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Take a Tour of Betterfly!
Jul212010A picture is worth a thousand words, so we made you an entire video! Here’s a quick tour; welcome to Betterfly!
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The Top 10 Things Guys Do Wrong on a First Date, and How to Be Better
Jul082010
By Carly SpindelOur very own dating Betterist, Carly Spindel, shares her tips on how to make a good impression on the first date.
Dating can be difficult. At least I think it is. There are so many things to keep in mind and remember. Follow these guidelines and you should be a dating pro in no time.
1. Liar, Liar Pants On Fire
No one likes to be lied to. In all relationships, honesty is key. When you go on a date, don’t lie about who you are. Be truthful, and the person will like you for your real self.
2. The Other Woman
Sometimes, men get nervous on dates. It doesn’t happen often, but it does happen occasionally. When this happens, men like to talk about the other women they’re dating. I personally can’t think of anything worse than being on a date and having a man tell me about who else he’s dating. So, if you want to make your date feel good, don’t tell her about the other women you’re seeing.
3. Don’t Drink Like A Fish
Drinking on a date is fun. It takes the edge off and relaxes you. But there’s a difference between having a few drinks and being totally out of control. If you become a sloppy mess, your date probably won’t want to go out with you again. Make sure to keep the drinking under control so you don’t offend your date.
4. Clothes Are Important
Women are judgmental. Most of us want to date a man who dresses well. That being said, make sure you’re appropriately dressed for the venue you go to. If you’re going to a classy restaurant, put on a pair of nice pants and some dressy shoes. You want to impress your date and make her realize you’re a stud muffin.
5. Don’t Shush Me
There’s no excuse for not talking. Sure everyone gets nervous and sometimes doesn’t know what to say. But, say anything. It’s better to babble about the weather than to sit there not talking.
6. Ordering For Your Date
Women don’t like to be controlled. We don’t mind you suggesting a dish for us to order, but we don’t want to sit there as you order for us. There’s nothing worse than a controlling man who makes all the decisions. We have a mind of our own and we want to use it.
7. Don’t Be A Pusher
After a great date, the last thing we want to do is be pushed into going home with a man. We want to be respected and have you treat us like a lady. If you force us into going home with you, you probably won’t get a second date.
8. Lateness Isn’t Tolerated
No one wants to sit at a bar or restaurant waiting for someone. Being late is just plain rude. We won’t keep you waiting, so don’t make us wait for you. If you know you have somewhere to be, leave a few minutes early so you get there on time.
9. Let Someone Else Talk
Being very talkative is great. It’s very awkward to be on a date with someone who doesn’t talk. But if you spend the whole date talking about yourself, we won’t have fun. We want you to give us a chance to talk every so often.
10. Be Inquisitive
A great date happens when you ask us questions. We don’t want to be the only one asking the questions. A conversation really flows when people take turns talking. If you like the girl, ask her questions about herself.
Have any (horror) stories of your own? Tell us about them below! You can read more about Carly’s own dating adventures at Carly’s Dating Chronicles.
If you think you need some help improving your game, you can book an appointment with her on Betterfly.
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Betterfly at National Dance Week NYC
Jul022010This past June, Betterfly sponsored National Dance Week NYC, a 10-day event that celebrated the diversity of dance through free dance and fitness classes and culminated in a show at the Ailey Citigroup Theater. Performers included several notable dance companies including Ballet Noir, Creative Outlet, Abakua Afro-Latin Dance Company, and Bollywood Axion. Betterfly donated a free lesson with Dance Betterist, Emanuel Blackett of Abakua, as one of the raffle prizes offered during the show. That’s us, below, at our Betterfly table at the Ailey Citigroup Theater—we had a great time meeting the dancers and attendees!
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How to Install your Betterfly Widget on Blogger
Jun292010
We’ve been excited to see that our Betterists are installing their Betterfly widgets since we released them a few weeks ago. Since each blogging platform is different, we thought we’d post some tutorials on how to install your widget so you can drive even more traffic to your Betterist Page! First up, how to install your Betterfly widget on Blogger.
