Monday, October 22, 2012
The Game and The Art
Wednesday, October 03, 2012
Things I’ve Noticed Along The Way
Obesity in the America: what if we reframed it as an issue of national security?
The past months have taken me abroad a lot. Whenever I travel, especially outside the US, my sensitivities for observation are heightened. Entering China a few years ago for the first time introduced me to a reality of smog far worse than warnings had prepared. Shanghai was particularly jaw dropping as my first experience of noon-time black sky on a clear weather day. That experience caused a shift in the way I think of Los Angeles – even on a bad California air day.
Travel also affords encountering people, in my case hundreds of thousands in just the past twelve months … on sidewalks, hotels, restaurants, streets, in trains and airplanes, and at airports. The noticing?? Not really new news - people living outside the US are definitely thinner than we Americans, and in surprisingly large numbers. In fact, the difference was so stark that I had a hard time believing my eyes when I first noticed it.
Passing back across US borders can be jolting. The past year has included numerous walks through those final steel doors after the questioning eyes of Immigration and Customs officials have turned to gaze elsewhere. And when I do pass into the airport lobbies the body sizes of We The People is often alarming.
I decided to do a bit of research. Here’s the skinny on what I’ve found so far. Thirty six percent of adult population of the US is obese, so say numerous valid reports. A few months ago on a trip to Petaluma’s Bounty Farm (in the small town where I live) I found myself listening to a concerned nurse addressing the amount of sugar actually contained in one soft drink. I had heard about the data, but until I actually saw her produce a pile of sugar stacked aside a twelve-ounce can of soda the numbers didn’t really mean anything to me. Now those numbers do.
From 1950 to 1960 our national statistic was 9.7% adult obesity. By 1970 the percentage had grown to 11.3%. 1994 placed it at 23%. Today we’re at 36%, and the forecast is that by 2030 we will hit a staggering 42% adult obesity level.
Another interesting statistic has to do with the amount of food we waste. Reports of mid-2011 placed our national waste – food thrown away unconsumed – at 25%, and calculated at approximately 200 lbs of food per person wasted per year. Last week an NPR program reported data showing we’ve now hit 40% waste. Interesting: we’re discarding a higher percentage of food, and simultaneously growing larger plumper bodies. Hmmmm?
Back to the original question: Should obesity in the USA be reframed as a national security issue rather than a health issue?
I’m of the mind that we may want to consider thinking of it from this perspective. Why? At least three immediate reasons come to mind:
Powerful technologies, some say, provide security, hence the need for physical stamina isn’t all that important. Really? History speaks otherwise.
Look again. From 1950 to 1960 with 9.7% adult obesity, about 90% of us could be counted upon to answer some kind of minimal call to action – but it’s even less that that when considering other “health related reasons”. But let’s forget that for a moment and continue the count down. By 1970 with obesity at 11.3%, that call could be answered by 88%. By 1994 those able to answer the call had dropped to 77%. And if the predictions are accurate, then by 2030 our collective capacity will shrink to 58% able to take some kind of effective action.
What do you think? If the issue of Obesity in America were reframed to include seeing it through the lens of national security might we be able to understand it in a way to reverse a trend and solve a problem? Leading, by the way, to a physically healthier nation.
Sunday, September 23, 2012
The Game and The Art Part 1 (continued)
Part 1 is first in a series of Ronin Post articles dedicated to The Samurai Game® and to the man, George Leonard, who created it; and to Aikido, the martial art that directly influenced his later years.
Uriel Trujillo and his East Stroudsburg University www.esu.edu UPWARD BOUND students were the immediate inspiration for these articles. On July16, 2012 we were vistited by two television news crews there to capture what we were up to. To view what was aired that evening in eastern Pennsylvania on regional and local TV hit these links and ENJOY!
Monday, August 20, 2012
The Game and The Art
![]() |
Participants Upward Bound |
Tuesday, May 22, 2012
The Student
I walk into the Aqus Café not knowing exactly how to articulate and write what is churning and burning inside me. I glance left. There sits Peter Welker www.peterwelker.com. He was the subject of "Friends" published in my April 2007 newsletter - see http://www.alliedronin.blogspot.com/2007/04/friends.html
Peter Welker, world-class musician. He and his trumpet, cornet and flugelhorn have graced albums and gigs with the likes of Huey Lewis, Carlos Santana, Natalie Cole, Al Jarreau, The Four Tops, Van Morrison, Boz Scaggs, The Temptations. And that hardly begins his list of colleagues.
Peter Welker, chess player - not world class, but certainly expert class - which means he's pretty damn good. We play each other periodically, and for over a decade he's been kicking my butt.
