Category Archives: Hot stuff

Copenhagen Summer School 2010

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Hi all!

Yes, it’s been quite a while! Good to be back. I’m planning on getting back to my old level of activity here in the blogosphere, starting, immediately.

This post is about the Summer School at the School of Exercise and Sport Science that I attended last week. It was held at the University of Copenhagen, Denmark. It was fantastic!

The school started (for me) with a 17-hour day of travel, that took me across several time zones, and resulted in my arriving in Copenhagen Sunday the 22nd. Two days after I left!!!

The first day was marked by torrential downpours, which I think are relatively normal in Copenhagen. I made it to a restaurant for some lunch – a salmon club sandwich! – and a large Carlsberg beer.

I was staying at the DGI-Byen Hostel, on Hans Christian Andersen Ave. It was a great hostel, and my three roommates were hilarious – two from Taiwan, and one from Spain.

Only one of my roommates was around in the afternoon, so he and I decided to head out to try to find the University in time for the check-in. After a little negotiating of bus stops, and talking to a couple of the incredibly helpful bus drivers, we managed to find the right bus, and get to the school. That night we had a short orientation, and then a nice dinner at the University.

Each day consisted of two presentations by experts in the field (sport sociology) with group discussions of those afterward, lunch, two student presentations (mostly PhD theses, but some masters-level work, like mine), a brief coffee break, a workshop by one of the experts, and then a short break before dinner during which you could do whatever you want, or meet with one of the experts for one-on-one supervision and discussion.

We had talks, and the opportunity to meet with (and to talk informally with) Gertrud Pfister, Laila Ottesen, Annette Hofmann, Reinhard Stelter, Anne-Marie Elbe, Jim Denison, Fabien Ohl, Pirkko Markula, Holly Thorpe, and Lone Thing. All incredibly knowledgeable experts in the field!

The discussions by the experts, and the work of the students, was all amazing. It was such an incredible experience to meet 29 other students from all over the world who are passionate and excited about their work in sport sociology. Our conversations were enlightening, to say the least!

I’m really grateful to have had the opportunity to attend such a great event, and to have met so many wonderful people. If you’re interested in attending next year, I highly encourage you to try! If you want any information about it, let me know, and I’ll be happy to help as much as I can!

Insulating ourselves to death?

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I recently had the pleasure of hosting Barefoot Ted here in SF.

While we didn’t get to discuss this topic while he was here, I’ve been thinking about it since, and figured I’d share these thoughts, and see what everyone out in the web-world thinks…

I ordered some leather huaraches from Ted’s site, and was pondering my choice of leather over the Vibram rubber soles that he offers, and that I think he (and many others) prefer to the leather.

I was thinking more about the leather/rubber debate, and started to think about these things:
leather is a natural material, and is not much of an insulator…especially compared to
rubber, which is a powerful insulator.
(I’ll refrain from the “production” debate for these materials here)
our blood contains hemoglobin, which has at its center an atom of iron (in the heme)
iron responds to electromagnetic charges.
the earth is a giant electromagnet (its core is partly iron)
when we stand on the earth, we receive that electromagnetic flow through our blood (iron).

further…
“polarity therapy” in massage says that one side of the body is positively charged, and the other negatively charged
if that’s the case, when we move on two (bare) feet, we alternately contact the electromagnetic field of the earth with our oppositely-charged sides, creating a current through our body
when we run, that current is even more divided (a true “alternating current”), since we completely separate contact with one side for a period in a running-gait.

further still…
bone forms along lines of stress
that’s because bone is piezoelectric
that is, the lines of stress cause an electric charge to flow through bone
that electric flow is what directs the osteoblasts to break down the bone in places, and the osteoclasts to build in other places.

and…
though the “proof” is controversial, man-made electromagnetic fields are known to disturb natural bodily functions, for instance
high-tension power lines may be related to an increased risk in cancer
microwave ovens can have effects on people
the electrical impulse through natural stone walls has been linked by some to the presence of “ghosts” (as electromagnetic hallucinations)
etc.

final questions:
what happens when we insulate our bodies from the earth’s electromagnetic field
what happens when we don’t…

How Not to Get Fit – Take the Stairs, Not.

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I was in the Administration building on campus at SF State today, going up to turn in my protocol packet for my final research, and got locked in the stairwell.

I’m a stair guy most of the time. I like taking the stairs. The protocol office is up on the fourth floor, which seemed like a nice walk to me.

And it turned out to be a nice walk, up and down. And a nice stand in the elevator afterward.

Given that there is an “obesity epidemic” in this country, and that it is directly connected to people’s (low) levels of physical activity, and that the best type of physical activity seems to be those done as “activities of daily living,” it seems odd that we’d lock off stairwells.

It’s very discouraging to people who might want to try taking the stairs instead of the elevator. It sends a message – Thou shalt not…

So why the locked stairwells people?

Ardenwood Highland Games

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I participated in the Ardenwood Highland Games yesterday, at the Tartan Day in Ardenwood Historic Farm.

I filmed a few of the events, and had another competitor (Charlie Reid) take video of my throws, which you can see below.

