The Thirst Is REAL... Or IS IT?

If you've been reading my blogs or following me on Twitter for a decent amount of time, you know that one thing that I absolutely loathe is overused and misused clichés.  "Swag."  "Don't Judge Me."  "I Deserve ___."  "Hater."  Saying that a door is "open" when it's really just unlocked.  Calling a canned soda "hot" when it's really just at room temperature or not-quite-ice cold.  Ok, I might be getting a bit petty with those last two, but I'm not letting them go, dangit.  Anyway, thanks to Instagram and black Twitter the Twitter Universe, yet another term has crept its way onto my list of terms I love to hate: THIRST.

I first heard the term used in a new context while watching the movie ATL.  During an argument at a house party, Rashad's girlfriend, New-New, calls his ex-girlfriend, Tonya, "thirsty".  Without going to urbandictionary.com, I quickly figured out from the situation that being thirsty means trying too hard to gain someone's attention and, ultimately, their affection.  If you've seen ATL, you know that this wasn't Tonya's first time trying to win back Rashad, and it wasn't her first time getting curved by Rashad, either.  The scene above simply shows how desperate (the non-slang version of thirsty) she was.  

Thirstiness has existed long before we started calling it that.  We see it in our everyday lives, in social media, movies, everywhere.  Men and women alike shamelessly vying for attention, be it from that special someone who doesn't consider them equally special, or just every member of the opposite sex in general.  However, just like the words I mentioned before and more, I think people are reaching a bit with their application of the word.  Really reaching.  I mean like, Go-Go Gadget Arm reaching.

I can't speak to women's experiences with men misinterpreting their actions as thirst (I'm very sure it happens; ladies, feel free to chime in and comment with your point of view), but I have definitely seen numerous cases where women misinterpret certain behaviors from men as thirst.  I could understand if a guy is making unwarranted advances on a lady while she's working out, going through a woman's Facebook or Instagram account and liking 30-teen pictures in the span of 5 minutes, leaving comments on pics she posted 75 months ago, or sending numerous texts without responses (in which case I can't help but give the side-eye to the woman who gave him her digits in the first place, but that's neither here nor there).  That kind of behavior is really obvious and over-the-top, and is definitely thirsty.  However, let's not confuse these desperate actions with genuine compliments and legitimate persistence, which old-fashioned people would consider "chivalry" and "courting".  These are also the kind of actions that most self-respecting women would want to see from a man to convince them that said man was interested.  Sad thing is, even these things are being diagnosed as "thirst" nowadays.  Some women will even take a simple, stand-alone compliment as thirst.  I've seen guys post (what seems to me as) regular, respectful compliments on women's social media pictures, only to have the woman herself, one of her female "friends" online --heck, even other guys-- accuse it of being "thirsty".  Honestly, in the majority of cases I've seen, it's usually not a case of the guys or girls being thirsty, but the accuser needing a reality check.  In my humble opinion, any person who misinterprets thirst in such a way is either a jealous guy, or an insecure woman in need of validation or an ego-boost.

Speaking of seeking affirmation, that leads me to another phenomenon that has spread like wildfire in the world of social media:  thirst traps.  "What the heck is a thirst trap?" you might ask. (Warning: the previous link has scantily clad pictures that I'd rather not actually post, but there's no other way to describe what I'm talking about. Click at your own risk.) A thirst trap is when someone, usually a woman (not saying men don't set thirst traps, I've just never seen one, nor do I care to), posts a picture that is obviously designed to attract attention from the opposite sex, then when the floodgates inevitably open, resulting in craptons of "thirsty" likes and comments, she proceeds to dismiss all her likers and commenters as "thirsty."  When I say "obviously designed to attract attention from the opposite sex", I'm referring to pictures where women have their "girls" hanging out on display, or are taking a bathroom mirror selfie while sitting on the sink in an attempt to amplify their "assets".  Some of these pictures have captions that appear to be innocently calling attention to something else, like "I've been working on my abs, look at my progression!!!" when the girl is in a two piece, and it's obvious that her other parts are more prominent than her abs, or "New pillows on my bed!!!", but the "pillows" on display have a thong between them, and the real pillows are playing the background.  Any person with half an ounce of sense can see that these setters of thirst traps know exactly what they're doing: seeking attention for themselves while disguising it in a way that makes it appear that others are thirsting for their attention.  I dare to say that anyone who sets a "thirst trap" is just as thirsty, if not more thirsty, than the people getting caught in them. 

So yeah... the thirst is indeed real.  Just not as real as some would have us believe. Yes, there are thirsty people out there who legitimately need to be called out on it.  Likewise, there are plenty of people accusing others of thirst who really just need to get over themselves.  

Sweatin' The Technique

A few years ago, I was watching an episode of one of the few TV shows I religiously watch, America's Best Dance Crew.  This particular season, Omarion was one of the judges, along with JC Chasez and Lil' Mama (what qualifies her to be a dance judge is beyond me, but anyway).  Above is a clip of a particular exchange between Omarion and JC that still sticks out to me to this day.  In it, Omarion criticizes the crew that had just performed for not having enough feeling and edge, looking as if they were "trained" to do what they did.  JC disagreed, saying he felt that the dancers indeed performed from their hearts and that there was nothing wrong with being trained.

