Aikido and Teaching:

Teaching is an art. The thing is it was often explained to me as a power game where the teacher is always looking to control the students. This has never sat well with me. I will always remember my first weeks as a trainee teacher as my mentor and I did not see eye to eye. I heard his concept of discipline from the other side of the campus and I knew the student who was receiving the full force of his reasoning also felt the sweat from his nose due to the proximity of their faces. This was never going to be the way that I “encouraged” learning and years later when I started to be informed by the findings of neuroscience it became patently obvious that the brain does not create learning in fearful situations – except in the instance of moments of fight or flight.

What I have grown to recognize is that the teacher / facilitator needs to hold a space for learning. It is a safe place, where mistakes are not only ok they are encouraged. It is a place where we are open to the outcome of the learning rather than dictating what the learning will be. Searching for a metaphor for teaching I have come up with the martial art of Aikido. While most of the martial arts center on the concept of combat this was not originator Master Morihei Ueshiba‘s desire. ”Aikido is not a technique to fight with or to defeat the enemy. It is a way to reconcile the world and make human beings one family.” Wikipedia suggests that his philosophy was one “of extending love and compassion especially to those who seek to harm others. Aikido demonstrates this philosophy in its emphasis on mastering martial arts so that one may receive an attack and harmlessly redirect it. In an ideal resolution, not only is the receiver unharmed, but so is the attacker.” This also strikes me as a good philosophy for education.

Where I love the concept of Aikido is that the purpose is to maintain balance and through turning, pushing and drawing you lead the other person to a place of imbalance. It is not a forceful action and strength is not a requirement. So a teacher / facilitator strives to maintain equilibrium regardless of what comes in their direction. Also, with time while they can predict what may happen, they are actually better off being present. The imbalance that we encourage our students / participants to experience is cognitive dissonance; a place where they have to reason and are motivated to find meaning, as it is from this that the learning grows.

What is a good metaphor for what you do?

Renaissance an Easter Tradition:

I have always loved the concept of the Renaissance man; a polymath as exemplified by the great thinkers of 14th through 17th Century Europe. Easter whether you are Christian or pagan worshipping the Goddess Oestra is also significant for its themes of ascension and renaissance (re-birth). As a boy growing up in Wales, the fields full of daffodils and lambs were evidence of the natural cycle of things, spring is a time of rejuvenation and renewal. This was magnified a hundred fold in Alaska where spring is known as break up, a period of a few days where the monochrome of snow cover is displaced by the vivid color of buds and wildflowers blooming rather like a speeded up time lapse sequence. Now back in Colorado I gaze at the azure sky framed by the already green trees, with colorful bulbs bursting out of the ground and the blooms of magnolia unfolding like precious pink purses. I feel the warmth of the sun and I feel fortunate. Spring is a time to be reverent. It is also a time to meditate on this concept of change that out of the ashes of winter a phoenix can rise. 

Today sitting in a beautifully simple church with the dappled light of stain glass and the warmth of the wood, I was struck by a thought. To become a polymath we need to have a multitude of renaissances. Each spring is a time to reinvent ourselves, to add another string to our bow. By picking up new skills and acquiring new knowledge we follow in the tradition of Leonardo da Vinci, Michelangelo, Galileo Galilei, Francis Bacon, Johann Goethe, Isaac Newton and Copernicus. When science was shaped by the shift in thinking and art we saw a meteoric jump in the potential of humanity. If we allow this same open-ness into our own consciousness then our potential is phenomenal. An ancestor of mine John Harrison helped measure Longitude by inventing accurate time pieces, this in turn allowed accurate navigation over large tracts of ocean. His doggedness is a wonderful story told beautifully by Dava Sobel in Longitude if you like historical literature. It strikes me it is worth meditating on the domino effect of our own renaissances big and small.

What strings are you going to add to your bow this Easter?

10 reasons why it is good to learn leadership outdoors

This morning I was sent an article from the Harvard Business Review on a subject of which I am particularly keen; the benefits of teaching corporate leadership in a wilderness setting. It is something I have reflected on a lot over the years, but rather in the same way that a childless person can imagine parenting – you do not really know what you are talking about until you are woken at 3.00 am by a child vomiting or you are trying to figure out the integrity of your teenage daughter’s would be suitor. After 25 years of watching and developing leaders outdoors I now work in a corporate environment where I see two kinds of managers and leaders. There are those that have been “battle trained” and those that have gained their smarts from books, classes and experiences in a somewhat artificial environment, a place where they are sheltered from the true consequences of their actions. So in a similar vein to last week I want to offer up 10 thoughts about developing leadership outdoors and why it is so potent.

