The Swordmaster's Apprentice

Skipping School

2011-10-12T14:34:00.000-04:00

I just found out about this blog because someone posted a link to an article by this young woman.

http://skipping-school.com/

I love it.
She sounds so much... like us.

Plus, she's a decent writer.

Time for a change

2011-03-06T22:03:00.000-05:00

Been considering this for a while.

This blog started out as one thing, and has somehow morphed into something else.

It is time to separate things out a little. Even while noticing how very connected they are.

For now, I'll leave this here, for anyone who wants to read back through the archives- including myself.

Most of the fencing-related and teaching-related stuff will appear on our new collaborative blog, The Swordmaster's Grimoire.

The EMS stuff will be on my new, actually-an-EMS-Blog blog, The Lonely EMT.

So whichever of those you are interested in, now you know where to go.

I don't know yet if I'll end up continuing this blog or not. There might be some things that don't really belong on either of the other two, but I don't know yet. I'll know if and when it happens. I kind of expect that it will.

Alcohol Related

2011-02-28T17:26:00.003-05:00

Had a talk with some of our students this morning.

It went basically like this:

College is an interesting time in your lives.

It's a time to get away from your parents, from your family of origin, and start to make your own way in the world.

It's a time to learn many new things, to make new friends and connections that will last a lifetime.

And it's a time to make mistakes, and do stupid things. Some of which you'll look back on, years from now, and wonder why you did.

Please don't let one of those "stupid things" be drinking yourself TO DEATH.

Two local college students (different colleges, and as far as I know completely unrelated circumstances) died this past weekend.

Official reports say the deaths are "alcohol related."

I don't know what that means, exactly.

Except it means it was a total waste. A tragic loss for the families that was brought on by the choices made by the individuals.

I can't help but notice the frequency of calls for ambulances because of someone drinking him or herself into a stupor.

And every time I hear that, or see that, I always wonder about the families. I wonder if the parents realize that they are paying through the nose for their kid to get an education, and what they are getting is stupid drunk. Not just ordinary drunk. But enough that they need a trip to the ER.

I did a lot of stupid things when I was younger.

I imbibed my fair share, or perhaps a few peoples' fair shares, of alcohol.

But never have I done so in such away as to need emergency medical care, or even close.

Seems to happen all the time now, in some places.

The cause of this stupid behavior- I started to be politically correct, and say "unfortunate," but let's face it, it's stupid- could be argued at length, and I'm sure there are a variety of contributory issues.

I don't really care what the cause is.

I care about the results.

Lives wasted.

So please.

Whoever you are.

Wherever you are.

Don't do this to yourself.

Just don't.

It's an ugly, ugly way to go.

Ambulance Driver's blog post today

2011-02-22T14:27:00.003-05:00

I almost never do this, but I have to, this time.

Go read this post, entitled "On Teaching, Mentoring and Stewardship"

Talk about the perfect crossover between my two worlds, of teaching and EMS.

AD really gets what it's about.

I'm envious of anyone who has been or will be precepted by him.

Split Personality?

2011-02-20T16:56:00.002-05:00

Feeling like I have a split personality these days.

On the one hand, I'm researching and working on writing my fencing master's thesis. That's a lot of reading. And a lot of writing. Teaching classes, and otherwise focusing and refocusing on the whole fencing thing. Writing for the new blog. Working on my own training. It's good.

On the other hand, I'm excited about going to EMS Today. Enthusiastic about the opportunity to learn some stuff, get some decent training, and network. Making preparations for applying to the local ambulance company, where I've wanted to work since my first ride along. Looking forward to getting more into the whole EMS thing once I get my youngest a little older, so I can work long hours without feeling like I'm being negligent.

Seems like two totally separate things, pulling me in different directions.

But it isn't.
Not really.

There is a lot of overlap.

One big area of overlap is something I've been thinking about a lot lately.
It's more than just "customer service."

Something fencing and EMS have in common in a HUGE way is the necessity to be able to create rapport. To connect with the student/patient in a very personal, immediate way, without distracting from the technical things you must also be able to do.

Knowing how to get my student to focus where I want him/her to focus, and to stay connected with me, is a HUGE help in being able to help my patient focus where he/she needs to focus, whether it's on something like his/her breathing rate, or something- anything- other than what is happening around him/her in a crisis.

Being able to give a technical lesson, and perform the skills I need to perform, while giving constant verbal and non-verbal feedback to my student, is a huge help in being able to treat my patient AND keep communicating.

Knowing how to use my voice to keep my student focused is very much like using my voice to calm my patient.

Maybe my personality isn't as split as I thought.

Worth a thousand words?

2011-02-16T10:24:00.003-05:00

When I first joined the fire service, one of the things I did on scene was to take pictures.

Some of these were used on the fire company website.

Some have been used for fire investigation.

Some have been used for training.

As I became trained to do more things on scene, my ability to take pictures decreased because I was simply too busy doing other things that needed to be done, to be available to take pictures.

Back when I took a lot of pictures, I was always careful about what kinds of pictures I took. I never took a picture of a patient. Didn't take pictures of things that might cause any patient or homeowner embarrassment or grief. Any pictures that I took that showed identifying information such as license plates, I didn't publish.

Recently, the fire company, in a fit of I-don't-know-what announced a new policy regarding taking pictures.

I found this a little amusing, considering no one had taken any pictures on scene for quite some time, even though there is a company camera in one of the apparatus for just that purpose.

The policy, as I remember it (there has been no written version) is that no one is to take any pictures on any scene. Pictures are only to be taken at training, or for the purposes of a fire investigation. This is a policy recommended by "the company lawyer" for liability reasons.

Whatever.

So a couple of weeks after the announcement of the new policy, there we were, at an accident scene, and one of the assistant chiefs was taking pictures with his cell phone. He then asked if the company camera was available, and asked someone to use it to take pictures.

That's interesting.

Seems to be in direct violation of the company policy.

But this scene was unusual, and in my personal opinion, pictures of it would be very helpful for training purposes-and, for the most part, that is what I have always thought scene pictures were most useful FOR, so that they could be looked at later, and information gained that wasn't necessarily noticed at the time. So I heartily support the idea of pictures of this particular incident- it was unique.

At the next training, when we did a post-incident analysis of the event, the pictures taken on scene were shown. As they needed to be. And there was a big notice written on the white board in the training room, saying that these pictures were to be seen inside the fire company ONLY, not to be shared with the public. A reminder of the new policy, or at least related to it in some way, considering that it isn't, exactly, in accordance with that as-yet-unwritten policy, which didn't mention anything about sharing or not sharing pictures, but I digress...

A sensible consideration, a reminder not to be spreading the images around far and wide, if there has been a decision by the company not to do so.

Fast forward a while.

Imagine my surprise, to find out, by chance, that those very same pictures were sent to someone, who shared them with a large number of people outside the fire company.

Okay. So maybe I wasn't that surprised.

And, for the record, I think the people who saw the pictures SHOULD have seen them. That's not the issue.

The point is that it seems to me to be counterproductive to have the officers announce a new policy, not to put it into writing, and then to violate that policy themselves almost immediately, not only by taking pictures, but by sharing them around town. What was this policy about, exactly? Is it, or is it not, company policy? Is it policy for some, but not for others? Or what?

At the very least, I think the "policy" should be reconsidered- but I thought that the moment it was announced.

I have the same problem with a "no pictures" policy that I have with parts of HIPAA. Neither takes into consideration how VERY useful information can be in training.

That I am limited in how much information I can find out about a patient after they leave our care, means that I have no feedback on the care I provided. If I don't know how effective I am or am not, how can I improve the quality of the care I provide?

If we can't share pictures of unusual situations- the condition of a vehicle, the location of a patient, etc- with other EMTs in the company who weren't at an incident, how can we share what we have learned from any new experience? How can we use it to train and practice for future events?

Any thoughts on this? Does your agency have a "no pictures" policy? Do you think they should?

I know that there are places where there have been issues with people being stupid about sharing photographs that they shouldn't have shared, but I don't think prohibiting pictures at all is the solution.

EMS Today

2011-02-13T17:58:00.003-05:00

I applied for a scholarship to EMS Today, thinking I'd never get it, and never be able to afford to go.

The application info said they would start notifying people on Feb 1st, which came and went, not a word.

I assumed I hadn't gotten it, no surprise, and pretty much stopped thinking about it.

Some of the folks who are going were tweeting about it and posting about it, and knowing I wouldn't be able to go, I passed over those comments, with a feeling of sadness for myself, while being happy for them.

It's not like I have nothing else to do. I'm pretty busy, and have plenty to keep me occupied.

It's not like I can't work on continuing my education in other ways, like the variety of books I've been reading lately.

And it's not like I can't still read EMS blogs, and learn from them.

But still.

EMS Today.

The premiere EMS conference, incredible opportunities all in one place, people I'd love to meet in person, educational sessions galore, and the whole exhibit hall. And it's not that far away.

Worth ever penny, it would be, no question.

I just don't have the pennies. :-(

A couple of days ago, we were getting ready to go out dancing, when I checked my e-mail just before leaving.

And there was an e-mail, with the subject heading "EMS Today scholarship."

I assumed it would begin with something like "Thank you for applying, but with so many qualified applicants, it was difficult to decide who to give a scholarship to. Unfortunately, it wasn't you."

It didn't.

It said "Congratulations! After careful review of your scholarship application for EMS Today, you have been selected to receive a Gold 3-day passport to this year’s conference!"

!!!

I think I screamed.

I'm not a screaming person, in general.

Suddenly, I'm scrambling to choose which sessions I want to take (all of them! Aaahhhh!), I'm looking for a hotel room somewhere near the convention center, and I can barely contain my excitement at actually being able to GO!

I'd like to thank JEMS for making the whole event possible, and for making it possible for me to go.

I'd like to thank all the EMS bloggers for inspiring, educating, and entertaining me. I'm very much looking forward to meeting some of you!

I'm sure I'll have a lot more to say once I'm there, and when I'm back home again.

Sure of it

2011-02-10T22:34:00.010-05:00

My daughter has lived with us EMTs a few years now, and is reaching the age where she can take the class and join us. She has been riding with the rescue for the last year and a half, and has been very helpful there, fetching and carrying, etc. Now that she is getting ready to become certified herself, she has started paying more attention to the patient care.

We typically use the time on the way to the scene to go over our plans on arrival, and to remind ourselves of any pertinent information we may have about a patient's medical conditions, or any special needs. If appropriate, we review any intervention we might need, etc. Sometimes, we are close to the scene and don't have a lot of time. Sometimes, there isn't anything in particular that we need to review.

The other day, we were on our way to a reported accident with no injuries, expected to be a sign-off. The proverbial "wants to be checked out." It happened that the call was on the far end of town, so we would have a longer drive than usual. Plenty of time to go over whatever we wanted to go over, but little that we really needed to review for that particular situation. Basics. Scene safety. BSI.

But because my daughter was with us, and had been talking about starting her EMT class, I decided to go over trauma assessment. From the beginning. By the numbers. In addition to scene safety and BSI, mechanism of injury, number of patients, need for resources, spinal stabilization, general impression, level of consciousness and etc, on down the line. An excellent exercise, one found around the house every day. Literally, at our house, but I digress...

We arrived on scene to what turned out to be a two car accident.

We all know how accurate dispatch can be.

But true to what we had been told, there were no real injuries, just a little redness from an airbag. No problem. It's all good. Just hanging out, waiting for the wrecker. A relatively pleasant call, albeit in unpleasant weather.

Ever have one of those days where suddenly, everything changes?

Yeah.

Not far up the road, a sudden collision (is there any other kind?).

Bad.

Real bad.

As in "What is that in the road? How did it get there? It doesn't look like anything I've ever seen before. Oh, shit. That must be a car."

We hustled.

Called for more resources.

Major trauma.

Good thing trauma assessment was so fresh in our minds.

I had never seen a car in that condition before. It was literally ripped apart.

I was sure there would be fatalities.

There weren't.

It was nothing short of a miracle.

Great teamwork all around.

Patients extricated and packaged in an unbelievably short amount of time.

And my daughter?

An impeccable job, staging gear and assisting us.

Kept her head in a very stressful situation.

She's going to be a great EMT.

I'm sure of it.

On a Roll

2011-01-18T22:07:00.002-05:00

Went over to the Fire Academy last week to return a book to the library.
The librarian- who is the best librarian I've ever met- pointed me towards some books that she just got in, from another library that closed.
I found several that looked interesting, but only brought one of them home, since my reading time is somewhat limited.
Turns out that the one I brought home was of enough interest that I started looking to buy a copy.
Ended up also ordering the other two I had looked at, and some others I found online. I'm on a roll.

Here's the thing.
The fire department I'm in offers no EMS training at all. None. I think they think they do, but they don't know enough about training to realize that what they are doing isn't training, at all.
A prime example occurred just this week.
The scheduled training was for the EMS Director to give a presentation on cold weather emergencies. He has no training to teach, at all. (I could write a whole post about that.) His "presentations" are last minute rambling about some subject, with little to no preparation.
But if that isn't bad enough, what actually happened is that he didn't show up.
He handed on old EMT textbook to another person, who also has no training to teach, and told him to "cover this."
So that person read from the old textbook.
And that is what happens when they even attempt to provide training. Often, it just gets canceled.

For a long time, I felt some sympathy for both of these people, who are being asked and expected to do something for which they have no training, and less skill. They do "the best they can." But the longer this goes on, the more I realize that it is their responsibility to step up and say "I do not have the training or ability to do this; let's bring in someone who does." And they don't. I don't know whether they are embarrassed to admit they can't do it, or whether they don't realize they can't. Either way, it's bad.

And this isn't good enough. Not even close.
So after three or four years of this, now that I have SOME experience, as little as it is, rather than NO experience, I'm doing the only thing I can reasonably do.
I'm finding training opportunities elsewhere, as much as I can, and I'm organizing training for myself and the other EMTs, without relying on the fire company to do so. I have years of teaching experience, and training people is what I do. Shifting those abilities over to include EMS is inevitable, although I didn't intend to be forced to do so this early. I won't be attempting to teach new skills; that is beyond what I can claim to be able to do. But I can run drills, and I can go through scenarios, and we all can learn a lot from a wide variety of sources.

Why am I mentioning this?
These books I've started accumulating are mostly EMS education books.
Some, clearly designed to be used as such, and others, perhaps written more for sharing experiences, rather than outright teaching, but they can also be used to great benefit.

As I read through them, I'll share here what I find interesting and/or educational.
It might be medical information that I didn't know.
Or it might be about teaching, itself, more than about EMS, in particular.

I would also welcome recommendations for resources other people have found useful, both on the EMS front, and about teaching.

Things They Don't Know

2010-05-30T17:23:00.001-04:00

The general public doesn't know a whole lot about medicine, for the most part. They don't need to, and often, they don't want to. I've lost track of the number of patients I've seen who are on medications that they do not know the reasons for. Lost track of the people I've talked to who don't understand their own medical conditions and/or who misinterpret doctors' instructions.

I am frequently amazed by the fact that most people don't know, and don't want to know, how to do CPR. Appalled by the nearby retirement community where the resident council REFUSES to allow an AED on the premises, because they are afraid of being resuscitated. What about any visitors?

And so it goes, on down to the number of times I've heard dispatch say the patient is "unresponsive," which is, apparently, the only way laypeople know how to describe someone who has any sort of altered level of consciousness.

Today, I was glad.

Got a call for an unresponsive elderly patient. On a day when I knew I'd be first on scene alone, my usual cohort being out of the country, and neither of us ever knowing if anyone else will show up at all. Such is the life of a volunteer EMT in my department. We have automatic ALS backup, which is a damned good thing, but it is not uncommon for us to go to a call and get no one else before the ambulance gets there.

All the way there, what ran through my mind was "please let this be 'bystander's unresponsive'."

It was.

I was delighted to talk with the patient. I've never been so happy to hear someone's voice.

Rules

2010-05-29T13:47:00.000-04:00

I used to think that all the world's problems would be solved if people would just follow one rule. I've had to revise that a bit. Two rules. If everyone followed these two rules, everything would work out just fine.

1. Don't be an asshole.
2. Don't be an idiot.

With the following corollaries:

1. Tell the truth.
2. Keep your word.
3. Take responsibility for your actions.

Add in a fair amount of "learn from your mistakes" and I think pretty much everything is covered.