1. Go to the ‘Design’ Tab
2. Click ‘Add a Gadget’
3. In the ‘Add a Gadget’ pop-up window, choose ‘HTML/JavaScript’
4. In the ‘Configure HTML/JavaScript’ screen, enter a ‘Title’ such as ‘Betterfly’ (Blogger will not let you save this screen without giving it a title first). Next, copy your widget code from Betterfly and paste it into the ‘Content’ field. Click the ‘Save’ button in this window.
Your widget should be saved. Click ‘View Blog” to see your widget in place.
There you have it! Post a comment with a link to your website or blog with your widget in place so we can see how they look!
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Interview with a Betterist: Learning About the Oud with Mavrothi Kontanis
Jun252010Recently going through the list of Betterfly services, trying, as we always do, to make it even better for you guys, I came across a strange word: Oud.
Like me, I’m sure you’re asking what is (an?) oud?
I interviewed oud Betterist, Mavrothi Kontanis to find out. And I’m sharing what I learned with you.
Betterfly: So I visited OudCafe, and most of it was Greek to me. Can you give me a little bit of background? When people ask me, I usually say [the oud is] the grandfather of the guitar. The lute is descended from the oud, and from there came the guitar, and so on. Today, everything with strings is more or less considered a lute since we label strings builders “luthiers.” …[The] word “lute” itself comes from the Arabic word, “al-oud.” The oud is the chicken that came before the egg, I guess.
There are a few styles of oud and oud playing that are labeled by region. The school… I belong to is shared by Turks, Greeks and Armenians. The ouds we play are generally a little bit smaller and a little bit lighter than the Arabic ouds. The Arabic oud is based in Egypt, Syria, Lebanon, Palestine, and the rest of North Africa. And then in Iraq, there’s a particular, newer version of the oud, which has a floating bridge, like the mandolin.
Betterfly: You learn something new every day. I was reading further and there seem to be several different kinds of scales? I saw something about a makam?
What I teach, for the most part, apart from basic oud technique… is makam theory and practice. A makam is not just a scale; it’s more complicated than that. It’s basically a compositional template. It’s basically giving you… boundaries that, within those boundaries, you’re either going to compose an improvisation, or a set piece or song. Even when I say “set,” you’re going to have a basic melody, but the player is expected to ornament it with his or her own style.
It’s different than Western music because there you have the major scale, and the composer can use that scale any way he wants. With Eastern music, you can have five makams with the same basic scale, but they’re treated differently in each case. Let’s say we are using the D major scale as an example. One makam might treat the major scale in a way that begins at the bottom… So I’m going to start at the low D, and I’ll work my way up the octave, and then work my way back down. That’s one treatment of that scale, and I’ll compose a bunch of different pieces in that makam just to show how that moves and how it works. Down the road, another guy says he wants to do something different, so he starts at the top… of the scale and works his way down and back up again. So within some general rules and boundaries, you are then free… It’s like a half-written composition… your job is to stay within those boundaries while still expressing your own voice and personality.
Like dancing- you have basic steps, but you’re supposed to put your own stuff in there.
Betterfly: What is it about the oud that makes it your instrument of choice? What is its significance for you?
For me, there are a few things that make this music and the oud specifically very meaningful for me. One of the things is that it’s very, very cool to imagine someone else playing the same instrument thousands of years ago, and… trying to express the same emotion that I am, regardless of ethnicity or any kind of societal thing. It might have been an emperor playing… or a peasant farmer playing…
Another thing is that it has a unifying effect. A lot of people in the Aegean/Middle Eastern region try to define things as “ours” or “theirs,” but the truth is that all of these things, culturally and historically, are so old they belong to all of us… The history is so mixed up. All of these people have been interacting with each other for a long time. Here is something we can all agree on…
On a more personal note, I just really love the way it sounds and that’s why I play it.
