There is no wrong. There is no right.

Today.

Oh man. Just......today. My cheeks are sore from how much I was smiling.

Elated. Jubilant. Euphoric.

But it started out with the one I'm most familiar with. Anxious.

The past three weeks have been focused on a curriculum and method. Today Charles told us he isn't going to teach us a school method for cutting hair. Instead, he plans on taking two blank slates and training us the way that he was trained, which is the classic method. He started the day by saying "Today, I'm not going to show you how to cut hair. I want you to look at the head, and I want you to cut hair. There isn't a right way, and a wrong way. If you meant to do something, than it was correct. If it didn't go as planned, well...then it wasn't." And then he gave us the clippers and told us to go to town.

I remember the first time I kissed a girl. I knew the mechanics of a kiss, I had seen others kiss, but it never made sense to me until I was sitting in the front seat of a car in a hotel parking lot in Columbus, Ohio.

This was my first kiss all over again. And even though this was as awkward as it was 13 years ago, my body knew what my mind wanted to see. Charles gave us about fifteen minutes with the mannequin head and then told us a story.

"Back when I had hair, I went to a take your parent to school day. I told the kids that I needed a haircut, and I gave them some shears and told them to make me look great. To this day, I think it was the best haircut I've ever had. These kids looked at the hair with new eyes, they were discovering it and they were never told that anything they could do would be wrong."

By letting the kids experiment in what adults consider failure, they were able to truly express their creativity. So he did the same with us. There is nothing right or wrong, just what you mean to do, and what you didn't mean to do. 

I later had an epiphany that I expressed to Charles. "By removing the rules, you allow our minds to do what comes naturally. NATURALLY I am going to do something that is pleasing to the eye, because irregular shapes and angles are not natural." 

Bingo. I had hit the nail on the head. This was no longer a head that was segmented out with steps a, b, c, and d. Instead, it was whatever I chose to turn it into. And the AHA! moments kept coming one after another after another for both Karlo and myself.

This is the hurdle I've been waiting to jump. The part of my brain that turns on when I realize I can succeed in something just lit up like the 4th of July over Honolulu.

But the best part of this, is that Charles was feeding off of this. He hasn't had an opportunity to have students that have LITERALLY no experience. He get's to make miniature versions of however he chooses to mold us, and he has a ton of fun doing it.

For 7 hours today, it was three guys hanging out getting to tell stories and just getting to be guys, all while doing something we love. I can't imagine being more excited about the changes I've made.