Loc Venting #2

I read somebody else's blog today (i forget her name); she was writing about how on youtube/blogs/other loc forums that the majority of people, if not most, has "super-manicured" locs, meaning no frizz, no fuzz, scalp showing, and constantly keeping it maintained in a weekly basis. It made me think, yeah, that is true. More and more people are sporting super-manicured locs; it is very rare that you find a free-forming black female wearing thick locs, it is usually always manicured to perfection. Is there anything wrong with that? No, I don't think so, but it is an interesting observation. The only thing that bothers me about it is that it seems like there isn't enough variety in the loc universe (at least in the cyber world). I love thick locs, chunky locs, freeform, manicured, super-manicured, semi-free form, etc, I love learning from loc rockers regardless of what method they chose to loc or what size their locs are. After all, locs are locs regardless of their size or shape. It's just a shame that 1) all you see is just about the same kind of locs, mostly manicured, while the freeformers/people with thick locs are kind of ignored or hiding or something, therefore we can't learn from their experience because there just aren't enough of them wanting to talk about their journey on youtube/blogs/whatever and 2) that whenever you do find somebody who is growing thick locs and not manicuring it, they have a sort of high and mighty attitude where they look down at those who retwist their hair on a 2-3 week basis and act like people who manicure their locs are not "understanding" the journey or "getting it" when it comes to locs. I just don't understand the attitude. I think bottom line it just depends on one's perspective on what locs mean to them and how they should look. Not all of us can handle freeforming. I don't think I could. I used to retwist my hair every 2 months, which I loved. Why did I start retwisting every 3 weeks instead? Mostly because I felt like my hair needed to be "trained" more and because I got frustrated with the new growth constantly unraveling and not locking, so that's why I decided to retwist more often, but my hair isn't the least bit "manicured." I don't retwist it as often because of neatness; in fact, I care less about how "neat" my hair looks. I prefer roots to be showing and to be a bit more on the wild side, but I also enjoy the luxury and joy of retwisting my hair and making my locs feel more fresh. When my hair gets past my shoulders, I'm going to get back to retwisting once every 2 months, but while they are young, I want to train them. Not all of us see locking as a spiritual journey or an extension of one's self. I embrace my nappy roots and love the fact that not all my locs are perfectly cylindrical or same shape and size, but I don't see my hair as a spiritual journey at all. Some of us may like to keep it really neat because of our jobs, or maybe not, maybe some of us just enjoy having really neat locs. I think everybody's preferences are different; neither is wrong. I guess in a way i feel like there seems to be some kind of divide amongst loc-wearers; it is manicured locs vs. freeformers, traditional locs vs. sisterlocs, happy and nappy vs. super neat and fly, etc. I think all locs are beautiful! I wish all of us can embrace the many sides to locs, the skinny ones, the braid locs, the thick locs, and so on, instead of acting like one technique/method is better than the other, and also stop judging others based on what they want to do with their locs and how they maintain it. Let's just keep on learning and stop juding or being prejudice, locs = peace and love! :)