 

You cannot bury your head in the sand:

Firstly, you can never blame nature, it just is and your successes and failures are a result of the way that you interact with it. Period. If you are cold you did not bring enough clothing or you are not thinking warm enough thoughts. If you are hungry you did not bring enough food. If you are ready to collapse and do not think you can go any farther then you have bitten off more than you can chew, you are not fit enough or you need to develop your resolve by having more of these moments. Conversely, if you are soaring on the elation of a view or an adrenalin high you must have done something right even if you do not know what it was.

 

It is far more evident what leadership actually is:

Leadership is hard to define and yet it is easily felt. It is less of a role and more of an agreement. When it is thought of as a series of easily measured rules and responsibilities it often loses its essence. Take a group of friends who regularly paddle challenging white water together. On any given day the structure of leadership will look different. Who is “on” that day, who feels the flow and is willing to take point, who is “off” and sees the wisdom of deferring an emotionally charged decision. The leadership of the group is organic and also the result of the individual energies that each member brings and the collective energy that they create. At any moment decision making can be by consensus, abdicated or elected to the person in the best position to make it. Basically, in the outdoors leadership usually has a flatter hierarchy because it is naturally evident that everyone brings something to the table, it also becomes obvious that leadership and fellowship are part of the same continuum and it is basically best to take whatever role is necessary to meet the team’s needs.

 

Relevance makes learning leadership natural:

Leadership can be learned. My leadership certainly developed over the years and I have had the pleasure and joy of watching thousands of people grow around me. Teaching in the outdoors is about scaffolding experience on top of experience, sometimes it is deemed a success and sometimes it is perceived of as a failure, however there is always the potential for learning. Learning is manifested by reflection. The thing about the outdoors is that it is simple and consequently often easier to define success and because of this people take the time to do it. Also, there is a natural relevance that makes reflection worthwhile. Inevitably this is followed by accelerated learning. Put simply, when in nature a group is more likely to naturally do what groups need to do to be successful. It is certainly far easier to steer them towards a culture of success.

 

There is no better place to learn to trust: 

I am yet to find a relationship that was not defined by trust. The thing about sharing adventures is that you put yourself in a position where you develop trust through necessity and you do it quickly. The other piece is that you repeat adventures with the people who responded to and reciprocated the level of trust that you invested. I do not climb as much these days as I used to and usually it is with my seven year old son, my best friends though; the ones I am most invested in, are the ones with whom I have shared time in the outdoors. The ones I wish to seek most counsel from are the ones I repeatedly shared a rope with in the most hazardous places. I learned to trust these people because I had to. One of the other reasons that I want their opinion is because I know it is based on the sound reasoning of natural cause and effect.

 

Balancing planning and dealing with uncertainty is a daily occurrence: 

Planning is a large part of any adventure. My sights are currently set on walking the Colorado Trail, and I feel I may have already spent as much time thinking about it; especially the logistics, as it will probably take to walk it. I have been scouring information on how people have maintained ridiculously light packs while walking alone. I have poured over maps. I have tried meals I might cook. I have made stoves out of cat food cans. Cai & I have been camping without a tent to experiment with small tarps. The bottom line is that I want to go into this thing with the lightest pack I can safely manage and this requires trial and error. So I will start with a plan because I can control this, however there are so many things over which I do not have jurisdiction that I will also have to be flexible to change. Nowhere have I been so schooled in this balance of planning and responding as in the outdoors. Being hit by rock fall a quarter of the way into a route in the alps with no chance of retreat. Gaining a col after a days travail in the Himalayas only to find descending the other side was suicide. Being caught out on 20 foot swells with a group of students sea kayaking in Baja and hoping for a safe, sheltered beach to land on. These lessons have real consequences which lead to real growth.

