May Updates!

I know its been a while and I haven't kept you guys up to date with my events recently and haven't told you about the past couple of trips I have done recently. So I will share with you guys some exciting moments from my last three trips starting off with San Francisco.

By the way just to keep you guys in the loop on my academic life. The day after I had gotten back from Italy I had a final exam for my business law class. I got all my grades in and this has been the best semester ever. I went from a 2.5 GPA last year to a 3.18 GPA this year. Now I only have five courses left...lets see how long it will take me before I graduate... ☺

San Francisco, CA May 1-5, 2008

One of the most beautiful cities I have ever been visited. The scenery, the atmosphere, and the overall structure truly makes it a wonderful city to visit. If you have not been before I highly suggest it. I went down to SF because I was invited to perform at a school in Bolinas a small beach town one hour North or S.F. Bolinas is a hidden paradise where locals chop down the "Welcome to Bolinas" sign every year to hide the beautiful town from to much tourism. As I mentioned before in my previous blog I had been invited to Bolinas to meet a 6-year-old boy named Garnett with Arthrogryposis, which is the same condition I have. In Garnett's case it has affected him in his legs as well as in his arms. After meeting him for the first time I had felt an immediate connection as if he were like my little brother. The first evening we hung out and got to know each other better. Then we worked on a dance routine to show off to his whole school the next day. Friday afternoon I spoke at the school and Garnett and I got to perform our choreography together. I taught him some basic steps and then he slid under his walker and I hopped over it and we both finished in a freeze. The crowd was goin crazy for both of us. Later that evening Garnett's mother Maitreya threw a party for her stepfathers birthday and us and we danced all night. I was happy to meet Garnett and I know we both learned a lot from each other. He had some pretty cool moves and if he continues to dance he will become L'il Lazylegz hehehe...
On Saturday I went back into San Francisco to meet up with Tommy Guns the one legged dancer from ILL-Abilities. We found out about a battle in San Jose and Kid David one of Tommy's crewmates from Renegades was judging the battle and offered to drive us there. We got to the battle not certain whether we were goin to enter or not, but then I finally convinced Tommy to battle it was a 3on3 and we were goin to enter just the two of us as LazyGuns and right before getting on the floor to battle we had a friend named Lancer battle with us. We got all the way to the finals and came in 2nd place. It was a fun battle and it was good to battle with Tommy again...but next time we will come in 1st haha...

Check out this link to one of our battles, I think it was in the first round.
http://youtube.com/watch?v=HBsYXvIkWFQ

The next day Tommy and his wife Lino took me out to visit a little of San Fran and we went out to the Harbor. We met up with Jed Klemow our Director filming the ILL-Abilities Documentary and did some interviews in some cool locations.
I had an amazing time in the Bay Area and I cannot wait to go back.

Toronto May 9-11

I went down to Toronto to Judge a UNITY Charity event. One of my good friends Mike Prosserman aka Piecez is the head of this charity and he invited me for this event as a special guest. The purpose of this charity is to keep Hip-Hop away from Violence and this event was a talent show with finalists from many High Schools in the greater Toronto Area. The grand prize for this winner was a $1,000 scholarship and an opportunity to perform on Stage at a major concert this summer.
It was a very difficult event to Judge because there was so much talent that night I wish I could give everyone the prize. I almost felt like Simon Cowell from American Idol because the judges had to give all the contestants feedback on their performance in front of everyone. Much pressure...much pressure.
After the event I spent the weekend at Piecez house, because it was his birthday and his dad had planned a surprise party for him. He was surprised even though there were some instances myself as well as other of his friends felt we might of slipped the surprise.

Toronto May 22-24

I had came back to Toronto for a second time this Month and this time it was to perform at the Bloorview Kids Rehab Center on Thursday and the Transitions Conference on Friday.

On Thursday's performance I landed in Toronto and went straight to Bloorview. I performed for about 150 children in the school. It was an amazing experience to meet some of the children there and I shared my story put some music on and got a bunch of the kids to dance. I also invited one of my Friends Melanie Mcpherson an old student at Bloorview with Cerebral Palsy who is planning on becoming the first disabled woman Pilot. She is also in the Canadian Sledge Hockey team and is working in her career as a Motivational Speaker. So I invited her to come out and speak to the kids to share her story as well. The kids loved both of us and we had an amazing time. Check out this article written about the event on a local Toronto Community Paper...There's a really cool picture.
http://www.insidetoronto.ca/Lifestyle/Arts/article/48740

On Friday I performed for the Transitions Conference Downtown at the Sheraton Hotel. It was an honor for me to be invited as the Key Note Speaker; the event was a big success. Many people came from all across Canada to participate in this conference. The main theme of the Conference was Participation and integrating the disabled community into everyday activities. Again I met some really cool people at this conference definitely plan on crossing paths with several volunteers, and participants of the conference.

--  So this is it for now. My next big trip is in Germany next week. Where I will be performing at a Festival who theme is with Hand and Feet. I will be teaching two workshops, performing with a live percussion group called the BeatStompers, and will be performing for the first time ever a 10 minute Solo Contemporary/Breaking Choreography which has been choreographed by my good friend K8 "Lynx" Alsterlund. More on that...next Blog