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.

Hand Day

People joke about skipping leg day.  But most of us skip "hand day" far more frequently.
The article link got me thinking and probably repeating myself, and definitely repeating others.
Little summary
- Inverse correlation to all risk mortality (5kg drop in the grip test linked to 17% increase in mortality risk)
- decreasing grip strength in elderly linked to cognitive decline
-nearly 20 percent decrease in grip strength [...] in one generation.

The irregular objects we have to manipulate in life aren't as forgiving as a bar and we're not preparing for it.
Ever since Fighting Monkey in Athens last year, I've been spending more time with my hands. And this was further reinforced by Rafe Kelly in the summer (Evolve, Move, Play).
Using clay, playing with the wooden ball, more time on the Chinese pole, more aware of it during partner carries in the circus training, isometric grips and compressions while i walk around or sit.
It is something I intellectually appreciated, but I am only now physically realising how complex the hand is.  All the different joints and structures in the hand mean there are a nigh infinite number of situations to develop strength on dexterity; A pole expert will have a different hand to a climber to a hand-balancer to labourer to a parkour athlete to a judo-ka to a kungfu practitioner, every time slightly different response to requirements.
One of the reasons the bar is so popular is because it's the easiest grip we do and means we can lift more weight or do more reps because we've removed the hand as a weak point. We avoid learning how to selectively apply force in the palm, fingers and wrist; am I pinching, poking, grabbing, enveloping, holding, "sticking", smashing, etc.
The consequence is that the hand doesn't develop a proportionate capacity to the rest of the body; an ability to deadlift x3 bodyweight is less relevant when we are trying to carry furniture on our own.

http://m.nautil.us/issue/45/power/raising-the-american-weakling

Elephant features

My student and I have these fantastic conversations as we travel to and from work.

In the main, we muse and ponder philosophy, kung-fu, meditation/awareness and embodiment; and the practicalities thereof in so far as they fit and don't fit in modern daily life.

At the certainty, or at least at the risk, of hubris, they remind me of classical philosophical dialogues or parables... or maybe a web-comc (I'm looking at you, dinosaur comics):

1. We're always taking the same path,  (heading towards the rising sun or the setting sun) & arrangement (side-by- side in the car)
2. Sometimes the above topics are explicitly discussed (“What do you think the relevance of practicing forms is to learning from our reactions at work?”)
3. While other times we happen upon them like an errant euro in the corner of a jacket pocket (“You know, what you just described there reminds me of an outcome from practicing this meditation,…)

More than any other practice/habit I have these days, the dialogues have shaped how I've behaved and trained in the last year... at least as far as my various cognitive biases allow me to assess. They're a touchstone to the qualities I want, moments to reflect on whether I'm moving towards or away from them, discussed with a like-intended (not necessarily like-minded) companion.*

Particularly in 2016, there was a wonderful shift in dynamic; the dialogues, they became much more "dialogue-y"; His own practice and learning were taking root; I couldn't just tell him "like it is" and have him nod sycophantically without digesting it.**

In our dialogue from last week, he was telling me about how he was reframing certain experiences by approaching them  with enthusiasm; converting nervous energy or contraction that arises from "having to do something" into something with clearer direction and momentum; he'd encapsulated a certain way of being in a word that he could take out to help him when necessary. It was great stuff, reminded me of Wendy Palmer's Leadership Embodiment Fundamentals.

I did have one reservation about it though.

Something that I've struggled more than once, when employing a cue to incite a change, is that their ability lead me down the garden path, away from what I wanted. I suggested he try and dig in, develop an introspective snapshot of the state he wants; The introspective snapshot - I described it like being able to paint a landscape, every detail, not just "the trees are green and the sky is blue."***

I remember one time, I was working with a client that wanted to feel more confident. I offered the image of a rockstar. It certainly had the desired effect on me - the image of a charismatic star on stage, radiating, larger than life, etc. But for him...It went terribly, he focused on the status change, that people would be beneath him, "fuck 'em”, developed a sneering attitude and became slightly aggressive. Different strokes for different folks.

The cues, what we've judged to be key features/phenomena of a system - itself a defined and limited piece of the universe - are simply a shorthand for something that people have written, spoken and dreamed about millennia- physical, mechnical, spiritual, biological, physiological, social, sexual, abstract - something that has roots going back to the dawn of life.

But for simplicity's sake I'll reduce it down to a phrase or image. Perfect.

Much like fabled the elephant, if I only know an elephant from grabbing his trunk, my cue for the experience won’t be useful for you if you’re on the other end cupping his testicles.

Our models and stories have their limits.

