Loving and letting be..

My Dad has been conducting a spirituality course with myself and a bunch of my friends over the last 4 weeks and last night was the last one and it turned into a really interesting conversation about "what is love?" and "does love sometimes need to be tough?" and other such interesting questions.  It resonated a lot with me because only last week I started giving my 9 yo dd more space to explore the way she interacts with her 12 yo brother and I found it a really hard thing to do.  Like a lot of parents I always want to children to be happy and to get on with each other but I began to question myself:

Does my desire for that to be the case stop either of my children from being themselves in that relationship?

And I realised that yes, my desire does stop my children exploring that relationship for themselves and this one example which happened last week was a point in case.  My dd wanted to watch a certain with her Dad and ds didn't want to and was trying to offer alternatives. Dd put her foot down and didn't want to compromise and so ds got upset and came into see me, with dd traipsing behind.  I cuddled ds, heard the story of what had happened from him and then from dd.  My son is an easy-going child so I could easily have got him to do something different with me and sent dd off to watch her film with my husband, but I stopped and wondered:

how long will my son remain easy-going if I let his sister get her own way a lot?
how would that work the other way round?
why am I trying to solve a problem which isn't mine?  it is my ds and dd's issue?
what disservice am I doing to both ds and dd in solving their problems when actually neither of them have explicitly asked me to?

My dd did then sort of ask me to solve this problem but looking at me with her gorgeous puppy-dog brown eyes  she has and this is where my desire to make everything ok for her normally kicks in.  However this time I didn't.

I vocalised that her brother seemed upset and waited.  And waited a bit more (whilst so desperately wanting to fix the problem by giving loads of different scenarios which could work) and watched her struggle with what she could do.  She's used to me fixing the problem for her and that is my "fault" but left to her own devices she eventually agreed to a compromise film.  If she had stuck with her original plan to watch her film, thereby excluding her brother, that would have been an equally valid choice but with differing outcomes.  She will never know and neither will I.  I do know though that my ds appreciated that his sister had come to this decision herself and when asked later he said that it felt more genuine and sincere to him.

Love isn't fixing problems whilst removing someone else's chance to fix their own
Love isn't always relying on one sibling's goodwill whilst allowing another sibling to get their way
Love doesn't mean always liking a child's behaviour
Love is letting a child grow up and learn about their relationships for themselves and letting them struggle with the consequences of their actions/words

Having just written that list it has occurred to me that this resonates with an article I read in the Independent a few weeks ago.  Read Peter Gray's article "Give childhood back  to children" here.  His premise is that children need more time to play to be happy, productive and moral citizens and that our education system is not allowing this through too little play and too much homework.  However he talks about play allowing children to "think creatively, to get along with other people and cooperate effectively, and to control their own impulses and emotions."  He states that in hunter-gatherer societies children are allowed to explore away from adults all day long thereby practising the skills they need to become effective adults themselves.  This is what resonates with me.  Children sorting out their own issues away from adults.

Again another article seems to echo a similar theme here.  As part of an experiment a school in Auckland ripped up the playground rulebook and allowed children to skateboard, climb trees and play with "dangerous" equipment such as old tyres and pipes during playtime.  The incidences of bullying, injuries and and vandalism dropped whilst overall behaviour and concentration of the children increased.  It also resulted in the school needing less adult supervision during playtime.  The Principal said "We want kids to be safe and to look after them, but we end up wrapping them in cotton wool when in fact they should be able to fall over."  Children develop the frontal lobe of their brain when taking risks, meaning they work out consequences so "the great paradox of cotton-woolling children is it's more dangerous in the long-run".

I am wondering whether the development of the frontal lobe also occurs when children are not overly supervised by adults?  Children need to make their own mistakes whether by falling over, knocking someone else over, upsetting a friend or sibling, seeing the consequences of their own actions or words, etc..

Peter Gray states that "play is a means by which [children] acquire social skills and practice fairness and morality."  When children play there is always the ability to stop playing and this power to quit is what makes play "the most democratic of all activities" because this leads to negotiation and compromise if the game is to continue.  This in turn develops empathy (the ability to see the world from someone else's viewpoint) which is essential for the development of friendships, relationships and co-operative work partnerships.