In all, it was a great day. I set a new personal record in the weight-over-bar event, hitting 14 feet – 2 feet over my previous personal best! I also learned, as you’ll notice, that I need to work on my speed, explosiveness and rotation quite a bit!

Teaching, Communication, Animal Behavior

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A few weeks ago I commented on a blog post by my friend JR Atwood.  He had posted a brief clip from the Uncommon Schools‘ teacher training methodology.  My comment, essentially, was “That looks just like dog training!”

In a private response, he mentioned that it would be interesting to see a comparison of the two – teaching methods for children vs. dog-training methods.

True to my word, I hit the books over the course of the past couple of weeks and read two dog-training texts.  One of them, was Lew Burke’s “Dog Training”

Burke's book is about very specific techniques...

Ready for the comparison?

The first rule of dog training is that dogs require clear (matching your training method with your desired outcome from the dog), concise (one word), and consistent (always the same command for the same desired outcome) communication.

Regarding this first video from Uncommon Schools, we can focus on the “clarity” bit.  But there’s another point, I’ll share with you after you’ve enjoyed this video:

Reward is a better motivator than punishment.  More importantly, it’s crucial to discriminate between normal communication (acknowledgment, above), and praise.  This is true for dogs as well.  Giving a dog a friendly word is different from giving a dog a treat.

Only give a dog a treat when it has done something to deserve it.

Dog training actually goes a little deeper than that, but you have to earn that lesson…

Strong Voice

It is important to use proper TONE when speaking to your dog.

NLP literature points out that 87% of communication is body language, 10% is the tone of your speech, and only 3% of your communication is conveyed in the actual content of your words.  (I’m guesstimating those percentages…too lazy to look up the exact reference right now).

This lesson carries over to dog training as well.  Your dog will discern a lot about you from the way you hold yourself.  Raise a fist to strike it, and it isn’t going to respond kindly.  Act wildly, and it will think you’re unreliable.

Tone is equally important for dog-training.  Most people who have ever had a dog have used the old trick of saying a bunch of nasty names or things about their dog in a candy-sweet voice.  The dog invariably wags its tail, not connecting the content to the tone.

Few dogs – showdogs, mostly – have the range of vocabulary to really understand that last 3% of human communication anyway…

Now watch this:

Eye contact is used here.  In dog training, the books used for this post mention that either direct eye contact, OR removal of attention, can be used equally well to convey your “leadership” status.

For instance, when giving the dog food, you might look directly (and seriously) into its eyes as you give the “sit” command.  Again, the dog must earn everything it gets from its leader (you).

Or, you might say “sit” and look away from the dog, removing your attention (a valuable thing to a dog).  When it does sit, you can bring your attention back to the dog, lavish it with praise, put the food down, and leave it to eat.

Cold Call

A dog must respond to your command any time you issue it.  It cannot be sporadic response.

That being said, once a dog has learned a skill, the best way to reinforce it is through random reinforcement.

More Thoughts

Now, before you go yelling at me, telling me how insensitive I am to suggest that children are just like dogs, think about this for a second.  First, I’m not just talking about children here (read my previous post on the difference between “children” and “adults”).  Second, and more importantly, I think it’s time we begin looking at how we actually behave, instead of how we’d like things to be.

The use of motivational tactics is nothing new.  I’ve seen plenty of parents these days with leashes on their children!

I think what is (relatively) new in our culture is the lack of consistent understanding about how animals (dogs, pigs, cattle, human beings, monkeys, whatever) behave, and how to treat animals if you want something from them.

In older times (here I go, romanticizing the past…) we dealt with animals quite a deal more.  We also had very real “survival” demands to take care of (for instance, if we were farmers).  Now that we’re removed from those things, we think there is some sort of “distance” (real and figurative) between us human beings and the other animals in the kingdom of animalia.

Do you think so?

I’ll leave you with this, a quote from Nicholas Dodman’s book, “The Well-Adjusted Dog”:

“Think about it.  You have removed your pet’s need to hunt by supplying food.  You have removed his romantic interests by neutering him.  You have removed his social needs by depriving him of pack interests and competition.  He can’t even wander and explore his outside territory, let alone try to resolve his own problems – because there aren’t any…So what’s a poor dog to do?  Channel his energy in unacceptable ways, that’s what.” pg. 136

Indeed!

Priorities in Education

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My good friend Kwame Brown recently posted an article from the Star Tribune’s “Your Voices” site, entitled “Stadiums versus our children’s future.” The article asks why $1 billion would go to a new Minnesota Vikings stadium, while funding for Early Childhood Development (ECD) seems impossible to get.

I posted a response to the article on Kwame’s site, which I am republishing in full here.  I’d love to know what you think about this.

Interesting article, for many reasons.

This argument is old as the hills.

What blew me away was his honesty, right up front.  The author says – “I’m not sure it was a realistic choice (in part because I love the Vikings).”

This is how he initially frames his review of different policies and reasons for ECD.  So the entire time, in the back of our minds, we’re thinking “it isn’t realistic.”