Only a volunteer?

2010-05-26T09:57:00.002-04:00

I have been a volunteer for a variety of different organizations over the years. Some large, some small. Some, I've been in charge of, and others, just one tiny part. Some have been run well, and others, not so well.

It is interesting to consider them all, and look at what problems they share.

Almost universal is this:
1. The majority of the work is done by a small group of people.

I think this can be perfectly fine, as long as everyone is clear that this is happening, AND there are built in positions in the organization for those who want to have small roles. The people who want to belong, but don't want to do much, should be in the small roles, and those who are there to work should be in the larger roles, and be the ones making most of the decisions.
Oddly, that seems rarely to be the case.
More often, there is much complaining and power play bullshit from the ones who don't actually want to work, while the ones who do the work, keep on working.
They have their excuses, for sure. Chief among which are "not everyone has the time" and "we're only volunteers."

Yeah. Well. If you don't have the time, don't volunteer. Or if you do volunteer, take your time (and other) limitations into account, and volunteer for things you actually can and will do. Seems that would be much more satisfying for you, as well as more functional for everyone.

And for what it's worth, being a volunteer does not mean that you aren't accountable for what you do, or that your standards should be any lower than a professional. It just means you don't get paid. It SHOULD mean that you do this for the love of doing it, or because you believe it worthwhile and important, both of which should create HIGHER standards.

Which brings me to the next nearly universal thing:
2. Those who do most of the work do it for personal reasons, not for recognition or for glory.

For one thing, there is little of either to go around. Those who just want the perks end up doing only those things that are publicly visible and/or recognized, and doing only enough to get that recognition, leaving the bulk of the real work to those who are content behind the scenes. Since that is by far most of the work, this is part of what leads to the first universal situation, of most of the work being done by a few people.

3. It can be hard to "fire" someone who is a volunteer.

This becomes an issue when you have someone in a position that requires certain things to be done that they simply don't do. Especially in a small organization, where there may not be anyone else willing or able to do that job, this can kill the organization in a hurry. Also, in a small organization, it is likely that everyone is at least acquainted, if not friends, and that makes it even more difficult to ask someone to step down, or leave, because of the emotional trauma involved, and because people generally don't want to hurt someone else's feelings. At least they don't want to do so face-to-face or in any way where they have to take responsibility for it.

Instead, they give them "time to work things out" and make excuses for why the person is not doing their job. Second chances, and third. Extensions on deadlines. Anything to avoid confrontation. Anything to avoid being "disliked." And usually, anything to keep the status quo. (Also see #6 and #7, below.)

Thing is, if the work needs to be done, it needs to be done. Someone eventually has to step up and change the situation, one way or another, or the organization will not be effective, if it survives at all.

4. An organization is only as good as its... organization.

If no one knows what is going on, or what needs to be done, or what has been done, things are not going to work very well. There must be good record keeping, and there must be good planning. Long and short term. The more open the records and planning process are, the better. Keeping people in the dark rarely leads to good.

Which leads to the next issue:

5. Any organization that does not trust its people will not be able to recruit or retain good people, and will not be able to function effectively.

The leaders of an organization must lead by example, must be worthy of trust, and must create and maintain an environment that fosters trust. This is true of all organizations, and especially true of volunteers. This includes open and accessible records and other information, and it includes not tolerating anyone who demonstrates that they can't be trusted to do what they say they will do. Building trust is a skill that not everyone has. Learn it, and earn it.

6. Politics should be left to politicians, but it isn't.

This is another thing that will lead to no good. Office politics. Cronyism. Cliques. Plain old bullshit. Any time decisions are made for reasons other than effectiveness, the results will be less than stellar. Whether it's outright favoritism keeping people in positions they are not qualified for, or simply don't do, or whether it's keeping qualified people out of a position because they aren't the buddy of the person in charge, the result is the same. Poor performance, and poor management of resources.

Where this becomes even more of a problem in volunteer organizations than in others is when there is little outside oversight. When people are not held accountable to any particular standards, they can get away with keeping their buddies happy rather than getting the job done, because no one outside the organization knows that is what is happening. Nor would they generally care.

Also, this leads to exceptions in the category of "firing" a volunteer. Instead of getting rid of people who aren't doing their jobs, often, a dysfunctional organization focuses on getting rid of people the "in group" does not like, regardless of qualifications or job performance.

Last, for today, but not least:
7. People HATE change.

Organizations that do not change, that do not grow, that do not continually work to improve themselves, will become less and less effective, until they ultimately fail.
People often seem to prefer this to actual change.
The status quo bias: an irrational preference for the way things are, rather than changing.
Been around at least as long as Shakespeare.

For those of you who know me, you might find it interesting that most of these observations come originally from organizations I worked with over ten years ago, rather than directly from any I'm involved with now. But if the shoe fits...

Family

2010-03-04T18:39:00.001-05:00

I've been thinking about family lately.
In the past couple of weeks, an aunt and uncle of mine have died. I didn't know either of them well. I had met them both, but the last time I saw either one was years ago.

When I was growing up, both of my parents, for some reason that I've never known, stopped having anything to do with their families. We visited a lot when I was very young, but after I was around 6 or 7, we stopped. It may have been because we moved further away, and travel was expensive, but I don't recall them keeping in touch in other ways, either. They both reconnected with their families after I was grown, but that didn't really do me any good.

What this meant for me is that I grew up knowing I had a whole bunch of cousins (Around 35 of them? I'm not even sure.), but I didn't get to know any of them. Some of them, I knew their names, but some of them, not even that. When I was 17, I met a couple of them, but didn't stay in touch. And when I was in my twenties, I visited some who lived near where I was then, but again, didn't keep in touch. Keeping in touch was somewhat difficult then.

It isn't now.

A few days ago, I suddenly realized that it is likely that at least some of my cousins are on facebook. Not knowing their names, or who is and is not there, I didn't know how to find them. I mentioned that to my Dad, who happened to talk to one of them that day, and she said that yes, she is on facebook, and is friended with several other cousins.

Find one... you find them all, eventually.

So I did.
I sent friend requests to the nine cousins I found. So far, five have responded.

It is a little overwhelming. In a good way.

I don't know what it feels like, really, to have cousins. I remember a little from when I was 6 years old, but since then, have rarely had that opportunity to be with people who are extended family. I'm having to learn what that feels like, and so far, it feels pretty good. There is a sense of belonging, even though these people are, for the most part, strangers to me, really. I'd like to change that- the "strangers" part, anyway.

Another reason I've been thinking about family is that we've had some EMS calls lately that have been more stressful than average. A full arrest, who should have been able to be saved if any are. We had every advantage. We were right on top of that "cardiac chain of survival." Early activation of EMS, early CPR, early defibrillation... or there would have been had she had a shockable rhythm. She didn't. We were called for difficulty breathing, she arrested as we came in the door, and went right to asystole. It was very sad. I still think about her family.
We've had other calls that were serious, too, load and go, don't mess around, this person is SICK. A string of critical calls.

One of the recent ones provided me with a reminder of why I do this.

It was a diabetic issue.
Unresponsive, blood glucose the lowest I've ever seen. Barely hanging on, with his family right there worrying.
But the magic of D50 wins again.
As he woke up, and saw his wife standing near his head, he smiled the brightest, most beautiful smile I have ever seen.

And that, right there, that moment, is what it's all about.
Being able to help people have that moment, to see their family, to smile at each other again.

I nearly wept.

Family.

Don't take them for granted. Enjoy every moment together that you get.

And there it was

2009-10-12T17:11:00.000-04:00

In early Spring, the winds change gradually, a hint of warmth one day, rain the next. Sun for a few hours, then a chill breeze. The leaves start to show, and then it snows. It's hard to know when Spring actually begins, when it's here to stay.

The same with summer. Warm Spring days and cool nights gradually shift to a little drier, a little warmer. More and more leaves, flowers, insects, until one day we wonder how the summer flew by so fast. It's impossible to set a date, a time, for when we knew it was really here.

Not so, Winter.

I woke up this morning, and there it was.

I don't care what the calendar says.

The frost on the windshield, the freeze-killed plants, said all that needed to be said.

A harbinger of times to come

2009-09-29T14:31:00.001-04:00

This blog started out with a long list of things I wanted to write about, thoughts I wanted to share.

I discovered not too long after I started that the most interesting things to write about, and to read, are the more personal ones, and that the more personal things are often too much to share. A dilemma.

That said...

I meet a lot of people in this tiny town. Often, when they are having a difficult time of some kind. Sometimes, I RE-meet them on those stressful days. People I've known for years, but not well, suddenly thrown in together as they face a difficult event, and I do my best to help ameliorate it.

Sometimes it's great. We reconnect, and I walk away feeling like I was able to be some help to them.

But sometimes, it's a harbinger of times to come, when things will not end well.

A while back we had a call for an older man who had fallen. He wasn't hurt. Just needed a hand up.
This was a patient I had seen before. The last time, at his house when his wife was ill.

I had not heard at the time, but she passed away shortly after that.

So this time, at his house, she was not there.
It was heart wrenching to see how much he has changed in so short a time. His caregiver said simply "He is dying of a broken heart."

It will likely not be long before we are no longer called to that address.

That is the reality of this job.
We do the best we can to help, and then comes a time when we can do no more.

When I was younger, I had very little contact, very little realization of death. My grandparents died when I was fairly young, but I did not know them well, so it didn't have much effect on me. I knew one or two people in my first three decades who died in accidents. I was, I guess, fortunate in this.

Now, I am closer to Death. My own, as I grow older, and other people's as my calling brings me to their doors. It is nearly every day that I recognize a name in the obituaries. A patient. The mother of a friend. Someone I went to high school with. The woman down the road.

It is an interesting thing, this specter called "Death."
Everyone's final act, if rarely their goal.

The Big One

2009-09-11T08:40:00.002-04:00

I wear a pager on my hip. Much of the time, I leave my pager "open," that is to say, so I can hear calls for other fire departments in the county, not just my own. I do this partly because I'm as curious as the next person, but also because I know a lot of people in the fire service now, and whenever there is a call, it is likely friends of mine who are putting themselves in danger.

Whenever there is an emergency that requires either firefighters or emergency medical services, the information that tells them where they are needed is preceded by tones on the pager. Listen to these tones often enough and you begin to recognize them before the dispatcher says anything. There is a department near here that has a tone that is distinctive, and is used when they need to alert off-duty personnel that they may be needed. My family calls this the "shit hitting the fan tone."

Whenever we hear that tone, we stop and pay attention. Likewise, whenever any area department is called to a structure fire. Often, when it is a real emergency, or even when it's clearly not, someone will suggest that it's "the big one."

It's sort of an emergency services in-joke. Most of the "big ones" out here in the middle of nowhere aren't really big. Big for us, or for our neighbor departments, maybe. But not much compared to a lot of other places. Some departments, a cat in a tree might be their "big one." And that's not a complaint, at all.

The thing is, whenever anyone says that, there is an underlying suggestion that it COULD actually be "The Big One." Anything can happen. Anywhere. You just never know.

I can't help but think about what must have gone through the heads of all the FDNY responders on 9/11.

It's the big one.

The REALLY Big One, no joke.

That thing, that specter in the back of everyone's minds, this is really it.

And yet, as big as it was, each individual firefighter, each EMT, each person, what they needed to do, their job, was quite simple. One thing at a time. The same as always. Set up water supply. Pull hoses. Make entry. Search and rescue. Triage. Patient care.

And that's what they did. In impossible circumstances, a situation so beyond the ordinary that there is no way to train for it. They went to work, did their jobs, and were there to help people they had never met.

Only the world came down around them.

I will never forget the moment I saw the first tower begin to fall. Slow motion. Looking exactly like one of those planned demolitions of the old casinos in Las Vegas that there are documentaries about.

Except.

Except.

My mind froze the moment I realized.

There are people in there.

People who had simply gone to work as usual that morning.
People who could not possibly escape, and who likely had time to realize that.
People with families. Husbands. Wives. Sons and daughters.

And heartbreakingly, sadder than sad, those who had gone to rescue them.

People often say that a firefighter is "willing to die for others." That they "rush into burning buildings."

Like hell.

No sane person is "willing to die."
No sane person rushes in without considering the circumstances, the risk/benefit ratio.

They may choose to take a calculated risk.
And they may underestimate the risk, for whatever reason.

No one knew what the risks were that day.
No one could imagine them.

They can, now.

Since that day, I have met people who were there. People who have stories to tell, about how they were able to survive when others didn't make it. Stories they don't often tell. It isn't about them.

It's about those who can no longer tell their stories.

We lost a lot of good people that day.

Let their sacrifice inspire you to make a difference in the world. We're left with a lot of catching up to do, to do all the good they might have.

Do something in their memory today.

EVERY day.

Three years

2009-09-03T11:51:00.001-04:00

As of today, there have been 1040 residential fire fatalities this year, compiled by the US Fire Administration's Quick Response Program. This list is compiled from the media, meaning that there are undoubtedly fatalities that aren't on the list because they didn't make the newspaper. You can see the list here.

Three years ago today, our house burned.
Last year, I posted a description of the events of the day.

Today, we still have not gone through all the boxes of stuff that was packed up by the cleaning company, but we have gone through a lot of them. We have donated, given away, and thrown away a lot of it. While not down to the level we hope to eventually reach, we have far less "stuff" in our house now, and that's a good thing.

As of last month, when my daughter joined, we now have three of the four of us in the fire service. While I had been interested in the fire service for most of my life, and my oldest had some interest before our fire, there is no escaping that the fire was quite... motivational.

It is the beginning of the school year, of the academic semester at local colleges, and this means that a lot of people are going to spend their days in large buildings with crowded conditions, and a lot are going to be living in dorms, also often crowded, or at least, high occupancy.

Take fire safety seriously.
While the most common causes of residential fires may be unattended cooking or that all-too-famous "carelessly discarded cigarette," causes that might be avoidable, they do not all begin that way. Sometimes, there is no warning.

What happens is this: an emergency, by its nature, happens suddenly. You don't have time to think, to decide, to make rational choices. You may be in an unfamiliar building. You may be asleep. There is no way to know.

Make your plans NOW, before things go wrong. Practice them.
You may want to make changes in your house. More smoke detectors. Fire extinguishers. Escape ladders. Furniture arranged so that windows are accessible. Less clutter. Care with the placement and loading of outlets or extension cords. Appliances unplugged when not in use.

If it feels like you are so prepared that no matter what happens, escape will be easy, so you don't need to worry about it- that would be great!

I guarantee you that you do not want to suddenly find yourself inside a burning building, with no protective gear, holding an empty fire extinguisher, facing a fire that is growing exponentially, hoping that your children and pets are already outside. You do not want to hear the fire destroy everything it reaches, or see your house full of smoke down almost to the floor. You don't want to stand in your yard, waiting for help to arrive, wondering if you will have anything left, or where you will go, what you will do. You don't want to hear the firefighters with a chainsaw on your roof.

Trust me on that.

Paying it Forward

2009-08-15T23:26:00.002-04:00

In the past few years, I've had some financially difficult times. More than once, online friends- sometimes people I barely know- have come forward to help me out right when I needed it most. A miraculous save. Appreciated far more than I could ever express to them.

I have an opportunity to pay some of that forward, and I'm asking anyone reading this to consider helping, too.

One of the blogs I read is written by a fellow EMT-B who goes by the name of Epijunky.

Contrary to the sound of her name, she's more than a trauma junky, for sure. Her heart is in great patient care, whether it's an emergency or a transfer, and she expresses it with soul and wit, even when she's sometimes a little crispy around the edges. She often brings tears to my eyes, and she reminds me why it is that I do this.

Since I started reading her blog, she has more than once mentioned wanting to be a paramedic, and recently, she passed the entrance exam to be accepted to the school near her. She was worried about the exam, but those of us who have gotten to "know" her online had no doubts at all.

Then the bad news hit, and she was going to have to call it quits for financial reasons.

Fortunately for all her future patients, one of her blogfriends has put together a donation account on paypal so everyone who cares about her and/or thinks she would make a great paramedic, can chip in a little to help make it happen. It only takes a little from each person to help her out a whole lot.