Obviously if and when children need extra help in any of this situations there are wonderful techniques such as those in books like "How to talk so kids will listen", "Parent Effectiveness Training" or in any Non Violent Communication book, which will help us help our children learn valuable conflict resolution techniques. Once learned though we are then free as parents to leave our children alone to sort out their problems themselves, which means not always rushing in to fix any issues they are having, even if we really, really want to!!

October's Oscillating Observations

Watch here for fantastic practical examples of how to stay young, fit and mentally agile.  Stephen Jepson is a great example of a guy who likes playing and is enjoying life and "never leaves the playground".

How about a piano playing elephant here

Great rap about money and politics but a fab young man here

Fantastic porject helping Africa get its green land back by simply digging ditches - watch here

Radical teaching discoveries - read about it here and then watch the "Hole in the Wall" guy talk about the future of teaching via this TED talk here

Absolutely brilliant comic about finding the life you want (Bill Watterson) - see here

How about the idea that there is a prejudice against stay-at-home-mums which should be taken seriously.  Read more here

Great poem about perceptions of women getting older versus men - listen here

Great story about how being nice and helpful actually makes a difference - watch here

Watch a fantastic video here showing an amazing ant colony

Powerful video about rape "7 cowardly words on a bus" - watch with caution here

Another example of how the images that we see daily of "beautiful" women are not real - watch here

Fantastic video about teaching children pointless things.  David Allen at his best - watch here

Let's be the best we can.  This guy (Shane Koyczan) is awesome and the violin (Hannah Epperson) just adds more - watch here

Bagels, boots, books and bathing

Bathing doesn't really cover the swimming stuff I am going to be trying to do over the next few weeks but I liked the alliteration of it all.  So I will start with the Total Immersion (TI) book - 3rd book down in the photo (link to Amazon for a copy at the side).  I have read the first 3 chapters of the book and have looked at the first few drills to start my total immersion swimming practice.  Here is a video that shows what I am heading for in the first few basic drills but here is the one that shows the 'sweet spot' which I will be trying to find on Monday when I go swimming.  I will be trying to practice it on both sides.
So the theory behind why I need to be doing all this is basically we need to reshape our bodies to be able to swim better.  It seems the 80/20 principle can be used here where the mechanisms of the stroke bring 80% of the performance whereas only 20% comes from the fitness of the swimmer.  TI advocates that your arm stroke has very limited impact on how fast you move through the water due to the fact that water is 1000 times denser than air thereby throwing a huge drag force against anyone who doesn't know the tricks of becoming 'slippery' or streamlined.  Cutting drag by improving body position is therefore the most important thing to do (as nautical engineers try to do with boats.)  This can be achieved by learning to glide as far as possible after each stroke by balancing your body correctly in the water, making your body longer in the water and learning to swim on your side (hence the sweet spot drill to learn to balance on both sides in the water.)  I'll try and let you know how it goes!!!  I am very happy however that I have read a third of the book already.
I have also nearly finished the Horse Boy (2nd book down and link to Amazon at the side) and it is a brilliant book which I would highly recommend.  It is about an autistic boy called Rowan who has an affinity for horses and how his Dad takes him to see some shamans in Mongolia to try and help with his autistic behaviours.  They filmed the whole trip so I am going to try and watch the film once I have finished the book.  There is a trailer here if you are interested.  So I am pleased that I have nearly finished this book and will be carrying on reading the Harville Hendrix one "Getting the Love You want" once I have finished.

I have finished my first craft project which I am very happy about.  I adapted a pattern I found on Etsy by Holland Designs and made these feet warmer/sock/crochet shoe things.  They are very comfy and warm and I am very pleased with them even if I do say so myself!!!  Follow this link to see some of Holland Designs here.  I have bought most of the shoe patterns and will definitely be crocheting some more soon.

And lastly but not least-ly bagels.  Dave made some bagels yesterday and I had to share how amazing they were.  So much nicer than the bagels you get in the shop so much so that I ate 3 last night for tea!! Here are my lovely children modelling said bagels for you.  I think Indie might have a career in comedy modelling!!!

books, exercise - oh dear I have too much stuff to read and links to watch!!!