He sums up by serving another seemingly insurmountable blow to the whole concept, quoting the unnamed state legislator, who says – “It’s simple, at the Legislature it is about entrenched interest and power and children don’t have either.”

How are we supposed to feel when we read an article like that?  Does it lead us to come up with solutions, or merely to shrug our shoulders at the progress of the “inevitable?”

The question posed (which is never explicitly posed, or expanded upon) is “How do we get more funding for ECD?”

Priorities will always be priorities.  But priorities are shifted by action.  The Minnesotan’s love of the Vikings is a priority that is manufactured by media, social persuasion, and everything underlying that (desire for power?  money?).

The question is, how do we shift priorities, or at least make our priority (ECD) seem like a valuable partner-priority to already existing, dominant priorities?

Tax-breaks are one way.  Why do we always see those United Way campaign commercials from NFL footballers?  Well, teams/organizations and individuals get to write off charitable donations.  Maybe that’s one way.

Another way is one that Arne Naess recommended the “ecological” movement in the 1970′s take – to make an economic argument for “green.”  It took a lot of years for people to grasp his message, but now that it’s happened, you see it everywhere.  Everything is sold as “green,” and people come together under the “green banner” to get things done (even very opposite groups, like Exxon and Greenpeace).

Under the “green banner,” and all of the ideals and slogans that it stands for, corporations can see a way to continue to make profits while serving the people’s desire for efficiency and ecological-friendliness.

Many of the efforts for ECD, or childhood development in general (including play and physical education, arts education, and education generally), fail to recognize this important fact – their “customer” is the organization from which they’re seeking assistance.

That is, they need to market to the groups they want help from…

Instead, these groups often just talk about their own interests – like a selfish boyfriend or girlfriend.  “Blah blah blah, I want more money for the children…” is all the owners of the Minnesota Vikings hear.  They drink their wine, look around anxiously at the other tables in the restaurant, wondering how the Redskins owners got that good looking partner, and why they’re laughing and having so much fun…they excuse themselves to go to the bathroom and then make a break for their car, never looking back.
Consider this – how would you create a “product” out of Early Childhood Development?  What would that product look like.  What problem would it solve for the people who could buy it (who are not children, by the way…they are adults, and in the case of the article listed, corporations)?  What are the compelling fears and desires of your customer (those adults and corporations), and how can you appeal to those fears and desires in your marketing?  How do you solve their problem?  How do you put the risk of buying your product on yourself, and take the risk off of your prospective customer?  Finally, how do you sell it?  And once it is sold, what happens next?

A Most Revealing Pyramid

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Another great post from JR prompts a follow-up piece by me.

This one is about food subsidies by the Federal government, the Farm Bill. It comes from The Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine. Hopefully, I’m not violating anything in reproducing this chart they created:

These Pyramids Weren't Built By Aliens!!!!

As PCRM’s post points out, the Farm Bill not only provides food subsidies, but also decides much of what will constitute school lunches.

With a Food Pyramid like that, who needs enemies?!

The most recent post on the Neuroanthropology Blog discusses Obesity and family medicine – and the fact that some family physicians are starting to recognize family and environmental factors as decisive in treating childhood obesity.

I point this out in my comment on their site, but the author (and the physicians) forgot to include governmental subsidization of different food products (and governmental leadership, generally) in their factor-analysis.

As I’ve said before, the body follows the head. This is true in organisms, cultures, and governments.

In cultural/organizational terms, the Federal government is often the “head” of the social-body. It leads via policy (such as subsidies, land-usage policies, etc.), and also by example (accruing massive amounts of debt, etc.).

Further, much of what constitutes “popular” media takes its cue from the Federal government. “Truth in advertising” relies on governmental moderation. The nullification of the Radio Fairness Doctrine in 1987 had serious repercussions as to what type of messaging has dominated radio advertising since (see my post on the anti-smoking campaign of the early ’70′s and how the Fairness Doctrine was a decisive part of that movement).

I’m happy that MD’s are not as “isolationist” in their thinking as they may have been in the past, but the issue needs to be sussed out in its full depths – which includes holding governmental bodies, and the bodies (i.e., people) who make up those “bodies,” responsible for the way food is produced and marketed in our country.

How to (Teach) Communicate

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My good friend JR Atwood recently posted a piece about the Uncommon Schools project, and the Taxonomy of Effective Teaching Practices that the Uncommon Schools’ founder, Doug Lemov, has developed.

As the New York Times piece on this points out, Lemov came up with the idea when trying to discern what made some teachers more effective than others.

What he realized was that the good teachers were following very specific rules about how they interacted with their classrooms. The Taxonomy is a catalog of those rules.

Watching the videos, I couldn’t help but think that these rules are not merely “teaching” rules.

What, after all, is “teaching?”

I think, at base, teaching is about communication. In fact, it’s one of the most explicit, and most frequently-engaged-in, forms of communication we engage in as human beings, in our current culture.

As such, the lessons to be learned from this taxonomy can (and I think, should) be learned by everyone!!!

Check them out and see if you agree.