It's quite possible that JC may have misunderstood Omarion's statement (Omarion interjected that  he "loves training" during JC's rebuttal), but either way, it reminded me of an ongoing battle in the dance world; one that's been raging for generations, most likely.  It's the battle of "Street" dancers vs "Trained" dancers.  Some (not all, but some) so-called street dancers criticize trained dancers for not having enough edge, soul or "flava".  Likewise, some (again, not all) trained dancers look down on street dancers for being sloppy or not having proper technique.

I hate this argument with a fiery passion find these trains of thought to be flawed because they assume that these concepts are polar opposites; mutually exclusive terms with no grey area.  I, for one, refuse to believe that dancing has to be sloppy and unrefined in order to be raw and powerful.  I also can't bring myself to believe that it's impossible for dancing that is polished and refined to truly be "from the heart".  I personally think that these stereotypes are fueled by the fact that there are too many people who embrace one and shun the other.  I would like to believe that I'm a decent mix of both; that I've blended my formal training (what little of it I have, I was two years removed from high school before I ever took a legit dance class) with my own personal style and flava to the point where I don't come across as being an extreme of either.  Even if I'm off in my self-assessment, I've seen plenty of dancers who definitely are a combination of the two.

"Freedom to a dancer means discipline. That is what technique is for--liberation." - Martha Graham.

A few years ago, I was at a local hip hop jam when the DJ played a song that was salsa-able.  One of my friends who was there participating (she would end up being on ABDC herself) had been out salsa dancing with  me before, so I quickly grabbed her for a dance.  As we were dancing, she blurted out "don't be doin' all that technical stuff, I'm a street dancer!!!  I didn't take time out in the heat of dancing to debate her about it, and I didn't show it on the outside, but I was more than a little irked at that comment.  I didn't like that she felt a need to make a distinction between the two.  It also annoys me when people automatically label something as "technical" when that something is simply something they aren't accustomed to doing.  I had the same thing happen when I was dancing salsa with a beginner one night and was teaching her on the fly at her request.  She eventually became frustrated and said "This is too technical for me.  I don't do well with 'technical'.  Go dance with my friend, she does 'technical'".

My biggest frustration, however, was the fact that yet again, there was the assumption that "street" and "technique" don't mix.  What many people don't realize is, everyone who does anything consistently has technique.  Most don't think of it that way because technique is considered something that is formally taught.  However, according to the dictionary (not like anyone uses that to define anything anymore...), technique is simply the way you go about doing something.  So while it may or may not be considered "proper" technique, every dancer has technique or is, dare I say it... "technical".

Whatever it is that we do, we train in it, not necessarily to adhere to some sort of rules for doing what we do, but so that we can be free.  This might seem backwards, because we normally associate technique with rigidness and rules.  And freedom is the last thing that usually comes to mind when we're learning how to do something or being trained in some kind of art or skill.  For example, I have been dancing salsa since 2002, but it wasn't until I joined a dance team in 2008 that my bad posture was pointed out to me.  My posture affected my appearance while dancing (I used to hate how I looked when I watched videos of myself, but never knew why) and also my ability to lead the ladies I danced with.  Of course, I didn't see the bigger picture initially, and all I could think of was the fact that I hated having to think about what I was doing again.  I had to do that back when I was a beginner, and I didn't want to be taken back to that place again.

I eventually embraced it (partially because I got tired of being reprimanded about it, but anyway), working on my posture during and outside of practice.  Eventually, it got to the point where I didn't have to think about it; my improved posture was now ingrained in me.  I was free to just dance again, because I had written the technique into the source code of my actions (sorry, I geeked out there a bit).  That's what training and solidifying a technique does.  It gets you to a point where you no longer have to think, you can just do.  We go from something not being natural for us (For the record, nothing ever is, we all learned what we do at some point.  Whether or not we recall when and how we did so is a different story) to looking like we were born knowing how to do that something.

“Technical knowledge is not enough.  One must transcend techniques so that the art becomes an artless art, growing out of the unconscious.”  - Daisetsu Suzuki

Here's another way that technique ironically gives us freedom.  Consider all the things you see that are manufactured (clothes, cars, buildings, etc).  They all have the same basic structure to them, but depending on which person or company made them, they all have one thing or another that sets them apart from the rest.  The creators all knew the basic foundation of those things, and because they knew the structure and how things work, they were able to "push the envelope", if you will; learning which rules the could bend or break, and when they could do so without compromising their product.  It's the same with anything we're trained in: we learn the rules so that we can break them, but there are --as I tell my salsa students-- rules to breaking the rules.  Rules must be broken with a purpose; you can't just break them because you feel like it.  You can only break so many rules of structure before what you're doing ceases to be what it's supposed to be.

"If you don't master the structure, you have no freedom." - Frankie Martinez 

I say all this to say that I firmly believe in technique and training.  Completely disregarding training and technique would be foolish.  Some scoff at it for the sake of creativity, but I feel that, if anything, training opens the the door much wider for innovation and inspiration, if you allow it to.  It's those who cling solely to their training and never venture out from it that give it a bad name, adding to the stereotype that being trained is synonymous with being boring and lacking feeling.  Some may disagree with me on that, but I, for one, choose to sweat the technique.