Once again, Skin in the Game is described as taking some kind of risk; in Stevens' case in service of the art, the music, the listener, the singers, and himself. In service of the third entity; the actual entity that sits with a life, between all these individual entities. And being vulnerable in the name of authenticity and in the name of creating the very best experience of the music for all the players.

Being a conductor and a composer is a special niche of humanity, yet it relates to any of us who are trying to bring things together in the service of beauty, art and muse.

You will also hear the peculiar habits of non-Japanese in Japan who pepper their language with Japanese words without a second thought and also how we tend to mix and match, forgetting our English words from time to time!

We talk about the Muses, the Greek Chorus and the concepts of time Kronos and Kyros, Kronos being the currently culturally popular time of linear time; the time of clocks and calendars; it can be quantified and measured. Kronos is linear, moving inexorably out of the determinate past towards the determined future and has no freedom. Kyros is numinous. Kyros is a time of festivals and fantasies; it cannot be controlled or possessed. Numinous means "arousing spiritual or religious emotion; mysterious or awe-inspiring"; also "supernatural" or "appealing to the aesthetic sensibility”. We muse on how the art emerges from these numinous timelines and the conditions one can create in order to nudge the muse or to find one’s way into creation. Steven tells the story of how after 7 months of being unable to finish a score, from the outdoor bath of the local onsen, a visitation had him scurry home to complete his work of art. I wonder how I or we can create these conditions for creativity to enter, or for the muse to deliver the next piece of our art.

Steven describes himself as ‘the Young Sheldon’ of music, compelled to challenge authority figures if he thought that there were teaching inaccuracies.

Steven also talks about Darma - something he studied with a Swami who coincidentally lives ten minutes from me in Zushi (I’ll chalk this up to the Ordinary Magic). This is not a popular or well-known neighborhood at all.

Back in the world of Kronos Time, Steven has done many many tens of thousands of hours of musical devotion, starting at music school, where he sang at least 7 times a week and where the academic tutors were told to never give more than 30 minutes homework to these choral students, lest their practice be interrupted. While Steven described this as ‘enlightened’ he also acknowledged there may be downsides and it put me in mind of neurodivergent folk getting accommodations in school or in work. Enlightened - bending time and rules in service of the output.

One way to lead a life is through scarcity - through the expectations of others, which is not necessarily a bad thing, but could be vexing to the Spirit. Another way to lead a life is to follow your heart, but the intuitive promotions of the heart and the other ways to lead a life is to listen to everyone else

I know that I get really creative every time I get on the train to Tokyo, sometimes even almost missing my stop as my creative mind works in Kyros, but those pesky trains run on Kronos! Rest, Water, and Transition. Creating conditions for emergence of art. Travel could be typified as the in-between time. Neither here nor there; betwixt and between. A liminal space affording the muses a channel by which to enter our consensus reality.

We talk about the technical elements of music and in addition to the physics of vibrations, the mystical, soulful, impact that these have on our sacred

Kwan Chan - what a man! He is so humble and genuine, I felt peace talking to him. He has this lovely childlike essence coupled with an absolutely mature and mindful approach-building skill and he has incredible body strength - check out his YouTube channel to see his breaking. Skills that apply not only to dance but all areas of life. It was just the conversation I needed to have. Sage wisdom from this fierce and gentle soul. And deep creativity.

I was blown away by his answer to my final question “There are many ways to lead a life - what does that mean to you?"

It’s more than enough to provide quality and value to the people you reach.

In this Podcast you will learn:

• The essence, lineage and canon of breaking and where we feel it;
• The physical manifestation of the spirit and the creative process (for him it isn’t too crazy)
• We learn a lot about the history of dance
• How your physicality can signal dignity - through amazing dance and physicality, we come to conclusions that can relate to writing and other forms of expression
• In talking about his work counselling children in London primary schools, I ask a big question of Kwan about his own reflections - his answer is not won easily but it is beautifully thought out, expressed and revealing. This work is important.

If you enjoyed this episode and it inspired you in some way, we’d love to hear about it and know your biggest takeaway. Head over to Apple Podcasts to leave a review and we’d love it if you would come and say hi over on @sarahfuruyacreative on Instagram.

