect back to my body. I breathe long, deep breaths, usually through the nose, I highly recommend the book Breath: The New Science of a Lost Art by James Nestor. You’ll learn just how vital breathing properly can be to calming anxieties. My studies in Somatics, or the internal experience of the body, as opposed to the mind, has also given me tools to be aware of where in my body I’m feeling the overwhelm and I can choose the right movement to help my symptoms (ie. stretching, strength training, hiking in nature, rolling out my knots). Movement and physicality is my number one attempt to ease my overwhelmed mind. The last thing I do to help my cycles of overwhelm is remind myself that this feeling is probably cyclical. I can plan, journal, attempt to fix the problems coming up, but ultimately there is also a sense of ‘this is temporary’ that I comfort myself with.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://movewitheileenandamy.buzzsprout.com/
www.hotandbotheredboudoir.com - Instagram: @amyreah
@hot_and_bothered_boudoir
@movewitheileenandamy
Image Credits
Jordan Kubat, Cal State Fullerton, Ashley Cook