Betterfly: Being that this is such an old instrument, and one that originates in the East, what do you think its significance is for us here (in the West) and now?
If you hear [the oud], it has a very human voice. Very fragile, but strong at the same time.
If you try to grow a plant, like a tree or something, it’s always better to plant the root first. It might work if you use a branch or something like that, but it’s much more sure if you plant the root. This is where most music that we know of came from.
If we just take some time to listen to it, we’ll realize why it’s lasted so long. Music has evolved and changed, sometimes for the good, sometimes for the bad, but this has stayed and remained in a very strong way. This is such an important and rich part of our shared musical heritage.
And it’s touched everything. Recently we [the Maeandros Ensemble] just played at the “Silk Road” exhibit at the Museum of Natural History.
[It’s reflective of] this constant contact between different cultures. The oud is everywhere. It’s in China in one form, in Europe in another. It’s taken… different forms. It belongs to you too. It’s yours. It’s not just mine.
When people hear it, combined with the words, the rhythm, the singing, the whole atmosphere- people like it, even if they don’t really know what [it means].
If that’s inspired you to learn the Oud, or any other instrument, you can find a Betterist, including Mavrothi, on our Music page. If you’d like to share your own musical knowledge, become a Betterist yourself!
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Interview with a Betterist: Feng Shui by Ann Bingley Gallops
Jun162010As the curtain closes on the school year, summer is at our doors. It longs to enter with dreams of relaxation that have long hibernated in many minds, from sitting on the beach to firing up the barbecue. Although spring cleaning is past, we all seem to get a new burst of energy to meet our summer goals. There are always people who want to clear their bookshelves, have a garage sale, score an internship, or finally start a diet, and summer gives them the time and flexibility to grasp what they’re reaching for.
Ann Bingley Gallops, a Feng Shui Betterist on Betterfly, has some suggestions for re-arranging some things in your life to help you reach your goals. Since Ann’s specialty in Feng Shui has grown from her personal transformations, she is a shining example of how to work relaxation into your summertime improvements. Many people have heard of Feng Shui, but I wanted to talk to Ann about what Feng Shui actually is, so I could add it to my list of summer pursuits and activities. “It’s interesting, because it has an exotic name, but it’s pretty straight forward,” Ann begins.So, what exactly is Feng Shui? “The way I see it is improving the way your space nourishes and supports you so that you can more easily achieve your goals, your dreams [and] live the life you want to. And the words Feng Shui actually mean wind and water, so it’s kind of based on this idea of how energy flows with your space,” Ann explains. “So if it gets stuck, you’re going to feel stuck, and if it flows smoothly …so that it goes slowly when it needs to go slowly and go quickly when it needs to go quickly, your life is altering the flow for the better.”
Feng Shui relies on a synergy between oneself and one’s environment. “It’s about bringing yourself into the kinds of harmonies that nature naturally has going …”
“Feng Shui,” she continues, “comes from several different roots… which are thousands of years old.” The first one is, as she already mentioned, aligning oneself with the harmonies of nature. “The other is about harnessing the power of your intention…getting in control and understanding what is the most important thing in your life right now to try to improve.”
How does Ann define the common Feng Shui term “chi?”
“Chi is energy,” she begins simply. “It’s the energy that’s found in everything in the universe. It is very much in connection with the Yin and Yang, this constant movement, constant re-balancing. And chi can be harmful if it comes at you the wrong way, or it can be really nourishing. So it’s about comfort, absolutely, and it’s also about safety; it’s about all of those things, but basically it’s about trying to make sure that the chi energy that gets into your space does so in an auspicious, positive way rather than an aggressive, harmful way.”
For example, “If you’re lying in bed and have a chest of drawers near you and the point of the chest of drawers is pointing right at your head . . . you will eventually feel that because instinctively you are trying to avoid it and not get hurt when you get out of bed in the middle of the night. That’s aggressive chi energy that you want to find a way to avoid.”
