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Building A Professional Flow Arts Team – Part Two
Feb
Building A Professional Flow Arts Team – Part Two
If you’ve put yourself out there and gotten some attention, set up a practice session and people showed up, congratulations! You now have a flow arts team! Though you have only just crossed the threshold, now comes the challenge; keeping yourself and your team together long enough to go pro. Here’s some perspective of what you can expect to experience and some insight of how to enjoy the process of growth, individually as well as collectively.
Start Slow
Start slow, get to know people, don’t rush anything.
Creating a flow arts team from scratch and training people is often an easier route than working with experienced fire spinners if you have a trajectory for your team. I think many people just want to get a bunch of epic fire spinners together to create a team, which I find only comes to what it is, a bunch of people hanging out doing fire spinning. You may get some tricks and some routines, but at a certain point, people are going to have a hard time committing to your plan and schedule, then when money gets involved it becomes even more challenging.
If you have a vision, you can communicate it with everyone straight away and those who are into it will commit and those who aren’t won’t. One way or another, you will need to speak your truth and your vision; you will need to lead the team and keep leading them. Patience is key as initial growth will be slow. Take this time to warm up to each person and create a lasting bond that will span beyond just fire spinning. Believe it or not but you are creating more than just a team; what I call a “friend-family”. There will be ups and there will be downs, it’s your job to keep and even keel on it all and keep yourself and everyone focused on the next step.
Allocate Your Resources
Configure what supplies you have, as well as what supplies you will need. I choose poi as my prop of choice for its versatility, ease in transporting, as well as affordability to make practice props (sock poi are cheap or free to make!). Recognize all you have and make a plan for keeping track of it, as the more people, the more props and supplies, the easier it is to get scattered. I suggest being in charge of all the supplies and just have your crew responsible for their own props, nothing else. I found after experiencing many different crews, that it is overall easiest for the supplies to remain under one roof, so you can keep an eye and direct the resources. Get clear with everyone as to who is responsible for what and then keep it that way. Poor communication is the number one killer of any relationship.
Celebrate small victories!
Give gratitude for every step you take and bring attention to everyone else’s small successes. Whenever anyone gets a new trick, congratulate them. Get stoked out over the arranging of a choreography, be it solo, dual, or more. Show respect for everyone and everything, as best you can, and keep yourself fundamentally proud for your initiative as well as your persistence to keep at it.
Would you like specifics on your own circumstances? Reach out to us for some training to create yourself and others into outstanding professional flow artists!
Yours in flow,
Jesse Hart of Full Circle Phenomenal
A Sacred Flow Art Community Blogger