So I'm asking you to consider it. Go on over to Bernice's blog and look for the donation button.

I know how hard it is to need help. And I know it's even harder to ask for it. I know Epi would never ask for herself, so I'm joining the group of people asking on her behalf.

And Epi, if you read this... I also know how hard it is to accept help. Just do it. It's not really for you, it's for all the people you will be able to help. They need you.

Don't leave me

2009-06-11T11:31:00.002-04:00

I learned something today.

I recently took a class at the state Fire Academy, certifying me as a Fire and Life Safety Educator. This is a subject very near and dear to my heart, for a variety of reasons.

I am working on organizing a class in the Fall for middle school aged kids, and will undoubtedly write about that here off and on. As part of my preparation for that class, I have been researching a variety of fire safety issues, including what is taught to what ages- and what is not.

One of the things that is fascinating about fire safety is that even people who know better, often don't act on what they know. For example, one might think that firefighters are the most safe people, as far as making sure there are not hazards in their house, that they have enough detection devices, and that they practice what they preach.

Not necessarily so.

At our house, we are pretty paranoid about it, having had a serious fire. We have more smoke detectors than you can shake a stick at, of various types. We have Carbon Monoxide detectors. We have escape plans and fire drills, and talk about it all incessantly.

Even so.
There are a variety of things we could do to make our house safer, that we somehow don't manage to get done.
And if WE don't, as paranoid as we are, I can only imagine what other people do- and don't do.

I read some statistics yesterday that said that according to the National Fire Protection Association (NFPA):

Fire is the third leading cause of accidental deaths. Residential occupancies account for most fire fatalities and most of these deaths occur at night during the sleeping hours. 1.5 million Americans are injured by fire each year. It is estimated that each household will experience three (usually unreported) fires per decade and two fires serious enough to report to a fire department per lifetime.

This means that most people, at some point in their lives, will have a fire.

The most common cause of home fires is unattended cooking. Food left on the stove while the person leaves the room to do something else.

I've been guilty of this. If the heat is turned down low, I know the food won't burn, and there isn't anything near the burner that might catch fire, then what's the danger?

Well.

This evening, I was cooking pasta. Boiling water, basically. What's dangerous about that?

When I turned the burner on, it lit as usual. A few seconds later, for some unknown reason, the fire went out- but the gas was still on!! If I had left the room, I would not have known this happened. And if the gas had built up, and found an ignition source...

Have any of you ever seen a building that has had a gas explosion? Probably some of the folks reading this have. Hopefully, most of you have not, and never will. Let's just say that being inside that building would be a most unpleasant experience.

I'm cured, that's for sure. I will NEVER leave the room with the stove burners on again. I strongly encourage you to do likewise.

How much?

2009-04-21T12:33:00.002-04:00

We're almost to the end of the semester. Soon it will be time for the evaluations again. I can't wait!

We did a couple of things a little differently this semester, so it will be interesting to see what, if anything, that changes in the reviews we get.

The main things I've been thinking about:

How much does someone need to know in order to be able to do the things they need to do?
How much intellectual understanding is necessary, and why?
How does the progression of the class change, depending on the goal of the class?
What level of precision is reasonable to expect in 12 weeks, and how is that affected by whether or not the student will be continuing?

The university PE classes have always been sort of the "odd man out" in our overall program. These people will almost all NOT be continuing students. They take one class, for a semester, get their credit, and move on. They aren't really dedicated to the sword, and most of them don't want to put in the effort such dedication would require. They want to pass the class, maybe. They want to be able to say they "fenced in college."

For the most part, that's fine. In the fire service, this class would be at the "awareness level." Learn enough about it that you can recognize it, know what it is, and know who to call for additional help, but no real training to deal directly with the situation. These students will have seen a little fencing, learned a little about it, tried it on for a day or two (like a level A hazmat suit) to see how it feels, but they aren't likely to ever need to use it.

We show them a lot of things, but don't expect much, if any, technical precision in any of it. Enough that they aren't an immediate danger to themselves or others, but not enough that they can perform any of the techniques at anything close to what they would need to defend themselves. We simply don't have the time to do that, nor do they have the interest, most of them, to sustain that level of training.

Our introductory class elsewhere has a slightly different purpose. It is designed to give the student enough exposure that they can decide whether or not this is something they are interested in enough to continue. It is also designed to support and be preparation for the continuing classes that follow it.

What this means is that we require a higher level of precision, right from the start. We introduce things more slowly, giving more time to work on each skill before moving to the next. If we didn't do that, we'd have people slogging through a bunch of uncoordinated movements, none of which would build towards the goal of learning to fence. We still need to have things move along relatively rapidly, in order to reach that goal of helping people decide whether this is for them. It is a different balance of information/precision than the PE classes.

Once a student finishes the introductory class, and chooses to continue, indicating that they have made a commitment to fencing, the continuing classes move at a MUCH slower pace than any of the introductory classes. NOW, we're trying to gain skill. This requires much repetition, and time to integrate each skill. There is no point to moving ahead more quickly, since the results would be counterproductive.

Back to the classes this past semester and my questions.

How much does a PE student need to understand, in order to do what they need to do?

That has to start with an agreement of what they need to be able to do, and the answer is... not much.

What I would like the class to be able to do:

1. Not hurt anyone.
2. Have some semblance of moving without undue distress, and without falling over.
3. Try a few things with the blade that suggest the skills of fencing.
4. Have fun doing it.
5. Gain an appreciation of what is involved in being able to do this at a high level of skill.

Some of these are easy to evaluate, others take some consideration.

The first one- not hurting anyone - is easy to evaluate.

The second one takes some decisions about what that means. At what level will I make corrections, and what will I "let slide"?

As we introduce each skill, we give a lot of feedback, both to the group as a whole (because they all make similar mistakes) and to each student (to point out to them specific things they need to focus on). We describe and demonstrate each skill, facilitate practicing it, and keep reminding them of the details. Most students, after some practice, will begin to incorporate the skill, and begin to self-correct. But not all of them. Some will, even at the end of the semester, still make fundamental errors, things we have pointed out and corrected over and over and over, either unwilling or unable to make any changes.

In the PE classes, as long as they aren't dangerous, we don't care. We don't have the time to continue to give individual corrections to someone who is not invested enough to make changes. At that point, people who are making an effort- and that is easy to see- will continue to get as much individual feedback as we can provide. Those who are phoning it in can do whatever they do, as long as it's not a safety issue. They will get reminders, but they will be broad concepts, not specific details, since they can't process any details for skills they aren't even beginning to do.

In the other intro classes, we continue to try to give a lot of feedback, to a point. Some students will clearly not be making an effort- but they also usually stop showing up to class. In these classes, they aren't concerned about a grade, so if they decide they aren't interested, they just quit. Anyone who still shows up is making at least that much effort, and almost all of the time, will be making improvement in each class. Those who are not- and there are usually one or two- are probably there because their parents make them go. We'll give them some reminders in each class, but if they don't respond, then they just don't.

Once we are past the intro level classes, we give individualized feedback for all students, as much as we can, with the expectation that they will focus on the feedback and make corrections.

When I was a student, rather than teaching, I was hugely impressed by the Master's skill at being able to give individual feedback to every student, at exactly the level they needed in order to work on exactly what they needed to work on. Turns out that although it certainly takes effort and energy, it isn't hard to do, with a body of knowledge that has a clear progression of skills.

The third class goal- trying a few things. That's simple. We do that.
And the fourth, have some fun, that's pretty clear, too.

But the fifth one... gaining an appreciation of what is involved. I'm not sure we ever really meet that goal. Some appreciation, sure. Real appreciation- I don't think it's possible at this level because there is no frame of reference. I need to think about that one some.

This semester, one of the things we did differently has to do with how much theoretical knowledge we presented in the PE classes. We skipped some stuff we have introduced in all the previous semesters, information that is critical to understand if you really want to learn to fence. It was an experiment. It felt... awkward. Odd. Incomplete. But that is probably because I have ALWAYS had that included, whether in a class I've taken, or one I've taught. Force of habit, or of expectations. My question became whether the CLASS missed that material, or if only I did.

The answer surprised me somewhat.

Looking at their level of understanding, compared to previous years, they clearly understand way less. We didn't teach it to them.

But looking at their level of physical performance... it was the same, and in some cases, slightly better. Granted, "slightly better" is probably a score of 5% rather than 4%. They don't have any real skill to speak of, so there is not a lot to compare. The important thing is that their skill level was NOT worse. This suggests- but does not prove- that the information we omitted was not necessary at this level.

I suspect that their level of enjoyment of the class is unchanged. They can't miss what they don't know exists. I will be interested to see if we get any clues from the evaluations about the overall level of enjoyment of the class, compared to previous semesters.

It might be worth continuing this experiment. Do they actually enjoy the class more, and feel like they have gotten more out of it, if we don't clutter their brains with too much theory? Do they WANT to understand more (quite possible), but need to understand less? Is it more important for them to experience the scientific nature of the way everything works together, theoretically, or is it more important that they make some broad movement attempts, and feel how that feels?

They answer, of course, is yes. Or no. Or it depends. All of the above, and none of it.

It's ALL important, and necessary, for someone who wants to be able to fence at a high level of skill- and why would anyone want to do it any other way?

But it is, perhaps, not all important for a PE class.

I need a larger sample size to begin to evaluate this.
And I need to get past my own biases and preferences and intellectual overattachments, too.

I mean, really. Look at this overly long vomitosis of wordiness. I overanalyze everything.

Maybe, just maybe, NONE of the theory, none of the explanation, is really important, in the grand scheme of things.

What's Your Number?

2009-04-19T09:40:00.002-04:00

A week or two ago, I wrote a short article for our local newsletter thing, about having house number signs that are readable from the road, at night. It started out:

Imagine this.
It's 3:30am.
You're woken by the loud beeping from your pager,
and a voice in the night telling you that there is an emergency.

It went on to weave a tale of being unable to find the number, having to slow down, trying to avoid missing the number and having to find a place to turn around. In the story, the person stopped breathing before anyone could find the house.

This morning, the pager went off at 4:30.
I jumped out of bed, grabbed my watch, hopped into my clothes and shoes and headed out the door.

As we drive down the road, I, as the passenger, was looking for house numbers. I knew approximately where the house would be, but not exactly.

I saw number 1537.
The next readable number was 1395.

The house we were looking for was 1401.

We missed it. Had to find a place to turn around.

Fortunately, our outcome was better than in my original story. The patient turned out okay.

But it so easily could have been otherwise.

We drove back by that stretch of road this morning. I wanted to see what the numbers were, what I had missed, if I should have seen one that I didn't. The answer is that no, I didn't miss anything. In that stretch of road, there are no readable house numbers. Lots of houses with black mailboxes- some, but not all, across the road from the driveways- with tiny numbers, or no numbers at all.

We only get one chance to see the number. We can look at a mailbox, at the house, or at a sign at the end of the driveway, but we don't get to look at more than one place. If what we look at doesn't have it, we're on to the next house. Sometimes, it's hard to even see the house, if you can see it at all.

This is an old, old story in emergency services, the need for visible, readable house numbers. Some places require people to have their numbers painted on the curb, and repainted each year. I think that's a great idea. But out here, there aren't curbs. Some places, the houses are pretty close together, and the streets are well lit. Out here, there are long stretches of dirt roads with no lighting at all. And the distance between houses varies widely, from feet to miles. Likewise, the numbers are not a predictable amount apart- and sometimes, aren't even in order! One road near my house, the numbers go 548, 592, 560, 602. Fortunately, I drive by there several times a day most days, so I know about it.

My point in mentioning it is not only to encourage people to put large, reflective, white-on-dark number signs at the end of their driveways (not across the street on the mailbox!!), although I would be pleased if everyone did that.

It's to question why it is, how it can be possible, that so many houses do NOT have numbers that can be read from a vehicle driving down the road.

There are a few varieties. Let's look at each one.

1. Numbers on mailbox, but too small to see. I think these people assume the numbers are there for the postal service. The thing is, the mail truck stops at every house most days, so it is easy for them to see the small numbers, from a stopped position right by the mailbox. And they know what the next number will be, because it's printed on the mail they are delivering. So small numbers are no big deal.

2. Numbers on the end of the mailbox, not on the sides. Likewise, great for the mailman, not possible to see from a distance.

3. Sign, but across the road from the house. Better. And it's convenient to put it on the mailbox post. But sometimes, it's not as clear as you might think what house that mailbox goes with, especially if there are several next to each other. Plus, it is usually the passenger who is looking for numbers, not the driver, and that puts the number on the far side of the road, more difficult to see. It also causes swivel-head, trying to figure out where the mailbox is, which side to look at.

4. Number on the house, big as day. Great, for confirming that indeed, this is the house that goes with that number. Or for when you are visiting a friend, and have directions to the house, but need to be sure it is the right one. Easy to see- once you have driven into the driveway. Trouble is, we won't be driving in that driveway before we know the number. So we won't see it.

5. Number sign, at the end of the driveway, but parallel to the road, rather than perpendicular. Again, good for confirmation, but not possible to see while driving. Some of these I've seen are on lovely decorative posts. Nice to look at maybe, but not helpful.

6. Number obstructed by something. Often by the mailbox flag, or the newspaper tube. Yes, it's easy for YOU to see that number, because you already know what it is. Not so easy for us.

The question remains, why do people do these things? Why is it that they sometimes put considerable effort into how they mark their houses, but choose to do things that aren't appropriate?

I think most of these people believe they have done an adequate job. After all, THEY know what the number is, and where it is, and they see it every time they drive in their driveway. It works fine for the mail delivery, and for friends coming over, so what's the problem? No one else has any trouble finding their house. The FedEx guy hasn't ever complained.

I think the problem is one of perspective.
Coming from the perspective of already knowing the number, any of those variations are easy to see.
But from the perspective of in the dark, in an emergency, trying to find which house is the right one, none of them work well at all.

Most people don't ever HAVE that emergency perspective, and happily so.

Most people, when they need to find a house number, slow down and look. I'm sure most people have been behind a driver doing just that, more than once. You can tell exactly what they are doing. From that perspective, as long as there IS a number, somewhere, it all works out fine.

The important thing that this all illustrates is how easy it is for people to have different perspectives, sometimes dramatically so. How one person can believe that something has been done, and done well, and another can see it as entirely useless.

And I'm not only talking about house number signs.

Six Degrees?

2009-04-15T10:02:00.001-04:00

One of the reasons I wanted to be an EMT is so that I can be there for people in my community, ready and able to help them at a moment's notice. I want to be a familiar face in times of trouble, so that it won't always feel like a sudden houseful of strangers.

I didn't realize just HOW familiar things would end up. Or how very small the world is around here.

A couple of weeks ago, we responded to a major trauma; a pick-up truck rollover with one person trapped and the other ejected.

Turns out that one of the first drivers to come upon the scene and stop was a woman whose niece is the girlfriend of one of the patients. Another one of the first people to stop was a firefighter from a neighboring town, who happens to also be an ER doc down the road a ways- who knows the patients.

I found out the next day that one of the members of our department goes to church with the grandmother of my patient.
And another member of the department told me that he is her ex-husband's cousin.
And just last night, discovered from a woman who assisted in my EMT class last summer, that my patient is the father of a good friend of her son's.

A couple of days ago, I had a repairman here fixing my water pump, who suggested I might know his father-in-law. And indeed, I do. He's one of my favorites of the fine older folks in town we see from time to time.

Met a guy at an incident last week who was good friends with the father of a guy I dated in high school.
Met a FF/EMT yesterday (out here assisting in a search) who went to high school with my sister.

I've had my father as a patient. Taken care of both parents of a friend of my daughter's. Seen numerous parents of people I've gone to school with. I've lost count.

And even people I don't know, there are connections. We had a patient last week who didn't make it, and the announcement at her college was made by... the husband of my best friend from junior high. The same former best friend whose son took his firefighter 1 class with my son.

The concept of "six degrees of separation" has become popular in the past several years.

Around here, if you get TWO degrees of separation, it's unusual. And I doubt anyone makes it to three. Everybody knows everybody, or knows someone who does.

I think it adds to both the stress, and the satisfaction, of the job. It feels great to help out folks you know, or whom folks you know, know. And it feels crappy not to be able to help them. Two sides of the same coin. Add to that the feeling that once we meet them, EVERY patient becomes "someone we know." No anonymous EMS out here.