 

Success in the outdoors is dependent on behavior:

Have you ever been stuck in a tent with someone for a month? The rain is teeming down, neither of you have had a bath for weeks, you are sharing the most incredible views and adventures, yet you are also sharing your smells, the sad stories you have told a few too many times and the angst of failed relationships. Perhaps, you also both know the taste of gasoline infused food because of a spill in a backpack and perhaps that infusion was the direct result of one of you being clumsy. A tent is a testing ground for relationships, no small wonder I committed to the last ten years with my wife during a period of trail building we shared at 12,000 feet in the Colorado Rockies. The thing is you have to develop compassion, empathy and the ability to communicate or you suffer. The best expeditions are the ones where you bring the best out of the people you share them with. No small wonder the National Outdoor Leadership School talks about and coaches “expedition behavior” and this is quoted as being something that transfers into all walks of their alumni’s lives.

 

You quickly learn to maintain calm:

The outdoors breeds grace especially under pressure. One of my pivotal moments as an outdoor instructor involved watching a pack float away while I had 10 students in a swamped boat. Realizing that I had no way of finding let alone retrieving the bag and being grateful that my charges were all accounted for led to a renewed drive to become even better at what I did. The thing was that a colleague whom I called across to saying, “Terry, I think we could do with some help” had no idea how challenged I felt at that moment and the kids thought it was just part of the adventure. Outward calm comes from lots of experience of dealing with duress, well either that or ignorance of your situation. It is rare that I witness drama (outside of relationships) among my outdoor friends and that is because through ritual they plan for most outcomes and they are used to dealing with unexpected situations as they occur.

 

Serenity leads to clarity:

One of my favorite quotes is reputedly from St Augustine who said “solvitur ambulando” “it is solved by walking”. When I have a decision to make my two favorite ways of gaining perspective are to either meditate or go for a walk. There is something about the cadence of placing one food in front of the other, especially when it is accompanied by the song of birds, the rustle of trees, fresh air and a view. We live in a world full of “stuff” and increasingly we are diluting our faculties by being constantly available to a barrage of drivel. The thing is we are often blinkered from seeing what is important because of the endless flow of unnecessary information that we have to sieve through. Going outdoors brings with it serenity and a space where we can focus on the important decisions. It is very liberating.

 

The outdoors induces a playful and experimental state:

Nature also provides a great venue for practice. Styles of leadership vary with a situation and “playing” outside provides a place for seeing what works best as the consequences are usually immediate. For instance if I am walking in a safe and mellow venue and I start barking orders like a sergeant major running drills on a parade ground, inevitably the people I am shouting at will push back – my behavior will make no sense to them and they will tell me this in no uncertain terms. (This is unlikely to happen in a military setting and while the water cooler chat will be off the charts in the corporate world the leader may never gain the feedback.) Now if I use the same tactics in a high risk environment coming down from a technical summit amidst an electrical storm where my charges are scared they will probably thank me for being so directive. We need to play and practice with concepts and we need a response as to how well they work.

 

It beats sitting at a desk!:

Finally, the rewards are incredible. When I am outside I want to lead if it is necessary, I certainly want to play my part to make something happen because I know how it feels when I reach that peak, pull that move or drop over that lip. The days of hardship melt away when I survey the view in front of me. The sense of satisfaction derived from sharing it with others is enormous. We do not need to talk, we know. This is not always the case in the office, so it is easier to learn the skills where there is plenty of motivation.

 

 

Be curious !

I always loved TED.com and used their videos a lot in my classes – this is great.

http://education.ted.com/

Thoughts inspired by a hut trip: 10 ideas to steer us in the right direction

Let me start by saying I have a tendancy to be a martyr and this selfish post is a series of thoughts that I need to remind myself of regularly. 

Last week I went on a hut trip, something I love and used to do fairly often, yet I easily find excuses not to now that I am a husband and father. Do you know what I am talking about all you parents out there? Well Kimberly helped me overcome all those fanciful obstacles I erect in my mind and made me go. Thanks Kim! So here is what I was reminded while nestled in a cabin in the mountains.

