36 Years in the Making with Dr. Christopher Staley

Episode five of The Vocal Cue features Dr. Christopher J. Staley, an assistant professor of movement in the School of Theatre & Dance at Texas Tech University. Staley is a teaching artist and scholar, as well as, a specialist in actor training pedagogy with a focus on the Suzuki Method of Actor Training, Viewpoints, Yoga, and Stanislavskian Active Analysis. 

In his first semester with Texas Tech, Staley discusses what brought him to Texas Tech, how Lubbock has become his home, his mentors along the way, and the research, involving the seen and unseen, we can't wait to hear more about.

Transcript

Speaker 1 0:00

Hello, welcome to the Vocal Cue. My name s Tawny Ballinger, and today I am here with Dr. Chris Staley, who is the Assistant Professor of Movement at Tech to Tech University of the School of Theater and Dance. Can you go into detail about what exactly you do?

Speaker 2 0:25

I can, yes. So I was, this is my first year as the first semester. It's kind of crazy that it's almost nearing an end. So it's a new position. They hired uh uh they were looking for somebody to teach movement, and essentially movement covers a lot of different ground in theater. Um it could be dance, but I don't teach dance. Uh different ways of storytelling with the body, um, and different ways of thinking about strength and conditioning and wellness. It's sort of like the general idea of what a movement teacher in theater does. You can do movement coaching. Uh, it could involve stage combat, but that's not really what I do. So, what do I do? I teach the Suzuki method of actor training.

Speaker 1 1:08

Ooh, what is that?

Speaker 2 1:09

Yeah, it's a that's a that's a big question. Um I teach the viewpoints, which we can maybe talk about as well. And yoga. Those are the three things that I'm like teaching in my movement classes pretty consistently. And I'm also here teaching dramatic analysis right now, but uh in the future it'll be mostly acting-based.

Speaker 1:29

Okay, okay.

Speaker 2 1:30

So, what's the Suzuki method? Yes. Uh so there's the Suzuki method of violin that a lot of people might have heard about. So in music settings, um there's the Suzuki method, and it's a form of learning um using movement as well, and uh not so much reading off of uh a page, but really thinking about the movement of how you're uh playing the instrument, which is not not what I do at all. But it's always fun when I tell people, oh, I do the Suzuki method, and they're like, oh my gosh, my kid does that. I say, really? That's amazing. How did they get into that? And then we realize we're talking about two completely different things. Um the Suzuki method of actor training is developed, was developed by a really famous director out of Japan named Tadashi Suzuki. Uh he formed the Suzuki Company of Toga in let's say the 60s, and then in the 1970s, they became sort of affiliated and incorporated. Uh the Suzuki Method of Actor Training is a global system, but it starts with traditional Japanese art forms. So no theater, kabuki theater. Um, those are two big uh traditional uh systems that kind of have their own forms attached to them. A lot of it is based on footwork. Um the method is called sometimes the grammar of the feet or the vocabulary of the feet. So it's very much looking at different performance systems that have uh really strong relationships to the ground. So in Eastern arts, there's a real focus on the lower body. Um also incorporates aspects of ballet, uh flamenco, uh Martha Graham technique, and then different martial arts, like kendo, for example. Um, and the whole idea around this is that in the West, but kind of all over, we think acting happens from here up, right? Like we do film, and it's very much here up, right? And that's totally a part of different kinds of acting, is to know when this is the focus. But for theater, it's always the whole body. So in a nutshell, the Suzuki method teaches us how to remember that the whole body is an instrument for acting. Um, and the specific things that it trains are center of gravity, uh, energy production, and breath control. And then all of that is in service of uh creating a fiction.

unknown 4:01

Okay.

Speaker 2 4:02

In a nutshell. You might hear in this building a lot of stomping and like loud noises at times on Tuesdays and Thursdays, midday, and that's us. That's me.

Speaker 1 4:13

Which is your favorite class that you teach? Do you have a favorite?

Speaker 2 4:16

I do. I love my dramatic analysis class. I love reading scripts and talking about different ways in. Um uh, and I will miss teaching that for sure, but the movement work is um really a passion of mine. I've been training in the Suzuki method since 2005.

Speaker 4:34

Wow.

