bow to being badass or don't bow

When you bow in to a martial arts class, who or what are you bowing to?

If you are teaching, who are your students bowing to? Do you think they are bowing to you? If you do - that's a problem. Bowing is a ritual and with it come a series of artifacts. And yes, as an instructor, you have put in hours, days, years of training to reach this place in life. Teaching other people is not a right of your training; however, it is a responsibility.

With all the different things you are teaching your students, the most important one is to teach them they can - and maybe should - be training to become better than you.

I could stop writing here. It is that simple. When you and your students bow into a training session everyone should be bowing in respect to this imperative: you (the students) are expected to be better than me (the instructor).

At our training center, this is a thing - a big thing. Yesterday, a group of us presented two intro to self-defense sessions at the Silver Eagle Group in Ashburn, VA. They've been running an open house this weekend, bringing in members of the community and providing free courses to their membership as a  "thanks" for being part of one of the biggest range and training center's in Northern Virginia. The director of training invited Kore Krav Maga to present the unarmed self-defense intro classes. 

Working with brand new people is a lot of fun. The discoveries and "ah-ha" moments are frequent and that's really rewarding as an instructor. 

One of the sessions was a women's only. Packed. That's fun too. 

Because intro classes are different than regular training, we highlight that point in a variety of ways during the intro course/class. When the session's over, we bow out Krav style - it helps say "we're done". With the women's group, we talked about why we do this in a circle.  You bow to each other, not to an instructor  - we're all equal - and...the circle helps us say that ... on our mat, you're training goal should be to become better than me.

It's a simple statement meant as an endcap - I was surprised by the reaction. Murmurs and statements about how cool that is and from a veteran BJJ practitioner - wow, that's really important, I never thought about that.

I'm thinking about it today, because her response spoke volumes. Sure, it feels good to be acknowledged for all the hard work we put into our training and our instructor certifications. But if you are training, your instructor is no god. If you are an instructor, be damn certain your students know this. They are not bowing to you. They are bowing to their own future. To the practitioner they are choosing to become. 

It's fine to think of this ritual as a means of demonstrated respect to everyone else on the mat, that's cool. But if that moment in your head is comparative...you are better than they are or, they are better than you...it's Not Okay..tell that internal dialogue to just shut the fuck up.

If you are training, please - please, check your internal dialogue and make damn sure when you bow into class, the only thing you are "bowing" to is your own potential (and if you have to bow to people in your thinking...then bow to their potential to be equally badass).

breaking bad and breaking the snooze

Maybe it's all the publicized violence. Maybe it's humanity's over-domestication reaching a breaking point. Maybe it's just what happens in a room full of top dogs. What ever the explanation is,  I had the undivided attention of a group of people who should have been doodling with an eye toward the door. By hitting the powerpoint, the mic, and the stage with conversation about what it takes to break bad the mental snoozing took a shift.

The last speaker spot at the end of day 2 of a conference.  On a break before I took the podium, one of the participants said something like "you're up next, oooh, last spot of the day, that's the worst time, everyone's eyeing the door."

Granted, I see that as a challenge so maybe that was part of it too. I took the stage and repeated most of what the guy in the hallway said with instructions. "when you're tempted to check your email, or get on your laptop - don't. Get up, move - stand against a wall. Do something..."

That maybe helped in the beginning - along with I had been watching them do this all day from the back of the room - but still, I think there's more to this. More to why no one pulled out their phone.

A brief overview of what could be 8 hours of material on conflict, violence and a small glimpse into de-escalation generated attention and thoughtful questions. Then more questions and conversation after the ALPA conference was trying to get us out into the hotel lobby so the room could be managed. The information isn't new - and frankly, it isn't even mine. It's a tiny glimpse of information put together with Rory Miller mostly developed off of his program material.

I usually give these talks to people at a shooting range or a group of martial artists so I expect the interest to be moderately high. But to a room full of business execs, VP's of this and that, Special Agent's In Charge, I did not expect the info to be the shiny toy of the day...but it was.

Whatever the reason, a room full of good people who care about the safety of others have a new way of looking at an old problem and they are thinking.  One email all ready from a participant looking for more ways to deepen the knowledge - and- Miller's Conflict Communication should see an uptick in sales.

