It's amazing what one might learn--or want to learn--simply by looking at videotape of himself. I spent some time doing just that last night as I was preparing for my conducting final this morning. In between taking notes related to my growth as a conductor, it was kind of cool just getting comfortable watching myself on video. Now, to be honest, I've never had any trouble having pictures taken of me, but I had been wary of seeing myself in moving pictures, so to speak. There would be always little things I would notice--and not enjoy noticing in the process--and as a result I would hate the fact that I did those little things.
But one burgeoning (is that the word I want to use here?) question that I found was, what more can I learn from this guy? After all, I'd been watching him on the podium for three semesters (although one of them was two years ago in Beginning Conducting), I saw him transform from some über-self-conscious post-teenager to a more self-assured... adult? Ah, yeah, adult. Now I know that's the word I want to use. Conducting confidence aside (a recent development), I was focusing on how the guy in the video interacted with the others in the classroom, and I discovered I liked what I saw (another very recent development). I could put the same little things aside and live with them, and just enjoy watching what he'd become.
Over Interim my freshman year at Olaf I was overrun by a plethora of amazing people through the FCA group. It was probably the first time in my life that I was so thoroughly embraced like that, and it was at that point I knew I was sick of living like that "post-teenager" (with all the adjectives I described). It still took a while (including additional help) but I'm much closer. There are still kinks to work out. But at least I can watch myself conduct now.