Brandee Laird: Creating experiences, usefulness, and poetry →

Published December 4, 2019  ·  All posts on Dec 4  ·  

Brandee Laird: Creating experiences, usefulness, and poetry

How can one integrate personal growth, creativity, and leadership to inspire and connect with others?

Brandee Laird discusses many things, including the recent Art of Retreat, being an introvert, and card manipulation. She shares her coaching philosophy, influences, and creating experiences, and reflects on the role of usefulness in her practice. Brandee explains how she handles dark moods, strives to expand her skill sets, and even recites some of her own poetry.

[T]hey end up feeling connected to me by the way I’m doing it and the way I’m presenting myself. But really, it’s whatever tactics and techniques, whatever tools I’m giving them. Whether it’s a game, mess with a partner, or we’re all doing something together, it’s really designed to give them a sense of not being alone in the endeavor. Because parkour is something that we definitely do alone. But we do it alone, together.

~ Brandee Laird

Brandee Laird explores her multifaceted approach to personal growth, movement, and coaching. She discusses how she crafts unique experiences for her students to foster connection and engagement, emphasizing the balance between challenge and joy in her teaching philosophy. Through her reflections on the Art of Retreat, she shares how creating environments for personal and communal elevation has inspired her practice. Additionally, she explains her methods of navigating introversion and dark moods, offering insights into building resilience through creative outlets like poetry and physical movement.

The conversation also dips into the philosophy behind her work, such as redefining parkour as an obstacle-based discipline and expanding its scope to emphasize utility and community impact. She highlights how integrating compassion, creativity, and leadership can elevate both individuals and groups. Her personal anecdotes, such as teaching meditation and ninja skills at a summer camp, reveal her commitment to cultivating meaningful experiences that inspire transformation in others.

Takeaways

Creating impactful learning experiences — Experiences should combine skill acquisition with emotional engagement for lasting impact.

Navigating introversion in leadership — Introverts can consciously generate energy to inspire and lead others effectively.

Growth through discomfort — Embracing challenges leads to personal and communal transformation.

Parkour as a universal practice — Parkour’s adaptability and inclusivity make it a unique discipline with global community connections.

The role of creativity in resilience — Poetry and storytelling provide emotional outlets and foster deeper personal reflection.

Expanding parkour’s scope — Teaching parkour with a focus on utility and values can transform communities and lives.

Balancing joy and suffering in practice — Sustainable training includes both rigorous challenges and moments of lighthearted exploration.

Resources

Brandee Laird @monkeemoves

Opportunitrees (YouTube) — Brandee’s personal parkour video journal capturing moments of happiness and creativity.

Parkour Visions — Organization promoting parkour as an inclusive, community-driven discipline.

Art of Retreat — Event fostering connection and learning within the movement community.

The I Ching — Ancient Chinese text used for guidance and introspection.

(Written with help from Chat-GPT.)

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Golden Gate National Recreation Area →

Published December 3, 2019  ·  All posts on Dec 3

Lose no time →

Published December 2, 2019  ·  All posts on Dec 2  ·  

I suspect some people need to cultivate a sense of urgency to motivate them. I need less motivation. I need less urgency.

I managed to create a life where my perception is that every waking moment I’m either on-task or off. Every waking moment is either doing something that moves me towards my goals, or a moment of relaxation and unwinding—self-care practices so to speak. (Of course, there’s another third of my life when I’m asleep.)

It’s perfectly obvious that there is no such thing as work versus life balance. There’s just life. Some moments I’m doing this thing. Some moments that thing. Some moments resting my eyes. Some moments eating. Some moments interacting with this person. Some moments with that person. Many moments I’m alive.

The only way it would make sense to talk about work versus life… I don’t mean work, defined as when money is changing hands. I mean work as in efforts spent progressing towards a goal. The only way it would make sense to talk about work versus life balance would be if I were two—or more—different people; the work me and the life me. I can readily see how that could be a thing. I can see people who do that, or at least they try to do that. It’s completely obvious when people try to be one person in work contexts and another for themselves. I’m not sure I ever tried to do that. I’m sure that I don’t want to do that.

There’s just me. There’s just life. I need to catch myself making a distinction between work and life. That would be a moment, earlier than where I’m currently trying to solve my problems, where I might have more purchase.

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What would it be like? →

Published December 1, 2019  ·  All posts on Dec 1  ·  

I have a list of daily reminders that I cycle through. This one came up this morning and, as always, it bears repeating:

Add padding to everything. Do half of what you imagine you can do. We tend to cram as much as possible into our days. And this becomes stressful, because we always underestimate how long things will take, and we forget about maintenance tasks like putting on clothes and brushing teeth and preparing meals. We never feel like we have enough time because we try to do too much. But what would it be like if we did less? What would it be like if we padded how long things took, so that we have the space to actually do them well, with full attention? What would it be like if we took a few minutes’ pause between tasks, to savor the accomplishment of the last task, to savor the space between things, to savor being alive?