About Kwan

Kwan Chan was born in Hong Kong and grew up in Toronto. In September 2023, after working in Japan for seven years, Kwan moved to London, UK, to pursue a Master's degree in Dance Movement Psychotherapy at Goldsmiths, University of London. Kwan is a breaker and has been breaking for more than 17 years. Additionally, Kwan is a singer-songwriter and plays the acoustic guitar. In London, Kwan continues to train, compete, and teach breaking, remaining quite active in the local breaking scene. As a singer-songwriter, Kwan frequently performs at open mics throughout the city. Kwan also works part-time in a primary school as a school mentor, providing counselling and supporting students with their mental and emotional well-being.

Links

Apache Sugarhill Gang https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vQObWW06VAM

Give it up and turn it loose James Brown https://youtu.be/921kqkHOHDo?si=u0SN1BJdKZdg42gX

Just begun Jimmy Castor https://youtu.be/WylCcdTrzS4?si=Zkv1UQ0mksWwW1s4

Connect with Kwan

Website: www.kwankchan.com/

Instagram: www.instagram.com/kwankitchan/

LinkTree: www.linktr.ee/kwanchan

Facebook: www.facebook.com/kwanchan91

Connect

In this Creative Musings episode, Sarah Furuya shares her journey of dismantling old beliefs and societal norms, blending humor and insight to highlight the importance of slowing down and redefining success.

Key Highlights:

• Embracing Disobedience and Experimentation: Sarah discusses her recent hiatus for self-care, her current experiment of dismantling outdated cultural and business practices, and the importance of aligning work with personal values.
• The Challenge of Traditional Timelines: She reflects on societal pressures to follow conventional timelines, sharing her experience of breaking free while managing responsibilities like taxes and client commitments.
• Dismantling Indoctrinated Mindsets: Sarah talks about deconstructing deeply ingrained beliefs about work and productivity, influenced by menopause, ADHD, and sobriety, advocating for a sustainable approach to business.
• The Power of Vulnerability and Authenticity: Inspired by Leonie Dawson, Sarah explores balancing personal struggles and professional boundaries, emphasizing authenticity in connecting with her audience.
• Redefining Coaching and Business Practices: She critiques ableist tendencies in the coaching industry and calls for more inclusive, compassionate spaces, shifting from rigid productivity to humane work practices.
• The Long Game of Financial Sustainability: Sarah discusses the financial implications of her journey, including transparent conversations with her husband about their future, remaining optimistic about evolving her work.
• Saunter and Frolic: A New Business Philosophy: Introducing her latest venture, Saunter and Frolic, co-created with Angela Ortiz Pettas, focusing on retreats and workshops prioritizing rest, ease, and genuine connection.
• Cultural and Personal Reflections: Rich with anecdotes and reflections, Sarah draws parallels between her current work and her youth in Liverpool's alternative scene, emphasizing creative expression and community.
• Honoring Influential Voices: Paying homage to figures like Tricia Hersey and Sonia Renee Taylor, Sarah integrates their teachings on rest, resistance, and liberation into her practice.
• Manifesting Dreams and Small Beginnings: Concluding with reflections on nurturing dreams and small beginnings, Sarah envisions a future of inclusive, joyful, and sustainable living and working.

Join Sarah Furuya as she navigates the complexities of dismantling old structures, reimagining success, and creating a business and life resonating with her values.

Listen to the full episode on Creative Musings with Sarah Furuya and join the conversation on redefining success and embracing authentic living and don't forget, limited places but Join Us at the Saunter and Frolic Retreat July 26th to 28th, with Angela Ortiz Pettas.

Learn More and Register

If you enjoyed this episode and it inspired you in some way, we’d love to hear about it and know your biggest takeaway. Head over to Apple Podcasts to leave a review and we’d love it if you would come and say hi over on @sarahfuruyacreative on Instagram.

Links

Connect with Sarah

LinkedIn:

In this episode, we do some serious reminiscing on the good old days when our salary automatically appeared in our account without any effort from us!

Skin in the Game to Victoria Close takes us on a time travel in the episode - into the past to Victoria’s teen business, we visit her early aspirations and how during the time she was selecting what to do. We also travel into future Victoria surrounded by artists and artisans, in a very special place and we dreamed up big, dense, thick, coffee cake that resists a knife.