It was a good day.

working backwards

This is sort of an AAR from our Infighting weekend. Sort of because it's focusing only on one thing and the training weekend has half a dozen different trails that can be after-actioned.

Working backwards -

Teaching/training the physical skills of self-defense feels like a forward progression - learning new things is forward action. And working the body, the physical - this is the most base aspect of being human. Working forward, learning new skills, at some levels is also about working backward, rewinding the progression of domestication and rewinding the tape on how you become who and what you are (at the moment). A student - who is also an instructor - remarked that putting the blindfold on to run a training drill made him more primal.  When we dig in to our bodies we dig in deep to who/what we are and a lot of that lives below the domestication.

It can go deeper too. At the risk of sounding esoteric, who and what we are gets carried in the marks and scars held in bone and tissue. In the world of Mindbody medicine, we say there is a type of memory held in the body. It's easier to use that language than get into how the various processes we think are utilized for storing and retrieving memory so we use shorthand - body memory.

This isn't like what people call muscle memory (which isn't really), it's more about a pathway to stored experience tied to movement and position.

You know how you can smell something and instantly remember a clear and distinct event or feeling from the past? The body works the same way.

The more chaos that gets introduced into physical training the more raw it becomes and the more likely the student will stumble across little -or big- revelations. The more the body gets moved, the more that movement is not scripted or controlled, the more problems and meat puzzles that have to be solved, the more likely the training experience will anchor down into something profound.

Don't think profound means earth-shattering or life changing. It can mean that it just doesn't always. Example? Something small like "oh hey - on the ground my focus is on hurting the other person instead of getting to a better position" or "when I have the blindfold on I am more primal" and then...this is the cool part...get curious. Each discovery means something. What it means has a significant impact on the student/practitioner's understanding of how they show up inside physical chaos and maybe a bread crumb trail back to the why.

If the student touches something primal, what does that mean for him? Is it a cool thing? Is it unnerving? Is it cool because it's fun to get primal or cool because getting primal creates permission to hurt people for fun? If the student discovers the ground fight is about causing injury to the other person instead of protecting herself from injury or death, then what? Getting curious creates discovery.

Remember we teach or train ultimately because we love this stuff. Really, that's what it should be about. Love it enough to be curious and let being curious make life better.

the opposite is most likely

Ipcha Mistabra

First the history (?) lesson:
From what I can tell, this is the real version of World War Z's Israeli 10th Man rule. After the war in 1973 when Israel was caught by surprise, a unit was formed to serve as devil's advocate. Sometimes refereed to as the Red Unit or Ipcha Mistabra.

Ipcha Mistabra is an Aramaic phrase found in the Talmud and means: the opposite is most likely.

The point of the unit is sanctioned opposition. It limits the transgressions that group think and emotional contagion can cause - like presuming a level of security that does not exist (and then getting caught with your proverbial pants down with devastating consequences).

The question:

Does it take tragedy to see the value of an Ipcha Mistrabra unit, person, or allowing dissenting ideas to be accepted within a tribe? Do we need a Yom Kippur War (Israel-1973), or a 911 before we make space for this? And, if we make room for the movie's version, a 10th Man rule, is there a point where we feel we no longer need it? Is dismissing it dangerous or common sense?

Within an organization v. a nation, does an organization need to implode first? Is it a mandate of human nature that we punish, squash, silence disagreement or voices that say...hey, I wonder if maybe the opposite is true? Is banishment & shunning our only option when someone has a different take? And this is can be literal, but we banish and shun all the time in subtle ways all the while holding the target of our correction to the rules we are banishing them for breaking.

Humans like to be right. I like to be right. So do you. It feels affirming to be right. And we want to dismiss dissent or disagreement because it threatens our need for confirmation that we might actually have a clue. Can we be disciplined enough to have deep enough dialogue such that an Ipcha Mistabra gets enough air time to be considered? It doesn't even have to be pretty. The monkeys can share their grievances even, in fact, one the best mediation systems around invites the monkey brain arguments and upsets to the table as the first step in reaching resolution (The Quaker's have this one down).

I think tribes prefer the black and white thinking of regulation and protocol because it is fundamentally easier than the alternative. And it is fundamentally easier. The alternative requires time and dialogue and thinking and discussion and decision making and...time.

