L.I.F.T.

Among the emotions to play with is Sadness.

Specifically, we can play with the overt expression of sadness – crying.

When I worked at Harvard Pilgrim HealthCare in Boston, MA, my boss and I came up with a crying competition. We would come in to work every morning armed with a new “cry.”

We did the “man” cry. We did the “baby” cry, the “little kid who cries so hard they don’t make any sound” cry, the “silent tear” cry so common in movies.

By the end of the year, I think we had accumulated about 15 unique cries.

We thought it was hilarious, and there it ended. I didn’t think of it again till recently, when posting about playing with smack-talk and/or competitiveness in order to explore affective states and performance.

At my friend Steven Stanfield’s birthday party this past weekend, we resurrected this old game. We must have had over 20 cries by the end of the weekend.

But why, you may ask? What’s the point?

Well, part of the point is to explore your capacity for make-believe.

Part of it is to feel deep within your body the effect that different types of facial expression, breathing, and emoting have on you.

Part of it may be to experience the somatic-psychic connection…that is, how bodily behavior can trigger psychological states or memories. Trying your different cries, do memories pop up unexpectedly? They likely will, since there’s no separation between your body and mind.

So, there it is…the suggestion. Play with crying. You’ll notice when you do that different types of crying (with their accompanying breathing patterns) elicit different feelings in the body.

An article in the most recent New Yorker entitled “State of Play,” gives a brief outline of the history of playgrounds in New York City, along with an overview of some of the playgrounds coming soon to a borough near you.

And it’s total crap.

Here’s the original Seward Park Playground:

And here’s David Rockwell’s upcoming Imagination Playground:

Don’t get me wrong. I like the idea of big blocks, and movable pieces. But the idea that imagination is contingent on those things is a perversion of thought, a disservice to imagination, and a marketing pitch.

What happened to playgrounds like the one the Bar-barians use? They’ve all disappeared in favor of molded-plastic “safe-houses.”

Don’t tell me it doesn’t take imagination to come up with some of those moves…

What about the outdoors? What about the playground of the woods? When I was a kid, it was my favorite place to play, hands down:

If the argument for these new-fangled playgrounds is that they’re more conducive to healthy imaginations, because they offer “movable objects,” and “diverse variegated shapes,” how do they stack up (pardon the pun) against nature – where there are sticks, stones, branches, leaves, dirt, water…and [gasp] other living creatures!!!

Not only that, but what about the fact that being in nature reduces stress hormones, improves mood, and increases the amount of physical activity you do?

It’s also nice and cool in the woods on a hot summer day. Ever notice that?

Oh oh! I’ve got another one! How about the fact that nature isn’t made of plastic? It’s totally biodegradable people! It’s GREEN! Get with the green revolution!

I’m making a serious effort to stay as positive as possible here.

Instead of planting some trees, grasses, and native plants, New York City has hired some architects to create safe playgrounds that will look like hell in 30 years after the sun beats down on them and degrades their plastic parts…or those parts get stolen or vandalized.

What are we afraid of? That, if we don’t “produce” something, it has no value? Or that, if we stop “producing” “things” we won’t be able to “make money?”

Don’t you see the fallacy in that? You’re just creating value anyway. I mean, actively making it up! Money is make-believe. We agree on the value of it. We agree that one thing is worth another. We agree to “follow the rules” of this game.

Now that’s what I call using your imagination!

However, we seem to be stuck in the game. We’ve mistaken the game for reality.

The reality is that the oil spill in the Gulf comes from this money-game we’ve decided to play.

The reality is that the plastic playgrounds of the future are made out of petroleum products.

The reality is that we have a choice. We can choose to plant park-grounds made of things that recycle the carbon we keep pumping out. We can choose to make places that are soft as grass…or we can choose to make places that are soft as “pebbled rubber.”

You choose.

Just don’t blame your choice on [your lack of] Imagination.

Here’s a good history of playgrounds in New York City.

What is the difference between “play” and “games?”

We “play” “games,” so they can’t be the same exact thing, right?

And we never “game” “play,” do we?

It seems like “play” is the state of being associated with the activity we do.

It is the way we do a game. How do we do a game? We do it “play”-wise.

I think that play is the state of being we assume. Game is the thing we do in that state of being.

That state of being is indicated by:
openness
imagination/creativity
curiosity
spontaneity/instinct
freedom/unselfconsciousness
compassion/empathy
energy/intention (directed or “undirected”)

…and we can do it with anything we choose.

A game is an action with specific rules designed to guide our play to specific ends – to an end.

That is, all games teach certain rules. All games, necessarily, limit our play in some specific way.

This has been a guide for how to play, and how create games

In the physiology tracking arena open to us in play are many areas where we’ve experienced trauma in our lives – whether that’s negative emotions or feelings, or physical trauma.

An emotionally sensitive place that many of us may be familiar with is trash-talk on the playground or in sport.

While it occurs, and many folks approach it from the perspective of – “why is the other person trash-talking…maybe they’re insecure/abused/etc.” – I prefer to take a different tack.