There's an EMS book out there, by Michael Perry, called Population 485: Meeting Your Neighbors One Siren at a Time. No kidding.

It gives a whole new feel to the landscape, as we drive past place after place where we've been. A litany develops. That's the house where the woman fell, then the one where we had the stroke patient, and then that really sweet guy who died last year, remember him? And there was the alarm activation that really was an alarm doing its job, saving the people and the house. And the house where the single Mom was home alone with her baby and got really sick and we needed to help find emergency childcare, and that house is so-and-so's Mom. And this is the one where we couldn't get the patient to hang up her cellphone. It goes on and on. Accidents, fires, sickness, injuries, and the occasional baby, all paint a very intimate picture of a place.

Maybe I'll post more from that little book I found last year, the history of one of the local fire departments. Turns out, especially in a small town, that the history of a place IS the history of the fire department. That's who witnesses all the major events, the major changes, along with a long string of more personal events. And those are the people who end up knowing nearly everybody.

fighters

2009-03-25T19:11:00.001-04:00

Most people would say that fighting is violence, and violence is bad.

People who fight tend not to be respected in the dominant culture.

People who fight for a living- boxers, for example- are often considered to be "brutes" who are unintelligent. It is often suggested that if they were smart, they would do something else.

And yet.

What is the best thing someone can say about a person who is very ill or injured, or who is near death or heading that way, as a way of creating hope? "She's a real fighter."

Interesting.

Principles

2009-03-03T11:55:00.001-05:00

Last night's training at the firehouse was knot tying.

I love knots. Been tying them since I was a kid.

Our county has the good fortune of having some state fire instructors who also love knots, who are skilled at both tying and teaching. You can easily recognize their students.

Last night, it was interesting that the people who have had recent training through the county were all having a grand time, tying knots, sharing different ways of tying the same knots, tying rope onto and around just about everything in the room. But the people there who have NOT had recent training... had not even heard of some of the basic fire service knots. Yet another suggestion that people need to keep current on their training. One among many.

Anyhow.
Being knot loving folks, we came home and have been consulting the knot book, learning a few new ones today. Came across this quote below, which I love not only because of what it says about knots, but because it applies to many things that I do and love, fencing included.

"The appliances of this chapter verge on the mechanical in nature. Many of them grip the rope, instead of the rope's gripping the appliance. They are designed either to make a quicker or an easier coupling, or else a simpler one that the inexpert cannot go wrong with. The greater proportion of them were made for the use of either the horseman or the housewife, and considerable ingenuity has been expended in their construction. Some of the horse-and-carriage fittings have been sketched from memory. Others were salvaged from the family garage that had started out in life as stable and carriage house.

It may seem unprofitable to resurrect such material, much of which is obsolete today. But knotting is merely the application of certain mechanical principles, and a principle itself can hardly become obsolete. As conditions change, new applications are bound to appear. The fact that something is not required today is no reason for believing that it will not be needed tomorrow."

Clifford W Ashley, The Ashley Book of Knots, 1944

A world so small, a heart so large

2009-02-22T23:10:00.002-05:00

A few days into the EMT-B class, our instructor suggested that we get a scanner so we could listen in on medical reports, and learn from them. We get relatively few calls out here in the middle of nowhere, so we need to learn from as many sources as we can. Listening in to the radio reports, and especially the flight medics, we could hear how they give the reports, what interventions they have done, and a variety of other details not readily available elsewhere.

One of the first things we learned is that the flight medics are fantastic. They give their reports by the book, head to toe, easy to understand and follow. A good model for us, to hear that pattern over and over, the rhythm and flow of the report giving us a mental template to use in acquiring the information to give our own patient reports.

Another thing we learned early on is that we can recognize the voices of most of the ambulance personnel, so we know who is going on the call. This does a couple of things. One is to give us further information about each of them, their ability to be focused and calm, the clarity and completeness of the information they provide, adding to the level of trust we have in them when we work together. It also lets us know who to worry about, sometimes, depending on the situation they are going into- or on the road conditions.

We also hear a much wider variety of situations than we've gone to ourselves.

We have gotten into the habit of turning the scanner on when we hear someone get toned out for something that sounds like an interesting EMS call. We run through the call either in our heads, or sometimes, if we're both listening, with each other. Does the location of the call give us any information? Is this somewhere they have been before? What would you do first? What should we be concerned about, with that mechanism of injury? We'll visualize and/or verbalize the assessment we would do if we were on scene. It's decent practice for us, and more than once, we've ended up with a similar call relatively soon after hearing one on the scanner.

So last week, when we heard a call for someone who fell from a tree, we turned the scanner on, and followed the incident as long as we could.

My first thought was that I was glad that I didn't know anyone that age who lived in that location.

I was concerned for the patient. It didn't sound good. They called for a helicopter before arriving on scene, to get the flight team going and ready to fly. Called in an engine to set up a landing zone nearby. This is a common precautionary measure, but this time, it sounded like it might be necessary. There are so many injuries possible with a fall.

We don't get a lot of detail on the scanner unless we pick up a flight medic; since the radio system was upgraded a few months ago, the local ambulances give their reports on a frequency we can no longer pick up. This time, it turned out that the helicopter couldn't fly due to bad weather, so they had to transport by ground. Once they were loaded to go, we didn't get any further information over the radio. All we knew was that the suspected injuries were serious.

As we turned off the scanner, our thoughts and hearts were with the patient, hoping things would go well and he would be okay.

They didn't.
He wasn't.

Usually, we never know how EMS calls turn out. Privacy laws prevent us getting further information, unless we happen to know the patient personally, and hear things through friends or family directly.

The thing is, I don't actually know where every person I know around town lives.
And I definitely don't know where they all work, or where they might be at any given time of day.

Turns out that this patient was someone I know.
The husband of a woman I've known for many years.
A prominent figure in the local activist community.

I found out the next morning that he did not survive.
He leaves behind his wife and their four daughters. Three of whom I've watched grow up, and the youngest of whom I remember when she was born.

My daughter and I attended his wake today. There was an outpouring of community support which was nice to see, but it's a bit sad that it takes something like this to bring everyone together.

As it always is, it was a reminder that none of us know how long we have left. That death comes suddenly and surprisingly. That no one is prepared, but everyone somehow goes on.

In an odd way, I feel like I was there when it happened. I wasn't; I was only listening in on the radio, hearing just enough to know someone was in trouble, but not enough to know who, or to suspect how it might affect me personally. I wish I had been, if only to be able to give my friend some understanding of what happened and how. She is struggling to make sense of something that makes little sense.

Today, she was surrounded by love, by friends and community, by an outpouring of grief to hold her close, to hold her up while she mourns. She greeted everyone who came in, with a hug and a smile, and not a few tears. It must have been difficult, even while affirming the man she knows her husband to have been.

His burial is tomorrow.
Most of the people who were there today will fade back into the background.
My friend will somehow go on, having lost her partner, her love, the kind and gentle man she has spent most of her life with.
She will raise their daughters to remember him with love, and to honor his memory by continuing to work for the causes so near to his heart.
How she will do this, I don't know. Just that she will.
My heart goes out to her.

For Ellen, I wish comfort and grace, hope and love, family and faith.
For Peter, I wish the peace he has worked so hard towards.

Obituary

Coordination

2009-02-05T15:02:00.001-05:00

It's the beginning of a new semester, which always brings with it new observations on the process of learning.

We have a method for how we teach, but are always learning more about people, about learning, and especially about difficulties learning, so we're constantly refining what we do.

There will never be a "perfect" method that will work with every person in every situation, because people are all different. They key is to remain flexible, and observant, and to approach every difficulty from as many different directions as is necessary.

If I told every student everything I know about fencing in their first week... or month... or even year... they would not be able to understand most of it because they don't yet have the context. This means that sometimes students ask questions that I can't answer, not because I don't know the answer, but because they aren't ready to hear it yet. There is a series of perceptual shifts that have to happen first, and those take time.

I ran up against one of those myself recently, where I was trying to explain my thinking to the master, who was looking at the subject from such a different place that we could not reach a clear understanding on either side, and had to agree to discuss this again later on. Some of that is a language difficulty, trying to put into words feelings and concepts that are non-verbal. But some is that we are in different places still.

I recently had an experience in a class that helped me to understand not what the master was trying to say, but why it was that I couldn't seem to phrase my thoughts or questions in ways that helped us reach an understanding.

We were working on something new in a class of mostly relatively new students. It required coordinating hand and foot in a way they mostly had not had to do before, so it was very challenging. I needed to break the movement down into smaller pieces, so that they could begin to follow the new pattern. It went fairly well and there was great progress between the beginning and end of the class.

At the end of the exercise, as I usually do, I asked if there were any questions.

One of the newest students, a highly intelligent young boy, had several questions.

One of his questions went something like this: "Is this so that you can go faster, and does it lead to special moves?"

???

I had to ask him to clarify his question.

We addressed the "faster" part first, it being the simpler concept.
No, it has nothing to do with going "faster."

I believe he had gotten this impression because we were now coordinating one hand movement with each foot movement, rather than one hand movement for every two foot movements, and to his mind, that meant it was possible to make twice as many blade movements as before, in the same amount of time.

The trouble with that is that blade movements, and therefore hand movements, are not restricted by foot movement at all when you fence. We chose to coordinate the two in this practice session in order to facilitate coordinating movements AT ALL, but in bouting, blade movements are coordinated with your opponent's actions, not with your own feet. After all, it is your opponent who is attacking you, not your feet- unless you have far more serious problems than a fencing bout.

This was clue number one.

Then we addressed the next part of his question. Does this move "lead to special moves"?

Again, I was somewhat mystified by the question.

I asked him what he meant by "special moves."

He said something about how obviously, there are certain special moves that you don't do very often, you sort of keep them in reserve, so that your opponent won't expect them. Maybe a secret move that your opponent doesn't know about, and wouldn't be able to defend against. And he wanted to know if this new thing we had been working on was the beginning of such a move. A "botta secreta." (He didn't use that term, but that's what he meant. Google it if you aren't familiar with it.)

This was clue number two.

I had to think for a minute to figure out how to answer him.
The answer is both simple and complex, depending on where you are in your understanding of not only fencing, but all combat.

I told him that we'd have to discuss it again when he has learned more, but the simple answer is that no, there are no "special moves."

I continued thinking about this long afterwards.

What I realized is that this was a perfect example of the difference in focus between a beginner, and someone who is more knowledgeable and more practiced.

A beginner has a narrow, internal focus. He is still learning to control his own body, his own movements, and has no real understanding of the possibility, let alone the ability, to control another person's actions.

What this often translates to is a beginner's assumption that each action in fencing is decided on, planned, or otherwise thought out by the fencer with no actual connection to what the opponent is doing, other than maybe waiting to see what the opponent does and then trying to somehow counter that action. So, a fencer might plan some secret special attack to use at some previously decided on moment in the bout, in order to gain the advantage and win. He would keep this special attack in reserve until the chosen moment, and not use it any other time. Hence, the "specialness" of it.

This same internal focus lends itself to the belief that all coordination is of your own movements- your hand with your feet, your blade actions with your movements forwards and back.

There is no understanding that whatever actions you take are inextricably linked to your opponent, two ends of the same thread, tied together like a figure-eight follow through knot.

There is no understanding that your opponent's actions are controlled by your actions, your cues, your communication and misdirection. That you almost literally tell him what to do, so that you are prepared for it and can easily take advantage. That you do not "beat" your opponent so much as you set the stage for him to be his own undoing.

Beginners are very yang in how they look at combat.
Action, strength, speed, force, trickery.
They don't yet see the possibility of diversion, deflection, reflection, invitation, illusion.

I could go on.
There is also the mind/body separation of beginners (and I'm using that term in a very broad sense... one can be a "beginner" for a very long time!), in this culture of intense priority given to academic, intellectual thinking, and the resultant devaluing of all things physical. People who are still stuck in an intellectual appraisal mode want things to add up, match up, and "make sense" in ways that are easily counted and/or verbalized. It ain't necessarily so.

But my point in relating this story is to show how it was that I had this realization, with this student's series of questions, of how it feels to have someone ask a question from such a different frame of reference as to almost be speaking an entirely different language.

He would not have been able to understand much outside himself at that moment. He has not yet progressed to a place where he can SEE outside himself in this. It would have been much like trying to explain the ocean to a desert dweller, colors to a blind man, or algebra to my dog.

But what was most interesting to me was that his question, which made perfect sense to him, from his perspective, made so little sense to me at first, from my perspective, that I had to stop, go back, figure out his perspective, and then re-examine the question to even know what he was asking.

I suspect something quite similar happened in my recent discussion with the master, the one where we never came to an understanding.
Maybe he DID understand what I was trying to say, but is at such a different conceptual place that he couldn't answer anything in a way that I would have been able to get to at all- and trying to answer it from my perspective, which he no longer holds, was meaningless and just plain silly.

It probably didn't help that I'm somewhat in between perspectives on that particular thing, and part of my questioning was to try to make that leap from one to the other. Didn't get there. Yet. But it feels close. I can't explain it in words... and still seem to need to rely on them to try to explain. My guess is that it won't need explaining when I get it. We'll both know.

I'm close.
Very close.
I can't explain it... but I can feel it.

Seeds

2009-01-19T11:54:00.001-05:00

Life is made up of a long series of moments, each connecting to the ones before and after it.

I've long believed that one must appreciate all that came before, if you are in a place you want to be. Even the mistakes, the heartache and the pain, were part of bringing you to where you are now. Especially those.

It is not always possible to recognize change when it happens. Sometimes, it sneaks in slowly, imperceptibly, and you don't notice until things have been developing for a while. But sometimes, change happens within the space of a heartbeat, a breath, and you know, in that moment, that nothing will ever be the same.

Most of the time, it is far easier to look back and see the change in retrospect. Still, it is only rarely that you can trace something back to a specific moment.

I have a few of those moments in my life.

Some are sort of "standard." My first kiss. The birth of my first child. That sort of thing.

But others are less obvious to anyone other than myself.

I was eight or nine years old. We lived in an old victorian house (which I loved and would love to be able to buy, but it won't happen) on the main street of town, a little up the hill from the actual downtown area. I remember it was the middle of the night, dark and very windy, when I was woken up. I don't know what woke me, whether it was the lights, or the sounds, or a member of my family, but a house on the block behind ours was on fire. It was a new house, and I'm not sure whether anyone even lived in it yet.

Between that house and ours was another house, one facing the small cross street, which had been split up into several apartments. I knew almost everyone in that house, and watched from my bedroom window as they were evacuated.

I was terrified of fire. Transfixed at the window, unable to speak or move, I watched the drama unfold throughout the night. Were they going to evacuate us, too? Where would we go? Was the huge tree next to the burning house going to catch on fire and then spread embers throughout the neighborhood?

I remember almost nothing outside myself that night. Where were my parents? My sisters? How long did I stay at that window? I have no idea. I just remember the flames, the smoke, the flashing lights, the howling wind, the firefighters evacuating the house behind us.

And one other thing.

The tree did not burst into flames.
The fire did not spread.
It did not reach out across that space, hungry for victims, to find me.

I have never been afraid of fire since.
Respectful, absolutely.
But not afraid.

The third time's a charm

2009-01-17T21:22:00.015-05:00

Seems like it usually happens- the coldest day of the year, and a structure fire.

The day started out as planned. My daughter had a chiropractor's appointment. Midway through her adjustment, the tones hit.

I can tell almost immediately what kind of call it's going to be. If the first thing I hear after the alert is the ambulance tones, it's an EMS call. If it's the siren tones, it's probably an MVA. But this time, it was the siren tone, followed by another tone...

This is not a good sound.
A structure fire, reported by the neighbors across the street. This means it has likely been going for a while.
And crap, I'm out of position. A good 12-15 minutes away.

I pay at the desk, and go to the car to gear up. My daughter races to the car as soon as her appointment is done, just in time for me to hop in and drive. She's a good sport, and hops out of the car at the intersection closest to our house, so I don't have to detour to drop her off.

I can see the mutual aid engine coming up the road, and turn ahead of them. About half a mile ahead of me, I see our engine heading away from the station. I know that I'll end up passing it- contrary to popular belief, fire engines don't go that fast; they're too heavy. At least ours is- it doubles as a tanker, with around 2000 gallons of water.