When we create space for all that possibility our plumb lines risk getting fuzzy. We hold a hard line on pedophilia for example - we think it's really, really wrong. I'm good with that opinion and with the rules that enforce it. The North American Man/Boy Love Association disagrees. I don't want to give them the privilege of a ipcha mistabra seat at my table. It's a hard line for me but you might disagree...a rule, a regulation means we don't have to talk about it. I'm right. You're wrong.

It's easier to set up a rule. It feels safer. Thinking can be dangerous. Considering dissenting perspectives can be dangerous too. And if anything, humans will default to what requires the least effort to accomplish a task. It's why we have dishwashers and someone has invented a machine to fold the laundry.

rambling little whine to commence

Once in a while I afford myself the luxury a good, solid whine. Read at your own risk.

Weary, frustrated, annoyed...did I say weary?  Describes my mental state and my physical state (probably more because of the summer cold I have - another reason I want to whine).

Stating the obvious: organizations are made of people and people are social primates and as such are driven to protect/defend/argue about: status, protocols, territory, and membership (of said organization).  It's one of those Captain Obvious moments, right? Like...if you stand in the rain you are going to get wet.

And I'm wondering if there is ever a circumstance when this organizational reality needs a good slap upside the head. When I look at the effort required for said slap - then I just feel weary again...whine, whine, whine.  Then I wonder if perhaps the head-slap is just self-serving (so I feel better) and if the right thing to do is let them have at it, do your protocol wars thing - it's a necessary tribal process.

If a group of people, an organization, has as it's primary goal the purpose of making people stronger, better, safer - shouldn't there be at least a wee bit of interest in keeping that mission at the forefront? Tribes must funnel energy and purpose into the maintenance of the tribe's existence, got it - check. When that's the fabric of every single tribe, ever, everywhere I should be smart enough to avoid jousting that windmill.

In self-defense and martial arts organizations what separates one tribe from the next is sometimes about the "what" that is taught and always about the "how" it is taught. The tribe needs a coherent identity - again I know - Captain Obvious. When the tribal identity drifts away from making people stronger, better, safer because the internal protocols become the primary agenda .... do we care? should we care? If tribes are fundamentally compelled to maintain themselves and the purpose of the tribe is secondary, is there ever a moment when jousting with the windmill has merit?

When good people with equally good commitments to helping people be stronger, better, safer forget that the mission is more important than the tribal markers we have lost ourselves -- Because I think organizations and people who care enough to teach the stuff that makes people stronger, better, safer are important, I think the loss of mission focus is more egregious. I know it's a bias. It's a bias I choose. And because of the bias I am wondering now about the slap upside the head v. jousting windmills and protocol wars and at the moment, I can't find an ounce of value in any of those efforts.

tribal blindness

Tribe. Understanding our basic needs for belonging is becoming a little more common. More people are talking about it and writing about it.

That's good.  The more we look at it and talk about it the better chances we have for figuring out how to be in our tribes without completely fucking things up. What blinds us to the similarities between Tribe A and Tribe B causes conflict and violence. The internal similarities within our tribe blinds us to the differences we need to see.*

While we are learning how to better play nice with others, predators are learning too. Watch how Joey Salads demonstrates it. This post is not an endorsement of the guy and his social experiments because I have no idea if he is getting consent for these social experiments. Still, his little social experiment with the Pokemon Go phenomenon highlights a truth, and one I wonder how many people see.

 Watch the experiment here and then come back - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L5mcRv8hqu8.

When we identify with a specific tribe we automatically assign deep levels of similarity and familiarity to the other members of our tribe. Humans do this without a lot of conscious consideration and often we do this somewhat blindly.

Defining the words.

Assigning Similarity: you think like me, behave like me, choose like me,  believe in what I believe in and follow the same ethics I follow even if I don't know what those ethics really are because most of us don't pause to evaluate this stuff.

Assigning Familiarity: I feel like I know you and you know me, sort of. Because we must be similar to share a tribe we must also already know a data set about each other. The more familiar you are to me, the more comfortable I am with you. The more similar we are, the more you have the right to assume you may be familiar with me.

