I love the idea of the open thread. So many things I would like to discuss, but that I don't feel confident to actually make discussion posts on. Here's one:

On Accepting Compliments

Something I learned, and taught to all my students is that when you are performing certain things (fire, hoops, bellydancing whatever), people are going to be impressed, and are going to compliment you. Even though YOU know that you are nowhere near as good as Person X, or YOU know that you didn't have a good show, you ALWAYS accept their compliment. Doing otherwise is actually an insult to the person who just made an effort to express their appreciation to you. Anyways, you see new performers NOT following this advice, all the time. And I know why. It's HARD to accept compliments, especially when you don't feel deserving of them. But you have to learn to do it anyway, because it's the right thing to do.

Same idea, said better by somebody else

This is one of those things that's probably a pet peeve of mine because I use to do it myself, but I figured I would share what I was told during my performance days. I've seen this phenomenon a bunch, a performer or presenter gets done, an audience member comes up and says something along the lines of "Great job," the complimented responds with something like:

"Oh I totally screwed up"

"No, I didn't really do anything"

"No, I thought it went awfully"

Invariably there are two things that drive this:

1. The presenter/performer is so caught up in their own self examination, that they are being hyper critical and sharing it with the complementer.

2. The presenter/performer is concerned about the appearance of humility.

Both ignore a greater truth in the interaction: Someone has said something nice to you, and you are immediately telling them they are wrong! Even if they don't directly perceive this, it can leave them with a bad taste in their mouth. So what do you do? Say "Thank you," that's it. Leave the self examination stuff where it belongs, in your head. If you are concerned with your ego, accept and expand the compliment: "Thank you; I have to say the audience was really great, you guys asked really great questions."

It's a silly little thing, but it can have a big impact on how you are perceived.

I think this is applicable to all areas of life not just performing. In fact, doing some googling, I found a Life Hack on the subject. Some excerpts:

A compliment is, after all, a kind of gift, and turning down a gift insults the person giving it, suggesting that you don’t value them as highly as they value (soon to be “valued”) you. Alas, diminishing the impact of compliments is a pretty strong reflex for many of us. How can we undo what years of habitual practice has made almost unconscious?

Stop [...] making them work for it: Cut the long stream of “no, it was nothings” and “I just did what I had to dos” and let people give you the compliment. Putting it off until they’ve given it three or four times, each time more insistently, is selfish.

This link actually has sample dialogue, if that helps, but it is bellydance-centric.