Peter Welker, fun guy and friend; sincere about his beliefs regarding life, family, relationship and politics. He's the only person who introduces me to his other friends as "a cool cat." We don't see eye-to-eye about some things, but so what? We appreciate each other's sincerity and company. Our discussions are dialogues. We talk about deep stuff so as to understand each other and the world going on around us. We don't insist on a change of viewpoint. Ours is a friendship, not a viewpoint-ship.
At chess, Peter is much better than I. Every game is a lesson. I'm getting better; finally making him sweat over the board. But as for keeping score after ten years, it's Lance 1 - Peter Welker everything else.
Peter is one of my teachers. He didn't ask for that job, and I didn't ask him if he wanted it. In fact, the decision wasn't his to agree to. I made it that way without his knowledge and without his permission. How come? Because he's always a student. I study the student that he is, as well as what he does to attain and expand his level of mastery.
Everybody has some level of mastery at something. What's yours? Who are you studying? Who's studying you? Who are you watching? Who's watching you? Do you know? Is it constructive? Are you certain?
Peter's competencies at chess reflect his mastery of the horn. Both sit on a foundation that, in addition to always being a student, includes the following:
(1)He encourages and helps others in their learning, and often just for the sake of their learning and development.
(2)He understands and accepts that the objective of his own learning and development often involves enriching the world more than enriching his own pocket book.
(3)He is always engaged in a practice.
Yesterday we played three games of chess at a local café. As we wrapped up our third game another fellow - a truly eccentric type who (no kidding) wears a plastic Viking helmet when playing chess - came walking in to watch and asked Peter if he could play him next. I sat and watched their games. When they finished, Peter lost all but one which ended in a draw.
Some time ago Peter contacted his chess cronies from around town for a get together at his home to play a few hours, and he invited me. "Why are you asking me?" I wondered aloud. "Heyman, you're good. You'll fit right in." I shook my head, because all the other invitees also hold "expert" level, all except for one who is a for-real chess master. "OK," I laughed, "I'll come and be the day's cannon fodder." He grinned, "Trust me. You'll be OK."
So in preparation for the gathering I invited myself over to his house a few days early. This way we could play and talk without distractions, and work on my game. While we were at it he turned on his satellite radio to a jazz station for background music. In the midst of one game his eyes closed and he began mentally groovin' and physically movin' to the tunes. Then he got up, walked over to the speakers (I pondered the predicament he had me in), sat down to his piano (I didn't know he could play that too) to accompany the artists streaming in from outer space.
(I know the joke is cliché - and you know it's coming - but I have to repeat it. Guy on street in Manhattan hails cab driver to ask how to get to Carnegie Hall. The cabbie answers, "Practice." For some people the previous twenty words are a worn out joke. But to one of the top cornet players in the world, who is also a not-to-shabby chess player, the last word of those twenty words is a way of life - actually, it's THE way of life.")
Back to today. I walk into the Aqus Café and not knowing exactly how to articulate and write what is burning inside me, I glance to my left. There sits Peter Welker scribbling away. So I sit next to him. Now each of us is working on something we apparently need to express. But our methods and tools differ. I use a computer and type alphabet into strings of words on a plasma screen. He uses a pencil with an eraser and jots musical notes and symbols into strings of chords and shrills and tempos on paper score sheets strewn across a table. Hopefully we'll both communicate what we're studying. Hopefully we'll communicate something that matters. Hopefully someone will listen.
What are you studying? What are you practicing?
Is it constructive? Are you certain?
© Lance Giroux, May 2012
Wednesday, April 11, 2012
The Interview And The Sherfu
We might hypothetically possess ourselves
of every technological resource on the North American
continent, but as long as our language is inadequate,
our vision remains formless, our thinking and feeling
are still running in the old cycles, our process may be
“revolutionary” but not transformative.
-Adrienne Rich-
March 2012. The Interview. Napa, California.
I’m sitting in a small coffee shop. Nearby, a young man is completing a job interview. The interviewer just complimented him on how he has shown up. He’s on the team! Now, the interviewee asks the interviewer how he got started in this work. “Well,” the reply begins, “I attended a men’s seminar years ago, conducted by a nationally recognized group and based on Robert Bly’s book Iron John. It examined the shadow side of a man’s development. When I was done with that weekend I decided to copy as much of it as possible. That’s the way things work in this industry – we find things, borrow them, and make them our own to use.”
I cringe and shake my head. Years ago I worked for a company that operated much in the same way. Some time after leaving that organization I attended the seminar that this man has apparently just referenced. Bly’s book was the text. The men who crafted the course were an integral group. Their work was well thought through, intense, respectful, deep and profound. The course leaders and their staff had all undergone rigorous training that demanded they hold attendees’ well being in the highest regard. Moreover, we who partook knew to never “borrow” what that organization had designed. This was not ours to run off afterwards and produce on our own. Not only would that undermine our own integrity, it would be unsafe. This young job seeker has just stepped from what could be a “study” and into what has become, as the interviewer has aptly stated, an “industry”.