Speaker 2 4:35

So it's been a long journey, and ever since I started um training in that and in the viewpoints and in yoga, that's when I started yoga, it was in 2005. I just knew that I wanted to be able to offer the kind of uh uh gift that my teachers gave me in the process. It was totally life-changing when I went to college and learned these three different systems at the same time. So it really just feels like I'm getting to do like what I love and what I like want to do and what I do whenever I can, but now I get paid for it.

Speaker 1 5:07

So that's awesome.

Speaker 2 5:09

It's great.

Speaker 1 5:09

Um, so after doing some research, I saw that you have a big family.

Speaker 2 5:14

Oh yeah, somebody wrote that article. That is definitely true.

Speaker 1 5:18

Yes. Um, why did you pick to branch off from your family and not go to the same college that they went to?

Speaker 2 5:24

Uh maybe they'll watch this, maybe they won't. Um it was kind of a mistake. So I think that's why in that article I said, Robin, um the writer of that article, uh, she started by saying the biggest, best mistake that Chris ever made was going to um Skidmore. So um part of it was a little uh rebellion and wanting to do my own thing. Uh there are folks in my family who are definitely into the arts and have done theater, but it was always as a hobby, and I knew that this is where I wanted to go. Skidmore at the time had an amazing program and still does. It's um it's a really solid program. And at the time I had no idea, though, that it was Suzuki Viewpoints based. Like that was the real sort of like crux of the training. Um I just thought it was a beautiful place. I went like once and just sort of fell in love with it. Um, and I kind of knew it was either gonna be there or Holy Cross, which is where my siblings went. And that would have been great. It's a great school. But I really felt when I went to Skidmore and I met my personal mentor, um, who's passed away now, but like every time I think back on it and what she gave me, I met with her and I was so scared. Like I was a high school student meeting with a professor as sort of like one of those prospective students interviews, and she she's super kind, but she was also very mysterious. She'd take long pauses where she'd just look at you, and she said, We do serious theater here. Pause, pause, pause, pause, pause. And if you want to do serious theater, this is where you should go, or whatever, where you should come. So uh it was a little bit like of a personal relationship with this uh advisor, her name's Alma Becker. And then also just like uh uh I had a good feeling about it, but it was a total mistake. Like I had no idea what I was going into. I had no idea what I'd be training in. So uh I just kind of stumbled onto this path once that started. And um, yeah, I could not have predicted in 2005 like this is where I'd be I'd be rolling.

Speaker 1 7:32

So I've seen that you've worked at other colleges. Why exactly did you pick Texas Tech?

Speaker 2 7:38

Gosh, that is that is a great question. And I'll start by saying that uh I just finished my PhD um this past year. Um and while I had taught for my PhD and I taught during my PhD at other programs, I was looking for a home. I've moved, let's say 16 times over the last 18 years. Wow. Um and so I really wanted a place that I could call home and put down roots. Uh, but I also wanted a place where I could feel like I was fitting a niche and like being able to be a specialist, but also be appreciated as a generalist as well. So when I saw this call from Texas Tech, uh I I don't know, I feel like I started drooling or whatever at like everything that was on that job description. And then I came here, I met with the students, the faculty, I realized how how much of a growth mindset that this program is in. And sort of around different colleges, like all over the country, um uh theater programs are often working under a deficit model, which means that like they're still recovering from the pandemic, they're not getting as much funding as the STEM tracks or programs are, and they're finding different ways to consolidate and make strategic cuts. And here in this program and in School of Theater and Dance, it's just like grow, grow, grow, but in a really smart and meaningful and intentional way. So it felt like I was coming in, even though it was totally not on the ground floor, because it's been a fantastic program for so long, like it felt like a new phase, maybe, that I was on the ground floor of. They hired four other um full-time faculty with me, which is sort of unheard of on this job market for one department to get that many faculty brought on. So it just feels like a really special year in terms of what they were able to do with this new cohort of faculty. So, yeah, a whole bunch of reasons. And I uh as I think back on like the last four months, I just am struck by how uh lucky I am to have landed here. And to me, it's the perfect, um, perfect kind of job for me.

Speaker 1 9:48

That's awesome. Has there ever been a time where someone has made a big impact on you during your career, or you have made a big impact on someone?

