Money - the root of all evil?

Wealth - the more you have of it, the less generous you are.

That's what I've found out over the course of many years. It seems illogical, doesn't it? Usually people who have more to give are expected to give more. But the sad truth is, it's the other way around. Whenever there are requests for donations, it's the poor who give more, not the rich.

The rationale behind this is that poor people know what it's like not to have money. Because they understand it, they give more because they don't want others to suffer as much as they do. Unfortunately, for the rich, especially those born with silver spoons in their mouths, they don't know what it's like to sometimes never having enough to eat; to struggle to make ends meet; to worry about when their next meal will come from. Because they don't understand it, they don't think it's necessary to give. All those media reports of generous donations by rich people? Pshaw! It's all publicity.

Money is what is also able to divide family and friends. And interestingly, I've been a victim of this. I've been fortunate enough to never have gone hungry; but I do know what it's like to worry about making ends meet.

My story isn't dramatic, and I'm going to get over it soon enough, but it makes me burn anyway. Unlike my earlier posts, I'm not going to be vague about the people involved. And I'm going to be very blunt about it.

Let me start from the beginning.

Those of you who know me know I love to dance. Those of you who know me better know how hard it was to get a team to dance with. It all started with the successful team The Wild West Babes who invited me in to join them, and my other friends joined soon after. We managed to carry the name well, and I think we can proudly say that the team has won every competition it has participated in (the lowest being second place). It came to a point where people respected that team name and saw it as "the team to beat" in a competition. Soon after however the team had to disband, because some of the team members decided to focus on their careers; one had even migrated for a better opportunity.

Of course I understood it, but I was sorry to see them go anyway. Having been a team for about 2 years, it's quite sad when the team was suddenly no more. And some of them have become incredibly good friends. Of the original team, there were only 4 of us - a guy K, the original team captain L, a lady V, and myself.

My coach B feels the team disbandment much more than any of us; she's been in the dance circle for more than 18 years and she has always been frustrated about getting a good team together. Just when the team has reached an acceptable competitive level, it is always forced to disband and she has to start all over again from scratch.

Last year, this time instead of creating a new team and waiting for people to join, she decided to do things differently, by issuing invitations to any dancer she feels has the potential to rise to a competitive level. At the end of the year she will disband the team, and the following year, she will reform the team by reissuing invitations. The good thing about it is that if the dancer does not wish to compete, she can turn the invite down, especially if she has danced for one year and has had enough. That way she won't feel obligated to stay in the team, because there's no more team to speak of - it is now a new one.

That's the rationale anyway, and that was the original plan.

Let me add on a little bit more to the history. Prior to the disbandment of The Wild West Babes, another group of ladies had banded together to try to join a competition. Unlike the Babes which was under B's wing however, they formed the team themselves and merely paid B to coach them. Of the 6, only 2 were from the Babes, but they decided to borrow the name by calling themselves The Wild West Belles.

Why they wanted to borrow the name, figure it out for yourselves. The team lasted only for one competition, but that's not because they were no good. They were really good, very good in fact; but due to some circumstance I choose not to elaborate here, they did not make it to the next round.

Some of them couldn't take the strain of the competitive training, and decided to drop out of the team completely; the others still wanted to train as dancers. When the Wild West Babes disbanded, so did the Belles. Then when B reissued the invitations, she extended them to all the members of the Babes and the Belles who wanted to carry on dancing. These included the four earlier mentioned, plus two more J and N.

Now we had a new team, with a much larger pool of talent, which included M, P, T, Y, and E. I didn't gel with them all that well initially, but it's not because I didn't like them. They're all nice ladies. The problem is simply that I was not in the same age group, and I couldn't understand the things they talked about. I don't have kids, I'm not married, I'm not a housewife. Worse, I'm not a girl's girl, so I'm not into fashion or make-up or clothes or shoes. I find topics like that immensely boring.

But they were nice about it, and some even took the trouble to talk to me, which I appreciated a lot.

We came up with a new team name quickly enough, called Rhythm Matrix. I'm sorry to say though that some of the ladies privately thought that the newbies weren't good enough to compete with, because they had no experience whatsoever. I think all they needed was just a little time and exposure.