The danger in a cue, an arbitrary defining feature is not knowing its limits; If you find something that works for you see how far you can lean on it before it breaks; find out how others look at it.

Expect that your knowledge and tricks will one day fail you.

As the goatherd told me in the Sahara ten years:

The world is too big for your philosophy

*******

*He gets dragonball Z and Supernatural references°

**He told me once: after work, he really wanted to sit in silence, that even the sound of the radio got on his nerves. I,  apparently, told him he should leave the radio on and work with that discomfort.  He did this for weeks, essentially self-inflicting what the Geneva convention forbids.. a time later, he told me that he couldn't handle it anymore and had since switched off the radio. I balked at what he had been doing to himself; and told him that sounded like a horrible, masochistic idea; I had no recollection of advising it.

***Full disclosure, I didn’t say that at the time, but while I was writing this post, it came to me and I thought it was worth embellishing.

-------

°...and I suppose a common language in training and observation helps too.

Snowflake

Something I've been stewing on,  yet another thing on my mind since fighting monkey intensive in January.  Normal versus special.

Feeling special is a partitioning.
Gives a different value to experiences,  can make one feel more vulnerable easily offended and angered. The "don't you know who i am" effect. Ego is in sway.

Moments where i have felt special or wanted to be special,  are moments where I've felt fragile,  vulnerable and disconnected.

In Systema books they talk about doing the work,  being professional.

Jozef and Linda described it as being normal.

----------

Snowflake
You're not special;
Some kind of normal
most likely. Saving the damsel, Saving
the people, being patient, Doesn't
make you special;
Doesn't make your pains, nor your
suffering special. Nothing
new under the sun;
Some kind of normal
most likely.  Love
it.

Walls

Walls

What kind of home is earthquake proof,
Unbreakable?

Go ask the builders their ways;
Lay bricks,
Join wood.

Ward off the elements,
Isolate.

Attend!
A way crooked followed will sunder walls.

Still...
Walls and roofs fail.
Just wait.

Ways lain down in stone,
Absolute,
Stagnant.

What kind of home is earthquake proof?
One of horizon and heaven.

A wall unbuilt is never breached,
Wood unjoined never split

Hardcore kindness

Returned to working on my deep stance the last few weeks. Last year I built up to 7 minutes. Coming back at it again I'm between 3-4 minutes, fresh.

This evening I sat three times: 3:30, 3:00, 2:50 (probably 3-5 minutes between the sits). I'm proud of myself because each time I stayed there for a more intense sensation in the legs. The last one I got to the legs trembling and tingling phase.

In college I treated it as a flagellating thing, chastising myself for my weakness whenever I whimpered to myself about stopping and standing, and the usual perfectionism jazz.

In the last 5 years, I've become more interested in grace under fire;  Be it a  deep stance, an impending deadline, or an argument: the psyche has similar responses to stress; cultivating kindness as things get tough is meaningful because it's easy to be a grouchy fuck when your back is against the wall.

Things that are helping me the most in being kind while I feel the burn and get those gainz:
A tip from Paul Linden's (he's amazing, and hosting a bodywork and embodiment seminar around 7th July - go go go!) centring method, which is mighty powerful, is to have a "smiling heart".  Something I got from Tom Weksler (a self-described traveling teacher, he's got an astonishingly deep practice in many things; acrobatics, stillness, martial arts, dance, also go learn from him :) ) was imagine the tension flowing out to the extremities; it's like spreading lumps of butter evenly on bread.¹ And finally: even full breaths with a complete exhales, because I've noticed if my chest and stomach is tight, I don't reflexively exhale fully, and it peters out with some gas still in the tank, so to speak. So when I'm not freaking out too much, I try to gently, but clearly exhale fully. I got the mindfulness on breathing from Systema.²

Tough training, particularly approaching physical or psychological limits is a way to experience the acute stress response, and get a " taste of trauma." Using the opportunity to cultivate gentleness and compassion, instead of irritation and frustration is invaluable, because it'll become easier and more reflexive to be that way when the shit hits the fan for realz.

In summary, kindness practice offers a wonderful layer to tough training sessions.

+++++
¹Bilbo shout out!
²yes, yes, I'm doing a lot of namedropping. Because it makes me look good. But also, it's marvelous how different and the same ideas can come from different people and influences... I'm a strong believer in redundancy hearing the same thing from different sources is a wonderful indicator of an underlying principle or a hypothesis being correct (it's never a certainty, but independent corroboration is sweeeet).

Listen to yourself

Interesting blog, one line in particular caught my attention.

"I train based on instinct. For example, no one tells me when I am hungry or thirsty. I just know. My body tells me."

