Teaching

Over the past few months it has been a challenge for me to spend the amount of time that I would like teaching classes. Life, no matter how well planned, has a way of throwing challenges in my path that cannot be ignored. The great thing about that is that for every challenge I face, multiple opportunities are created.

Being unable to teach as much as I would like has allowed me to view my classes from another perspective. Rather than being immersed in the class and experiencing the “forest for the trees” perspective, I have been watching the classes passively and evaluating the efficacy of the curriculum and the way it is taught. What I noticed this week is that there is still a tendency for instructors to teach the curriculum and forget to teach the students. The difference in the two approaches is the difference between teaching and showing. Showing is easy, teaching is hard. Showing is perspective and empathy independent, teaching is completely dependent upon both.

As Silent River Kung Fu continues to develop and improve its curriculum, it is imperative that I properly train my black belts to become master teachers whose methods serve the students who represent the future of the organization and the future of the art.

“The mediocre teacher tells. The good teacher explains. The superior teacher demonstrates. The great teacher inspires.” ― William Arthur Ward (1921 - 1994)

Structure

The past couple of weeks have presented a challenge to the structure that has been my life for the past few years. Dedicating a couple of hours a day to my training while taking care of my career, school, and family is only possible because I have found a rhythm and consistent structure that allows me to accomplish everything I want to accomplish without sacrifice. Crisis come and crisis go but with them comes a disruption that derails everything until a new rhythm can be established.

Structure - the arrangement of and relations between the parts or elements of something complex. While my life is quite simple, my ability to accomplish everything I want to accomplish requires significant effort, focus, and discipline. Consistent structure takes the complexity out of my day and gives me the time I need to nurture my relationships and achieve my goals.

“ The secret of your future is hidden in your daily routine.” - Mike Murdock (b. 1946)

Logic and Compassion

I have seen a huge increase in the amount of hate and uninformed propaganda floating around the internet this week. I don’t know if it is because Donald Trump has successfully framed hate mongering as speaking your mind or if we have reached the end of an era where people still remember why so many ended up dying in the second world war. Nationalism was not good for the world in the 1930s and I don’t think it is good for the world today. We need more compassion, not less. Our world is smaller than ever. Without tolerance and empathy, there are going to be a lot of people going through their lives angry and unhappy.

“Born in iniquity and conceived in sin, the spirit of nationalism has never ceased to bend human institutions to the service of dissension and distress.” - Thorstein Veblen (1857 - 1929)

Leaders of Tomorrow

David Suzuki turned 80 years old this week. Robert Bateman will be 86 in two months, and Thich Nhat Hanh will be 90 later this year. So many leaders, true leaders, are coming to the end of their lives. Replacing them will not be easy.

Silent River Kung Fu’s Pandamonium is teaching tomorrow’s leaders the value of empathy and respect. Leadership is about bringing us together. It is about respecting the world we share, and taking responsibility for its welfare.

“An educational system isn’t worth a great deal if it teaches young people how to make a living but doesn’t teach them how to make a life.” - David Suzuki (b. 1936)

Empathy and Leadership

Kung fu is all about empowerment. It is about taking responsibility for where you are and how you got there. Taking that level of control of your life allows you to choose your influences and to build the world you wish to be a part of. In fact, one of the most common statements I hear coming from the parents of prospective students is, “I want my child to be a leader, not a follower.”

Getting people engaged in fundraising is a challenge. People are more likely to write a cheque than they are to inspire others to contribute. It’s easier to throw money at an issue than it is to properly address that same issue. Yet when it comes to kung fu and personal empowerment, as a teacher I have no greater tool to teach empathy and leadership than SRKF’s Pandamonium fundraiser.

Engaging with SRKF’s Pandamonium means learning what it is like to go a week without a single complete meal. It means being aware that there are people, not so different than us, who require extraordinary assistance to complete the most basic of tasks that the rest of us take for granted. The Pandamonium helps teach us all about the concept of inter-being. Educating a girl in Malawi can solve many socio-economic problems that plague the world. Learning about the ecological collapse that can happen in the wake of harming the efficacy of a keystone species can shift paradigms surrounding unsustainable development. So much more can be learned through active engagement than just writing a cheque.

Silent River Kung Fu’s 24 hour Pandamonium is set to go on May 14. Please consider sponsoring a few minutes of the event so that we can learn more about the world we live in while helping those less fortunate than ourselves.

“No one cares how much you know, until they know how much you care.” - Theodore Roosevelt (1858 - 1919)

Northern Lights Wildlife Wolf Centre

I am pleased that the Silent River Benevolent Foundation has voted to include the Northern Lights Wildlife Wolf Centre as an initiative that is worthy of funding this year. Our annual Pandamnoium fundraiser has seen a drop in engagement from our students these past few years and so I see this new initiative as a real opportunity for us to help all our initiatives benefit from added engagement.

Wolves are a keystone species. They are integral for maintaining and preventing an ecosystem from collapsing or dramatically changing. This fact played out in Yellowstone Park when wolves were eradicated and then reintroduced. Currently there is a wolf cull going on in British Columbia, ostensibly to protect caribou. It is well proven that habitat quality is the most important component of caribou population recovery yet rather than protecting the caribou habitat from human activities like logging, the BC government is going after the wolves.

Nature always balances itself. Typically it is man who throws things askew, putting species at risk and even driving them to extinction. It is an exercise in futility if we think imposing our control is going to fix a problem that was caused by us imposing our control. Hopefully organizations like the Northern Lights Wildlife Wolf Centre can help educate the public and change the government narrative when it comes to prioritizing the economy over ecology. You would think a country whose economy depends on its natural resources would be more worried about the long term affects of unsustainable growth and development.

“If all mankind were to disappear, the world would regenerate back to the rich state of equilibrium that existed ten thousand years ago. Ifs insects were to vanish, the environment would collapse into chaos.” - E.O. Wilson (b. 1929)

Wolfgang Beltracchi

I watched a documentary about the art forger Wolfgang Beltracchi. He was very successful by producing forgeries that were actually original pieces of art.  Beltracchi was a master of imitating the style of other masters. Rather than copying existing artwork, he produced ‘newly found’ originals. In fact some of his forgeries were more revered than the art of the masters themselves. The only thing that classified his work as forgeries were the artists’ names that he put on the pieces. Beltracchi’s original work was worth millions with someone else’s name on the painting but once his fraud was exposed, the same art became virtually worthless.

At first I did not understand why something was worth less if Wolfgang Beltracchi painted it as Max Ernst than if it was Max Ernst himself who had produced it. Why should anyone care as long as they like it? I ended up resolving these thoughts myself. The value in art is in innovation, not imitation.

“Innovation is change that unlocks new value.” - Jamie Notter