As it heads up the hill towards the structure, I'm able to pass, and get to the scene ahead of it. I pull up past the fire, to leave room for more apparatus, hop out of my car, grab my camera, and start shooting as I walk back to the scene. The next 6 hours are alternated between working on water supply, as interim safety officer, accountability, running messages for the IC, moving hoses, trying to keep things (including firefighters) from freezing up, and taking pictures, some for the investigation.

It was a balmy zero degrees or so.

This is what I saw walking back to the scene. Flames shooting out of the front of the structure; heavy smoke.

As I got closer, I could see the attack team out front.

Another shot of the attack. And that's my kid on the left. He was home, so got there before I did. He's backing up one of our newest members, who is at his first structure fire.

Now my pal sj has arrived on scene, and is backing up the attack. In front of them, to the left of the house, is what remains of the trailer where the fire started. Right. I know. You can't see the trailer. There's not much left.

Now a shot of the team in the back of the house, trying to get water up into the attic floor. More about that later.
Check out the names of the guys from the nearby career company assisting us. Cook and Baker. Kind of funny, if you look at it right.
I went to high school with Baker. Small world.

So here's the deal.
The fire is up in the space between the ceiling of the lower floor, and the floor of the attic. Stubbornly hiding from us. Fire is like that. We had to get an excavator from the town highway department to come and remove most of the roof, to dig into that attic floor and expose the fire.

It worked.
As soon as the attic floor was opened up, heavy fire.
One of the mutual aid companies has a ladder truck, and we doused the top of the house from the top of the aerial.

Were given the word from the chief to pack up after about six hours in the bitter cold. Most of the hoses and some of the pump valves had long since frozen up.

I learned why so many volunteer firefighters drive pickup trucks.
To haul the frozen hoses back after calls like this. There's no way to pack them back on the apparatus.

Everyone heads back to the station, for hot chocolate and a lot of laying out hoses to thaw. Put the apparatus back in service as best we could, hindered by a lack of usable hoses- and our fuel tanks had both frozen up. Oh- and the dry hydrant at the town pond was also frozen, so they had to head down into the nearby town that has hydrants to refill the water tanks. Our tiny town doesn't have a hydrant system, and uses tanker shuttles and a portable pond for water supply.

Headed for home, tired and cold.
Tried to catch up with the stuff I had intended to do all day.
Hit the sack, ready for a nice long sleep, at about 1am.

At 2:37, the tones went off again.
A rekindle.
This sounds like somehow, a new fire has started, but the truth is that the first fire apparently was never really out.
Should have had that excavator take the entire roof off. I, being a lowly relatively new company member, with no seniority or status of any kind, was not privy to the decision about what to have the excavator do or not do. So I don't know why or how things were decided. I don't know how the decision is made to call the fire "out" and return everyone to service, either.
Sometimes, mistakes are made.

This was one of those times.

It being o'dark thirty, and knowing the rekindle had to be reported by a neighbor, told me that it was probably going pretty good. Had to have been for anyone to notice at that time of night.

We headed out the door for the station, and our hopefully somewhat dryer gear. Not in such a hurry this time- nothing left to save, really, and no one in the house, so no life safety issues.

Arrived on scene to this:

Pretty- if it's not your house.
The fire had now dropped down from the ceiling into the lower part of the house, and was really cooking by the time we got there. Enough so that we barely noticed the now -6 degrees.

For a while, anyway.

Another view, moments later, as the fire continues to grow.

We were there ahead of any water supply, so I took some pictures while waiting for the apparatus to get there.
Spent the next couple of hours working on water supply, so no more picture taking.

Instead, I got to play in the water.
I was in charge of the valve for filling the tank from the supply tanker. No pond in the night- ours wasn't repacked, and besides, the apparatus it travels on was out of service. So we filled directly from another tanker.

Trouble is that in the cold, nothing was connecting right, and everything was icy and slippery. When the tank was full, water would spray between where I was, and the valve I needed to close, so I had to reach through a substantial shower to get it closed, getting soaked in the process. I was an icicle. Crunchy. Crackly. Kind of impressive. It's too bad I'm the one with the camera. Not.

You have to imagine it- I was covered in ice, the truck was covered in ice, the ground was covered in ice, the hose was covered in ice, the valve was covered in ice. Even the ice was covered in ice. My gloves were frozen into the claws of the zombie creature from the deep, and anything I touched, I immediately froze to. It was amusing, in a middle-of-the-nightmare sort of way.

After a couple of hours alternating between waiting, and getting soaked, we were released to go home. Still a fair amount of steam coming off the top of that house. I wasn't convinced the fire was really, really out. But it's not my call.

When I got to my car, I couldn't get in- nothing would bend. I had to break some of the ice first. And then, when I got back to the station, I couldn't get my turnout coat off- the latches were iced over. I had to pour warm water on them to free them up.

Got home around 5:30-ish. Too late to go to bed, or not?
Ended up trying to catch a nap, at least, but couldn't get warm enough to actually sleep.

We got up on the early side, planning to head down to a pancake breakfast sponsored by another nearby fire company. I decided that we should drive past that house again, just to see if it had "rekindled again," rather than get to breakfast and end up toned out, and being 20 minutes away.

As we got near the house, we could see smoke in the air. Great.
It was mostly white... could be steam... but in the middle there... looks a little darker.

I parked the car, and walked around the back of the house to get a look up into what was left of that ceiling. Before I got around the back, I could hear the fire crackling.

Sure enough, there it was, flames a couple of feet high, right in that spot in the ceiling that had given us the most trouble before.

Went back to the car. "I got your good news, and your bad news... We won't be having pancakes. But it's small, and we may be able to handle it with the mini-pumper."

I pulled out my cell phone. I don't have a portable radio. Called one of the assistant chiefs, whose number I have. No answer. Tried another one. No answer. Tried the chief chief. No answer.

Meanwhile, we're headed back to the station, about a mile away. If we act fast, and get our mini-pumper up here, we can probably get that out before it gets going, and maybe most of the company can sleep in.

It was not to be.

As we were headed back up the hill, having gotten hold of a couple of the assistant chiefs (I was talking on the phone while gearing up), who suggested an "investigation" rather than toning the whole company, one of the assistant chiefs from our sister company radioed in that he was on scene, and reported the rekindle, and had dispatch wake everyone up.

We arrived on scene a minute later, and had the fire knocked down as soon as we got the preconnect pulled.

But it was still smoldering up there in that ceiling- we just couldn't tell where, exactly, it was coming from, and whether it was actually a "hot spot" or just evaporating water. It had risen to a high of -2 degrees, so anything even remotely warm was giving off "steam."

We got some more manpower on scene, and some guys went inside (no more ceiling over most of it to worry about collapsing) to pull what they could, and get water up inside there.

Should have taken down the entire roof, I tell you. Would probably have gotten a good night's sleep.

Went back to the station after a couple of hours.

Too late for pancakes.

I had to cancel a couple of lessons, but had classes to teach in the afternoon. So off I went to teach them, having spent about 11 of the past 24 hours in the subzero cold, some of that soaking wet besides, and about an hour and a half sleeping.

A little punchy, maybe, but I made it through.
Both classes went very well.

On the way home, I drove past the scene again, just so I'd know.

Not a wisp of anything.

The third time's a charm, I guess.
Cross your fingers for me, okay?

The good news: the people were not home at the time of the fire, and their dog and cats made it out safely. As long as that happens, and no one is injured, I'm good with it.

I swear it's true

2009-01-11T00:49:00.002-05:00

I thought this was unbelievable, so I checked it out on snopes.com, and it's true!

Internet spam has become such a huge problem that Homeland Security has declared spammers to be terrorists. They are monitoring e-mail volume, and anyone who sends more than 100 e-mails a day will be put on the "terrorist" list. You will have your internet service canceled, and be unable to board an airplane in the US.

The Society for Prevention of Internet Fraud (SPIF) has a petition up at www.SPIF.org- make sure to go sign it to protest this designation. You have the right to send as many e-mails a day as you want, as long as they're not spam!

Make sure to send this to everyone you know so they will know what's going on.

-------

Here's what I want to know: why on earth do people fall for crap like this?? Why is it that people who appear to be otherwise intelligent and reasonable go into instant panic mode when they get some forwarded e-mail "warning"??

If you typed up a note and put it on the windshield of their car, most people would ignore it. Send it snail mail, and they won't even open it. But e-mail it to them, especially if it is clearly an e-mail that has been forwarded multiple times, and they'll swallow it hook, line and sinker.

And if you dare to point out to them that this is yet another forwarded urban legend, or something designed to incite panic, they will argue with you.

Spammers and scammers have gotten clever, it's true. Just like some guy who knows just what to say, how to look into her eyes, to get any woman to fall for him, scammers know how to get people to believe what they say. They'll tell you they've already "checked it on snopes.com." They'll make it look like it came from a personal friend. They'll drop names. Tell sob stories. Use URLs that are similar to well known companies. Some even go as far as creating look-alike websites.

One e-mail I got recently was made to look like it had images that didn't load, with a helpful link for "if you have any trouble reading this e-mail." I guess people have gotten wise enough, at least, not to click on things so readily.

This willingness to believe anything extends beyond spam, to almost any website. Make it look like "news" and people believe it is. And look at Wikipedia. A fabulous resource- as long as you stay aware of the limitations, that what is posted there may or may not be 100% accurate.

It is often the newbies who fall prey to such things... but not always. The people who produce this stuff are very good at what they do. Advertising and propaganda, not to mention just plain cons, are a science and an art.

I'd like to offer these suggestions that people should be required to read before being allowed to post anything online anywhere:

1. If it tells you to forward it, don't. Just don't. I don't care how funny you think it is, or how worried you are about some impending doom.
2. If it claims to have already been "checked out on snopes.com," it's a scam.
3. Those pills don't make your penis larger.
4. If they did, no one but you would care.
5. No one legitimate will ever e-mail and ask for your password.
6. Likewise, they will not use e-mail to tell you your account has been canceled... click here now to reinstate it.
7. The more dire the warning, the less likely it is true.
8. If you send forwarded e-mails to any list I run, especially with multiple layers of quotes, and/or don't trim what is quoted in your messages, you will be fed to velociraptors.
9. Don't believe everything you read. Even online. Especially online. Even if it claims all sorts of legitimacy. And even if it looks "real."

Oh... one last thing... just to be safe...
that warning I started with, about spammers being terrorists? I made that up.
Please don't turn it into the latest e-mail warning.

The point

2008-12-19T12:59:00.003-05:00

Le point c'est tout.

The point is everything.

Fencing often presents the student with conundrums, and with paradoxes.

Things are not always what they seem.
This is true because what they SEEM is always colored by the perceptions, the conceptions, and the limitations of the person who is doing the seeing.

If one hopes to see the truth, one must remove the "self" from the equation. Remove the biases, the misperceptions, the slants, remove the emotions that cloud vision or that focus everything in an unbalanced way.

I've known this for a while now.
Learning to control emotions, not to allow them to get in the way of perception, is one of the most valuable things about the sword, most easily harnessed in everyday life to great benefit.

But it wasn't until yesterday that I truly grasped the other part of this, the physical part.

In order to see truth, and to act in truth, one must remove the PHYSICAL self, as well.

But this is clearly not possible. The physical self is, well... physical, right? Solid. How can you BE, if you have no physical self?

A lovely paradox.

I have long enjoyed that in fencing, there are a large number of pairs of things that must be balanced. I have often told students that one of the most challenging things is not so much what you must do, what must move, but what you must NOT do, what must NOT move.

Action/inaction
tension/relaxation
hard/soft
forceful/yielding
Or, if you wish, yang/yin.

These are what fencing really is, the balance between these things, in each moment, in each muscle, each thought, each movement, each intent.

But how do you know which to do, to be, at any given moment? And how do you move between them?

The simplest answer is that you do so by feel.

But how do you know WHAT you should feel?

This is what came up in my lesson yesterday, that the concept, the understanding, can only come AFTER the physical ability exists. You must be able to do something, to feel something, before you can understand it. You train the mind by training the body FIRST, not the other way around. This is counter to almost all education- because almost all education is cognitive based, not psycho-motor based.

But let's back up a bit, to how I got there, and why it was yesterday that I reached a point I had not felt before.

There have been changes in my understanding of fencing, for all the years that I've been doing this. Some things come quickly, others not so much, and still others change as I change.

Recently, I've been considering the difference between the point PULLING the rest of the body into a lunge, and the feeling of PUSHING the point with the thrust, much like a punch. The interesting part is that almost everyone, almost all the time, equates intent with force, equates intense focus with tension, and these things are not necessarily connected in the way that most people connect them.

In fact, with the sword, it is important that these connections are NOT assumed.
It is not about forcing things to happen, it is about allowing them to happen.

Again, I've known this for a long time. But as words, as thoughts. As mental constructs.

Yesterday, I realized, incorporated, something important.

It is that while fencing, I exist only in two "places."
The point.
And my center.

The point pulls me to action.
My center provides the energy for that action.

The less anything else is consciously involved, the better.

In other words:
I do not move the sword with my hand, but with my center.
EVERYTHING I do originates there.

It is not I, not my body, nor the sword, that moves towards the target, it is the point.

The point is everything, moved by the energy of my center.

And when that happens, when it really is that way, in perfect focus, perfect relaxation, in the moment, the point pulls me into the lunge, of its own accord.

I do not lunge.
The lunge, lunges me.

It is as if time and space open, and create the possibility, and therefore, the inevitability, of the lunge, and the lunge creates itself to fill that opening.

Like lightning. The path for the lightning comes into existence, and the lightning fills it.

Between my center and the point... is the space in which I simultaneously do and do not exist.

That is how the physical self is removed from the action.

It is difficult to put this all into words that anyone else might understand at all.

That's okay.
I need to understand it, and I do. At least a little, and at least from the perspective I have right now.

All I ask of anyone reading this is to understand that there is more to fencing than meets the eye, literally and figuratively. And that it is this, the tangible intangible, that I find so compelling.

Evaluation time

2008-12-05T23:53:00.002-05:00

It's the end of the college semester. That means evaluation time.

We always read the evaluation forms. Most of the comments are fairly similar, but sometimes, there are a few that stand out. I thought I'd share a few.

We see a wide range, from the ones who find something they didn't even know they were looking for, to the few who really don't get it at all. From those who appreciate the structure and discipline, to those who really just wanted to grab a sword and have at it.

Sometimes, the interesting part is the pairs of comments we get from the same class.

Like these:

Student #1: "I would not recommend it because it isn't much exercise."
Student #2: "I expected to have sore legs and arms and my butt too. Oh yeah, they were definitely met."

Student #1: "No, fencing is not as physical as I thought it would be. You don't even get a sweat."
Student #2: "I would recommend it based on the physical demands (good exercise)."

So what is up with that? Remember, these are two students from the exact same class, same semester.

You might assume that the first student is in better shape than the second student, that what is easy for one, is difficult for the other.
You would be wrong.

We can easily predict which students, if any, will make a comment about the class not being physically demanding enough, not being a good workout.

It's simple.
It's the ones who don't DO the workout. The ones who show up late, phone it in, and/or stumble through the moves without any actual effort or attention. The students who, at the end of the semester, look about the same as they did on the first day.

Contrast that with those who are putting in physical and mental effort, who are trying to gain some level of skill, who pay attention to details as best they can, and really try to get it right. They never complain about it not being difficult enough.

Likewise, we often have pairs where one person says there is too much discussion, and another says that's the best part. Pairs where one says the class moved too slowly, and another who says it should slow down. I don't believe we have ever had a class where we got only one comment from the usual pairs.

Some of the more fun comments, mostly from the newly converted, highly enthusiastic students:

"Yes, it is amazing, take it now."
"You would be a crazy fool not to take this course!"
"It is a class out of the ordinary."
"I learned so much and built strength both in a new physical field and mentally."
"Where else could you unleash your desire to be a chivalrous knight without seeming immature?"
"Not something you're likely to find anywhere else."
"Yes, because the instructor is insane, but it's a good insane."
"Make it once a day, not once a week, dammit! It hurts to wait for this class!"

My all-time favorite comment: "Workout with happiness!"