This is golden advice, but practically tricky to follow: What he's suggesting is something that is a life's work; and why is it a life's work?

Because we are awfully good at deceiving ourselves; That's why we have trouble with things we feel are good for us versus seemingly attractive alternatives; e.g. ice-cream vs no ice-cream; in bed early versus looking at Facebook¹

Basically, relying on the body is potentially disastrous, particularly for someone going with no experience. And a program/method is arguably a quickstart that gives you ground to stand on.

It is a clear target,  a meter stick,² and a drill sergeant for when you want to stop, because part of you feels like you've done enough; and there will always be a part of you saying "that's enough". Sometimes it's worth listening to, other times it isn't. And knowing that difference is the hard work.

We're responsible for our own well-being and health, I don't think any method should overshadow that because eventually we outgrow them.

This stuff had been on my mind because of experiences with and reading on Systema and attending the Fighting Monkey intensive in Athens in January. Both of then eschew blindly following dogma in favour of listening and being receptive to inside and out.

Like the man said, eventually it should be like hunger or thirst. Just another instinct.

=======
¹Just a couple of examples I got... From a friend. Named... Ummm.. Blairtin.
²In a fit of elitist snobbishness I ended up describing a program or method as a "fitness Nuremberg defence", which absolves us of responsibility for our physical well-being and health.

Best not live on a prayer

How distinct are the shapes of hope and despair for you? How do these emotions appear in your body?

Personally - hope has a lift and arch to it, the chest comes up and the upper back tilts back, an upward tilt of the chin and a slight tautness in the stomach; like I am a baby looking to an adult to be taken up into their arms. It feels like a light, but weak position.

Despair is a collapse forwards of the upper torso, softening of the stomach, a drop of the head. This feels like a heavy, weak position.

My personal experience is that hope easily segues to despair - an arch to a collapse. There's a very seductive flow to it (I think of the transition happening during a crescendo like in Swan Lake).

Something I suspect: if one hopes that something is going to happen, it's exceedingly likely that they don't believe it will happen; they just haven't accepted it yet. And/or they feel powerless to affect the outcome (I am reminded of gamblers). They're holding on to a prayer; Onto a bit of Deus Ex Machina.

I'd go as far as positing:

Despair can only arise out of hope

For resilience's sake, best to be aware of when there is too much hope, then;

1. Relax the stomach and lower back; Raise the crown of the head and tilt the chin a degree or two towards your chest (I think both actions happen together, but I'm not sure); Adjust the weight  on your feet so that is over the arches of the feet.¹
2. Look around and see what can be done and/or who can help.
3. Or if it's time to cut losses and step away.

-----------

¹ Or any centring practice you know or googling can provide ;)

Full Moon

I went meditating,
On the other side of the river,
In the dark,
The Moon and the city before me.

I went meditating,
Searching for peace and stillness,
In the dark,
I found myself emptying my heart...

I went meditating,
Gently scourging where desire lay,
In the dark,
Soon it was picked and polished clean.

I felt empty, a mirror to the world outside,
I felt peace that hurt.

Was it always there, hidden under desire?

I can see the future!

Well... not really.

I recently watched the premiere of The Blacklist starring James Spader.

All in all, I enjoyed it. James Spader chews the scenery with decided abandon and a side of relish. We'll see how it goes, but it looks like it will be entertaining at least.

Any way, my predictions are:

• James Spader knew the main woman's criminal father (hence the family information)
• Father saved his life or some such - or they were BFFs
• He was actually super deep cover when he turned bad.
• Red turned himself in to catch someone that betrayed him.
• Her husband is a plant to watch her, something to do with her dad.

Let's see how close I am to being right.

Doc [in] Hollywood

The highlights of L.A. and Hollywood were:

1.     The service, breakfast and tours organised by the hostel

2.     The Warner Bros Studio Tour

3.     Salsa dancing in Santa Monica

4.     Craig Ferguson Show living taping

Breakfast in the hostel was all you can eat pancakes (make them yourself), fruit and oatmeal. I thought the pancakes were a wonderful touch, it was the first time that I went to a hostel where there was complimentary hot food for breakfast. The oatmeal (even the “original” flavor) wasn't great; I am used to high-grade, un-cut O, with no additives.