The revelation reflects a problem plaguing our world and many (but not all) groups engaged in the work of the human potential. As far as I am concerned the ones to avoid are those that seek to “McDonald-ize” – creating get rich/smart/enlightened quick programs – yet calling their work “transformative” in nature. Sadly, rarely is their behavior “transformative” in practice. Rather the approach goes something like this: (1) find a training recipe with just the right sizzle so that it is attractive to the masses; (2) create a marketing machine that delivers students at the flip of a switch, i.e. good sales pitch; (3) put the students through a series of cathartic processes; (4) define the resultant release of energy that accompanies catharsis as “a breakthrough”; (5) condition the students (now repeat customers) to seek future catharsis (i.e. breakthroughs) through a continuing stream of advanced level seminars; and (6) actively use those students as unpaid sales agents to promote their “product” by encouraging a belief that “life is really all about enrollment” and that if the student does not participate in feeding the promotional system it means he or she lacks in understanding - particularly regarding the concept of loyalty.
Stop. Think. Is life really all about enrollment? Are the organizational leaders engaged in their own rigor of personal learning? Do they have mindful practices that include physical embodiment of the philosophies they espouse? Do their courses accordingly encourage, provide for and promote embodied practices within which the individuals can continue in their own way to self develop and unfold as human beings?
Do some homework and research. Pick up a dictionary. At the very least visit Wikipedia, and enter “transformative learning”. Here you will quickly find the following http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transformative_learning -–
The role of the learner
The educator becomes a facilitator when the goal of learning is for learners to construct knowledge about themselves, others, and social norms. As a result, learners play an important role in the learning environment and process. Learners must create norms within the classroom that include civility, respect, and responsibility for helping one another learn. Learners must welcome diversity within the learning environment and aim for peer collaboration.
Learners must become critical of their own assumptions in order to transform their unquestioned frame of reference. Through communicative learning, learners must work towards critically reflecting assumptions that underlie intentions, values, beliefs, and feelings. Learners are involved in objective reframing of their frames of reference when they critically reflect on the assumptions of others. In contrast, subjective reframing occurs when learners critically assess their own assumptions.
The role of the learner involves actively participating in discourse. Through discourse, learners are able to validate what is being communicated to them. This dialogue provides the opportunity to critically examine evidence, arguments, and alternate points of view which fosters collaborative learning.
The role of professional development for the educator
Transformative learning about teaching occurs when educators critically examine their practice and develop alternative perspectives of understanding their practice. It is essential that this becomes the role of professional development. With this taken into consideration, the role of professional development is to assist educators in bringing awareness to their habit of minds regarding teaching. When this occurs, educators critically examine the assumptions that underlie their practice, the consequences to their assumptions, and develop alternative perspectives on their practice.
Be clear: there is nothing wrong with educational systems (including some of those engaged with the human potential) that move people from basic lessons, through intermediate steps and on to more advance stuff. We all know the models. Kindergarten to elementary school to high school, etc. Ground school to visual flight training to instrument-only flight training to airline pilot school, etc. Healthy educational processes exist for the purpose of serving learners and the learners’ constructive futures, the world into which they are moving, and the lives they now and will some day touch. Healthy educational programs must be led and conducted by people who simultaneously are on their own path of self-examination and learning, i.e. teachers must always engage in the rigor of being students themselves – willing to self-examine right along side those who seek their services. Healthy educational models are not closed loop systems instituted for the purpose of developing learner dependency. Healthy educational systems do not dedicate themselves to creating never-ending needs on the part of the learner to seek only those viewpoints that the system espouses in order to keep marketing and sales machinery alive.
As I sit here, an imaginary (and somewhat critical and cynical) Ian Malcolm appears in the coffee shop and plops next to me. He looks to the adjacent table, then back at me and continues his admonishment found on pages 305 – 307 of Michael Crichton’s Jurassic Park.
Will you listen to this guy over here! He’s selling a program about which he knows almost nothing at all. And his soon-to-be assistant has no clue that he is about to get involved with something that has been slapped together in very short order without much learning. Our interviewer has forgotten about, or doesn’t care about, how little he knows and what his competencies really are not. He believes that what is in front of him is simple. He doesn’t know a thing about why Michael Crichton created my character as a way to remind people that most kinds of power require a substantial sacrifice by whoever wants it. He overlooks the years of apprenticeship and discipline needed. He lives and believes in a get rich quick world. His toys - laptop, mobile phones, search engines, and instant bill pay – have become his tools of trade. And because he can source information very quickly he has convinced himself that he has the right to have and to use whatever is available at his fingertips.