The Northern British sense of humour comes through strongly in our banter and we have a good laugh at some of the more grandiose terms cooked up in our businesses. We also reminisce about our generation’s particular idiosyncrasies - how skinny jeans were something your Nan would create on a sewing machine. We also touch on GenX politics and the impact of Margaret Thatcher and a bit of working out of things around being a GenX woman with all our opportunity that was set up in the generations before us. Victoria is someone who embraces what she can handle, she is honest and humane in about being a woman is a wonderful mix of optimistic, pragmatic and hilariously cutting about toxic positivity! We laugh out loud a number of times on during this legend - it’s medicine.

Both Victoria and I come from long lines of artisans, a proud lineage whose respect got lost somewhere in the aspirational, but who are claiming their place, with out help. I would like to honour the copper etcher, the tripe seller, the master baker, the seamstress, the cafe owner, the silk weaver and the China painters of our ancestors. in the upwardly mobile aspirational class who might be proud of their fine china but would take no pride in one their own becoming such a manual worker, our paths were set to the academic. Generation by generation. We are reclaiming our magic and our lineage. Both of us are reclaiming our magic and honouring our lineage and the remarkable work of the artisans whose work got lost in the grip of economics.

We talked about the moment Victoria put her skin in the game, took the plunge, left the security of her full time teaching job and planned out how she was going to

Listen out for ‘Tales from the middle aged underwear’ where did that come from? When do we and don’t we want to PULL OUR BIG GIRL PANTS ON. And also if Marks and Spencer want to sponsor the podcast - please get in touch.

We love and honour #bromarketing

At the end Victoria shares a prompt, from #MarieForleo whose B-School we are both graduates from, and also puts a call out for something very specific that she is dreaming up - a dream I got into for her in the future. Listen out for her call - you may know or have something that could be of use. Sorry if you are a brilliant and committed manifester and watch the Secret regularly and vibrate at the same wavelength as pure gold; we are cynical, and YET, the list that she generated from that Marie Forleo prompt was made manifest. I mean she did it, but things happened.

Thank you, Victoria for sharing your Legend

Discover from Victoria

• How she spiraled her way back to her essence
• Our musings on the British class system, the loss of artisans and Northern upward mobility
• What is 100% of what you can give? What made her husband say “You’re over the wall - run for your f#$&1ng life”...
• What is your guilty camera? What is your shaming cyclops? Find out what the heck that means!
• How she approaches learning new tech and using her new camera and how she overcame her perfectionism, and became a filmmaker!
• Her take on the many ways to lead a life? (it brings her to tears).

If you enjoyed this episode and it inspired you in some way, we’d love to hear about it and know your biggest takeaway. Head over to

Joy leads us on a mystical journey through thin places, magical backstreets, tarot, mysticism, poetry, grief and death. day jobs and other jobs. (wait for the ferry story)

There are multi-swears and adult themes in this conversation so please be mindful of who you are listening with. Grandma will love it but your kids…

Joy read two of her poems for us - her poetry is like Shibuya at night; all of it. Neon, concrete, streets, softness, sex, longing, eros, grime and stubble. Her inaugural book of poems Pause::Heartbeat is a visceral trip through Tokyo humanity, pleasure, longing and self. When I first read it I was stunned; 4 years ago, it brought me back to those days of grime, risk, and physicality of being young. The tawdry tales of a life lived fully in the light and dark.

Joy is generous in talking about sobriety and it’s always such a deeply satisfying experience talking frankly with other sober people. Each tale is different but there’s a sameness. There are echoes that reach out into each experience. Her descriptions of the spirals into alcohol dependence, the root of vortices and path to recovery are deeply evocative.

Evocative is a notion that comes up a lot in our conversation and Joy’s words cracked Sarah open, gave her chills, surfaced tears and allowed her to explore what it might be like to feel good every day.