So what makes relocating mirrors out of the bedroom so helpful to those suffering from lack of sleep, or general restlessness? “Essentially, the bottom line is bedrooms needto to be more Yin and need to be more feminine; they need to be more cozy and dark and soft . . . That’s what will support you the best in your bedroom. But mirrors–they’re very Yang, they’re very masculine, they have a very hard energy and so they are one of the main things to get out of your bedroom if you’re not sleeping that well at night or you’re restless, or your relationship is out of balance–because this hard energy just reflects any kind of action that’s going on in the room and wakes it up instead if making it a soothing, serene environment.”
This certainly makes sense–but does determining a calming “Yin” color depend partially on personal preference? “Absolutely,” Ann says. “It’s very cultural, what’s actually calming, but you don’t want to have big, aggressive energy . . . You want your room to feel cozy, whatever color it is that you decide to bring into it. So, for example, yesterday I saw friends who put their apartment on the market, and they painted their bedroom a shade of red–I would never do that–that would make me crazy, but I think it comes out of their culture. Red is soothing to them, and that’s all good! So it depends a lot on personal preference.”
So what does Ann typically do with her clients? “It kind of depends on what they’re trying to get done,” she answers. “The first thing I do is, if people have their floor plan available, ask if I could use their floor plan before I go and I also send a questionnaire for them to fill out so hopefully I could understand what their goals are [and] what their neighborhood is like, because that has an impact on what’s going on in their lives and in their spaces. Then, I analyze their whole space from every possible Feng Shui angle, and sometimes they want me to come back and help them actually make things happen, and sometimes they’re ready, willing and able to make those things happen
themselves. And then, the other piece of what I do is a space clearing blessing ceremony–so sometimes, people will have me come back and bring an energetic clarity to the space after they’ve created a physical clarity.”
During the summer, I love spending as much time as I can outdoors. Did she have any Feng Shui tips for an outdoor space like a porch or patio, especially for New Yorkers with limited outdoor space? “If you absolutely have no outdoor space at all, I absolutely suggest you have some kind of plant life growing in your space,” she explains. “There are lots of ways to bring in that wood energy, which is the energy of vitality and growth, into your space, because that’s the element of new life and new beginnings. But if you are fortunate enough to have a patio, I suggest that you place something out there that every time you glance out the window, it lifts your spirit. So, that could be a plant with an upward growth pattern; it could be a Buddha, or a wind chime . . . something that makes you feel great every time you look at it, even if you can’t go outside to be with that object.”
So there we have it–a way to clear our spaces and minds so our physical and emotional energies can dictate the flow of one another, helping us achieve our summer goals. If you like Ann’s tips here, you can book her as your Feng Shui Betterist.
If you’re interested in learning more about Feng Shui, or have some Feng Shui secrets of your own, visit our Interior Decorating community page and sign up for Betterfly today!
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A Salsa International Experience
Jun102010It may not yet be the 21st, but as far as we’re concerned, Summer is here. That means tons of outdoor events, concerts, and dancing. Don’t be caught on the dancefloor just pretending to know how to dance—learn the real thing from one of our Latin Dance Betterists on Betterfly.
Last Friday, Salsa International, a Latin Dance school located in Midtown Manhattan, hosted a free Guest Night, which included a free Bachata lesson and practice party for all the guests. If you want to improve your salsa skills, SI offers a range of classes and instructors in a truly non-intimidating place. I attended the free Bachata class with Salsa Betterist and instructor Luis Ampuero. The class was laid-back and fun– the perfect introduction for students that are ‘new’ to latin dance. After the class, the floor was opened up for dancing and mingling. Michael Brown, also a Betterist in Salsa and a long-time instructor at Salsa International, was at the party too. Mike also directs the Salsa International Talented Youth Program (SITY), which teaches college and high school students Salsa while also providing school and career advice.