The hostel organised a guided tour of Beverly Hills. The guy that gave us the tour was a local, and a skinny-jeans-flannel-jacket-and-horn-rimmed-glasses-wearing-vegan-bagel-eatin’ dyed in the wool hipster.  True to his kind’s disdain for “mainstreaming”, we went by public bus. On our way to the stop, he pointed out a huge Great Dane sitting in an open-top pink Cadillac. He freaked out, about it as much as a hipster is permitted and "Instagrammed that sh*t". I think his under-expressed enthusiasm about this slice of Americana was representative of why I got a kick out of him; it was like he had taken the 0-11 measure of intense emotional expression and scaled it down to something feasible in the limited range of motion afforded by skinny jeans and knitted caps. He had timed it so that we had a moment to get a coffee before the bus arrived. He came out of the place with a bacon and egg bagel, but a vegan version, which he ate without irony. The tour stops weren't memorable, but I had a great time listening to the guide go on.

Later that day a group of us booked a spot on the Warner Bros Studio tour. The customer service through-out the tour, including buying the tickets was exemplary. When we got there, we ended up paying individually, there were 9 of us and three paid with credit cards. The clerk remained friendly for the 10-15 minutes it took for our payments and worked around problems with two of the credit card, all while the last-minute queue for the tour was snaking out behind us. In Belgium, one would have been told to get the hell out of the shop, since no money was worth hassle. The tour guide, Brad, was fantastic as well, passionate and knowledgeable about TV and film. I saw the sets for the Mentalist, which was a big highlight for me, particularly seeing the couch where Jane sleeps.¹

The dancing highlight of the entire America trip was a salsa party in Santa Monica. The teacher, Cristian Oviedo, is the current world bachata and salsa champion, and an absolute gentleman. The live music, the standard of dancing and the people were wonderful. I was sorry it didn’t go on longer.

I heard about the party via Internations, which I highly recommend becoming a member of, because it has communities in most major cities and the people are generally very social and open to newcomers even if it is just for a short time.

Before I went to the Salsa party, I did some training on the beach near Santa Monica Pier. It was warm and cloudless, but a bit windy. There were lots of people working out in the outdoor gym that was there – some even doing youtube worthy stuff. I trained as the sun set, which took forever. But it felt pretty cool to practice kung fu with an uninterrupted view of the sun setting..² It was also possible to take Trapeze lessons on the pier, which I would have done, if they were cheaper or I had time to do a couple of days of them.

The one thing that I did arrange before getting to the States was a ticket for a live taping of the Craig Ferguson Show. He’s easily my favourite talk-show host. He’s easy going and irreverent, there doesn’t appear to be any rehearsals at all, and the back and forth between him and his assistant Jeffery Peterson the Robot Skeleton has a very natural rhythm to it that sets it apart from the fake, a-bit-too planned feel I get from the other late night talk show hosts. Watching him is like sitting in the pub and havin’ a chat.

His guests were Billy Connolly and the girl playing the ghost in the SyFy version of Being Human. As far as I can recall, we were sat down in the studio about 30-45 minutes before the recording would begin. And we were introduced to Craig’s warm-up act, Chunky Steve – Ostensibly the best warm-up act in the business. As far as I can gather, the warm-up act is there to whip us into hysterics, so that we will laugh at anything. He spent the duration lowering our threshold for what was an acceptable joke. He picked on a couple of audience members, a blonde and a teenage boy in particularly, since they are such easy targets. Any time we didn’t laugh, he would chastise us and saying ”When I bust out the LOLs (the index and thumb of each hand making “L”s), you gotta laugh like what you heard was hilarious. Remember, mediocre comedian here.” He was like that friendly uncle with the dirty sense of humour that was strangely charming. It easily became the habit to laugh loudly at any joke. An example of mass hysteria, if ever I’d heard of it. A phrase he kept coming back to was “being part of TV magic.” The tone and reverence he gave the phrase was downright religious, much like when my Beverly Hills guide had something to say about the obscene wealth, scale, weirdness, or grandeur of celebrities and their lives. Anyway, as I said, we, the audience, dived right into the zealotry. Our laughter was what we left on the altar.³ You can see me below... I think.

Finally, Craig came out it was I expected. The chatting between himself and Billy was warm and familiar, with jokes thrown in all over the place. We laughed when we were supposed to, as hard as we could. I don’t know about the rest, but I was happy to oversell how funny a joke was, because I like Craig Ferguson and his show.

After Hollywood, I made my way by public transport to New Port Beach. Virtually no one uses public transport in California, car travel is so cheap that it is almost exclusively very poor people that use buses. To the point that my contact in Internations for the salsa party didn’t even know if night buses from Santa Monica back to Hollywood existed and my friend in New Port Beach didn’t know even it was possible to get there from LA just with trains and buses. I stayed pretty relaxed on the trains, but the buses made me nervous, since stops are rarely clearly indicated and bus drivers can forget that you’ve asked them for a particular stop. But Google Maps saw me through.  :)

Hanging out with my pal in New Port Beach was excellent. It was our first time seeing each other in 7 years. As it turned out, both of us were a bit worried that it would be an awkward mess. We ate out at a Crow burger (Gourmet burger “joint”), a Mexican restaurant where I ate Quinoa for the first time and had delicious guacamole. During the day, when she was at work, I did some planning for the New York and Boston legs of my trip, very fruitful kung fu training, and went to Road Runner to get fitted for some runners (trainers in American). On the last Friday, we went clubbing, most of the music sucked, but I did hear Thrift Shop by Mackelmore for the first time, which I came back to Belgium declaring the song to watch out for.