Firstly, what is a hut trip? Well most places you find mountains, snow and affluence you will come across purpose built cabins that serve as shelters for those so inclined to tour between on skis, foot or bike. In my part of the world, there is a host of them inspired by the exploits of the infamous 10th Mountain Division. Following the Second World War a number of those soldiers who returned from impactful active service in Italy set about amongst other things developing the ski industry in the US. Naturally, they were drawn back to the mountains surrounding their training base of Camp Hale near Vail. Now these gentlemen approached peace in the same way they did war; with liberal amounts of energy and determination along with a sprinkling of fun, cameraderie and an appreciation of a natural world that soothes the pains of hard work and trauma. One result is a chain of well appointed cabins, all placed in incredible situations; most are eyrie like with views to die for. They are simple and yet extremely elegant with everything you need to live comfortably and nothing extraneous. These places are magical because by removing the superfluous they are a reminder of what is actually important in life. As an indicator of how passionately we feel about that last statement, Kimberly and I were married at one.

What was I reminded about?

Good views are gained when you are on top. The best are the result of hard work:

The approach to the Jackal rises straight out of Camp Hale, in the winter there is little trace of the camp that once housed 15,000 men, a host of mules and the various vehicles required to service mountain soldiers both in summer and winter. The only tell tale sign is a large artifically flat valley floor that inspires sightings of imaginary ghosts and their hustle and bustle as you ski over it. After this flat you climb and climb (from 9,000 to 11,600 ft in about five miles). When you finally bust out of the trees there is the most gorgeous shelter, the quintessential log cabin whose windows oversee peaks throughout the Holy Cross Wilderness and the Sawatch and Mosquito Ranges.

When we know what we are doing life falls easily into place:

Hut life is simple. You need to cut and stack wood to keep the cabin warm and collect snow to melt for water. You get up with the sun to capture the amazing light and make breakfast. You go out to ski. You come back to make dinner and spin stories with the other people sharing the space. You take more pictures making  the most of the evening light. You sit around the fire enjoying the company. Basically, it is blissful.

People who share our values amd work hard to make them happen are the most fun to be around:

Effort seems to be a filter when it comes to convivial company. I am yet to find someone that I have nothing in common with and whose company I did not enjoy in a remote setting such as this. I attribute this to the fact that you have to work to reach a place like this, it is a real decision. I believe being pleasant is also a choice. 

Removing the extraneous “stuff” lightens the load and makes us happy:

I hate carrying an unecessarily heavy pack and while I am prepared to invest in a few luxuries; wine and decent food seems to be worthwhile, the more I consider each item I bring, the lighter my load, the happier I am. The same is true of hut life. Ridding myself of the “stuff” from urban and work life, the lighter my load, the happier I am.

Leaving tracks regardless of whether we ski or snowboard is always fun. They are just more meaningful when they have to be earned:

Are you noticing a pattern here? When I have to climb for my turns they are more exciting, maybe its the exertion, maybe it is the variety in the snowpack that keeps me on my toes. This is the same reason why I prefer telemark over other forms of riding – it is so much more complex and takes much longer to master. When I look behind me and see an aesthetic representation of my journey I feel warm inside.

Spending time learning how to navigate accurately is time well spent:

Navigation is the act of matching a plan with reality and making adjustments as necessary. To “stay found” we need to know where we are, where we are going and what we are likely to meet along the way. While it is more engaging to walk where there is no map, we have to be ready to deal with the consequences. Most of the time using a map is far more efficient and means we can travel more safely and with confidence even in a place we have never visited before. Being open to changing our route as whim and the experience suggests provides more fun potential. Good navigation steers a good life.

Safety skills are worth acquiring:

Safety is a simple formula; managing risks is about recognizing the consequence and liklihood of any action. When travelling in avalanche terrain, knowing what the snow pack consists of will give us a pretty good understanding of the consequence. We manage the liklihood by choosing the pitch we are going to ride. 38° is the angle of repose of snow, so skiing a slope of 38° means there is a high liklihood of a slide if there is something to slide and a weak layer that can fail. The thing is we have to balance the risk of loss with the risk of gain. When safe, skiing a 38° slope puts the biggest smile on my face.

Helping others makes us feel good. Allowing others to help us is a gift:

The time spent doing chores from which everyone benefits makes me feel part of something bigger than myself. When I can be there for someone else I feel proud. How good is that? When I allow someone else to do the same for me then I am providing an opportunity for them to feel proud.

Nature truly is snake oil:

Being in wilderness is the one thing that can be gauranteed to lift my spirits and put me back in touch with myself. St Augustine said it best “solvitur ambulando” – “it is solved by walking” and this is a phrase that resonates with me. When I walk / ski surrounded by trees, birds and mountains the recovery seems to be that much more complete.