Predators count on the assumed similarity and familiarity gained through tribal association. The shared S and F assumptions breed a level of trust. And Mr. Salads' social experiment identifies a harsh reality created by the S/F tribal assumptions.

I suspect when we deliberately choose a tribe and the tribe is artificial like the Pokemon Go tribe, we humans may be even more willing to assign a level of trust that is untested. It's one thing to belong to a tribe by the geographical markers of your childhood, or the religious markers, or tribe by heritage - we didn't choose that, it chose us. "Oh, you're Irish too? Excellent. I trust you completely." This is not what we do. Just because you have ancestors born where my ancestors were born does not mean I will jump in your car (if you didn't watch the video -the car reference doesn't have as much weight).

When our tribe is a product of our own choice perhaps we assume a deeper and riskier reality. We like to believe we are smart. Smart people make wise choices. Therefore, as I am smart, I naturally have chosen my deliberate tribes with wisdom and as a result - they are trustworthy. There are all kinds of things wrong with this proof of our intelligence but I think we do it anyway.

And I am pretty sure the predators are counting on it.

Most people have the ability to be smart. So be smart. Recognize when you choose a tribe by shared interests it does not mean everyone who shares your interest lives by your rules, your ethics, your moral compass.  Deeper still, don't assume they have chosen to share your interest because they want to join your tribe, the chosen interest might be a con and Mr. Salads demonstrates how easily the con works.

*this is all about Affordances: what you see completely determines what you can do. A concept in Conflict Communication and Violence Dynamics in Chiron Training programs I have the privilege to facilitate.

the wrong medicine

I know what it's like to have a child who struggles. My oldest had debilitating asthma attacks from the time he was 6 months old until early high school. Trips to the emergency room with a toddler turning blue is a unique experience I wouldn't wish on anyone. As a parent, you can't fix this. You can't breathe for your own kid. The only thing you can do is hope like hell that the experts can fix it for you.

Sometimes they can. Sometimes they can't. Sometimes all modern medicine could do was load my 2 year old (who became 6 who became...) up on oral steroids after trips to the ER and keep our fingers crossed while we superimposed a temporary case of hardcore ADHD so he could breathe. It sucked.

So I get it when parents struggle and search to fix something they feel they can't but somehow are expected to fix. With the asthma, soccer coaches would look at him and me and talk about "conditioning" and pull little man on the bench. Sigh.

Working with me at our training center is a naturally brilliant kid's instructor. He's well-trained but that's not what makes him brilliant - he really wants his little students to excel. But he's not there to fix medical problems. Recently, I got a call from a mom invoking the 30 Day cancellation notice for her son, it's the first time we've talked to the mom....up until now it's been all dad.  I always ask for feedback on a cancellation because it helps me know if there is something we can fix.

"He's having fun and he's learning but his dad was hoping it would teach him more discipline." This follows an admission by dad to aforementioned brilliant instructor that the young man in question was diagnosed (this past year) with ADHD. It's not uncommon for latency aged kids with ADHD to have aggression issues and on the mat in a self-defense program our kid in question had trouble with his aggression toward the other kids; a lot of trouble. The instructor worked with the dad and was committed to helping this little guy to success.

Then the backstory comes out. They were hoping training in self-defense would teach him to control what his brain could not. However a parent chooses to address the medical needs of their child is a deeply personal dynamic and regardless of my beliefs - I respect those choices. That being said - here's an important announcement:

Kids Krav Maga (or any other martial art) will not fix or cure a medical condition. Teaching kids to punch, hit, kick and defend against the same will give them choices and options for control. Teaching kids to defend themselves (and punch, hit and kick) will not wake up the latent screening system in the kid's brain. ADHD etc. is a medical issue. The filter that allows humans to screen incoming data for importance is not working as intended. All the incoming data hits the brain with equal force. Taking a 45 minute class in self-defense a couple times a week is not going to fix that. 

Bring your kids to train with us.  We love our Littles and we have a fantastic instructor team who want nothing more than for our Tiny Humans to succeed. No matter how much we empathize with the struggles of parenting, our training program has a specific set of goals, as does every other martial arts program for kids. If your Little has something s/he struggles with, let us know. Let us work with you and with your Little. But if you use a martial arts program as a means of doctor/cure shopping, you will be disappointed.