That Saturday we drove to San Diego Zoo, which was great fun. We did just one tour – the Animal Man tour, led by an improve comedian who’s done shows on HBO. We got to see pandas and a baby Giraffe (already over 1.8m tall… baby my ass).

1. No, that doesn’t sound weird at all. No sir-eee.
2. I’ve seen a couple of uninterrupted sunsets in Ireland, but either because this was in Santa Monica in California and it would be my only chance to see one this far West for the foreseeable future, or because the sunset is qualitatively better closer to the equator, this one is a special one.
3. I’m trying to sound like the guys from Top Gear, when they say something profound about a class of car being discontinued.

Get creative, Yo

I saw a chart on Facebook a while back. It showed a decreasing trend in creativity in children from the beginning of their education all the way up to the end of high school. This was based on the Torrance creativity tests. While I was looking for the aforementioned picture (I never did find it), I came across this nicely written post called the "Creativity Crisis" by Po Bronson.

Part of me was tempted to go on a literature review for the correlations with/mechanisms behind the decades long decline in creativity and then the trend through childhood education itself. I decided instead of getting bogged down in the vicious circle that is looking for valid information that I may as well just give my opinion, which is the main reason for my blog.

As was said in the post I linked, the emphasis on standardised tests and rote learning are correlated with the fall in creativity. But I think that there are subtle nuances there. Specifically I was thinking about the way school exercises were approached when I was there.

In mathematics and sciences, what we are taught in class is reinforced by working on problems oriented around the principles. That's all well and good for internalising a specific skill, but the disadvantage is that it becomes very easy for children (I mean "me") to fixate on how the problem is solved as opposed to what the result is. We (I mean "I") can become conditioned to expect all the tools to solve a problem being clearly lined-up and colour-coded in front of us (I mean... you get the idea). It reminds me a bit of the adage from Maslow:

"[...] if the only tool you have is a hammer, to treat everything as if it were a nail [...]"

Although, I would contend it is a bit more insidious than that; it's more a case of: "I was only told I could use the hammer." It's something that trips me up often in work, at least more often than I would like. I have tunnelvision solving problems... what tools to use and what is possible. What I'm trying to do these days is consider what is the desired outcome and not fixate on a path that I thought would lead me to it.

I think what could be an interesting idea for teachers to employ when teaching is only doing 50% of the exercises explicitly using the prescribed method and the other 50% letting the kids go nuts, i.e. solving the problems whatever way they can. It has a couple of benefits (I think):

1. There's cross-pollination; they are more likely to remember the thing they learned earlier and not discard them at the end of course section 
2. They get into the habit of looking at the problem and sizing up what could work to solve it based on the pros and cons of different techniques
3. They build-up a personalized repertoire of techniques for solving problems
4. They won't shoehorn a technique into a problem just because it worked for other problems in the vicinity
5. They'll be more adaptable when a technique doesn't work

Added bonuses, based on successes borne of their own initiative, they could become more confident and more likely to be assertive when faced with challenges - at least that is what my gut tells me; I only have a doctorate in chemical engineering, not psychology... :/

Maybe I'm completely of the mark, but it sounds reasonable enough to me.

There's a nice parable that infers the things I just opined. Part of me feels a bit raw that I haven't offered something novel. But, there's a very rewarding rush to arrive at an answer on your own, that isn't diminished by discovering the answer existed already. I think kids should get used to that feeling. 

Make them problem-solving junkies!¹

****

¹Not to be confused with junkies that solve problems... Ah English... your ambiguity is easy pickings for some classic jokes. And hilarious example of one at that, if I might add.ⁱ

ⁱI may.

Twaalf woorden (twelve words) deel een

One for every month

As one can gather from previous posts (scares, a year in numbers), I have a penchant for listing and evaluating things. So, to commemorate my first year as an expat, I sat down and had a think about the words and structures in Dutch that I think are fantastic. I'll do my best to expound on my reasons.

1.    Morgen

A lovely word. Before I could ever say anything else in Dutch, I could say that at the beginning and end of my day.