Good company, good views, good simple food and sweat; the residue of a good day out, really is what life is all about.

Well that is my belief anyway. Time in huts always brings it back to basics, remove computers, phones and tv and replace with conversation and a guitar, yet maintain the warmth of your home while swopping out the vista and it quickly becomes evident what we most enjoy. The family vacation by the beach, the shared Sunday meal, catching the sunrise on an early commute, the evening run through the park. These are the moments that lift us, bringing more of them into our daily life lifts our potential for happiness. What a warm fuzzy thought.

Where do you find your inspiration? 

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St David and Equanimity

Daffodils - a site to behold on March 1st in Wales

Yesterday was St David’s Day. David was a teacher, an ascetic and the Patron Saint of Wales whose last words were apparently “‘Brothers be ye constant. The yoke which with single mind ye have taken, bear ye to the end; and whatsoever ye have seen with me and heard, keep and fulfill’.” Strange last words even if you are surrounded by a horde of your loyal monks. The thing is that they take a certain reserve to utter when your world is about to end. The word equanimity (a state of mental or emotional stability or composure arising from a deep awareness and acceptance of the present moment) came to mind, which is not surprising because I have been wrestling with the word since Michael Howard came to stay. Michael talked about how it is a gateway to developing spirit-will and so I have been thinking about how it might be taught.

Last post I also promised to share thinking on how we might educate the will so here goes.

Somethings are taught by raising awareness, consider my walks into school with Cai of late where we have been looking at the color of the sky and can now fairly accurately predict snow. The deep grey clouds of the mountains to our west and the low sun in the East produces an amazing silver light that seems to generally lose its gleam before flowing down into Denver bringing with it the white stuff. Equanimity however is different and I believe is developed from experiencing duress or at least by being stretched in some way. Let me share two stories from my climbing past.

The first occurred when I was 16. Inspired by tales of heroes I elected to try and climb three routes in a day, each of which had been climbed during or prior to 1945 and were rated “extremely severe”. Suicide Wall and Javelin Blade are well known, there is though a third route that fell into my category called Rowan Tree Slabs first climbed in 1929 and this is where we started. After a warm up pitch on a classic easy slab the initial part of the main pitch is friendly enough. As one gains height the moves become more tenuous and the security less available. About three quarters of the way up this 100 foot pitch I placed what I believed to be a good piece of protection in a crack and clipped a rope into it. Twelve feet higher I came to an impasse. There followed a little dance that lasted about an hour, each time I would move up a few feet and try a move that involved placing my shoe on a rounded placement that did not inspire me with confidence. Try as I might, whenever I placed pressure on that foot with the intention of weighting it and standing up to grasp a hold just out of reach I failed to commit and my mind played games with me until breathing heavily and feeling wobbly I reversed to a small resting ledge. Up and down I went. I usually equate this motion with purpose, like that of a piston and yet in this moment I lacked resolve and consequently the place and time became a nightmare of weak will. Eventually I climbed down a little more before jumping when I could reverse no further. The thing was I expected that after a drop of 15 feet the rope was going to catch me, only I did not feel the familiar stretch and then a comforting cuddle as the harness squeezed my waist and thighs. Instead there was a sickening jolt as my anchor popped, and suddenly I was catapulted upside down bouncing and sliding head first down the slab. The rope slowed momentarily as I reached another piece of gear before it too was jettisoned and I was again on my gravity assisted odyssey. Again, the sense that it was over was precipitated by the sound of whirring and a jolt. I eventually stopped, five feet above a sickening fang of rock. I had fallen 65 feet. Dave slowly lowered me to the stance. I shook and this only incoreased when I flicked the rope and the final nut; the one that had saved my head impacting with the pinnacle, flew out effortlessly. It was a year before I really climbed again.

The second occurred some seven years later, I now had a lot of vertical ground under my belt, some of it done without a rope and again I was inspired by books and what a climbing hero of mine John Redhead called “authentic desire”. At the time I worked at a bail hostel and while drinking coffee in the kitchen I would sit in a window with a view of Ysgolion Dduon framed by an old oak tree. The Black Ladders as they are known are a winter wonderland of dripping ice and frozen turf. The characteristics that make them forbidding in summer weave a matrix of white smears that make for excellent sport in colder months. I took one of my trainees up one mid week day to find perfect conditions and looking at one of the classics “the Somme” I debated whether I should take him up it. I chose to do something easier but vowed to return alone at the weekend.

