Week starting 20/09/10

This week: Salsa and Tango lesson in my basement, there was 14 of us which made for a cool session. Making some progress in Salsa; I need to forget about my feet, flow with the rhythm.

Tango is a beautiful and very sensual dance, at the beginning of each lesson we usually ask Ricardo and Caroline for a demo. They really make it look like they are burning for each other! I like it because it’s very mature. As part of Monday’s class, they put us in a circle, girls facing the guys, 1^st the girls closed their eyes and we had to caress them, from the face, down the neck and arms to their hands. There were a few giggles of course, but ‘this is the essence of tango’ says Ricardo, you need to feel your partner in many ways. Then we switched roles and carried on with actual dancing. Many thanks to our teachers to bring us new skills, that’s what it’s all about!

This is Ricardo and Carolina giving us a demo 2 weeks ago (?). Photo stolen from Alejandro's FB ;)

Tuesday we had class all day (yes yes I will get to sharing the material), then Maja from Serbia, Tamar and Sar from Israel came over for a cup of tea, checking out some shoes on the way(!). It was amazing to hear from Israelis 1^st hand, how rich their history is and how much is happening in their country, the complexity of it all. We had a big Google Earth session to fly around the place! I also want to hear more about Serbia/Bosnia from Maja.

Wednesday we had class till mid-day, then I pretended to read some course material. At 4pm we had a presentation by Edgar Gouveia from Elos Institute on Community empowerment and engagement. Within the ‘Oasis’ movement, what they do is take a group of volunteers and go to help a community for a month, but not in a traditional way. Their methodology is as follows:

-          - Gaze – find the beauty within the community

-          - Affect (affection) – find stories from the locals behind the beauty

-          - Dream – ask the locals what their dream is, regardless of the problems and what they think would stop them

-          - Care – Take the dream and do something with it – design phase.

-          - Miracle – Make the dream true, without money, only resources present within the community

-          - Celebration

All this is done in just a few weeks (depending on scale of action). The whole process must be without pain, only beauty. It’s a game, playing to change the world, and the locals are ‘inflamed’ again. They realise how much they can do, and join in the process to build their dream in reality. Edgar showed us photos and videos of his work, powerful stuff, a few people were cried!

This video shows the ‘game’ they did in India this year:

A key message he had for us was that if you want people to make a move, whether it is on climate change or improving the local community, it is useless to just point at the problem and TELL people to act. You have to model the way, show how much is possible and how powerful people are together. Generally people (I’m still quoting Edgar here) are afraid of being hurt or have loved ones hurt, of being manipulated, and afraid of doing things that won’t bring real change. Action is invitation, and the challenge is focused on positive aspects, on winning, it’s a game! The best way is to play!

That was very inspirational. Another video he showed us is this one; cleaning up Estonia in 1 day!!:

At the end the guy says “I believe this can be done in your country, it doesn’t take much money, and it’s done in a day!”

Thursday we had class till 12:00 again. Since Tuesday these classes are in the town centre, close to my place, so I’ve been riding my long-board. It’s downhill from the town centre to the water so I’ve enjoyed a few curvy rides – good for my soul :D.

Note on our lecturer Dr Goran Broman, absolute legend!: putting on salsa music during breaks, advertising and giving us discounts on local judo lessons, and doing a few funny things to keep the crowd entertained... one example was an 'attention test': he did a ju-jutsu roll on stage out of nowhere, clearly catching everyone's attention, and asked if we could remember what he had said just before: he presented some statistics of a previous case, showing that only 12% of the audience could repeat what was said before the action. Stats also showed that - among other things - 20% of the audience were having erotic thoughts at that time!! Awesome!

Anyway then I went home for lunch, picket up the text-book to go to Lango, read on the rocks by the sea until some of the crew showed up for Yoga on the grass. Maja Feldman from the US is our teacher, and I must admit I was impressed!! After being stretched, toned and balanced up we had individual photos taken at uni for the class biographies. At 6:00, fitness training in my basement with Ricardo – 20min high intensity workout! I still managed to read a whole text-book chapter later in the night. What a great day!

Today it’s all about the ‘Leadership thread’ – Presentation skills, feedback and non-violent communication, systems thinking and Daily game on the menu!

Tomorrow is dance class and a birthday party, will give an update after the week end, have a good one!