In Dutch, it means morning and tomorrow; typically preceded by goede (good) or tot (‘til). Here are the things it has going for it…

In Dutch:

·    The rs tend to be rolling ones, produced by the tongue vibrating against the roof of the mouth.

·       In Dutch, the g is a guttural/soft; like coughing up a furball

·    The e at the end is known as a duffe e, so it's a sharp and short exhalation, like the vowel in "bet."

And

·       You say it multiple times during the day.

So, three key parts of Dutch pronunciation regularly used; Mana from Heaven!

2.   Foefelen

It's a Flemish word, that is used commonly in relation to the Belgian pastime of tax avoidance. It means to fudge; to do something using shortcuts; cutting corners; to not follow official guidelines, or standard practises; taking the change on a split bill.
I like this for two reasons: It is one of the first words I learnt from my friends at work. We use it when teasing each other. And I think it has wonderful succinctness and onomatopoeia. ¹

3.   Er

Here we have a doozy of a thing. It is a Chimera; taking on many of the roles that there, here, that, those & these fulfill in English:

·      Counting something that has been referenced already (Ik heb er drie = "of which I have three")

·       A substitute for a place (Ik ben er = I am here/there [depending on the place in question])

·      In certain cases, a substitute for a noun (Er zijn mensen binnen = "There are people within/inside"; -”Ik ga dansen.” -”Geniet ervan.” = -”I am going dancing” “Enjoy that/get enjoyment from it”)

·  Which smoothly leads me to another of it's quirks. Er joins prepositions to form words like ervan, ervoor, erover, etc. = thereof, for that, thereover, etc. In English, it is a rather archaic thing, usually relegated to legalese ("Where were you the night thereof?”)

·   The final one, the one I had to look up because I don't use it regularly at all, is er in passive sentences: Er was niks gezegd = "There was nothing said"

It really helped me get into thinking in Dutch. It’s such a marvelous, nuanced, Jack-of-all-trades.

****

¹You'll probably have to read the fine print, but by being on my blog, you have implicitly “asked me.” Deal with it.

Super Happy Family Nutella Meringue Wish Cake! (Part 1: the Journey begins... with the longest title ever)

I have developed a terrible, terrible, terrible vice since I moved to Belgium. I have become a Nutella fiend. It was pretty bad near the beginning. I would buy a 350g jar, spread it on crispy bread roll thingies (I have never seen them anywhere else, like really small bread rolls (5 cm long rolls that are cut in half and are... crispy), or crackers.. and eventually, once I ran out of the things to spread it on... I- I- I would... use a spoon [breaks down crying].

I learned to cope with my affliction. The key was not buying it when I went to the shop. As long as I followed this simple one-step program, things were fine.

But, of course, some days were harder than others... On those days I, well, I generally sobbed myself to sleep, cradling myself in Nutella smeared hands.

I decided, that when prevention failed, perhaps I could "manage" it.

Since I am wont to throw whatever I have handy into a cookies mix, I decided I would make some Nutella cookies. I did a Google and found this fantastic baking blog. I followed the recipe and it worked out well. Although, I suspect that the tastiest parts of the Nutella spread - the quintessence of Nutella, the true Nutellaness/Nutella-ality - were volatile organic molecules because the cookies don't have the same kick at all.

Next, I dumped Nutella into a cake mix. I used that standard base that I previously cited... huh, it appears, I've never listed it before:

125g sugar
125g butter
2 eggs
200g self-raising flour
a bit of milk¹

So I spooned lots (um... 5 tblsp?) of Nutella into the mix, and then I threw in some Maltesers. I had really hoped that the Maltesers wouldn't dissolve (just think of it! Maltesers in a cake!).

Unfortunately, the maltesers dissolved and were barely palatable in the end product.

So there I was, faced with a challenge - could I keep the Maltesers intact?

Stay tuned for my next post!
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¹I usually melt the butter, add the sugar and eggs (letting the butter cool a bit in case it is hot enough to partially cook the eggs). Then sieve in the flour bit by bit a-mixing all the way. Then 50mLs of milk or there abouts. Preheat oven to 180°C, and leave it until it smells edible/a toothpick through the centre of it comes out without any batter stuck to it. I'm loath to use just this.

Generally, I'll throw in some cocoa powder to colour/put some flavour in.

Sometimes I'll go for a marbled effect, split the batter in two, one half cocoa, the other plain.

You can throw in some fruit (strawberries, peaches, raisins, apples, mango... but never grapes. Never.). What worked out nicely, was putting in sliced apples that I had rolled in cocoa before hand.

Something that just occurred to me was using nutmeg and/or cinnamon with plain mix and some raisins.