Light had not yet punctuated the sky and driving up the narrow lane, Tom Petty was singing “I’m free falling” to me; it left a sense of foreboding. Still I walked in quickly, aided by a light sack. As I arrived the hills across the valley collected the sun’s first rays and I looked up to see that a lot of the ice had melted. Filled with initial doubt I questioned myself as to the wisdom of climbing unroped in these less than perfect conditions, yet before long my crampons were fastened to my boots and my axes strapped to my wrist. Again, easy initial ground lured me in but before long I was struggling in a tight crack. For one short spell I clipped into some gear left behind by someone rappelling off the route but the sense of heartache as I had to release the carabiner half way through a sequence of moves severing an umbilical cord of blue webbing was overwhelming. I was now 300 feet above the boulder field and emotionally exhausted, I stopped on a large leaning boulder to drink some coffee from my flask. Other climbers were starting to appear in the valley and as I ate a sandwich I surveyed the slab ahead. Accessing it required precariously stepping over a cleft and committing to a sheet of ice that was a half inch thick. The prospect was extremely intimidating and I thought about waiting for another party to reach me so that I could tie into one of their ropes. The same up down routine ensued, yet this time I stopped and breathed and chose to move onwards. The step across was like springing a trap, however once I had done it, my rhythm returned and soon I was finding that perfect cadence where heart and movement synchronize. The following 150 feet were pure magic as demons were exorcised and I felt the control of a warrior. Without doubt this is one of my seminal moments and one I am so glad that I indulged in. Reaching the top following several hundred more feet of easy ground was one of the most elating experiences and I lived on a cloud for months after it.

The question is what led to that moment of equanimity perched atop a leaning boulder surrounded by crystals of ice and the vast architecture of a wet Welsh cliff? I will have to say it is the progressive momentum of stretching oneself slowly and consistently over time. Each time we show discipline and do something a little harder than we are used to we open the door to equanimity. It is not something to be learned vicariously, it is something that is earned through graft.

What are you going to do to stretch your comfort zone today?

Thinking and Feeling Will

This post may sound like a double entendre, it is though inspired by Michael Howard again. Michael is the keynote speaker at a conference at Cai’s school and is also staying with us, so we have been having conversations and my mind is particularly active at the moment. One of the things that I have come to recognize in the last few days is that most of the acts I am particularly proud of I have been led to intuitively rather than thought my way into them. The choice of Cai’s school is a good example, deciding to send Cai to a Waldorf school was first inspired by an emotional response to a school I witnessed in my late teens. When we were looking at where to send Cai, we went to a May Fair at the Anchorage Waldorf School and our decision was based on how Kim and I felt there and how Cai appeared to feel. My knowledge of Rudolph Steiner back then was based on having hung out with some hippies who were into Biodynamic farming. One night I  watched in incredulous amusement while they buried a bull’s horn full of urine in dirt and proceeded to have a full moon party where they danced around said buried horn. The thing was, while I did not feel comfortable with their approach or rituals, I did enjoy the huge and highly tasty vegetables they produced by pouring this fertilizer on their plants, I was still not prepared to read Steiner’s books though.

Likewise the next step of my Waldorf journey was watching a sculptor call David Nash create something incredible at a residential center where I worked. “Portal of light” was a huge dying tree, that had its crown cut off and all but one of its limbs removed. This limb was trimmed and then sectioned off with a chain saw, also the trunk around the limb was cut through so that light was visible through it and it look like the limb was floating.

Not the described sculpture still an indication of his methods. Click on the photo for more examples of his work

Nash was part of a cooperative that started the Waldorf school I had originally seen and his sculpture now makes me think of Steiner because Nash can see something within a tree that I can not and when he exposes it the results are incredible. Likewise, Steiner was able to see things within children and the techniques he collected and shared with teachers are similarly impressive because they bring out the “wonder” from within children.

If I had stopped to read Steiner’s work before having felt on a number of occasions the results I now witness on a daily basis, I know that Cai would not be at a Waldorf school. I was just not ready for Steiner’s brand of esoteric mysticism.