They went into their first competition and did quite well - made it to the semi-finals in the Open category, and second place in their age category. I didn't join them, because I wanted to focus on the individual events (unfortunately, I didn't do well). The second competition they went into was an Open dance competition, and I was part of that. We didn't make it to the finals, but we did get top 10 out of 25 teams, and all the other teams were much younger than us =)

That's the visible dance history of the team.

So where does the money bit come in? Let me explain a little bit. Since the days of The Wild West Babes, our team always has a kitty. The Babes had money put in from our paid performances, and whenever we win cash prizes (as a whole team), it goes into the kitty too. Of course, because any of it goes into the kitty, a certain amount is always paid out to the dancers involved first. The use of this kitty is to pay for any team-related expenditure; for example, subsidising our costumes, competition fees, etc. But at that time usually any competition fee is borne solely by the participating team members, and in this case if there were any cash prizes it was kept within those participating team members too.

This time for RM we decided to have a kitty too, and this kitty is used to pay for all competition fees (regardless of which team member participates), coach's fees, rental fees, and any other incurred expenditure. If we do get any paid performances or win cash prizes, a certain amount will go into the kitty and the rest split among the dancers involved.

Now in the past year, we didn't win any cash prizes, and we didn't get any paid performances (we had only been involved in one charity performance). So the kitty was built solely on the amount collected by each team member every month. I will admit now that later in the year some of us had paid less than others, but here's the reason why: we attended less training sessions than the others. Everyone else attends 2 sessions a week; the rest of us attend only one. And even when I didn't join one of the comps, I still paid my due share which was used for the comp fee and studio rental for practices even though I was not a part of it at all. And I paid for my own individual entry fee and costumes.

At the end of last year, K and I felt that we needed more "hardcore" training - due to only one session per week and kind of waiting for the others to "catch up" with us, our own stamina and skills were sliding. Plus, I was frustrated that any decision to join a competition had to be made as an entire team. There were some competitions which other team members refused to join due to personal reasons. So we suggested to B that out of the entire team, we created a sub-team; this team will train competitive-style, and we are autonomous; i.e. if we wish to join a competition we can make this decision independent of the larger group. Of course if the others wish to participate it's all the better. But this way if some of us wish to join the competition we can do so without much hindrance.

B liked the idea, but decided to take it a step further by splitting us into two teams - RM1 and RM2. RM1 would focus on the lighter stuff; they would train to keep themselves in shape, and competitions if they wanted to. RM2 on the other hand would be pure competitive style. RM1's trainings are in the mornings whereas RM2 at nights. She left the decision to us to decide which team we would like to join - we could join both if we wanted to. Some did opt for both, but later when they found the strain too much they decided to stay with RM1. It's not that they're not good; but late nights can be quite a strain especially for mothers with children.

It's the beginning of 2007, so coach has already "disbanded" the old team and reissued invitations. Right now, of RM2 there are only three of us: K, a new girl A and myself. The rest (except E who disappeared and L who was pregnant and just gave birth to a lovely baby boy two months ago) are in RM1.

With the reissued invitations, we're suddenly hit by a bombshell by RM1.

Oh no, nobody opted out. Everyone (except E and L, of course) have decided they liked the training and have decided to stay with the team. But they must have liked each other so much that they decided they want nothing to do with RM2.

This is the gist of it: they want to be independent of RM2, which means now they want us to be two completely different teams. Here is the main reason given: they don't want to carry us financially anymore.

Perhaps in not so succinct a term. But that's what they mean. And when I heard it secondhand through my coach, I was like, WHAT THE F***? Since when have they paid anything for us? The only thing I can think of is the monthly fees. RM1 is paying RM100 per person for 2 sessions a week. RM2 is paying RM50 per person for 1 session a week. But then, tell me what's wrong with that. We're paying the same amount per session!

As for competitions, well, there were no competitions at all this year. And last year of the two competitions, it had already been agreed that the fees would come from the kitty. Some of us contributed to the kitty even though we were not members, and this "some of us" includes people from RM2, too.

Or perhaps some of them were unhappy because they had to "pay the fees for us" first. One of them collects the fees from everyone and pays B at the beginning of the month, but RM2 often pays a bit later, simply because some of us have to wait for our salaries, or have to save from our allowances. So one of them takes it upon herself to pay for our share first and then collect from us later. The problem is, we still pay later, and maybe she doesn't like that. I think she really didn't because she often harrasses B about it (because she doesn't get to meet us anymore, so B has become the point of contact). But then, we never asked her to.