Specifically, what is happening inside you when someone talks smack to you? How are you reacting? What does that represent for you?

For some of us, talking smack was just part of the experience. It’s nothing weird, or out of the ordinary. Sometimes it results in fist fights or hurt feelings, other times in heightened aggressiveness in the game or nothing at all.

For others, it was anything from insulting and aggravating, to a deeply humiliating experience.

Many people may have experienced both feelings at different times and in different situations.

Some of the experience has to do with our own perceived level of competence (or lack thereof) in the game being played. Some of it has to do with simple social dynamics – not wanting to feel less powerful than another person. Some still to do with our level of commitment or connection to the game – if we’re not invested in it, it doesn’t really matter.

But none of that has anything to do with how we experience those feelings, and how we use that emotional energy to get what we really want out of the game.

Instead, most of us in life fall prey to those feelings. Yes, the other person triggers them, but once they are in us, they are our responsibility.

So how do you do that?

This is a little biased, but I think play is an excellent way to confront these feelings, to work into them, to acknowledge them as part of ourselves, and then to find a way to use them to get what we want from the game.

Try playing “the smack-talk game.” In this game, we play whatever other game we want, but when one person “loses” the other person rags on them relentlessly.

Just as with any other game, communication is key. Both parties need to be able to say “a little less rough,” or “a little more rough,” if their partner/opponent is not giving them what they need to grow.

There should also be a way to call timeout or uncle, if things get too crazy. These rules should be stated up front and agreed upon.

As with all games, once the players have bowed in, everything from there on out is play. It is supportive, aimed at learning and growth, and done in the spirit of wanting to continue the play.

King among the roles we may play in our lives is the role of the Victim.

The Victim says that everything is everyone else’s fault. That we are helpless.

We may learn this role through any number of ways – role models, peers, media, teachers…

Once we’ve learned this role, though, it becomes easier and easier to use.

The role of the Victim is an effort in energy conservation. If everything is out of our hands, we don’t have to do anything. We can get by just complaining…and suffering.

Music is another source to learn about Victim approaches.

Listen to your favorite love song, or breakup song. Most of them blame the other person for the feelings the singer is experiencing.

My father said that most “serious” classical music is written in a minor key. Why is that? His guess is that the composers were too busy to write music if they were having fun and feeling good…most of the time, they wrote when they’d broken up with their significant other, had a fight, were depressed, etc.

Look for the Victim in yourself. Track it, and when it comes up, make friends with it. It’s part of you, not to be cut out.

However, there are ways to make the Victim into something more productive.

The next time you hear your Victim speaking up, ask yourself, “Is that really true? Is there nothing I can do?”

It’s almost never the case (especially in our country) that there is nothing to be done about a situation. Options are endless.

The next step is to create. Begin to brainstorm ways to deal with the situation. Pick the first best one and try it. If it doesn’t work, do the next…and so on down the list.

Take your time to feel it out, and to learn whatever lesson the Victim, and your attempts at creative solutions, are telling you.

If you have apprehension about this, try to find a supportive friend who can help you in the process (one, preferably, who won’t try to rescue you themselves, but will allow you to go through the process and learn from it).

Have fun!

This picture is so great, I have to share it. Borrowed from this Atlantic Monthly piece.

I love the look of exuberance! The cast-aside cane! The intensity!

More toys for the “old”!!!!!!!!

I’ve put up some videos on YouTube about using a piece of rope to exercise with.

Please steal my ideas, and come up with your own!

I’ll produce more ideas about using “common” items to play with in your exercise programs in the near future…

ROPE 1 – ROPE! configurations

ROPE 2 – Partner ROPE!

ROPE 3 – Handle ROPE!

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?

It’s that time of year…or slightly past it!  Time to make resolutions.

I used not to be one of those people who made resolutions.  I wasn’t very goal-oriented.  I was more interested in focusing on the moment.

But sacrificing long-term planning for the moment, I came to find, is as misguided as losing your now-focus for lots of pie-in-the-sky long-term plans.  Both, in equal measure, lead to the best results.

With that said, I’d like to say this – whatever your specific goals for 2010, have the general goal of getting in shape.  And, as far as that’s concerned, do anything!

Don’t lose your “now-focus” for long-term planning about what you want to do fitness-wise.

Here are a few ideas that might help – my review of the “best fitness stuff” of 2009.

Exuberant Animal

While my career with Exuberant Animal and play-based fitness started in 2008 at the first EA conference, I wasn’t certified as an EA trainer till 2009, and didn’t start my foot camp till last summer.

I highly recommend any of Frank Forencich’s books, and incorporating play into your exercise routine and your life. If you want ideas for how to do this, go to any local playground and watch what the kids are doing. Better yet, join them! Alternatively, for you readers out there, you can go to the EA games page.

Vibram FiveFingers

I was introduced to the concept of “minimalist footwear” and barefoot training this year, first, by Barefoot Ted McDonald.  Then, through Chris McDougall’s great book “Born to Run” (which is later on the list).