Speaker 2 9:56

Oh, I hope the latter. I hope I have with the latter. Um I already mentioned Alma Becker. Alma, she set me on a path. Uh, specifically, she helped me go to Russia for my undergraduate training. Wow. So I went to Moscow for three months to study at the Moscow Art Theater. And I, you know, I did my own work after that, and I was able to audition, and I had to do that myself, but Alma really set me up to go back to Russia for grad school. And so uh she's tattooed on my foot. I have her name tattooed on my on my foot. Like she changed my life. Uh yeah, she's with me every step of the way, even though she's uh she's passed away now. Um and then I would say one other uh faculty, um, and I've been blessed to have a huge number of different faculty as well, but my advisor at University of Pittsburgh. Her name is Dr. Michelle Granshaw, and uh I I would not be here without her. Or if I were, it would be like in tatters. She kept me sane, she kept me grounded, she kept me accountable for what I was putting out there in my dissertation, and she really gave me a language to put um more abstract concepts and ideas onto paper that um that has really stuck with me. I I wouldn't have considered myself a scholar going into that program. I was really interested in becoming a teaching artist, and while I am a teaching artist, she gave me the ability to full-throatedly say that I'm also a scholar. So these two women um absolutely were like the biggest impacts on me.

Speaker 1 11:32

Has there ever been a time where you felt like you're failing in your career?

Speaker 2 11:38

How can I count the ways? Yeah, for sure. You know, life as an artist is hard, and uh there's always sort of the next step that you're looking for. But it's also like you have to find an ability to be sustainable as an artist. And so I felt like when I was taking a day job and focusing more time on that day job and not really on my art, that felt like I was failing. Or um when I was sort of floundering between my master's and PhD, going, what do I want to do? Like, what is it that I really want to do? And feeling those moments of like listlessness, you know, kind of felt like a failure. And going through a PhD program is like a lesson in failure, right? You just sort of learn as you go in what you don't know, and you learn so much of what you don't know, and as you start learning more about the thing that you thought you knew, you just realize how much you had no idea about. So I would say, uh, yeah, definitely moments of failure. But um as a teacher, especially teaching the Suzuki method, for example, it is all about failure. It is about failing better. What we do in the Suzuki method is designed to be impossible. It is designed to be not just hard, but like completely, you cannot do what you're being asked of as an artist. And so, aside from just like feeling all the different failures that we should all feel at different times to keep us humble as humans, um uh failure has become like really the best tool as an artist for me. And it's become, I would say, the best teaching tool as well, because I get to encourage students and myself to fail, fail gloriously, or as the playwright Samuel Beckett said, fail again, fail better. So uh definitely I think all of us at times have had these moments of existential crisis, especially in the arts. Um, and it's important to go through that and you realize that you you do want to keep going with it. Um and for those who think that they're failing when they step away from the arts, like I did at times, uh uh it's not a step back, it's just a step to the side, so you can find your way forward in a different um from a different angle. So yes, failure. It's uh definitely um definitely something I think about a lot.

Speaker 1 14:02

Is there something that is there one thing specific that helps you get through those emotions of feeling like you're failing constantly?

Speaker 2 14:13

I would say um there's an element of uh faith, and I don't mean that in like a religious way or even spiritual way, but like um sometimes it's hard to know what the lesson is that you're learning in the present when you're going through that period of uh angst or failure. Um and it's about I would say being patient and knowing that if you don't know why it's happening right now, that there's a lesson that you'll figure out the next day, months, years later. So I'm completely impatient. I know that about myself. I'm an impatient person and I want what I want immediately. And so I would say like working on that has helped me uh figure out ways to pass through failure and just sort of like to to sit in it and not try to run away from failure, but to actually like befriend it in some way, which is so much easier said than done.

Speaker 1 15:12

What is one thing that stood out to you the most about this college?

Speaker 2 15:15

I have to say I'm a little intimidated by football culture.

Speaker 1 15:18

Why?

