Power found between two trees

[Edit: Started writing this January last year]

There is a pair of old trees in Antwerp. Walking from one to the other I get stronger, faster, happier.

I've been trying to figure out how I can be a better teacher.

In college, we had this really helpful and organised teacher, he was tremendously dedicated to his craft; wonderful command of engineering mathematics. His notes and lectures laid it all out with superb clarity; matter-of-fact. But when it came down to exam and study time - it was all like grasping water; the stuff was hard to reproduce and apply. He made me feel it was easy; "All you have to do, folks, is..." But it needed more work. He made us feel safe and secure with his notes and lectures. Complacent.

Unintentionally unsuccessful.

In secondary school, we had a mathematics teacher, who was on the other end of the spectrum; she offered little to any sense of security in her classes, to the point that I was the only one out of 12 that did not find a tutor for extra support. Strangely, the end result was that the class did spectacularly as a whole; Bs and As all round. In a Machiavellian way, she created a circumstance where her students could excel.

Unintentionally successful.

Risk Compensation - a theory which suggests that people typically adjust their behavior in response to the perceived level of risk, becoming more careful where they sense greater risk and less careful if they feel more protected. Not enough perceived risk and we'll stagnate, too much and we'll flounder.

Where's that middle ground? Spoonfeeding; cast adrift..

During his workshop two years ago at Elite Athletes,  Tom Weksler talked about his approach to teaching floor-work and acrobatics; he wanted us to get a feel for moving around down there, for us to get a grasp the motor principles at play. He was resigned to the fact that he had to teach us a pattern of moves because he had found it the best way to learn lessons. But he invited us to figure out what the movement and pattern illustrated.

I had my first session with my kung fu student this evening, since the Fighting Monkey Intensive in Athens.

Fascinating, rich, thought-consuming and frustrating. It reminded me of the Buddhist adage:

"When you meet Buddha on the road, kill him."

Jozef and Linda spent 5 days showing us a full spectrum of concepts: stillness, rhythm, collaboration, situational movement instead of rote movement. Challenging us to find our own insights from the situations.

So for the coming 2 months I will not give him technical or detail corrections, instead I am going to suggest a quality that a movement or set or exercise cultivates and let him judge and question for himself if he can solve it.

The Form of Father, central in the Fighting Monkey practice, as Jozef pointed out is a set of exercises, a lot of them similar to what they do on soccer pitches every weekend, nothing holy. But the story of the father form is rich. This is 8000 thousand years old, something precious, healing, comprehensive and powerful; it will heal you and more.

My experiences and what I have heard from others that work in embodiment (Mark Walsh, Francis Bryers, Anouk Brack, Paul Linden) is that the body is very porous/sympathetic to the intention/purpose:

If I believe something, the body will do its best to support and cultivate that perception. It's why pharmaceutical companies bend themselves over backwards with double blind studies, to ensure that the patient has no inkling if it is the real pill or the sugar pill they are taking.

At the end of the session, I pointed at two grand stately trees several paces apart. I told him walking between these two trees would make him more powerful. He just has to figure out how that could be true.

Growing on the pole

First night back at circus training.
This is where I've been experiencing most frustration, disappointment and anxiety, ie "an ideal setting for working on shit" as Buddha says.

Screwing up and failing at stuff is something I criticise myself for to varying degrees depending a number of factors (well rested, fatigue, hydrated, what my expectation is; my ability relative to others, and how i feel about that). Some days it's an infinitesimal mote that I easily huff away with chortle. Other days it cloys, clots and clings like honey in my hair (... I imagine honey is like that in hair).
At the circus training there are a couple of different disciplines I see around me, floor acrobats, handbalancers, aerialists and jugglers.
I marvel at jugglers when they're training; if they drop a ball they are as cool as cucumber, they'll keep juggling. Flow and continuity is they're bag. They take dropping balls in their stride. It genuinely amazes me everyone every time I see it;  usually freeze or collapse when things go awry.
Today I was in the "Dude zone" (hatch tag big Lebowski). I was working on pirouettes transitioning to knee switches. Since the beginning knee switches have been a sticking point for me. I took these recordings:

Casual pirouette

I love how casually I'm moving. I think starting away from the poke helped that a great deal, it built up psychological momentum because walking is easy and the pole was an small in my field of vision. I slip the pirouette a couple of times, but I stay reasonably unperturbed. And I managed to make headway in knee switches, despite frustration and tunnel vision in previous sessions, largely because I had a different set up/context with a taste of ease or flow.
As it happens I was sharing the room with jugglers this evening, I feel like some of their attitude rubbed off on me, like lipstick on a shirt, which naturally makes any person cooler and more capable because it implies they are getting some action.

So, some summarising:
- all I need is a bathrobe and milk in my beard, and I could do a big Lebowski themed piece
- it's useful to change the context of something, particularly of it feels like something is stuck
- this video would be much prettier of I pointed my toes and looked at the "public"
- look at how other people do stuff