The FiveFinger shoes offer a fantastic new way to train, with a barefoot feel.  I highly recommend these to anyone.  Ease into their use.  If you haven’t been  barefoot much in the past few years, start off by wearing them for short walks, or during your regular workout, and then going back to your normal footwear.

Injinji Toe-Socks

Also, I highly recommend buying the Injini socks.  My first pair of Vibrams got a little stinky (which is why I recommend the KSO’s over the Flow model).  My second pair I ordered with about four pair of Injini toe-socks.  So far so good!

The only thing about the toe-socks is, they don’t keep your feet very warm.  So, if you’re in a cold climate, you might put off till later in the springtime to try these first two suggestions out – unless you’re an indoor exerciser.

Chris McDougall’s Book – Born to Run

While it isn’t necessarily a piece of “fitness equipment,” everyone I’ve known who has read this book has been so inspired by it that they’ve at least tried barefoot walks (if not runs, or workouts in Vibrams).  I highly recommend this book!

Joe DeFranco’s Built Like a Badass Program

I’ve written about this program several times in the past couple of months.  It is far and away the best “cookie-cutter” weight training program I’ve ever seen or used.  If you’re a moderately-experienced weight trainer, buy the program and use it this year.

Kettlebells

I had never been a big fan of kettlebells or kettlebell training till I used them for my Highland Games training this year.  Now, I’m a firm believer in the efficacy of this training tool.

While the kettlebells are “just another tool in the toolbox,” or “just another type of load,” they offer such a diverse array of possibilities that few other “stand alone” tools can compare in the diversity of movement (except maybe one, which I’ll be unveiling in another week or so!!).

If you’re interested in kettlebells, find a good instructor to work with.  Someone who is RKC, AKC, Steve Maxwell, or Steve Cotter certified will be able to get you started with great technique, and a kettlebell weight and program that are appropriate for your body.

Is that it?!

Bare-bones and Barefoot

Unless you can make it up to Whidbey Island, WA, to train with the Barefoot Sensei…yeah, that’s it!  I’m not reviewing every exercise program or technique I’ve ever used here, just the ones I found especially good from 2009. If you want other ideas, recommendations, or sources, drop me a line. I’m more than happy to help!

Have fun everyone!!!

I haven’t done a “cookie-cutter” weightlifting program in years.  Probably not since I bought Ross Enamait’s excellent book “Never Gymless.”  I think that was in 2006.

Since then, I’ve created my own training programs.  I’ve vacillated wildly between types of training – weightlifting, bodyweight, o-lifts, Crossfit and Crossfit-style workouts, rings/gymnastics, etc.

Too much stuff!

I feel like I’ve learned some things since then, and figured I’d share some of those lessons.

1. Cookie-cutter programs aren’t all bad.  Hell, I and most of my friends learned everything we knew about the gym from magazines, and from trying out programs in those magazines.  I still like to try people’s programs, to see how they affect my body.  While I might fiddle with them a little, I try to adhere as closely as possible to the program as-is, to see what happens.

I’ve said it before, and I’ll pitch it again, because I think the guy has a ton of integrity.  DeFranco’s “Built Like a Badass” program is fantastic.  It’s based on the “core lifts” (bench press, deadlift, squat, overhead press), is based around the individual’s current single-rep maximum, and progresses up nicely.  I don’t know how it would work with a pure “beginner,” but it’s working great for me.  Try it out if you’re looking for something new.

2. Related to the above, I feel more and more like strength is built in the gym, but skill is built on the field of practice.  Modern “functional training” has athletes doing a lot of stuff that is not related to strength training in the gym.

3. Strength is best built using the “classic lifts”/”fundamental movement patterns,” and adhering to the guidelines of good form.

4. This is where “functional training” or “corrective exercise” come in.  When an individual has a limitation that doesn’t allow them to perform the “classic lifts” or fundamental movement patterns in a way that is biomechanically sound for them, you have to start incorporating the lessons from functional/corrective training methodologies.

5. If the individual’s form is breaking down because the weight is too heavy for them, you have to evaluate the risk/reward equation for them.  Is it worth it to possibly get injured in the gym, in order to lift more weight that day?  Maybe.  Maybe not.

6. There is no “perfect” anything.  There’s no “perfect” form.  There’s really good form for a particular individual at a particular time.  There’s no “perfect” program.  There’s a really good program for an individual at that time.

7. Athletes need specificity.  The general person needs general movement.

Let me be more clear.  When you have specific tasks or demands that you have to accomplish, you have to be very specific with the type, frequency, and intensity of the movements you engage in.  When you don’t have anything so specific, you have free reign to do whatever you want to.

That being said, while the athlete’s “skill” training (aside from the “skill” of strength) will be specific to their sport, position, or event, the general gym-goer will benefit from playing more to develop skill.

8. Rhythm is critical to success.  As the saying goes, “timing is everything.”  I’d make it more specific – “rhythm is everything.”  Find the rhythms in your life and synchronize them to your best advantage.  Use rhythm in your training, both in terms of programming, and in terms of practice itself – engage in rhythmical movement more frequently.

Ok, that’s all folks…more later.  Appreciate any thoughts on the above…