Speaker 2 15:19

Just because I uh I am not really a sports person, and so I watched the game on whatever the home game was. I have to confess, and this is probably a terrible place to confess it, like on the on a public blog, but um it was when the possum was made his appearance. And I have to be honest, like I was grading papers and looking at it, and I'd seen, you know, the Red Raider, and he wasn't on a horse then, but I knew there would be a horse, and there's the guy carrying the tire around as well. And then, you know, they got the saddle that they get, and so I kind of honestly thought that the possum was a part of it. Like he was a just part of our like sort of like mascots or whatever, and that is absolutely not the case, but it seems like it is now because uh I think it was at the music school last night that they had like a full human-sized possum that the Red Raider uh uh chased around. So I would say, I mean, it's totally cheeky and snarky, but like football culture uh caught me by surprise. I'm really interested in uh embracing that more. Uh but in general, I would say this like the way that the community, like, there are no walls between our campus and the wider community. And the way in which the community supports Texas Tech and Texas Tech brings the community in, that is unique, that it's a unique opportunity, um, and sometimes it's a unique challenge as well. And so I really feel like the invitation to go out there and embrace the community and to let them see what we're doing. But it's also really in those moments the challenge is to like listen to what the community needs and wants, um, and then to be able to interface in that way. So community engagement here at Texas Tech is um I would say one of our strongest assets.

Speaker 1 17:14

I agree. Do you know about our tortilla tossing tradition?

Speaker 2 17:17

Okay. Yes, I have heard about that as well. And I'm do you bring your own tortillas? Yes, you do. Okay.

Speaker 1 17:24

Okay, so so technically we're not supposed to, but people sneak them in.

Speaker 2 17:28

Okay, so I I I won't be sneaking a tortilla in, but I might should do that when I do go to a game. Yes. And this is only at football.

Speaker 1 17:37

Yes.

Speaker 2 17:37

Okay, great. Yes. Um These are all the things that I was sort of intimidated by. Like there's all these different sort of cultural things that you need to do. First down, guns up, like all these different sort of things. I I I just need to learn them.

Speaker 1 17:50

And if you wanted to fly far, you have to bite a hole out of the middle and then toss it from the sauces in.

Speaker 2 17:57

We should go to a game and you can teach me all the different things.

Speaker 1 18:01

Okay, also, I bet you probably don't know the conspiracy theory about the possum, but years ago at a football game, there was like a wild fox that ran across a field, and um, they won that game. So this year they brought the possum and they're like, maybe if the possum crosses a field we'll win.

Speaker 2 18:19

I mean, I know they have like a thousand different cameras everywhere, but it was like a perfect shot seeing that thing like coming towards the camera. So I'll buy into that conspiracy theory, sure.

Speaker 1 18:30

We won! We won.

Speaker 2 18:31

That was a great game.

Speaker 1 18:32

Everyone's talking about how they want the them to keep the possum.

Speaker 2 18:36

Yes, I'm invested in what's going on with that possum.

Speaker 1 18:39

Me too. Me too. Are you involved in any research?

Speaker 2 18:44

Uh yes, I am. Um right now it's sort of like on my own research at the moment. Um I'm writing a lot about the Suzuki method uh for a book chapter, for an article as well. My interest in acting systems really comes from uh psycholinguistics. Um I was a psychology major and really interested in linguistics and cognitive science. And so the work that I'm doing currently, right now, is looking at different ways to think about um how we talk about acting, how we talk about uh teaching acting, and also just different ways of thinking about the body in like an expressive way, even when it's nonverbal, that can still be analyzed like a language. So linguistics and cognitive science are really my way in to thinking about acting. I'll be uh taking a student or going with a student, it's very much a partnership, a grad student, to um a conference next year, and we're gonna talk about um I think I can say this, it's not. Uh she has aphantasia, which means that she doesn't see mental images. So in my acting classes, I'm always saying, close your eyes, imagine you're seeing whatever. Or with your eyes open, imagine you're not seeing the wall in front of you, but you're seeing whatever. You're seeing partner, an image, a landscape. So much of acting is based on imagination, and many of us think imagination is like a visual phenomenon, and it is. So when the student told me, hey, I you're saying that we should really focus on our image, our focus, what it is that we're seeing, I have this neurodivergency, which means that I don't see the way other people see when I close my eyes. And this was a like light bulb moment for me in terms of how I needed to rethink how I teach, not just from an accessibility standpoint, which is super important, but really I was like missing out on a whole other bunch of different ways to like get into the work and think about that. So I'm super interested in um starting that more uh we'll really dive into it in the next semester and present on that in March. But that's that's a new one that just popped up that is taking a lot of my brain power, and I'm super excited about it because I feel like I've learned a different way of thinking about imagination that like I hadn't thought about yet. So that's really cool to me, these different research um opportunities that tech has provided specifically.