~ Leo Babauta from, 8 Key Lessons for Living a Simple Life

slip:4uzesi5.

Where I am, there’s a winter storm coming later today. It’s the end of the world. People rushing around. Grocery stores picked clean. Flurries of communication about, “have you heard…,” and, “is this thing cancelled?” It’s like this every year; not just the first winter storm, but every storm.

The crazier it gets, in general, in life, on the roads, in the markets, online, the more I feel like, “meh.” Tempest in a teapot. All the world is but a stage, and all that. On any given day, there are things I want to do and I set about doing them.

What do you want to do today? Have you allocated time to do that well?

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Mindless or mindful? →

Published November 30, 2019  ·  All posts on Nov 30  ·  , ,

Have you noticed how often we all repeat what we say?

Too many people simply begin talking at another person, before having obtained their attention. This happens all the time! Once you start to notice it, it’s everywhere.

Too many people aren’t paying attention. Although, I suspect it’s partly in response to too many people [and computers and phones and our entire culture] clamoring for their attention, that they’ve stopped paying attention as a self-defense mechanism. Withholding attention shifts the default setting of how attention-getting something must be to actually get their attention.

Many years ago we create a house-rule that we would not talk to each other unless we were in the same room. It took a long time until it became the norm in our house. No shouting from one room to another with a question, or an order. How often do things like, “Hey, could you…” travel from room to room in your home? Our rule forces us, when I want your attention, to go to you. This puts some actual effort onto me, exactly where it belongs. No one is permitted to call from the living room, “Hey, can you bring me…” because we both know full well we should get up and get it ourselves.

Settling into that rule was tough. But part two was far harder. Improving the other side of the exchange: that of the person who is being interrupted, even if it is ever so politely, by a demand for attention. Having reached a point where we each travel to the other, (the first part,) we then had to learn to treat the arriving person with respect, (the second part.) For example, when I’m knee-deep in computer work and she arrives, I had to learn to pause from my work and turn my full attention to this person who is vastly more important than anything happening in my computer. Frankly I’m still working on this.

After a few years of all of the above, I noticed my attention was becoming a much sharper tool in my interactions out in the world. Some of this was surely due to years of martial arts training, but much of the change was due to my intentional practice described above.

(Then I realized just how much of my attention my phone was demanding, and I fixed that shit right quick. Then I threw my participation in social networks under the bus.)

Now, I see countless examples of mindlessness any time I venture out into the regular world. But I also see examples of mindfulness! They’re not as common, but some people I encounter are awake. Some people I encounter are interested and interesting. Some people’s presence make the immediate area a better place.

Which are you, mindless or mindful?

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Sand through the hour-glass →

Published November 29, 2019  ·  All posts on Nov 29  ·  

I mentioned recently that I sometimes use a cheap little sand timer when I want to know when to stop, but don’t want to be directly interrupted by beeps or alerts. The sand runs out quietly. At some point later, I notice the time is up and I bring the work to a stop.

Except when the sand timer gets stuck. My half-hour timer—just that one—every once in a while, stops dropping sand. It’s a pretty teeny stream of falling sand that I can easily miss at a glance. So it’s not at all obvious if it stops. I get into the flow of work. I’m thinking, “yeup, in the flow state.” I’m tearing along, confident that my little sand timer will quietly let me know when to stop.

…and like two hours later I notice the room is getting cold because I haven’t fed the wood stove. Wait wat. *taps sand timer* oh.

I can’t decide if this is good or bad. It’s like deep work roulette. I think I’m going to do a half-hour dash, but maybe I’m going down the rabbit hole. I could easily replace the cheap little sand timer, but I like the randomness of it. The analog-ness of it. Not only is its time keeping approximate, but sometimes it’s totally not keeping time.

Too much planning and structure kills spontaneity.

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The calling of what could be →

Published November 28, 2019  ·  All posts on Nov 28  ·  

The best way I can describe it is a “calling.” I see something—something being done in an inefficient way, a question asked, a powerful tool not being used—and I see possibilities. Ways to combine things, to expand things, or a small bit of connection that would make two things vastly more powerful. It’s a flash of opportunity.

The urge to drop whatever it is that I’m currently doing, and jump on the new opportunity is irresistible. Not quite absolutely irresistible, but it’s close. I don’t get distracted so much by things, but rather by the opportunity for me to take some action to create, integrate, combine, smash and rebuild better, rearrange and permute. Oh yes, it’s a calling. It’s almost an addiction.

Actually, maybe it is an addiction. An addiction to action?

Certainly, I’m biased towards action. That’s a good thing. As an agent—emotional too of course, but as a being who has agency—being biased towards action is a necessary component of being able to consistently affect the world.