Joy is Sarah’s sempai; her senior or mentor in terms of sobriety, and you can hear in the conversation the high context that happens between two people who have similarly overcome a destructive spiral with alcohol. There are unwritten and unspoken knowings about what remaining sober is and you can feel it in the texture of this conversation. While Sarah is 10 years Joy’s senior, Joy is most certainly ahead of her in the unfolding of alcohol-freedom. Speaking with Joy feels like and evocation. This works on many levels.

There’s poetry in the lilt of the back and forth in our conversation, we explore many places on human existence; the outer world, the unseen world and the inner world. And spirals.

The symbolism in everything. Tarot and its mathematics; its symbols and the card that Joy connects with regularly.

Joy is powerful. There’s a quiet optimism and kindness in her being. Getting over disappointment transmute - she loves reading aloud

Her poetry reading makes me cry

We speak to nostalgia and the erotic; listen to the end to find out about sexy time on a ferry and the French foreign legion; to betrayals that crack open the most creative places and had Joy demand of herself that she doesn’t edit and goes all in on her writing and her poetry.

It felt sacred, this conversation. And practical; Joy has a day job that supports her art and Sarah is of course irreverent about manifesting. No surprises there!

In this episode discover:

• Gorgeous old-school language and words; be astonished
• Which previous Legends Podcast guest we honour for their emotional fullness
• Alcohol’s impact on Joy’s ability to create and what sobriety did for her writing
• Tarot, symbolism, poetry and
• A love story that lasted a lifetime and ended in bereavement

If you enjoyed this episode and it inspired you in some way, we’d love to hear about it and know your biggest takeaway. Head over to Apple Podcasts to leave a review and we’d love it if you would come and say hi over on @sarahfuruyacreative on Instagram.

About Joy

Joy Waller was raised in the mountains of British Columbia, Canada and spent her young adulthood on Vancouver Island. She currently resides in Tokyo, Japan, where she serves as an editor at the Tokyo Poetry Journal and co-hosts...

In this weeks creative musings, Sarah muses on some wildly creative, yet ethically questionable facilitations she did in the past and wonders - has she lost her moji?

Also on evolutions she’s gone through in her coaching practice.

She wonders has she lost her coaching mojo…?

Find out on this episode!

*please note none of this episode, or any episode, besides any cited research is anything but Sarah musing, in real time, about events in her life. It has a coaching context, and a psychological backbone. Don’t take her advice under any circumstances…

But do take her coaching. It’s good.

If you enjoyed this episode and it inspired you in some way, we’d love to hear about it and know your biggest takeaway. Head over to Apple Podcasts to leave a review and we’d love it if you would come and say hi over on @sarahfuruyacreative on Instagram.

Connect with Sarah

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/sarah-furuya-creative

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/sarahfuruyacreative/

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/sarahfuruyacreative

Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCXsuS_yVT9fMHjhAylVy8-whttps://www.sarahfuruya.com/simply-coaching

Michael is a fascinating human and not so much a chameleon as he is absolutely himself wherever he is. He has an uncanny ability to have skin in the game. He is the first person to EVER present INBOX ZERO to me as something that is appealing, and he is very frank about what the first couple of hours of his day look like.

Michael requested at the top of this podcast to turn some questions on me too - and I obliged. It’s hard to put into words, and I am still answering his questions in my head about some of my philosophy and humanity but I think something I didn’t articulate at all well was that I don’t feel like ‘Look at my spicy friends!’, moreover, it’s far more akin to - this is my life, and your life; the real world and the world we live in and occupy. Whatever you see is not my attempt at diversity or inclusion - it is my history, my art and I am part of it. And so are you, whether you know it or not. Humans are not my market. They are and also they aren’t. I am in service. Like I say, it’s very hard to articulate. Michael sneakily got me talking about this topic - it’s high context, we understand between us, but it would be hard to put a PowerPoint presentation together about it. Please don’t request this.

Identity is huge in this conversation - such a rich inquiry and we muse on how ‘ordinary, or ‘normal’ is simply another diversity and also how he starred in a film called ‘Spoiled Identity’ directed by former Legends, Yukiro Dravarious (or full video here) and Duncan Whom.

Michael exemplifies this as we dive into his Haus and attempt to describe it!