So why am I writing about all this? In the last post I talked of how freedom of will requires us to navigate the stream of thoughts that are constantly flowing and this requires us to use meditative practices to develop our skills and understanding (Steiner shared a few different ones designed to develop different capacities of will).  Michael Howard  in his book discusses the difference between thinking-will (head and hand coordination) and feeling-will (head, hand & heart coordination). He clearly states that the intentional development of both types of will in children needs to become the major purpose of education however he in particular focuses on how we can develop feeling-will because this is the piece that is most often lacking. Howard goes farther and suggests that “the defining characteristic of feeling-will is the capacity to live deeply into the inner quality of something outside us, knowing and feeling it as if we are within it or it is within us.”

Now this has got me thinking if I have used my feeling-will to create the decisions I am proud of how can I develop it in others as an outdoor educator? How can I lead my trainees towards this beacon as someone who develops a corporate culture?

Next time around I will share some of Michael’s techniques for developing feeling-will. You can always read his book. Until then, has thinking or feeling provided your best results?

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Freedom is Kayaking Upstream

I am currently reading a book by Michael Howard called Educating the Will; the basic premise being that a well educated child is provided with experiences and reflections that develop the head, the hand and the heart. This is somewhat counter intuitive to contemporary practice that increasingly focuses on the head to the exclusion of the other two faculties. As a sculptor Howard particularly concentrates on using art to develop the feeling will. He also talks about children needing to witness teachers striving towards wholeness, i.e. they themselves are working towards developing their own balance of thinking, feeling and willing. Rudolph Steiner who has shaped Waldorf teacher Howard’s thinking believed that freely chosen ethical disciplines and meditative training would help a person to become a more moral, creative and free individual – free in the sense of being capable of actions motivated solely by love. Steiner is basically a proponent of people being able to experience their higher nature and also that of others.

For me this whole arena is fascinating yet teeters on being hokey and while I have read various accounts of what will is, in particular in relation to the idea of “free will” it is a concept I have struggled with until Michael Howard posited an analogy that spoke to me. Early in the book he paints a picture of the mind being like a river where we are treated to a constant flow of thought that we do not really control; I like this image because I think of what happens over time when we humans try to do just this with dams. He also tells of a time when he watched a group of white water kayakers. “As they paddled downstream they displayed incredible mastery, going wherever and however they fancied. There seemed to be no limit to what they could do, including paddling upstream against the raging torrent. I was captivated as I watched some of them move slowly upstream – 10, 20, 30 feet. Incredibly, some could paddle as much as 100 feet against the current, but sooner or later, even the strongest and most skillful paddlers would run out of steam. Instantly they would be swept back downstream by the relentless force of the current.” Howard goes on to explain that a skillful thinker can navigate the constant stream of thoughts, choosing (will) which ones to engage. Logical thinkers can move freely within the flow and thinkers who grow the inner will to build thought upon thought without being swept along by random thoughts are comparable to the kayakers paddling upstream.

So here are a few random thoughts from someone who used to kayak a fair amount. Firstly, there was once a time when kayaking / canoeing upstream was a necessity, now if I really want to go up river I put my kayak on the roof of my car, it is a lot easier. I think the same is probably true of thinking skills now that we have google. Yet, I was compelled to paddle upstream and there was a reason, it was an opportunity to learn more about how a river works, mainly because I could see what the water was doing in front of me as I worked against it. Kayaking upstream is less about brute force and more about understanding the river, I need to understand how the shape of the bed dictates how the water will flow, I need to feel the pulses that occur naturally and therefore as I learn this I also learn how to feather the angle of my boat, use the river features and time my strokes to gain ground. The exercise gives me a far better understanding of the mechanics of efficient paddling when I am going downstream and cannot see what is behind me or I am accelerating quickly towards something and have to understand what will happen based on the water I am traveling through and what I can see ahead. Likewise meditating, where I spend my time kindly ridding my mind of thoughts as I focus on my breathing, allows me to think much better when I am trying to maintain a modicum of control of a creative process that can look like a heavy handed Jackson Pollockesque canvas with no grace.