However, I’ve come to believe that there’s such a thing as too much action. It’s completely possible, (exhibit ‘A’, me,) to attempt too much action, to do too much, and to lose oneself in a flurry of activity. I’m beginning to suspect that, now that I’m a master of taking action, I need to work on assessing leverage. Feel a calling? How much leverage would that action generate? How much good/benefit/creation/change would that action generate? How, as it were, does it multiply the actions of others?

That might be a theme for 2020: How much does it multiply?

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Getting things done →

Published November 27, 2019  ·  All posts on Nov 27

GTD

The fact that you can’t remember an agreement you made with yourself doesn’t mean that you’re not holding yourself liable for it. Ask any psychologist how much of a sense of past and future that part of your psyche has, the part that was storing the list you dumped: zero. It’s all present tense in there. That means that as soon as you tell yourself that you should do something, if you file it only in your short-term memory, that part of you thinks you should be doing it all the time. And that means that as soon as you’ve given yourself two things to do, and filed them only in your head, you’ve created instant and automatic stress and failure, because you can’t do them both at once, and that (apparently significant) part of you psyche will continue to hold you accountable.

~ David Allen from, Getting Things Done

I talk often about David Allen’s, Getting Things Done. It’s one of a few books which I keep extra copies of on hand to give to people. There’s a Wikipedia article, Getting Things Done, but it talks more about it rather than describing what/how to do it.

I recently found a talk given by Allen which has been repurposed as a short podcast; Getting Things Done: 55 – Removing System Drag is well worth the few minutes it takes to listen.

Aside: Learning when and how to “go deep” is an important part of what you gain when you understand GTD. If the thought of spending five minutes listening to someone teach you something abhors you, you may need GTD more than you think. /preaching

If, however, what Allen said interests you, a fellow podcaster named Jey Jeyendran, (of Productivity Heaven,) is working on a mini series of podcasts on Allen’s GTD. They’re bite-sized, inspiring and you should check them out. https://productivity-heaven.simplecast.com.

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US Parkour Association (part 2 of 4): National governing bodies, Board of Directors, and getting involved →

Published November 27, 2019  ·  All posts on Nov 27  ·  

US Parkour Association (part 2 of 4): National governing bodies, Board of Directors, and getting involved

What is the purpose and vision of the United States Parkour Association (USPK), and how does it aim to shape the future of Parkour in the United States?

USPK seeks to unite the Parkour community under a shared vision for safety, legitimacy, and inclusivity.

This episode explores the purpose and necessity of the United States Parkour Association (USPK), focusing on its role as a national governing body for the Parkour community. Topics include the importance of legitimacy in representing Parkour to external entities like governments and media, the development of safety guidelines for gyms and events, and the need to preserve the culture and inclusivity of the sport. Members of the transitional board share their vision for how USPK can guide the community while ensuring that its direction remains member-driven.

The discussion highlights the structure and goals of USPK’s transitional board, including the emphasis on transparency, broad representation, and accessibility for members. The board envisions creating a sustainable framework that encourages collaboration among individuals, organizations, and businesses passionate about Parkour. Special interest groups (SIGs) and other mechanisms are designed to empower members to contribute actively to areas such as certifications, competitions, and educational standards.

Takeaways

The need for a governing body — USPK exists to represent the Parkour community’s interests and ensure its voice is heard.

Safety and guidelines — Developing standards to enhance safety in gyms and events is a key focus.

Legitimacy in public perception — USPK aims to counter misconceptions and promote a positive image of Parkour.

Member-driven organization — Transparency and inclusivity are central to USPK’s structure and decision-making.

Transitional board’s role — Current board members are dedicated to establishing a foundation for future leaders.

Diverse membership — USPK invites practitioners, parents, coaches, and businesses to join and contribute.

Special interest groups (SIGs) — Members can actively shape areas such as education, competitions, and safety standards.

Community representation — USPK seeks to be the collective voice of all Parkour enthusiasts in the U.S.

Resources for members — Providing tools like insurance access, event awareness, and networking opportunities.

Combating external challenges — Addressing issues such as unsafe practices and commercialization by external entities.

Resources

USPK Official Website — Provides information about the United States Parkour Association and membership opportunities.

(Written with help from Chat-GPT.)

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WebSub or PubSubHubbub →

Published November 26, 2019  ·  All posts on Nov 26  ·  

I recently found James Cridland’s article, A Podcast Industry Guide to WebSub, or PubSubHubbub. It’s a good unpack of how the RSS-is-a-pull-service impediment to scaling is solved by creating aggregators that support pushing RSS update notifications.

…how does your podcast player notice that daily podcast is out, without polling the podcast’s RSS feed every minute?

I’ve added a link to Cridland’s article to my Deep Dive About Podcast Feeds.

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