Speaker 1 21:17

So you mentioned something about a book. Are you writing a book? Uh or have you written any?

Speaker 2 21:23

I would love to write a book. Um, absolutely. I think my my way too big dissertation could be hacked away and still be a uh a good book opportunity. But right now, um it's a book chapter. So it's um it's a book about different approaches to uh adaptations of Shakespeare. So I'll be talking about uh Mr. Suzuki's adaptation of a whole bunch of different Shakespeare's that he put into one play. So not a book yet. In the future, we'll get there.

Speaker 1 21:54

If you were to write a book, what would it be about?

Speaker 2 21:57

Right now it would be about um Uh gosh, I'm gonna get really dorky right now. The science of pointing is what I like really am grounding myself in. So I don't mean to get too far into this, but there's a phenomenon or just a uh behavior that we have that the ancient Greeks pointed out. It's called Dexis, D-E-I-X-I-S. It's where we get the root for index or indicate in in the most simple way possible. It just means pointing. What are you pointing at? So how I use that in my work is I start with teaching my students about um uh what pronouns are as a class of words. So you, me, today, tomorrow, yesterday, now, then, this, that. None of those words mean anything unless you use them to point or refer to something. You, me, here, now, yesterday. And so I think about that, and then I think about what I'm doing in something like the Suzuki method, which is nonverbal forms that need to be uh used to point at something, like I was talking about with the focus. So um uh I think about, or I'm trying to teach my students and myself to think about how everything that I do on the stage is always in reference to something. It's always in uh relationship to something, and in a targeted way of like trying to get something done on the other end of what it is that you're pointing at. So I don't want to get too far into the into the weeds of that, but the science of pointing and how it relates to theater, which I mean it's fundamental to theater, how we you know, we're giving a monologue to the entire stage, but I'm trying to get you to see that I'm seeing something. So, not just in the Suzuki method, but in a bunch of different other actor trainings, I'd like to study how pointing works in those.

Speaker 1 23:52

Can people who are not Texas Tech Texas Tech students join movement, or do you have to be a student to take one of your classes?

Speaker 2 24:01

Oh, that's a great question. So I I think right now, in terms of just the specific classes that I teach on the catalog, um, I believe you'd have to be a student, but I don't know if a person could just take one class, for example. So do you mean like outside of Texas Tech completely?

Speaker 1 24:20

Like someone who's not an enrolled student, like just an adult who like lives in Lubbock or something.

Speaker 2 24:26

I would love that. That'd be great. I think they'd have to find their way in um in terms of like matriculating. I do encounter a lot of students who are still part of the tech community, but some of them are just folks in Lubbock who use our gym. I'm teaching at the Rec Center now.

Speaker 1 24:41

Oh, okay.

Speaker 2 24:41

Um teaching yoga over there, and we'll do a yoga teaching certification. So a teacher training in the spring, and I'll be helping to um run the practical portion of that. So that's a different way that non-community members and I could interface. What I'd love to do in the future, and I just need to sort of find the time and get it done, is to open up a class that is more um available to the public, either in acting or yoga, mindfulness, meditation. Uh it would be great to be able to spread my wings and to offer this and be able to invite more people in.

Speaker 1 25:18

What got you into yoga? Because I saw like your you teach yoga, you've taught it since I think 2005 or so.

Speaker 2 25:26

I've been training since 2005 or practicing since 2005. So yet another woman in my life who completely changed my path. Her name is Deb Fernandez. She was a dance teacher at Skidmore. Um, and she came in to do the movement coaching for a Greek play that we were working on. And I just was like, I want to work with her more. And she had a class that was about yoga for performers. So um I took that, and for the next three years, I scheduled my entire schedule around her class, and I took it like six more times. And that just completely changed like my relationship to my body. And then I worked for a company in New York that paid for me to get certified, so I could teach um yoga for their corporate setting and employees, and that was wonderful. And I would say the biggest impact on me and why I um how I've sort of shifted my own relationship to yoga and teaching yoga was I had the opportunity to teach for incarcerated young men and individuals in Rikers Island, which is the jail off of Queens in New York. So I taught there for several months, and that was like that was a lesson in failure, for sure. Like I barely ended up being able to teach yoga because I was going into this um space uh and just trying to start the process of getting people to talk about it. And so at that moment I sort of realized yoga isn't about these postures. It's not about what it looks like. It's about having a conversation with other people. That's what a teacher's there for, but then to let that be a conversation with yourself. So even though I failed completely in offering like any consistent yoga whenever I would go into the jail, it completely changed how I would go and teach um, I would say, more privileged clients in other studio or private settings. Um and then after that, it was like, you know, I got bit by a bug. And it just has been something that like I've always wanted to do, I've always wanted to carve out time for, and now that it's a part of my research and it's a part of like my teaching profile, again, I just feel so, so lucky that this is what I um I get to to teach and offer and keep learning myself.