 After posting my last blog entry on facebook a discussion started about the movnat and other such movement stuff.  I thought I would therefore compose another blog entry with all the videos and stuff that I have found over the years about exercise, wild swimming, barefoot running, etc.  This prompted me to go and track down all the books I have about all these things.  However I realised that I had too many books so I just gathered together a few that I have purchased and never read (or started reading but never got very far!!)  Here are the main ones which are relevant to the links I am going to put here and are ones that are probably going to stay off the shelf and get read sometime soon (maybe!)

Whilst looking for the above books I found these other books that are going to be added to my books-I-need-to-read pile which has now gone beyond the 12 I said I was going to read this year - oh dear!!  Here are the ones I had already put on the list:
1. the moneyless manifesto - can be read here for free
2. the moneyless man
3. adapt: why success always starts with failure - read a review here
4. mindfulness for life - read about it here
5. six weeks to superhealth - see here
6. receiving love: letting yourself be loved will transform your relationship - would recommend any of his books - read about Harville Hendrix here
7. how to be an adult in relationship: the five keys to mindful loving - read about the author here

Anyway here are some links to the various physical things that I have found over the years:
Movnat is a physical education and fitness system based on training the full range of natural human movement abilities.  Here is the movnat youtube channel where there are lots of videos about movnat movements.  Here is a 48 minute talk by the founder of movnat and there are lots of other videos on you tube about this like this one or this one or this list.  Just search and you will find more.

A similar methodology is primal movement which is an approach to human movement that prioritises basic, natural movement.  Here are four workouts: workout 1 - the warm up, workout 2 - mobility and crawling, workout 3 - mirroring and interaction and workout 4 - putting it all together.  

And again here is an article about similar "our bodies have forgotten the movements we used to do" type idea.  Here is a list of the seven primal movements we don't do enough of any more - squat, lunge, push, pull, bend, twist and gait - with associated workout advice.

If you like kettlebells here is a primal movement kettlebell workout.  Here is a primal outdoor circuit done by a man with no top on to show off his abs!!

The Ready, Set, Go! book pictured above talks about a sprint 8 idea and the research behind it but basically  as mentioned here, Sprint 8 cardio exercise creates the maximal release of exercise-induced growth hormone by doing 20 minutes of exercise in a certain way three times a week.   This 20-minute protocol consists of a 3-minute walking warm up and a 2-minute walking cool down. The rest is 90 seconds of "active recovery" walking in between eight hard and fast 30-second cardio sprints.  The key is that the 30-sec cardio sprints have to be flat out otherwise you aren't doing it right.  If you can keep going after those 30 seconds at the same pace you need to be going faster.  This sprint 8 protocol can be done using any cardio exercise eg. swimming, rowing, knee-highs, you name it.

The Total Immersion is about learning a new way of swimming especially useful for outdoor swimming but also invaluable for any freestyle swimmer.  See a good description of what it is about here where you get to see a good example of the total immersion technique alongside a traditional freestyle swimming stroke.  I haven't read this book so will get back to you when I have!!  I do need to improve my freestyle stroke so definitely on my list of books to read.  [how many am I up to now? 16?]  There are other decent videos here and here and here that explain more and from other's perspectives.  It seems that these are well worth looking at if you are interested in swimming and you might be able to glean enough from the total immersion you tube channel to really help if this is your thing.  The trick seems to be to disturb the water less and a similar thing with Chi Running is to use gravity rather than battle against it.

The Chi Running book is something I bought before I bought my vibram barefoot running shoes.  Again I haven't read it other than skimming the pages although I did watch the following videos and try and implement some of the techniques in normal trainers.  Here is an interview with the Chi Running book Danny Dreyer and here is a video explaining the chi running technique and here is another one with diagrams.  There are other videos about barefoot running out there as well.  Like this one that gives you a brilliant illustration of changing foot fall to ball rather than heel and then changing posture.  There are some good drills in that video and some other ones in this video around the 2 minute mark.
So there is a bit about the stuff I have looked at over the years to do with improving the way my body works.  I think this has given me a kick start to look again at the sprint 8 as part of the movnat and primal body stuff.  Those different techniques seem to compliment each other as does the barefoot running and total immersion swimming.  So here's to a more natural body moving 2013.  [two posts in two days - who knew I could manage that!!!!]