One thing I really appreciate about this dance school is the warm, social atmosphere and the fact that they embrace varied traditions of Latin dance and Salsa. It is probably one of the only schools I know that also offers classes in Cuban style salsa, and with over ten instructors from various backgrounds on-hand, there is something at Salsa International for everyone. See Salsa International for a full schedule of classes.
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- Guest Night at Salsa International
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- Salsa Betterists Mike Brown & Luis Ampeuro
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Betterfly’s New Widget!
Jun082010
Add your Betterist widget! In our continual efforts to make Betterfly better, we’ve added a new section, Betterfly Tools. Here you’ll find our new widget, which you can display on your own website to tell everyone that you’re a Betterist on Betterfly.Widgets are small applications that can be embedded into your website or blog to increase traffic to your Betterist Page. It’s another easy way to promote yourself and your services. To find the code, simply click on the “Create Your Widget” button at the bottom of your Betterist page. To embed it in your website or blog, copy the code and paste it into your website editor.
If you have any questions, you can email us at support@betterfly.com.
What do you think of your widget? Show us how it looks! Are there any other tools that you think we should add? Let us know below.
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Make a Better Burger (and other tips for having a better bbq)
Jun032010With the warm weather of the past Memorial Day weekend, we are officially into summer season. That means beaches, backyards, and – barbecues!
For some of us, the grill is a looming black monster, relegated to the corner of the yard until some brave soul decides to pour on the coal and light the fire. For others, grilling is a favorite summer pastime.
Whatever your inclination, you want your barbecue to be a hit. Good food is key, and we discovered some amazing burger recipes that will have your (and your guests’) mouths watering.
Instead of the traditional (boring) ground beef burger, try any of these alternative recipes:
Beyond burgers, some of our Betterists share their summer grilling tips:
Suzanne Meehle recommends “that everyone dry age steaks before grilling. It’s easy to do and it makes them so tender and flavorful.”
To do this, she says, wrap the steaks in paper towels and place them on a baker’s rack set inside a large container (like a large baking pan).
- Place the whole rig on the bottom shelf of the refrigerator for about three days. Change the paper towels every day.
- The steaks will look slightly brownish and may smell a little funky, but they’re not rotten! The enzymes in the meat have broken down connective tissue and made your steak really tender.
- Before you grill, salt the steaks liberally on both sides. Sear the meat over very hot charcoals for 1-3 minutes per side, depending on how well done you like your steak.
She also recommends brining pork (any cut) before barbecuing it, for maximum flavor and juiciness. Immerse the meat in a solution of water, salt, brown sugar, apple cider vinegar and your favorite barbecue seasoning. For a small cut – like chops – let the meat marinate overnight. Ribs can take the brine for a couple of days, and pork butts and shoulders need three or four. Rinse the meat well and rub it all over with your favorite dry rub before smoking or grilling. Works well for turkey too!
Rinku Battacharya likes to marinade for several hours, “particularly for heavier meats. The base of the marinade should have some kind of fruit enzyme – green mangoes or green papaya work wonderfully as tenderizers. Lemon or lime and plenty of fresh herbs also work well.”
Got any family (barbecue) secrets of your own that you want to share with us?
If you’re interested in more summer recipes or learning how to make more than just better burgers, see any of our Cooking Betterists!
Photo credit to Charles Schiller.
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The RSA and Dan Pink Illustrate the Surprising Truth about What Motivates Us
May282010Have you ever thought about which incentives make us ‘better’ or worse in the workplace?
At Betterfly, we are constantly thinking of the ways in which people want to be better. I recently came across a neat video produced by RSA, (Royal Society for the encouragement of Arts, Manufactures and Commerce) in which an artist animates a speech by Dan Pink on The Surprising Truth about What Motivates Us. Using ‘real-time’ sketches on a gigantic whiteboard, the video illustrates the unexpected ways in which money can sometimes lead to poorer job performance. Money aside, it’s clear that most of us are fueled by the desire to get better and that the satisfaction of mastering a skill or task, while working towards a purpose, can often be more rewarding than monetary profit alone.
