Seminar in Los Angeles April 12 2010

The seminar for April has just begun.

On this seminar, there are quite a few repeaters from previous seminar sessions which gave me an unexpected pleasure.

The hairstylists normally don’t participate in seminars let alone in consecutive sessions.

I wasn’t expecting this trend. It gave me assurance that my sincere desire to share my philosophy in haircutting has begun to show the result.

Aracelia Boyce is the first time attendee.  Jody and Timesha is attendee from the March session.

Araceli Boyce.                        .Jody.                                .Timesha

Jim and Weeraya are attending for the Second time. 

And do you know for Connie it is the third time around!
 Jim.                    Weeraya.           . Connie
 

I might add that for Connie, each time she participates in seminars, she has been bringing new people to share the experience.

This is definitely a win-win situation for everybody!

As you know any process of learning takes hours of practice and it helps to have a mentor or somebody guides you so that you’ll be less likely to develop bad habits.

As I said before, I am here to share what I have learned and still learning. I am here to help you as much as you are willing to learn.

In this seminar, I am putting more emphasis in vital importance of foot positions and body movement and how they are related to achieving uniformly good result with less effort.

In the first segment of seminar,

students are introduced to learn how to achieve the dexterity, accuracy, and speed by developing strength in fingers, wrists and the thumb to guide the scissors.

The next segment is the concept of how body should be trained.

The first position is how to cut the top section of head.

The proper foot placement and the body movement are essential part of achieving the constant accuracy. I explain do’s and don’ts of movement.

Until the body learns the coordination of muscles until “You feel right.”,

It will end up as a knowledge and a concept.

It’s like leaning to ride a bicycle. You aren’t got it until you could actually be able to put both feet on the pedal!

Hopefully, each student will practice at home on daily basis by checking with my instructional DVD as a valuable guide.

I demonstrate by actually cutting and showing proper body positions.

Put your mind to it and you’ll gain the finer point of learning

The body positioning then moved to the back section.

Here again, I explain and demonstrate the proper foot position and body position along with hand and elbow position.

Now we will look at Connie’s haircut process.

This is her third time attending my seminar.

#1 she is pulling out the panel in back left hand side.

Look at the left elbow and angle of her left hand. Do you see how she execute it proper position and the angle?

＃２ her elbow is set and pulls the panel of hair.

Her foot is at 2 o’clock position and her left shoulder is pointing toward the cutting direction.

＃１.　.＃２

＃３ She pulls out the hair with movement of her entire body ( not just with fingers and arms normally done by majority of hairstylist!)

＃４ When you move your left hand to the proper length ( or to the guide line), she had a tendency to cut the line a bit off  line due to how she position her scissors

＃３.　　.＃４

Now, let’s look at Ho Yuan,

the first time attendee, how she’s doing:

I don’t have a good photo hear this time!we can’t see hear farce

＃１  as she pulls out the panel, her fingers are aligned a bit slanted where it should be straight. However it is interesting to note that her scissors are parallel to her fingers!

＃２   her foot is off 2 o’clock position.

This will result in (A) her right shoulder will be difficult to point toward the cutting direction,

( B) tendency is to observe the cutting line with rounded back,

( C) her left elbow is not aligned to the center of her body. Therefore, she will cut a slant line.

And (D) her elbow is flying out. She will not be able to utilize whole body to ensure the constant angle in subsequent panels.

＃１.　　.＃２

Esther, too, is a first time attendee. Let’s study her progress.

＃１  the food position is excellent. Do you notice her left foot is pointing at 2 o’clock? This is the position; we all need to achieve every time and each time!

＃２ her left elbow is also aligned to the center of her body (closed position). Her left hand (fingers) is aligned parallel to head which ore desired angle. Her shoulder is nearly pointing toward the cutting direction.  My only concern is the angle of her scissors.

＃１.　　.＃２.

＃３Note the angle of scissors!  close up photo #3

The scissors is going in almost right angle to the cutting plane. It is supposed to be parallel to cutting plane.

This has something to do with how she uses the scissors. This is one of the scissors holding positions you could use it at proper the certain position. My concern is that her flexibility of holding scissors is limited to one position. (Hopefully through my recommended exercise, she will be able to adapt to other holding positions.)

＃３

On this seminar, Connie has decided to challenge the round layered haircut.

As you could see in diagram, all through the haircut once the guide line length is established, the entire haircut is done with the same length except the nape area is cut in slight longer layers for variation of design.

The picture you see here is done strictly with scissors.

From this haircut, Connie has used a thinning shears to adjust the volume and direction of line to put artistic expression.！！！

..　　　　　.

Esther has been a hairstylist for more than twenty years.

She too has challenged the round layered haircut. She too used the thinning shears to adjust the volume and defining softer hair movement.

.　　　.

For the nape line, she made the line more wispy and hugging the nape line.

For finish, she used a round brush to add softer airy volume.

.　　.

Summation and thoughts about the first session of April seminar:

As I stress the importance of proper foot position, body placement, and the angle of scissors many times during the seminar, these are the most important ingredients in producing uniformly beautiful haircut after haircut.

It is the essence of keeping the high standard of haircut/desing.

In order to improve and refine your level of haircut:

The fundamental of achieving the mastering haircut could be done by yourself.

You don’t even have to be dependent of having a model nor mode-wig.

You can do the food position, body placement, and how to move your body could be done at anytime and anywhere.

When you have an intense desire to learn and improve, you will find time.

To learn to use scissors (thumb action) and develop the speed and accuracy, the best way I have found and have been doing myself is by using strips of newspaper to cut as I have shown in the class.

I know your busy to doing so many thing in the day,but

If your the students were to practice these exercises on daily basis, the improvement will come sooner that you expect it.

go to the next seminar

Seminar in Los Angles April 18 2010