Speaker 1 27:43

How long did it take you to reach your career goal?

Speaker 2 27:47

Uh 36 years. I would say uh I I changed my plan several times. So I knew I wanted to be a teacher, or I thought I knew I wanted to be a teacher in undergrad, and I realized I needed to live more of my life first and be outside of academia in order to know if I really wanted to be back in. Um, because I went straight through from my undergrad to my master's. And then I was living in San Francisco, working for a company, and uh it was it was a good company, and I was uh really comfortable working there, but I was so bored. I was just so bored and feeling like I wasn't doing the thing that I always wanted to do, which is to keep training myself. And being a teacher for me is about being a student, but you're just a student who's leading other students in that moment. Like I fundamentally believe that all teachers need to think of themselves as constant learners, as evergreen learners. And so uh coming to terms with that, coming to terms with how I wanted to spend my life training and in theater and in the arts. Yeah, I would say I really dedicated myself to this in 2016 and I started my PhD in 2017, and this has been the goal since. So 36 years or seven years? Split the difference.

Speaker 1 29:12

Can you tell me what you did in San Francisco that was boring?

Speaker 2 29:16

I can. I worked for um a company called the Interactive Advertising Bureau. Um I hope they don't see this. Um I'm sure I loved working for them. They were great, they were uh they really opened my eyes up to different ways of thinking about um like advertising, but also just like how uh people uh put forward like a way of trying to, I don't know, sell a product or interface with different people. I learned a lot about ad tech, which was fun but scary. I mean, these were the folks that were able to uh figure out all the different ways that your phone can listen to you and then target advertising at you. So it just wasn't what I um knew that I wanted to do. I fell into it. Uh they were a great company, great group of people. Um, but when I moved to San Francisco, I was opening an office for them, and there wasn't anybody in the office. And so it was like me and three other people in an office designed for like 40 people.

Speaker 30:21

Wow.

Speaker 2 30:21

And so I kind of thought, I think I could be more useful somewhere else too. So I love San Francisco. It was a dream to move out there, but yeah, I I kind of knew like the writing was on the wall. It was time for me to figure out a new path.

Speaker 1 30:35

Yeah. Um, has there ever been a time where a student has come up to you and asked you a question and you just don't know how to respond?

Speaker 2 30:46

There's gotta be. I'm sure. There's a lot of times where students approach me with uh uh personal um things that they're going through, which is a fundamental part of our jobs as teachers in a number of ways we are um we're first responders for students in crisis, be that physical crisis, mental health crisis, financial crisis, food insecurity. Teachers interface with those students and are the ones to like see what is needed before administration, before they might even know what doctors to turn to. And so that's a part of the job that I think I'm always still trying to negotiate when I have a student who's in crisis, then it has nothing to do with what I'm teaching, right? I I need to be able to support that student in a wrap-around, holistic way, but also know my own boundaries and the boundaries that are there to protect them as well, because I'm not a psychiatrist and I'm not a psychologist, and I'm not a therapist, um, or a life coach, right? And so those moments where you're not talking to a student, you're talking to another human being in that moment, um, going through something, uh, those are always moments where I feel a little taken aback and I have to be really present with that, but also uh know my own limits in those moments and be able to uh get them the help or support they might need, but not feel like I'm passing them on to something. So I would say there are those moments for sure.

Speaker 1 32:19

How did you know that you belonged at Texas Tech exactly?