And some of the puzzling comments:

"I would suggest introducing the actual olympic game of fencing and allowing students to duel one another."

Wow. What class did they think they were in?!?
1. This isn't olympic fencing. Period.
2. Allowing students to get killed would be frowned on, I believe.

"It focuses more on technique than I expected."

Hmm. So what DID you expect it to focus on?

"I would recommend it, but only if they really wanted to learn to fence."

And you needed to point this out why, exactly?

In the recommendations for improvement section:
"A little less fencing instruction."

And what should we do instead? Go bowling?

"Be less concerned about safety."

?!!

From the rapier class:
"Lighter swords."

Uh... sorry. If you want to work with lighter swords, don't take the class with the heavy ones. It's that simple. If you want to learn to use a rapier, you pretty much have to use... a rapier. Who knew?

These are a few of the comments from the past couple of years. Stay tuned next semester. I'm sure there will be more.

The Mother Letter Project

2008-11-28T09:17:00.002-05:00

It's not often that I come across something that I'm impressed with enough that I want to immediately share it with everyone I know, but this has done it.

The Mother Letter Project.

It was started by a guy who is compiling these letters as a gift for his wife, as part of an effort to put more meaning into Christmas by spending more on relationships, and less on material gifts.

That, in and of itself, is worthwhile. And a creative way to do it, I might add.

But he's also offering to send the compilation to everyone who participates.

A "Mother Letter" is a letter from a mother, to a mother, about whatever motherly thoughts or advice or concerns that the writer wants to express. In a culture where we often lack that mother-to-mother support, the possibility of this compilation becoming something truly valuable is quite high, I believe.

Maybe this touches me so because I can't ask my own mother for advice, can't share with her any concerns I have, and since she died, it is that conversation that I have missed the most.

Anyway. Go check out their blog. Write a letter.

And click on the "Are you a conspirator?" link.

That's what she said...

2008-11-23T15:15:00.001-05:00

Had a call the other day where there were multiple lacerations, and a lot of blood.
Scrubbed the entire rescue with bleach, a lot of blood, I mean.
Blood is like smoke- it gets everywhere. Places you didn't even know existed until you see that red ooze coming out from under them.

A few days later, back at the station after another call, one of the firefighters asked if anyone had been at the call "where the guy cut his finger."

Wow.
I had to laugh.
Not at any of the people involved, mind you, but at the discrepancy between how he had interpreted what dispatch said, what dispatch actually said, and what actually happened.

Some of you reading this are likely familiar with how often what dispatch says is happening, and what is actually happening, are two different things. Sometimes, it's because of a misunderstanding. Sometimes, it's the similarity of road or street names that are confusing. Sometimes, the caller doesn't KNOW what is going on, or where they are. And sometimes, the situation has changed by the time you get there.

In the limited time I've been doing this, I've learned to keep an open mind. "Elderly female, fell from standing" might mean that there's no real problem, she just needs help getting back up- or it might mean a cardiac event. "One car MVA, unknown injuries" might mean someone slid into the ditch and is uninjured, or it might mean calling the helicopter- or it might be a car that has been sitting off the road for a week, and someone driving by called it in but "couldn't stop." "Abdominal pain" could be a big lunch, or appendicitis, or trauma that the patient didn't want to tell anyone about. An "alarm activation" might be just that, burned toast... or a working structure fire.

My point here... if I have one... is that everything is like that. Whatever you hear, you don't really know what is going on until/unless you are there. And sometimes, not even then. Whether it's an emergency call, or office gossip, or anything in between. People see what they want to see, hear what they want to hear, and jump to conclusions. All the time. It's not a vindictive thing, necessarily. It's a human thing.

The human brain excels at making connections.
Sometimes, it makes the wrong ones.

Getting older

2008-11-15T07:57:00.003-05:00

Somehow, I've gotten old.

Although my kids constantly tell me I'm ancient, it didn't really hit me until a couple of days ago.

I didn't have a particularly difficult day, wasn't pulling out gray hair (I like gray hair!), didn't have a geritol moment.

What happened?

My little sister turned 40.

Somehow, that made me a whole lot older than my turning 50 will.
Go figure.

During that day, I saw or heard numerous references to aging, and nearly all of them were negative.

One was a suggestion that a man would no longer be interested in a woman as she got older. And vice versa.
There were several ads portraying elderly people as sick or with limited mobility. Or with dementia. As if these things are inevitable.
A lament about losing hair.
And on and on.

Here's the thing.

If you don't die young, you get old.
Invariably.

Why does this culture have such an anti-age bias?
Whatever happened to cultures who honor their elders, and appreciate the years of experience, and perhaps wisdom, accumulated by those people?

I sure as hell know more now than I did when I was in my twenties.
I'm a better person, too. More committed, more focused. More able to navigate interpersonal difficulties. Kinder. More patient. Better able to discern what is important from what is not.

But yes, I have some gray hair, some aches and pains, and I am reaching the point of being all too aware of my mortality.

One of the interesting things about being an EMT is that I meet a lot of older people. They are often the ones who call for medical assistance, partly because they have more medical issues, but also, often, because they have no one to drive them to the hospital.

So far, in this little town, all of those people have been wonderful folks. I wish I could meet them in a less stressful way, and spend time talking- or mostly, spend time listening. Some of them have lived here forever, I think, and have a wide variety of interesting stories.

This is a largely unappreciated resource.

I'm certain that they have no idea how positively they have affected me, giving me living proof that contrary to popular belief, cultural bias, and common fears, "old age" just might be an okay place to get to some day.

Failure

2008-11-12T19:36:00.001-05:00

I've been thinking again.

About choices.
About decisions.
About mistakes.

We live in a culture that doesn't like mistakes. Most of the time, they are either ignored completely (no, really, it's fine), denied, (who, me?)(it was like that when I got here) or they are seen as a terrible thing (failure! idiot!).

None of these views is particularly useful.

It's not that I think mistakes, in and of themselves, are good. If they were, they wouldn't be mistakes, right? But they certainly are useful.

My kids are becoming adults. Not the easiest transition in the world, if I recall correctly. The thing is, when you are a child, your parents fix your mistakes. When you are an adult... nobody fixes them.

Maybe.

When my kids were little, they were, shall we say... stubborn. Hardheaded. Annoying. And they had very strong opinions about things. A whole lot like their parents, in other words. :-)

I used to tell people that I want my kids to grow into adults who can stand up for what is right, who can resist peer pressure, who can make good choices and good decisions. The trouble is, in order for them to be able to do that, they have to LEARN to do that, which means they need to practice it from an early age. And having children who stand up for what they believe, instead of always caving to pressure, from YOU, can be a pain in the butt.

In other words, in order to have strong adults, you must allow them to be strong children. In order for them to make good decisions as adults, they must be allowed to make decisions as a child.

It's a whole lot easier to learn to make good decisions by making bad SMALL decisions, than by making bad BIG decisions. Easier on them and easier on me. So it's important to let them make choices, even if you wouldn't make the same one.

Piled those blocks too high and they fell over? Try again.
Picked something you didn't like for lunch? No big deal.
Didn't wear a warm enough jacket, and got cold? Add a layer next time.
Left food on the counter and the cat ate it? Put it away.
Left a toy on the floor, then stepped on it and hurt your foot? Owie.

Or even: said something that got your friend really mad at you, and now they don't want to be your friend? Learn how to treat people respectfully, and/or learn how to move on.

I'd much prefer those sorts of mistakes than not coming all the way to a stop at a stop sign and causing an "accident," or an unplanned pregnancy, or going out alone in the wrong part of town and getting mugged (or worse), or any number of more serious mistakes.

Little mistakes can usually be fixed, or avoided in the future.
Big mistakes can mess you up for life.

So my theory is this: fail early, and fail often. Let your mistakes guide you to making better choices, better decisions. Help those in your life to be better decision makers by allowing them to make errors when the results won't be dangerous and then help them learn how to deal with those mistakes.

It may be the biggest favor you ever do them, and yourself.

Let me ask you a question

2008-11-10T15:25:00.002-05:00

I need to ask you something...
Why do you...?

It almost doesn't matter what the rest of the question is.

People in this culture (and maybe in others, but I'm not IN others, so I don't know) frequently do not like being asked questions, at all. For some reason, they tend to interpret questions as an attack.

I did not always know this.

I am a very curious person, as a rule, and often ask a lot of questions.
When I ask a question, I am most often looking for information.
The trouble is, people get very defensive, and I don't end up getting the information I was hoping for.
Amusingly, the very same people will often, later, say "You could have asked."

Clearly, there is an issue here.

I first became aware of the defensiveness when I had a partner who could not deal with questions at all. He responded to "Why did you...?" as if I had said "How on earth could you do such a stupid thing, you moron?" The problem was that I really wanted to know why he made the choice he made, so I could think about it, address the issue, and/or explain my side. Then, perhaps, with both of us having more information, we could make a better plan, or come to a better agreement. Instead he would just get pissed off, and accuse me of nagging him. He could not listen long enough to even find out whether I agreed with him, or not. "Why?" to him, ALWAYS meant I thought he was wrong.

I am absolutely sure I am not alone in this.
For a while, I thought it was men who interpreted questions from women as nagging, but that's not the entire story.

Sometimes, it's when someone is asked about something they don't really have an answer for.
Sometimes, it's being questioned about something for which they feel guilty.
Those situations, as annoying as they might be, at least make some sort of sense. People get defensive and evasive when they perceive themselves to be at a disadvantage, or somehow in the wrong.

But it isn't only that, either.

Take this example:

I once knew a student who could not deal with questions of any kind. She clammed up. Got upset. Got emotional. Couldn't answer. And it didn't matter what the question was about, at all. ANY question would do that. Even something as simple as "Did you eat breakfast this morning?"

She would overinterpret.
Why are you asking about breakfast? Are you saying I'm fat? Are you going to criticize what I ate? Is there some particular reason I was supposed to eat... or not eat...or...?
And then, she would overanalyze her answers.

She was, as people often are, trying to find the "right" answer. Trying desperately to give the answer she believed the asker to be trying to get. Not the TRUE answer mind you, but the RIGHT answer. There is a world of difference.

This difficulty with questions, I believe, comes from faults in the public education system. Lots of questions there, many of which don't matter, and most of which are used to "grade" someone, to decide their value, their importance, how popular they are. People are HIGHLY motivated to figure out what they are supposed to say, what they are supposed to think, what they are supposed to do. Again, it isn't about what is RIGHT to say, or think, or do, it isn't about what they actually think or believe, it's about trying to play this match game with the person in authority who is asking the questions.

This is a dangerous precedent to create for nearly all of our adult citizens.
People who grow up in an environment that is hostile to asking questions, and surrounded by questions they are supposed to already know the answers to and regurgitate on command, don't learn to really question things, and don't learn how to give AND SUPPORT their own answers rather than whatever has been fed to them.

Back to my experience with this student I knew.

When I was first learning to teach, one of the master's primary tools for teaching was questions. Lots of questions. Some leading questions, some not. Some genuine requests for information, some to see what I knew. Some- probably most- to get me to think, to evaluate, to understand, and then be able to explain my position well enough to teach it to another person, who would ALSO be able to understand and explain it.

Fortunately for me, I love questions.

Not so much, this other student.

I can recall many instances where, after much discussion and such, I would be asked a question. After I gave my answer, the master would ask "Are you sure?" or some variation thereof, like "Do you want to think about that further?"

Here is where my unusual education has been a great help to me.
I could answer the question. Sometimes yes, sometimes no, sometimes with more questions.

But what happened to this other student was instant paralysis. She invariably interpreted "Are you sure?" as MOST people with highly schooled backgrounds interpret it- the teacher's attempt to let you know that your answer was WRONG, and you need to change it. So change it, she would. And then, when asked to defend that answer... she had no idea what to do. She had backed herself into a corner. She behaved as if she felt guilty, when she had done nothing wrong, because the QUESTION ITSELF, but its very nature of being a question, made her ASSUME she must be guilty, of something.

It was... uncomfortable.

I remember being asked this many, many times. Sometimes, the answer was "yes, I'm sure." Sometimes, it was "...uh... no, not really," and that would lead to more discussion and clarification, which was the purpose of the question in the first place. And a few times, it was "yes, I'm absolutely sure," and upon further discussion, I would come across information that changed my perspective, and then, I would realize that I was BOTH absolutely sure, and WRONG.

Being sure, and being right, are not the same thing.
Being sure, and refusing to question, to constantly re-evaluate and clarify and think it through more, means that you might miss that bit of information that lets you find out that you were wrong, and you'll go on believing you were right. Not a good thing.

The other thing that becomes clear with being comfortable with being asked questions, is the distinction between fact and opinion. Some things are opinions, what I think. Some things are facts, what I know. And some things- this might be the largest category- are things I think I know.

Those things are always up for re-evaluation.

I'm big on "as far as I can tell with the information I have right now..." I have no problem with differentiating between what I really know, and what I think, and what I'm not even sure what I think about. If I'm asked a question I don't know the answer to, that's okay. If I'm asked a question that is critical of my position, that's okay, too. I can state my position, and defend it- and if I can't, then I need to get more information so that I can. That's not being wrong, it's simply not knowing. I know I don't know everything, so it doesn't embarrass me. I can say "I don't know." Or I'm not sure, or I hadn't thought about it, or I need more information, and be comfortable with that.

So let me ask you something...

Why are you afraid of questions?

obstacles, or, whatever it takes

2008-11-07T19:16:00.004-05:00

Okay, I probably shouldn't post this.

It requires much explanation, which will not be forthcoming. :-)

My father would say "there is more than one way to skin a cat" but that's a horrible image.

Posted to honor the hard work and joi de vivre of those involved.

Sometimes, indeed, play's the thing.

My place in the world

2008-11-07T09:48:00.011-05:00

I'm going to do something I haven't done much of... post some pictures.

I added sitemeter a while ago, so I could see if anyone is reading this. Didn't realize I would also find out how many different places people come from to get here.

Since I started keeping a list, there have been visitors from 62 distinct US cities, 29 different states, and 14 foreign countries. And these are only the ones that sitemeter can identify the location for- which isn't even half.

It's very interesting.
I wish I could go to all the places people come here from.
Sadly, I can't.

But I can show you a little of what it looks like here where I am. I happen to live, I think, in one of the most beautiful places there is.

These pictures were taken in early October, about a week before peak leaf color.

I walked outside after teaching a class on a Sunday afternoon, and after putting gear away in my car, I looked up and this is what I saw on a rare sunny day. This is taken from almost exactly in front of my parked car. A week or two later, that hillside would be even more colorful. In the winter, this part of the lake freezes over, and inevitably people walk out onto it. I've done so, years ago. The year I got my first camera for Christmas, we went to the lake, and I walked out on the ice and took a picture back towards the shore.

This was taken on my way home, from about two miles up the hill to the East. I usually drive a sightly different way home, coming over the hill a bit to the North of this, but I like the view coming this way. It's about a mile or two longer to get home, but worth it.

About a mile closer, coming down the hill. That part you can sort of see, between the hill I'm driving down, and the one on the other side, that altiplano area... that's the town I live in, in all its glory. And this is what the sky usually looks like.

Now, on the way home, a mile away, from the other direction. The previous picture was taken coming down the hill you can see in the distance, on a road almost directly across from this. Almost, but not quite- they are offset a few feet because a creek crosses the main road there, and there is a little bridge between the roads to the East and West.

Almost home! People who live here might be able to tell just how close. Or not- roads that look like this are very common. I kind of like the "artistic" blurriness in this one... I was driving, and took it through the windshield, the view I see.

One more.

This is one of my favorite little spots. It's on the way down the back side of the hill, and ends up at about the city limits, the end of the "miracle mile," heading into town. That would be the nearest city/town, not the town I actually live in. We don't have a miracle mile. We don't have a miracle FOOT. We don't have stores at all. No fast food, no gas station, no nothing.

I like it that way.

There's a guy who wants to change that soon, and put a gas station about a quarter mile from my house. As convenient as it might be in some ways, I hope he doesn't.

ode to the net

2008-11-06T19:44:00.002-05:00

Been thinking a lot lately.

Not writing much, sad to say.

A few nights ago, one of my sons and I went to an open play rehearsal for a work-in-progress. It was... interesting.

