Code a Choreography
My childhood dream was to become a performer, a dancer to be specific. I was raised in a small village in Sweden and we did not have a dance school so I took the first best chance I had to move and started my journey in Stockholm. I gave it eight years with focus, determination, sweat and tears. One exchange term in New York, and a lot of money and time invested.
It’s now been four years since I last took a dance class and I still catch myself with counting eight’s in music or standing in first position (balett) when I wait for a bus.
What have all of this to do with code you might wonder. Well at first sight — not so much. But learning something new, whatever that may be is not so different. Learning a new skill takes time, focus and effort. Sometimes you invest money in education or a course. It also takes courage to dare to challenge yourself and most above all, to get up again once you fail. And you will fail, a lot. But if you manage to pick yourself up and continue doing the same thing over and over, it may one day work.
When I started to learn how to code I was a bit scared. I’ve never been extra good at math or languages and that is usually what coding is compared to. So how on earth will I be able to learn this?
I started to think about how it was when I was learning balett. And how in the beginning every dance class was just filled with words I did not fully understand. Pas de bourrée, glissade, assemblé, tendu and many more. I also needed the visual help from watching a teacher and geting help in how to execute each move.
Now it’s data types, functions, methods, state, databases, endpoints etc. And i either turn to my code coaches, colleagues or my best friend google when i need help. And in a way it’s quite similar. For a person who don’t know any programming, or balett it’s just words without any meaning. Which is kind of useless. But if you do know the meaning, the execution and can put them together — you can create magic.
I think that is the reason why i in a strange way, actually feel that i am dancing again. I am composing a choreography, it’s just a little bit more digital now.