In the podcast discover

• What the surfboard under young, blond, tanned Michael’s arm really represents…
• Time; taking time. Time for relationships to settle, time for preparation in the morning, time for rest and sleep
• The wisdom of video games and mountains (and a surprising connection we have between my Mt Fuji Climb and his work with Shine on Kids)
• How he seamlessly moves between his life-roles as Director of the Drag Haus von Schwarz, Event Producer of Shine on Kids Cancer Charity and being founder of Bainsoft, his talent agency and localisation studio
• Can he reconcile Christianity and faith with his life?

If you enjoyed this episode and it inspired you in some way, we’d love to hear about it and know your biggest takeaway. Head over to Apple Podcasts to leave a review and we’d love it if you would come and say hi over on @sarahfuruyacreative on Instagram.

About Michael

Michael Bain is Founder/CEO of Bainsoft, Event Producer for Shine On! Kids, and Manager of Drag Collective Haus Von Schwarz. He left his hometown Brisbane, Australia in 2014 to get closer to the video game music industry in Tokyo and is now uniquely positioned to help eliminate barriers between Japanese/Western companies and artists.

In 2022, he founded Bainsoft, a talent agency and localization studio. Bainsoft manages narrators, singers, voice actors and composers, matching English-speaking talent with Japanese companies, and vice versa. Recent...

[To have "skin in the game" is to have incurred risk (monetary or otherwise) by being involved in achieving a goal] Wikipedia

I kept thinking about what it was about the people who have been really piquing my interest recently. Or as I look back on previous guests what is it that connects them?

I loved the very creative folk, and the last season of reinventors. Everyone in fact. Whether buying land to build a sculpture studio, traveling across the world to enter a hardcore Karate dojo, starting a drag house, becoming a citizen of Japan in order to have political influence, starting a radio show, falling in love, recovering from business disaster, so many of my guests had put serious skin in the game.

I look at my friends and the people I admire. The feminists, the activists, the style mavens, the weirdos, the deeply genuine; the people who speak out or show up along the edges of culture and I noticed; they had skin in the game.

I also realised, if I am to enter into the fullness of the next iteration of myself and my family unit - that’s what I need. And so I am fascinated to explore with my guests, what it means to them and how they are moving through the world with skin in the game.

For me, getting my skin in the game requires some serious outside help. And that help might not quite be what you imagine.

Of course I am 18 months sober, a constant source of relief and fascination as thought after thought emerges through the sobriety for me to soberly deal with (skin in the game) AND MY LORD did I feel like drinking this past week - it was strange. But I didn’t. 5 months post-surgery, I am getting used to this new body and new way of being in the hormonal world This time last year my body was being physically and emotionally violent towards me. I had severe anaemia and felt utterly insane. Now the stability of hormones and absence of bleeding is a whole new and very welcome landscape to navigate.

This episode is all about how I am using signals from nature and from my surroundings as my points of coaching inquiry. How I am experiencing a lot of change and choice and communing with the flowers in my garden, the trees in my eye line, the jasmine at my door to deliver messages through the ether. #ordinarymagic And also my neighbour moved out, I was upset but then that revealed something else that I muse on in the recording. My Mum and Dad were visiting their old neighbour the same week. Everything changes all the time, Nature’s rhythms are not influenced by culture, and I probably need to get some fertiliser for the plants if I want them to flower.

What can the nature outside my window tell me about what’s happening inside me, about my thoughts; what emblems and metaphors can I dance with. And the movement of people in and out of our lives. I could see my neighbour every day for 5 years then POOF gone - disappeared, like they’d never been there; a home becomes a house, filled with the #potentmagic if the next occupant.

You see that’s a lot of what’s happening here. I’m looking to see who is following the rhythms and flow of their nature, even if it is outside the flow of the culture. And if you flow outside of culture, then you have skin in the game. Each guest describes this differently yet with some similarity.

Every single day I muse on this, in conversation with the tree outside my door, the neighbours past and present, the books I read, the music I choose, the voices in my ears. I observe my husband, his way of being in the world, our love, our third entity and I muse on this. And the folk with skin in the game. And how if I am to dance with culture even more, reveal my nature, live in the ordinary magic; getting more and more skin in the game is not an option. It is inevitable collateral.

If you enjoyed this episode and it inspired you in some way, we’d love...