One of the characters in the play, a woman in her forties, had apparently never heard of the internet. A male character was trying to explain it to her, and at one point, in a flirtatious voice, she said "Tell me more about this little internet of yours..."

"This little internet" is an amazing thing.

I've been online almost as long as there has been an online. My life has been entirely changed because of people I met online, in ways I never could have predicted.

I thought I might write a little about some of the ways the internet has become an integral part of my life.

1. I have the most incredible source of information at my disposal, nearly instantly. Google has changed the world. And Google Maps makes it visible.

2. I know people in countries I've never visited, and can talk to them, realtime, for free.

3. Facebook. I never thought I would join facebook, never. But I did, and to my great surprise, it has delivered exactly what it claims to do- it has connected me to the people I know. And impressively, to people I used to know. I have reconnected with people I had not seen in thirty years. Old high school friends. And maybe, the one that amazes me most- I found a brother and sister from Iran, who I knew in Peru in 1977, and had not communicated with since then. Maybe the best thing about this is how low key it is- I can see a status message and have some idea of what is going on in people's lives, with no obligation on either side to keep writing back and forth.

4. Communication, communication, communication. Whether it's a note to a friend, or exchanging files for work, maintaining a website for my fire company, or keeping in touch with a group of women I've known online for a dozen years, homeschoolers all over the country. We talk politics and religion, exchange recipes, congratulate new grandmothers, discuss health issues and our kids. I read blogs written by other EMTs, by college professors, and by a number of friends and students or former students. I can post training schedules, and proofread publications. I can send notes to my kids, reply to posts on freecycle and let my students know when a class is canceled.

5. Tying up loose ends, and closing circles. I have been able to find some folks to whom I owe apologies, and apologize. In some cases, many years late, but at least I've been able to do so. Without the internet, I doubt I ever would have been able to do this.

6. The world is my marketplace. Ebay, the world's largest garage sale, where, among other things, I have been able to purchase swords I would never have been able to find locally because they do not exist here. Craigslist. Ticketmaster for tickets to just about anything, anywhere. amazon.com. The Fire Store. Anything I need, and can't find locally, I can find online. And I can pay for it through PayPal.

7. Fun stuff. iTunes. Youtube. xkcd! The potential for entertainment is unlimited.

8. This blog. :-)

Anyone reading this is already well aware of the internet- or you couldn't be here.

My point is that I've been appreciating how much this has become integrated into my life. College students were born after the internet; they have no idea how much life has changed.

But I do. It is nothing short of amazing.

Some guidelines

2008-10-19T16:08:00.005-04:00

When my children were very young, I had a conversation with my mother that has stuck in my mind since then.

She told me that I should not be so attentive to my children or their needs. That it was all fine and good to try to treat them respectfully and kindly, to anticipate and meet their needs, and to be gentle with them, but that I should not do so as much as I did because the rest of the world would not treat them that way, and they would not be prepared for that.

I said "Mom, are you saying that I should abuse my children so that if, someday, someone else abuses them, they'll be used to it???"

I was highly offended. Shocked, even.

I've come to see that perhaps there was a grain of truth to what she was saying.
Not that I should abuse my children, of course.
But that people who grow up in a loving environment really AREN'T prepared for the harsh realities of the world, sometimes.

The question is how to teach your children- or yourself- how to survive in a world that is often cruel and discourteous, where lies are rewarded more than truth, and where "go along to get along" seems to be the most popular motto.

I don't have the answer to that.

I do have some suggestions for things I think people need to know. Not so much to get along in this world, but to be able to live with themselves, with integrity intact. These things seem to be learned most frequently through living through unpleasant circumstances. This, I think, is what my Mom was getting at- that it is through the hard times that we learn most.

I would not artificially create hard times in order to teach these things to my children, but it is sadly not generally necessary to do so. Difficulties are plenty to be found.

1. The concept of cause and effect: understanding consequences
The most natural thing for a parent to do is to "make everything okay." They don't want their children to suffer, whether it's physical pain, or mental anguish, or any other emotional trauma. So they fix things. They hold their crying child and tell them everything is okay, that it isn't their fault. They tell the child not to "feel bad."

This is, sometimes, a disservice. If a child does something wrong, they SHOULD feel bad. That is how they learn not to repeat it. This does not mean making them feel worse, or punishing them, or holding a grudge. It does not mean refusing to help them deal with the situation. It just means that children should be allowed to own their mistakes, and feel what they feel.

What happens if a parent always makes things better is you end up with fledgling adults who have no idea how to deal with the consequences of their actions. They expect- sometimes demand- that someone else fix the problem. An example I see frequently is college students who skip classes where the only requirement is attendance, and then expect to pass anyway. Who expect an exception to be made for them.

The reality is that sometimes, mistakes happen. And sometimes, they can't be fixed. You can't go back in time and "undo" things. You can only move forward, and accept the consequences.

This is much easier if someone has learned that ALL actions have consequences.

2. How to be responsible for your actions
This naturally follows from accepting that there are consequence to your actions.

I don't think I ever really understood the concept of personal responsibility until I became a mother. I still remember the very moment. When my oldest son was a few days old, the day we came home from the hospital, I remember looking at him and realizing that his very LIFE depended on MY actions or inactions. I was responsible not only for my own life, but for another person's.

This is a huge realization.

I started to pay a lot more attention to what I did. I now had to consider the effects of everything I did or didn't do, on this other person. This meant considering a lot of consequences, from simple things like what I would do with the baby while I took a shower, to how long I would let him cry. And as he grew up, there were many other things to consider, and there continue to be, even as he is becoming an adult. I am a role model, 24/7. Everything I do, everything I say, affects how my children experience the world, and it is part of what is the ongoing creation of them as individuals.

What I figured out later on is that this is true all the time, with everyone I come in contact with, not just with my children. True, a parent is SUPPOSED to be a role model for their children, so there is a level of expectation of responsibility. But every person affects everyone else, and that is ALSO a responsibility.

To be responsible, first you must be aware.

Pay attention to what you choose to do. Make conscious choices.
Be aware of how you affect the people around you. You are not responsible for their actions, but you cannot ignore your contributions or pretend that you are never a catalyst. How you treat people matters.

Step up.
Acknowledge what you do.
This does not mean to brag about your accomplishments, but to be honest about your mistakes.
But also, be objective about your actions. Evaluate yourself fairly. Sometimes, you might do something that is NOT a mistake, and it's okay to own that, too. :-)

Constantly strive to improve the ratio of conscious choice to habitual action, and of appropriate actions to mistakes or "accidents."

When necessary, apologize. Immediately, if possible.

3. How to apologize
Most people do not know how to apologize. They are not taught to do so. They are, generally, expected to mouth the platitudes, but no one expects them to mean it. What child has not been told "Say you're sorry!" about something, at which point they say it, but then go on as if nothing happened?

A real apology has two important components.

The first is that it is simple, and is not clouded with a variety of excuses and whines.
Apologies don't start with "I'm sorry, but..."
They don't include a suggestion of fault in the other party.
Apologies are not about excuses. They are not even about reasons. Excuses and reasons matter far more to the person making them than to the offended party. They are an attempt to "not feel bad," in keeping with the usual early training of avoiding the consequences of mistakes. Salve to the conscience.

Not useful.

The second part of an apology is that it must be genuine.
For it to be genuine, there must be real, ongoing action taken to avoid the same mistake happening again.
If you do not attempt to avoid a recurrence, then you clearly were not sorry in the first place. If you regret what happened, you'll make sure it doesn't happen again.

4. How to keep your word
This one is pretty simple.
If you give your word, keep it.
If you say you'll do something, do it.

There are two parts to this one, too.

The first part is to be careful what you say and particularly what you say you will do. This doesn't mean semantic word-juggling, to avoid pinning yourself down. It's the same basic thing as I've already mentioned- make conscious choices.

The other part of this is to avoid trying to weasel out of anything, ever.
Do not make excuses, to others, or, most importantly, to yourself, about what you did or did not say you would do. Be clear in the first place. When in doubt, interpret things in the most honorable possible way. Not the most "convenient." If fixing a mistake comes down to inconveniencing either yourself or another person, choose yourself.

It all comes back, again, to what I learned as a brand new mother. Consider well the consequences of everything you say or do. Pay attention. Consider where things might lead before committing to a particular path.

Getting in the habit of this ability to stay aware and to anticipate possible problems may be one of the best things you learn how to do for yourself. One way I suggest for honing this skill is to become an assistant to someone, and learn to be the best possible assistant, anticipating every need, every possible error, and be prepared to handle any of it as smoothly as you can. Think ahead, but act in the moment.

5. How to be a friend

I have come across people who really do not know how to be a friend to someone.
It seems the popular culture definition of "friend" means what I would consider an acquaintance, if that. Facebook and MySpace are excellent examples of that, where people have long lists of "friends" which often include anyone they happen to be able to recognize on the street, or, even more interestingly, anyone who happens to ASK to be a "friend" online.

Yowza.

Another part of the popular definition seems to be that a friend is someone you hang out with, but have no other responsibility to. Like often happens in school cliques. "Best friends" today, enemies tomorrow, and what's the difference, really? As long as it's convenient to hang out, people do, and as soon as something better comes along, sayonara, baby.

That's not friendship.

Friendship is a relationship, a commitment.
Relationships require effort.

I had someone tell me recently that she was not interested in any "friendship" or relationship that took effort. She believed that "friends" should just be that way, no effort required, and certainly no responsibilities other than what suited her mood at the time.

She's young and inexperienced (although I'm sure she would argue that point). I have had relationships last longer than she has been alive.

Any real relationship requires effort, especially in the area of communication. Also, to be a friend requires consideration of the other person's feelings, of their needs, and of their preferences.

In my book, being a friend means something along these lines: "I will give to you the best of myself I am able to give, and I will help you to do the same for me."

This means being able to call your friend on their bullshit, even if that's uncomfortable. It means being absolutely honest with them, and continually working to improve communication, checking and double checking to be sure that things are clear between you. It means not taking them for granted, while also being able to depend on them, and having them be able to depend on you. It means offering- and accepting- help when needed. It is a give and take, a two way street, a meeting of minds and hearts, where both people give more than 50%.

And it is chock full of the other stuff I've talked about so far- consequences, being responsible for your actions, apologies, and keeping your word.

In other words, effort. Paying attention.

6. How to be poor
This one is a little different than the rest.
It has to do with appreciating what you have.
And it has to do with keeping in mind that you may not always have it.

Learn how to make do with less. Don't waste things- whether they are material things, or relationships with people. Have a plan for how you will get by if things get worse because, I can almost guarantee it, they will.

When I was growing up, we didn't have a lot. I didn't feel poor at the time, most of the time, but it was clear that we didn't have or do the same things a lot of other people had or did.

When I was first out on my own, at one point I was supporting two people on a part time minimum wage job.
We had a place to sleep, and didn't starve, so what's the big deal?
We could not, however, do things that many people took for granted- like having a car, going to a cheap movie, eating at a restaurant, or buying new clothes.

It was not a particularly fun time. But it probably was one of the most beneficial times of my life because I gained an appreciation for what we did have, for earning my way, and especially an understanding that what someone earns is not who they are, and certainly is not their "value" as a person.

So now, when my kids and I have financial difficulties, we are well acquainted with figuring out how to make do with what we have on hand instead of running to the grocery store every day. It's not such a big deal- and I am glad, for them, that they will never panic at the thought of not having money for a few days.

This is not, by any means, an all-inclusive list. Just some of the stuff from conversations I've been having lately.

Too little, too late

2008-10-16T15:55:00.002-04:00

I'm getting worried.

Fencing, real fencing, is very close to passing from this world.

There are very, very few real fencing masters left.

There are plenty of coaches, and instructors, and people who believe they are teaching fencing.

But those who are able to pass on the knowledge, the theory- the art, science and spirit of the sword?

Damned few.

There are many reasons for this, ranging from lack of time, to lack of opportunity, and a variety of other things in between. I could write at length about any of them. The fact that people do not need to rely on the sword to defend themselves is a very good thing- but it means that very few ever do what is necessary to gain the skill to actually be able to do so.

So, you may ask, if people don't need the sword, then why does it matter if the skill and knowledge of it disappear?

Fair question.

It's not that I expect some sort of apocalypse, where people will suddenly find themselves needing to fend off attackers- although, the way things are going, that certainly could happen.

And it isn't that I think it's important to save the knowledge simply for the sake of saving it, for history, or some such. Although I could make an argument for that, too.

It is that as the foil is the training weapon for the sword, fencing itself is an excellent training method for so much else.

Self control, both physical and emotional.
Integrity.
Honor.
An understanding of conflict, and the ability to manage it.
An appreciation of the truth of combat, of what it is like to face death, and to be able to cause it, so as to avoid the necessity of doing either.
An understanding that some laws can't be broken, that who you are, what you have, who you know, or what you say does not matter.
An understanding that it is not what you meant to do, but what you actually do that counts.
Likewise, the understanding that it is what your opponent actually does that matters, not what they intended to do, or might do in the future.

It is easy to mouth these concepts and give lip service to them. Most people know what is right- they just don't do it if it is difficult.

It is difficult to put your body where your mouth is, so to speak, and to put in the mental and physical labor and effort required to really know these things. To live them. To control not only your thoughts- or absence of thought- but your emotions, actions and reactions, to the level of reflexes.

If there ever was a time that the world needs people able to do this, it is now. We live in a time of madmen, when those in power routinely send OTHERS to risk their lives, to kill other people, for reasons that are largely about power and money and most of all, greed.

Most people, whether anyone wants to admit it or not, live at the level of sheep. Living how they are expected to live, doing what they are told, keeping their mouths shut, and going along to get along because they perceive anything else as too dangerous, too "weird," or too something else undesirable to be able to step out of their perceived safe little worlds to take action. Shakespeare's Hamlet was written how long ago, and we still have the same damned problem?

Fencing is not a sport.
It is not a game.
It is not a recreational pastime.

If it was, I wouldn't give a damn what happens to it. It wouldn't matter. There are billions of games to play.

But it may well be one of the only accessible ways left for people to learn some vitally important things for the very survival of any real "civilization."

It is a shame that almost no one recognizes or believes that. Certainly not enough to keep it around for very much longer at all.

All of us who care will do everything in our power, for as long as we can, I'm sure.

I don't believe it will be enough.

Me, cynical??

Go ahead.
Prove me wrong.
Anyone.
I'd be delighted.

I have to share

2008-10-14T14:06:00.001-04:00

The library book sale has yielded, as usual, a surprise find.

Possibly my favorite, ever.

It's a small book. Sixty-three pages. and it has more interesting history in it than I've read almost anywhere else.

There is no way to tell how much of it is completely factual- it is likely that there are exaggerations, given the nature and subject of the stories.

But it is a wildly entertaining read, and has been the subject of read-aloud fun here for days now.

So I have to share some of it.

It's hard to choose...

The book was published in 1977, written by Bob Robinson.

The title? "Ithaca Fire Department."

I knew we were in for something when I opened it and the first line reads:

"Several centuries ago the Scandinavians had a God they called Thor."

Some choice tidbits:

"On June 6, 1823 a bunch of the leading businessmen voted to purchase a hand pumper, of the gooseneck type, so that water could be forced through a short length of hose and nozzle to the scene of the fire. A fire company was formed and a hand engine ordered from New York at a cost of $350. It arrived near the end of the summer."

"...on May 12, 1828 another fire company was formed and a new hand engine ordered.

When the new machine arrived it proved so much better than the previous engine the original company wanted it for their own. The new apparatus already had "RESCUE COMPANY TWO" painted on the sides of it, so after much bickering it was agreed that the original company would become company two and the neophytes would be company number one. Thus company two is the oldest."

-------

"Let's go back a bit so as to build up to the year of 1845. Luther Gere came to Ithaca in the early days with a few bucks in his pocket. He started a lumber business and built the Ithaca Hotel. After a few years he was persuaded that prospects were better in Ohio so he sold the hotel, and the lumber business, and headed west.

In 1818 Luther returned to Ithaca. Opportunities for making money were just as good here as in Ohio. He constructed the Columbia Inn on the northwest corner of Owego and Cayuga Streets. When it was completed, in 1819, business flourished but being convenient for the clientele living west of Albany Street, the atmosphere of the Inn changed. One evening, in 1831, Guy Clark brought his wife in for considerable elbow bending.