The European haircut experience

When I was in secondary school (out Wesht), I went to the local barber. He is, in country fashion, a laconic chap that, being the nerd that I was (still am, only nerdier), I didn't have a clue how to talk to. For the 5-10 minutes that I sat in that chair, there was an itchy silence peppered with "how's your mother?," "are you busy these days?," a "lovely/terrible weather we are having...", etc.

When I was in college, I went to... you guessed it, the local barber. The opposite to my previous one. A chatty fellow with that nasal Dublin accent. Generally he spoke to the other barber, or offered me his opinion on the latest news from the Sun or Mirror.¹ So again, it was not particularly relaxing as 10 minutes go.

The last time I was in Ireland, I met up with one of my mates, Neil. While we were chatting, I mentioned my reluctance to get my haircut in Antwerp. I had been putting it off for a while. Partly I didn't feel settled in Antwerp, and partly I wasn't happy with my Dutch. I wanted to at least try to speak it when I went in. He observed:

It doesn't matter what language the barber speaks; he is the one holding the scissors. When they ask you at the end if it is OK, you say,"Yes."

I feel rather silly for deferring it for so long. It was a million times better than getting it done in Ireland.

I got haircare advice (apparently my hair is too dry). He even put clips in my hair so that he could layer the sides! Clips! Sides! It turned out that he had studied Greek literature in College and he was planning to read Joyce's Ulysses. So we chatted about books as he snipped away.

It was thoroughly enjoyable and actually relaxing.

It was like going from being roophied to a candlelight dinner.

Screw you, Barbers of Ireland, you ain't touching this again.²

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¹I don't mean to sound snobby, there are nerdy equivalents thereof that I drawl about ad tedium, that other people would have no interest in hearing about.
²I don't know if you can see it, but I am pointing at my head.

Dutch is a lot like-

It has been a while.

I did mean to put some things [stuff, ponderances, musings, philosophizings, thoughts, ponderances] here, months back.

Months back, I went to Delft to visit friends. There and back, I wrote extensively⁰ about learning Dutch; The similarities between learning a language and learning a martial art;^{0.5, 0.75} How listening and conversing are like sparring... This in turn led me to bemoaning the two most under-appreciated skills in the world today: Listening and Teaching.¹

It takes an awful lot of focus to actually listen to a person; not hearing what you want to hear; not just waiting to say your bit.

And teaching? Teaching?! Richard Feymnan, a the celebrated teacher and physicist, in the foreword to his lecture series,² worried at his own inadequacies as a teacher. How there was no room for feedback during the course, so that he could improve.

If this guy wasn't happy with his teaching, then I don't think there are many of us that should be.

I suppose it is open to debate. But if it is, I am firmly on the side that if they aren't getting it, you are doing it wrong.³

That is the bones of the writings from back then. Better for the brevity, I think.

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⁰In longhand no less, with a p-e-n. It was actually very calming, not that I'd ever keep a journal or anything. Heavens no. Keeping track of day-to-day thoughts and anecdotes... No, no. Never.
^0.5Or learning one skill is like learning another skill, when you get abstracted/fudgy enough.
^0.75More recently I have been thinking about it like going from on1 salsa to on2 salsa, or cha cha cha, since they [English/German and Dutch] are in the same language/dance group: There's a fundamental change- in the dance it is the rhythm or how you follow the rhythm- that is hard to get over. But when you get comfortable with that, a lot of the things you knew previously are easily transferred.ⁱ

¹ My advertizers demand that I use sensationalist tag-lines. I tried to fight them on it; I wanted to go with: "[...] two skills that are harder than a number of people I know probably think they are [...]." It [sensationalism] is what gets people in the door. This is a numbers game. Not quality.ⁱⁱ

²My work place is so awesome that it has them in their reference library, I only had time to read the foreword on a lunchbreak, but it was worth it.

³Practically, there are limits to this stance. Of course. But. But, there is no telling when you actually reach the limit of your abilities to explain and enlighten and hit the corresponding limits of the pupil. So just keep going, trying to come up with a point of view that clicks.

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ⁱComing from English and German, a lot of the syntax is similar, and some words sound the same, just "Dutchified." The easiest thing is combining prepositions with verbs for things, it similar for the three languages, and gives a huge jump in amount of things you can say.
ⁱⁱOK, I don't have any advertisers, but I just wanted to feel like someone that would have them. FYI: I am up to 1000+ views all told, not that I care or anything...

Doctor, doctor, please

When I finished my PhD, I had intended on writing a quick note on my hard learned lessons.

A mate of mine is beginning his own shortly and he asked me for some advice... so here I am...

Nothing new...