All he has to do is write a check or lay down a credit card to attend someone else’s class, and bingo - he’s an instant guru. And because he has memorized a few words and moves, he fashions himself a leader or teacher or master or boss. Whatever! He mistakenly thinks this stuff is for sale and can be purchased. He has no appreciation for a life of discipline, self-examination and practice.
I’ll bet he does paint-by-numbers and calls himself an artist. He probably buys a new car every other year, and when he flips on his Sirius satellite radio he honestly considers himself a musician.
My imagined Ian Malcolm stands and disappears to return to his fictional world and I am left sitting alone again in the coffee shop. A particular poignant scene from the film Amazing Grace comes to mind. William Wilberforce, the man who eventually led Britain out of the slave industry, sits in his garden, wrestling with mid-life crisis. There he is joined by his butler, who for a few moments quotes Francis Bacon with the hope of helping Wilberforce through his dilemma: “It is a sad fate for a man to die too well known to everyone else, and still unknown to himself.” The butler then grins and admits, “I don’t just dust your books, sir.”
Over my shoulder the interview is wrapping up. I wonder if the man conducting the interview is walking a path into his own sad fate? Is an unaware interviewee about to join him on the trek?
I imagine a conversation might accompany and finalize such business dealings.
Question: And, the end game – what then?
Answer: Franchise our model, of course! Then retire and play golf, but don’t forget to check the quarterly balance sheets.
Question: What about the end users?
Answer: They’re not our problem. They’re just units. Remember, this IS a business.
March 2009. The Sherfu. Yi Lan County - the northeast side of Taiwan.
I had the good fortune to travel here and stay a few days. My temporary home is an apartment midst miles of rice fields. My bed is a two-inch thick tatami mattress on the wooden floor. My visit comes at the request of a woman who has asked me to deliver the Samurai Game® for her students. From that day to this day I know her only as Sherfu – meaning “teacher”. In my lifetime, including the three years since our first encounter, I have never met nor engaged with a more mindful, focused, peaceful or serene human being as she. (http://alliedronin.blogspot.com/2009/03/march-15th-2009.html).
Sherfu. Buddhist nun. Known throughout Taiwan. She travels this island nation west to east and from Taipei to Kao-hsiung helping people solve problems of communication and relationship. Her school is small, as is her temple; but her students and followers number possibly into the thousands.
Sherfu’s classes are dedicated to teaching meditation, calligraphy, flower arranging and tea ceremony. These arts she practices. They are her study and her path. At these she is personally masterful. But what people learn as a result is so much more than the skills involved. Her true work is that of being a problem solver beyond the walls of her school. She sleeps very little.
“Why do you want the Samurai Game?” I asked on the day we first met. Her reply, “The people are too dependent on me. They need to stand up on their own and solve their own problems. I’m a simple woman. What you are bringing will help me and them with that.”
“I have some personal concerns,” I say.
“About what?” she asks.
“Well, people know you to be a holy woman, a woman of peace. Sometimes I get moody and resentful. I’ve been married and divorced. You are asking your students to be my students for a while, and you are telling me that you also are going to be one my students. I’m worried about this.”
Sherfu smiles. So do the three nuns who sit with us and our translator. She reaches across the table and touches my hand, smiles again and says, “I was once married. And like you, I am now divorced. Don’t worry so much.”
How do people come to her school? I don’t know. Her focus is service, not sales; giving, not getting or taking; practice, not intellectualizing or lecturing about the newest fad or theory that she’s just come across through someone else’s lecture or Powerpoint or that she found in some article in Psychology Today magazine. She does not get wrapped up in deal making. She inquires. She listens. She speaks. She studies. She practices. At 5:00 a.m. every morning her meditation begins and lasts an hour. After that she breakfasts and starts helping people – in person and by phone. This goes on all day. Some time after midnight she goes to sleep. And then, at 5:00 a.m. she begins again.
Sherfu. She does not look to find what someone else is doing so that she can slick it up, re-brand and market it. She invests in serving life. She has not created a business. But she definitely has business to do.
Today, as I write these words, I imagine Sherfu ending an interview with someone who seeks to engage or work with her.
Question: And the end game – what then, Sherfu?
Answer: What do you mean, end game? I don’t understand what this means.
Question: OK then, what about the end-users?
Answer: There are no end-users. All human beings, including myself, are users and we are all servants. But if you mean what of the people I serve? They are my teachers. I am fortunate, because they come and go, and sometimes they come back. They are always welcome to do either. I will be learning from them about myself for the rest of my life.
© Lance Giroux, April 2012