Nowhere is the concept of paddling upstream more apparent than going against the tide in a sea kayak, by using features and being aware of the subtleties of hydro dynamics you can gain significant ground in certain situations. There is no way you can fight a current if you do not understand these things.

So the main take home of all this for me is that you are never going to be truly free of your thoughts unless you spend time understanding how the flow of your thoughts come about and this takes graft and a willingness to be spat out. And while you cannot stem them, you can learn the skills necessary to navigate them and freely choose what is good for you and others if you take time and engage in a meditative discipline. No wonder the Dalai Lama can smile while witnessing the wake of destruction in his country, through significant practice like an expert kayaker he has spent more time than most learning the true art of choosing which line (of thought) he is going to follow and use. Also, as Steiner suggests he is exceptionally free, because this discipline has ultimately meant he can shape his actions so that they come from a place of love.

How are you going to shape your freedom?

Resolutions and Running

Image borrowed from http://terrilynn.edublogs.org/2011/09/29/running-it-is-what-it-is/

I confess to being contrary at times and while I enjoy doing things such as meditating as part of a group I do not like doing things just because other people do them. New Year’s resolutions for instance irritate me as they seem like fads; everyone jumps on for a while and then drops off the planet a short time later. The thing was that this year the desire to make some major changes in my life coincided with the turning of the year – what to do? Well I thought I might as well try something different.  Some years ago I read some research by Sonja Lyubomirsky (the paper) suggesting that success is born from success, i.e. if we do something well we create the confidence to also do something completely different well. Success can then be attributed to a way of thinking based on experiences of personal victories. This also ties in nicely with Carol Dweck‘s “mindset” theory.

 

So January was spent doing something daily that I knew I was able to do and maintain and every day this year I have meditated. After a month was up I decided to add another layer to my discipline challenge and now I run before breakfast. I know that if I had started running at the beginning of the year I would have been one of those people that quickly loose sight of their resolutions. Another thing Dr Lyubomirsky suggests in her book  The How of Happiness is that we have a happiness set point that is derived from genetics which makes up 50% of our happiness potential, 10% is defined by life circumstances and 40% we can control through our daily disciplines.

 

Now it is over a month ago “Happy New Year“, what are you going to do to make your’s amazing?

Bodhisattva and the Wailers – thoughts on finding your happiness

In my work I am lucky to meet some amazing people, most of my colleagues are incredibly talented and in my daily routine I sometimes take care of celebrities. However, two weeks ago I had a moment that spoke to me more than most as I spent some time with the venerable Dupsing Rinpoche. Not only did this encounter evoke memories from my time in Nepal it also spiralled my thinking out of control. In particular I found myself looking at his face which radiated a sublime happiness; my trippy wife calls it an aura and in this moment I truly understood what she means. Dupsing displayed a confident contentment and this is from a man whose people have been forced to leave their home. If I look at other disposessed native people this is hardly the look I usually see; that though is another story.

So I have been left wondering what gives a man such an appearance. Over coffee yesterday a friend was joshing me (giving me a hard time for non Brits), that I was obsessed and that he too looked happy. Now, no offence, the thing is I rarely see people look this happy and know that they live it constantly. Yes I see euphoric rushes, moments when people are blissful. This though I feel was a constant. I have seen this beatific smile in one other place recently and that is on a video of the Wailers shot by some friends. http://vimeo.com/35125194 check out the guy in the middle; the thing is I have not been in his presence so I do not know if he radiates happiness.

So back to the question, what allows someone to emanate such a glow, well in the case of Dupsing I think I know. The venerable Rinpoche has always known who he is and was told as much when he was young by people who had sought him out. (Check out his story http://www.dupsing.org/Biography.htm) He has been living his destiny as a result of this. When things are tough he knows that it is for a reason and he knows that his life takes discipline and he is more than willing to embrace it. As a living reincarnation he basically knows who he is.

Just as a farmer in Greece plants an olive tree knowing that it will wait for his grandson to reap the fruit, there is something rassuring in living this concept of impermanent permanence. Knowing who you are allows you to relax and be just that, it removes immeasurable choices that do not really help us and lets us focus on what we can affect. Dupsing is happy because he has worked at the things that he knows will make a difference, he knows he is working towards being the best he can be and he knows he is helping others in this process.

What can you or I do in this moment to know who we are and who we can help? Armed with this thought I look forward to seeing more smiles.