Speaker 2 32:25

When my students started making fun of me to my face, because I am like, you know, I I am uh this is the most dressed up that I'll probably ever be. Uh I'm kind of a cartoon character. I've got my black shorts, my black pants, my black t-shirt, and that's my uniform for teaching movement four days a week. And they see different sides of me. So, like just today, uh, they they were talking about how there's like three Chris's that they're interacting with. Because the way I teach Suzuki is a different version of me than how I teach viewpoints, than how I teach yoga. And so I think once my students started being able to like elbow me in the ribs and go, you know, just gentle teasing or whatever, like that felt um that felt like I had landed where I should be. I would also say once my dog got settled here, I was like, great, I feel like I'm where I am, both at home, um, but here in the office as well. So yeah, it was a bit of like finding my own personal sort of uh comfort here, and that also um kind of happened right at the same time that different working relationships with faculty and students came about. So um it's not one specific moment, but uh it's just the way that these teaching relationships evolve over time. Um I feel like I'm right where I belong.

Speaker 1 33:50

So would you say that the three ladies that you talked about really push you to be here?

Speaker 2 33:56

Two of them for sure. Two of them for sure. Uh and I think all of them would be proud of me for being here as well. I know two of them are looking at me right now, and they write to me, and I write to them, and they couldn't be more um happy for me to be happy where I am. And if I think about Alma, I think she's looking down, going, yes, good. Right where you should be.

Speaker 1 34:22

She's smiling down at you. Yeah, definitely. Um, do you believe that your communication skills have grown ever since you started in your career path?

Speaker 2 34:34

Yeah, yeah. Uh as a teacher, I have to be more clear. Um, like today I was teaching a really comp uh complicated form, and I failed at that, yeah, because doing something is not the same as teaching it, right? They're obviously like this, but um uh so knowing when to show versus when to tell as a teacher, um, that's a skill that I'm still navigating. Um how to explain versus show versus tell versus do versus just let happen. And yeah, I mean, for six years in uh my PhD, I really do feel like my writing has developed. Um I think uh the biggest thing that I know now in terms of like my writing getting better is that my emails are shorter. Which like, you know, I would write like way too much, right? And I would say like shortened emails is a good sign of like being um being clear and being deliberate and not circumlocuting around some idea.

Speaker 1 35:37

So I know some of my professors they work around the clock, they work off the clock and on the clock. Do you do that as well on the weekends?

Speaker 2 35:47

Um it depends. Uh it absolutely depends. I would say coming out of the PhD, um, where it was always something looming, a deadline looming, this big dissertation looming, that I never felt like I could take a break. And something that um the faculty here have exampled for me and demonstrated for me is how important it is to take that time away. So I wouldn't say it's like weekends I take off or nights I take off. It's just I find the mix and I let myself not have this like old Catholic guilt of like, oh no, I'm not working, I'm doing something wrong. Um, and that was another moment of feeling like I I knew that I belonged here because I found myself like watching TV at night, which like I never would do, going, this is okay, like I'm in control, I have what I need done, and I can like really like be here in Lubbock. I can go to Mackenzie Park, I can go over to Cap Rock Canyon, I can go and do things that um are maybe not equally important, but really important for me as a professor, which is to like to see what's outside of this campus and also see all the different things that are going on in this campus. So uh I think it's an evergreen struggle for anybody watching this, for anybody here at tech. Like we all are here because we like to do things, we like to be productive, we like to be um challenged in some way, and that's amazing. But we all need to, and this is just cultural, as much as it is like part of academia, is find a way to um to zoom out, to look at the big picture, um, as much as it is important to be able to zoom in and like know what you're doing and dedicate yourself to that. So it's a evergreen problem, but yeah, I think here at tech I've really been encouraged to find that balance, find that work-life balance.

Speaker 1 37:41

Awesome. Have you ever thought about making an organization for your classes or anything? Like yoga or something?

Speaker 2 37:50

Uh what what do you mean by organization?

Speaker 1 37:52

Like a like a club.

Speaker 2 37:54

Oh. That's a great idea. I am now. I am now for sure.

Speaker 1 38:02

That's awesome. You should definitely start one.

Speaker 2 38:05

I am thinking about it very much so. Yeah.

Speaker 1 38:09

Alright, well, that's gonna be all for today, guys. Thank you for watching. My name is Tony Ballinger, and this is Dr. Staley, and thank you for watching.

Speaker 2 38:21

Thank you so much.