1. Every month or so remind yourself what your "end game" is - or what shape you want it to be at least.
2. When you find yourself getting nowhere, go talk to someone else about their research problems - a change is as good as a rest.
3. When doing a presentation, write a paper for it, not just throw together a few slides. What I want for myself, is, if I give a presentation or write something, that it fits comfortably within what I know. This generally requires knowing more each time. That means thinking about the literature, which I found best done by writing at length about the context of my research. As "3.5" I don't like showing "frayed edges" to people unless it is to actually talk about the frayed edges. 
4. Also - I found I did my best thinking when I was writing down what I had done in the past. Since i was writing about something that was over and done with - I had some distance on it and could see better what to do next.

So nothing new there, but one must give the ego what it wants - in this case it is being redundant :/

I have a couple of ideas for some more posts, I will probably not get time during the week to do them though, being all busy in work and interacting with people. Socially. I started tango two weeks ago. It is a lot harder than salsa. Seriously subtle stuff - I am rapt.

Quantum buschanics

Our quantum physics teacher in college, was a gent who made the stuff pretty accessible.¹ I remember he made this nerdy [i.e. I laughed] simile.

We were learning about the particulars of the incestuous mess that is Hund's Rule of Maximum Multiplicity and the Aufbau Principle [and peripherally, the Pauli Exclusion Principle]. In a nut shell, in a given electron shell there are a number of orbitals and 2 electrons ultimately go into each orbital. The energy of the system needs to be a minimum for a given number of electrons in a shell (Aufbau), the energy is lowest when the orbitals are balanced - filled to the same amount, so 1 or 2 electrons (Hund's Rule). So the result is that the electrons fill each orbital first in a shell before doubling up.

He likened it to the way bus seats fill in Dublin: all the seats are filled singly before strangers start sitting side-by-side. It's practically a law of Nature.²

Of course that is not the case in Belgium. Every morning, I see the cosmic commuter ballet unfold. Firstly, the seat filling is quite different. There are some seats that are never filled, regardless of how many people there are, other seats are filled regardless of who is in the adjacent seat. For example we have the face-to-face seats. Here, they are all about facing the direction of motion; they'll preferentially sit side-by-side instead of taking a free opposing seat. To complicate matters further when a seat is vacated someone will usually trade up from their seat to the free one. Much like everything else in Belgium it is a complex dance, and I still don't understand the running order for the best seat - I've seen people going the length of the bus for a change.

Two other things that I have noticed:
Some take their commuter naps seriously; I've seen two bring inflatable neck pillows, and conk out for their trip. One of them even sports a really long lagging-jacket-like coat that she reverses as an ad hoc blanket.

There is a turn off a highway - it takes about 10 seconds to complete. It's fantastic, it's the longest turning circle I've ever been in! Once I figure out when it happens - I am going to eyeball the g's I'm pulling on this bad boy³... when I am starting to doze the shift reminds me of the falling van scene in Inception.

While we are talking about buses and commuting - there was another blooming vakbondsactie last Friday. To add some levity a chap sporting a knitted cap in the Jamaican colours came into the waiting room. He began with a boisterous "Goede morgen, Everybody!" He then spent 15-20 minutes bemoaning the fact that Belgium has been without a government (regering) for 6 months - he's wrong it is actually over 8 months, but he didn't sound like he was interested in accuracy. To add that Belgian flair to it he was soapboxing in a patchwork of English, German, French, Dutch and Italian.

For a finish, all the men except me had decided to brave the frost outside, instead of staying inside with the man of the moment, me and the women. After we, the audience, exchanged a few glances and smirks at his histrionics, our man declared that he had to work, pulled down his cap, put a rolled up cigarette in his mouth, swung open the door and left without so much as a by-your-leave.

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¹He told us about his own difficulties with the subject as a student, and what he found helpful. Unlike our physics teacher in first year who could tell you how many students were in the class and recalled how many were at the last class; told us we shouldn't eat coming into his post-lunch lecture because it would make us sleepy. I couldn't never followed his lectures on Gaussian surfaces, it took a lot of thinking on my own part... I suspect this guy never had any trouble learning new things.
²Obviously the quantum mechanics is practically a law of nature, but I meant, as a figure of speech, that the system for seat-filling is such a thing.
³I can estimate how many degrees off vertical it is with a piece of string, or how far I moved away from the side of the bus - I have an idea of my centre of gravity - the law of the lever on from c.o.g. what ever datum I chose for moving away from the side of the bus - a bit of vector magic... then from Googlemaps I can estimate the radius of the curve - and then the speed of the bus. ⁱ

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ⁱAlternatively, I could look over the driver's shoulder. :/