Or maybe there's some other underlying issue about it that we don't know about it. It may not even be money-related. But right now they make it sound like it's all about the money, and it sounds really petty.

It all sounds like bulls***t to me. They have never paid anything for us; we've always paid everything for ourselves, even if it was a little late. To say that they don't want to carry us financially sounds like utter nonsense to me. And besides, it's not like they have a want for money. Most of them don't need to work as they have successful husbands; and they have plenty of money in the bank. They don't need to worry about getting that cheque for the next car loan; they don't need to worry about when their next meal is going to come from; they don't need to worry about money at all! They can afford to pay their monthly fees on time simply because they have more than enough with them at all times, and the reason they have it on them is not because they need to pay for some bill or other.

To be fair, it isn't all of them who have this opinion. It's obvious who has though - it's the one who speaks up. But the rest don't say anything and unfortunately, silence is acquiescence. You're agreeing simply by not saying anything.

Am I hurt? Yes. Disappointed? Extremely.

I take this personally. You can tell me not to, but I am. Of everyone in the team, including themselves, K and I are the only ones who are extremely serious about competitions. We don't have the funds to support our passion, but we're trying. We've sacrificed time and money even if we don't have a lot of it. And we know how hard it is to find good team members who are willing to stick it out like we do.

By cutting us out, you're ignoring our situation. Let's forget money for now - it has never been an issue with us. You're ignoring the fact that we now have no more team members with which to compete. Three are not enough to join most competitions. And don't forget that A is a student who will be furthering her studies overseas very soon, which will knock down the number to two. Tell me what can we do with two? We're not couple dancers; we can't join latin or ballroom or even line dance couple competitions. We're team dancers, and we dance in a team.

And worst of it is, you can afford it, you now have lots of team members, but you're not all serious about competitions. You're choosing to pass up one perfectly good international competition at our own doorstep because you're afraid of the competition, even though the exposure will be good for you. You choose to prepare for a competition that you b*tched about in the previous years because you didn't like some of the people in charge, but that's your main goal for this year. I don't understand you.

You're completely ignoring me as one of the most senior dancers (in terms of experience and not age). I'm not demanding my right as the senior dancer; I wouldn't dream of using it like some of you would. I'm merely stating that I've been through the thick and thin and the disbandment of the teams, and between the four of the original team, I'm the one with the most competitive experience after L. I'm not the best dancer, I know I'm not. I don't have that natural talent that some people are gifted with. Some of you may be better than I am. But I sure as hell am a lot more serious about my dancing. I put damn lot of effort into what I do, and I always put the team first ahead of myself. If I'm the reason I'm bringing the team down, I don't make the team suffer for it. I don't make excuses if I make a mistake that makes the team look bad.

I will never be a professional dancer. That isn't even my aim. I started at too old an age and I don't have that gift. Dancing is merely my hobby and passion, and I just enjoy taking part in amateur competitions. What you're doing is destroying my chances of indulging in this.

The good news for you is that you never need to come and watch us and support us if the tiny number we are ever take part in a competition that you're not involved in. I suppose that the better news for you is that we would never need to go and watch you and support you if you ever take part in a competition that we're not involved in. Or even if we are. We're not a team anymore, are we?

I hope I never be as calculative as you when I do reach that social standing you are now. Let's face it - we in RM2 aren't at that same social standing, nor are we in the same social circle. We were merely connected by that flimsy term "teammate" - and now thank goodness for you, we no longer are. I don't even know what is there to be calculative about, when we have never asked you to help us financially in any way. And even if you had, we paid you back every single cent. We owed you no money. How can you say you're carrying us financially?

I'm hurt. And disappointed. And really quite disgusted. And if you're ever reading this, I make no apology for what I say. This is my opinion, and I'm entitled to it. You were entitled to your opinion that we were burdening you financially, so this is my opinion that I think we never had been a burden.

I've been trained for so long that teams always look out to protect and defend each other and stick together as a team. I've always put the team first before myself. What I've learnt from this team is that it's perfectly alright to backstab each other, to condescend each other, and to look down upon each other. Perhaps it's a good thing we're not the same team anymore. I don't want to be in a team like that.

Money - the root of all evil? This is a small issue. But it was enough to divide a group of people into two. I can't bear to think of some of the worse evils that humans are capable of.