Before morning Guy had swung an axe through her head. He was tried and hung, the first hanging in Ithaca, on the grounds now occupied by the Fall Creek School. He was buried there but before morning the body had disappeared presumably for the use of a doctor in making further studies in anatomy.

After the Guy Clark episode the Columbia Inn lost it's business. The building was torn down and parts of the lumber were bought by a Mr. Carson who constructed a tavern on the west side of Cayuga Street between Owego and Green Streets. People knew where the lumber came from and refused to patronize the tavern so it was sold to a Mr. Franklin who converted it into the "Franklin House." It still had some sort of stink about it so people would walk on the other side of the street instead of passing it's door."

-------

Some notes:
"Owego Street" is now State Street.
The corner where the Columbia Inn stood is the same location as the most recent fire in Ithaca's downtown business area, this past January.
I don't know the exact location of the Franklin House, but it is approximately where the Lost Dog cafe is now. I'll see if I can get more information.
Ithaca no longer has "companies," as such. The different stations are the descendants of the original companies. There is no longer a station one or two. The current Ithaca Stations are Central, Five, Six, and Nine. None are in their original locations, although Nines is very close.

Betwixt and between

2008-10-09T16:21:00.001-04:00

Did one of my favorite exercises in class yesterday. It was the first time that class practiced changing from the guard of sixte to the guard of quarte, and back.

It appeals to me for two main reasons.

The first is mathematical precision. One of the things about fencing that I love most is that when you execute things correctly, it is not dependent on strength or speed, or on the strength, speed, or skill of your opponent. When you are absolutely precise, you have all of math and physics on your side.

And you can't beat math and physics. Some laws can't be broken.

I love that.

The other thing I love is the simplicity.

To change between these two guards requires a movement of your hand of about a few inches.

You might think this is a very simple change- and it is.

But, as usual, it is not that movement of the hand that is the difficulty.
It is everything else.

What we are looking for is independent, yet coordinated, movement of several body parts. There must be some movement of the rest of the arm- or the hand can't move, right? There is progressively less movement in the arm, the further from the hand you go. So the elbow moves a couple of inches, but the shoulder barely adjusts its angle.

And then there is the sword.
For nearly all of these students, the sword is still a thing in their hands, and they have to be able to move IT in a coordinated way, when they do not yet have the facility to make subtle movements of the sword without gross movements of the body.

So what usually happens is this:

The first move, from sixte to quarte, goes relatively okay.
But going BACK to sixte... not so easy.
That elbow insists on taking the lead much of the time.

Or, the other common alternative:
on that first move, the student will turn their body and move their shoulder, in order to get their hand where they want it.

Both of these errors come from the same place as most errors at this stage: a lack of "connectedness" between the student and the sword, and between the student and his or her body.

It's like an infant.
A newborn has no muscle tone. When you pick them up, they come up all akimbo, arms and legs and neck floppy and in need of support. But a few weeks later, pick up the same baby, and they come up "in one piece," as a unit. They have become connected to themselves.

New students- and by "new," I mean relatively new, which can go on for years for some things- have the same thing going on. They are not yet able to execute fencing movements in a coordinated way, so arms and legs, elbows, shoulders and hands, often go places they did not consciously intend. They then have to make corrections- which often continue the same pattern, of not being entirely controlled.

This is why I love the simplest exercises most of all.

This is the level one must work at to incorporate fencing, to reach the level of unconscious control that is required. Start at the beginning, with a move that requires very little change. Work to be able to change only what needs to change, while everything else remains the same. Then, progressively add complexity. Make that simple movement of the hand, while simultaneously taking a step. Just that, a movement of the hand, simultaneous with a movement of the foot, can take hours and hours of devoted practice to master. Then, add a movement of the blade. Hand, foot, and blade precisely coordinated.

It is a thing of beauty.

But it takes a while.

Until then, it is as I mentioned before, with students who are so focused on that thing in their hands that they seem to forget they even have a body.

The first attempts to manipulate that "thing" go something like this:

Start the first movement.... ack! urgh! yikes! whoops! ... end up... somewhere.

All that part in the middle- they have no awareness of, whatsoever. None. As if time skips that part, and the only things that exist are the beginning, and the ending, with no middle.

This is partly because they cannot yet divide time very well or easily, but that's for another post.

Another part is something I've mentioned a couple of times- they are in a hurry, and rush to the end.

But mostly, it is because they don't know where, or what, the middle is supposed to be. They conceive of every action as where it begins and where it ends.

This is another one of my favorite fencing math moments. :-)

Part of what I try to help students understand is that fencing movements are not made up of pairs of points- the beginning, and the end- but are vectors, of a sort. They have both a magnitude and a direction. It is not only where you end up, but HOW you get there that is important. The entire pathway, mentally and physically, from beginning, through the movement, to the end. How you move, when you move, where you move, why you move, and what all you refrain from moving, all are important.

We do not teleport.

There is, and must be, a "between."

That is where fencing is.
Between.
Between space, and between time.

It works best when you can mentally be there, too.

It happened so fast

2008-10-06T21:12:00.002-04:00

I just learned this evening that the woman who taught my EMT-I class over the summer, died suddenly this past Friday.

The person who told me, and whoever told him, had no information on how she died. None of us knew of anything in particular going on that would make this expected, by any means.

I'm stunned.

I was just thinking about her today, intending to e-mail her and check in, see how things were going, and share my own situation and progress.

I guess I won't be able to do that.

All I can think about is that she didn't know this was coming. She hadn't planned for it. I'm sure there were tons of things she intended to do that now won't get done. I know she was spending a fair amount of time caring for her dog, who had had surgery and needed assistance in getting around. Who is going to do that now? She was the director of a paramedic program near here... what happens to those students? To the program? She had plans for changing it over to do more online, and had worked very hard on that. Now what?

What about her family?

She never got to retire. She never got to do whatever it is she would have wanted to do in those years. Whatever it might have been.

The thing is, of course, and you KNOW this, but like most people, probably avoid thinking about it- we're all going to die. None of us know when. And for most of us, it will be unexpected; the timing, at least.

I have done some things in the past couple of years that I had wanted to do for most of my life, and that's a good thing.

But, of course, there are more things I want to do. Want to see. Want to know.
There are things I have planned- from simple things, like going to the library book sale this weekend, to more complex things, like eventually becoming a paramedic. From getting the groceries, to watching my kids mature, and eventually being a grandmother.

There is no way to know whether I will do any of them.
There is no way to know if I will wake up in the morning.
A time will surely come when I won't.

And I can't do a damned thing about it.
I can't live life any faster, to get things done more quickly- or any slower, to postpone the ending.

Surely you jest

2008-10-03T23:04:00.002-04:00

If all you knew about me is what's in this blog, you might get the impression that I'm a pretty serious person.

I am.
Sometimes.
About some things.

But not always.

I have a ridiculous streak about a mile wide.

I was a professional clown for a few years way back when.

I love silly hats. Used to have a fairly large collection of them, but most of them did not survive our fire. They took a direct hit. I have a picture somewhere of the "remains," including a bug-eyed fish hat, where the eyes were the only part that was still recognizable.

And then there's the story about the time I got half a school bus of high school kids drunk, on Dr. Pepper. Almost got in a whole lot of trouble over that one, until I managed to finally convince the teachers that there really WASN'T any alcohol in it. It's not MY fault if everyone thought there was, and acted accordingly.
Or the time, when I was about 12, that a group of us stole the back seat out of the school bus, carrying it past the driver, who was apparently distracted. (We gave it back.)

There are numerous chicken dance stories. A couple of fern helmet stories.
And, contrary to what some people insist on believing, I did NOT lick that chair!

I have a tendency to come up with cockamamie ideas, and then get people to join in. "You know what we should do...?" either makes people run and hide, or run to sign up.
I have a surprising lack of embarassability in public. Or maybe that's simply no sense of shame... depends on your perspective.

Anyhoo... I've been noticing that I tend to write about the serious stuff. Most of the blogs I enjoy reading are pretty funny... and mine isn't.

Ah, well. C'est ça.

testing, testing...

2008-10-01T19:48:00.001-04:00

As a mother, I know quite well that children are obligated to test their parents. They need to find out what the rules are- not what you SAY the rules are- in order to know how to function in that environment.

In our classes, the students also do this. For the same reason- to know whether we really mean what we say.

We do.

It often comes as something of a surprise. You may have noticed that there are plenty of times and places when people do NOT mean what they say, or at the very least, give mixed messages.

This morning was the first of one of our current series' of classes where I was teaching alone, so it was the first time this group of students had the opportunity to test me, rather than the master.

They did. A couple of them decided they wanted to talk during class.

They will likely not do so again. :-)

It is almost inevitable that this happens in the classes where we teach together. The first time I'm there alone, they all think that somehow, I'm the "nice" one or something, and they can relax the rules. I'm not, and they can't. Maybe they make that assumption because I'm female. Maybe it's because I'm generally softer.

The thing is, I can't afford to be the "nice" one, and get any respect. Doesn't mean I have to be rude, or overpowering, or anything- but I inevitably have to assert my authority. The bad part of this is I'm a firefighter, not a cop. If I wanted to be a cop, I'd be one. I'm a relatively easygoing person almost all the time, and I dislike having to pull rank and be a hardass.

The good part is that I'm perfectly capable of doing so when circumstances require it.

We had a brief discussion of this after the class today, how it always happens the first time I'm there alone. If the master was there, it wouldn't happen, so he never sees it. They don't test him in the same way, or with the same regularity, and they don't test me if he's there. Why do they not? At least partly because he LOOKS scary, and has an aura of control and, well, masterliness. So they don't dare. He can be relaxed and verbally gentle, because his obvious strength is enough to keep them from daring to try anything. I, on the other hand, have to prove myself, to every class. Because I am naturally more soft and yielding, both physically and otherwise, I have to demonstrate my strength- or they can't see it.

It is somewhat interesting to observe the reactions to this situation that is not... quite... what they expect.

It's a little different with my regular students than it is with the new ones. The regular ones already know what is expected, and don't do so much testing. I can be much more relaxed with them, almost all of the time. An occasional reminder that we are not just hanging out is all that is necessary to keep the class focused. The main thing I have to watch out for in the regular classes is that no one ever has the opportunity to confuse "relaxedness" with "laxness." As long as everyone stays focused (myself included), it's not a problem.

... and don't do anything else

2008-09-29T00:00:00.002-04:00

We introduced the weapons in class today.
This is always the most challenging class.

If we lived in a less hurried time, when skill with a sword was both valued and necessary, we would not be introducing the weapons anywhere near this early. We would be teaching people who are already familiar with swords, and with the process of learning to use one, and they would know coming in that it was going to take a long time.

But we don't live in that world.
When I was a La Leche League Leader, we had to recognize that many women were not at all familiar with breastfeeding, that most new mothers had not been breastfed, and had not ever seen anyone breastfeed, or known anyone who had done so, so they came to us with absolutely no knowledge or understanding of even the basics.
Teaching fencing, we similarly have to realize that no one comes to our classes with any level of familiarity with a sword. The closest most of them come is having seen swords in movies- and most of what they have seen bears no resemblance to actual swordfighting at all. Anyone with experience "fencing" elsewhere usually has done what has even less resemblance to swordfighting than the movies.

So our introductory classes are not really to teach people how to fence. That can't possibly be done in ten or twelve weeks.

What we teach is enough familiarity, enough of a "taste" of the sword, that they can then decide whether it is something they wish to pursue. At that point, if they continue, the pace slows down considerably.

So.

Here we were today, introducing swords very early. Most of the students, of course, would consider it to be very late, wanting to have started whacking each other in the first class, but that's another story.

The reality is that some of the students are simply not ready to handle a sword. They're just not. They can't really handle themselves yet. So our task becomes not to let anyone injure themselves or anyone else.

We do this mostly by not allowing them close enough to each other to hit anyone.

The other part of how we do that is to have very strict safety rules, which include doing what they are told, when they are told, how they are told, and not doing anything else.

It's the "not doing anything else" part that seems to be most difficult.

Especially for the youngest ones.

They fidget.
They wiggle.
They swing their arms.
They look everywhere except where they are going.

Trouble is, they can't do those things AND handle a sword safely.

The challenge of the day is this:

How can you tell whether someone CAN'T do something (like stand still) or whether they are choosing NOT to do it?

As Spartacus Jones says over in his blog, about a slightly different subject, there are three reasons why someone does not do what you ask:

1. He does not UNDERSTAND what you want.
2. He physically CAN’T do what you want.
or
3. He REFUSES to do what you want.

How do you know which of these three is the case? And what do you do about them?

I'll start with the first one: understanding.

First of all, it's my responsibility to present the material in a way that they CAN understand it.
Then, to observe what they do closely enough to be able to see if they are attempting to do what they have been instructed, or not, and to make any necessary corrections.

By far, most of them, most of the time, appear to be doing just that- attempting to do what they've been shown and told to do. They may have differing levels of ability to do so, but they are at least trying. Some might need other teaching methods before they really understand what they need to do- not everyone learns the same way- so in addition to being shown and told, they might need to have me physically put their body in the right positions, to feel it. Almost all of the time, once the student understands what they are to do, they set about working on doing it.

But not always.

Once in a while, we'll have a student who physically can't do something. Might be because of a prior injury. We have had students with conditions ranging from a broken bone, to a brain injury, to a lack of flexibility due to a previous surgery, or a congenital condition of some sort. Might be because of their developmental level (this is usually the issue).

In these cases, they mostly need more time and practice, and occasionally need a slight alteration or adaptation of technique, either temporarily, in the case of an injury, or permanently, in the case of a congenital condition. These students benefit from a slower pace, and generally do fairly well as long as they stick to that slower pace, and learn what they are able to do as they develop or heal.

And rarely, we have a student who appears to understand what is being asked of him, seems to be physically capable of doing it... but still doesn't. These students need to be dismissed from the class. Period.

The toughest part of teaching is that sometimes, it is difficult to tell which case we are dealing with. There are a variety of clues and signs, but they are not always clear, and sometimes contradict each other.

The other part of this question is whether it MATTERS what the reason is why a student is not behaving appropriately. Does it matter whether they don't understand, can't do it, or are refusing to do it?

The answer is yes... and no.

If the difficulty is something that is not a safety issue, then sure, we can work with whatever is going on and check to be sure the students fully understands, or ascertain if there is some physical difficulty. We can take the time to figure out what is going on, and to help them adjust their behavior.

But if it is a safety issue- swinging themselves around, waving the sword around uncontrollably, or not paying attention in class, then regardless of the reason, we simply have to stop it RIGHT THEN. Questions and such can happen later. But during the class, that means we have to step in, take the sword, and have the student sit out.

You can imagine how popular this is.

One of the most valuable things I have learned about teaching, by far, is when and how to do this.

When is easy.
Immediately.

How is a little more complicated, but not much.

The key is this:

Sitting someone out isn't a personal beef.
I'm not angry at them.
I'm not punishing them.
I am simply removing a dangerous situation from my class.

It isn't about being the boss, or being controlling, or telling them all what to do out of some desire for power. And it isn't unfairly depriving anyone of anything.

Sometimes, if I suspect that there might be difficulties (for example, if we have a large number of very young students), I'll tell the class up front that this is the situation. That sometimes, people are just not ready to use a sword yet, and we are not going to put them into a situation that they cannot safely handle. That they may be asked to sit out temporarily, and to watch for a while. That sometimes, even people who have had no difficulty before may have a day where they are not able to handle a sword safely- maybe they are tired, or not feeling well- and we may ask them to take a break. Nothing personal. As soon as they are able to safely participate again, they are welcome to do so.

Sometimes, there are certain groups of kids who, for whatever reason, don't take us seriously when we discuss the rules. Kids who thrive in this culture of whining and complaining, of fooling around, and of doing whatever they can to get attention. They believe the rules don't apply to them, or that we don't REALLY mean not to do ANYTHING else. They need to understand- quickly- that our class atmosphere does not allow those indulgences.

For these kids, the key is to put a stop to it the moment any one of them does anything at all that they are not told to do, so they understand that we are serious. Usually, it only takes one or two of these instantaneous, focused, "reminders" for the whole class to settle down. For all of them to understand that it is NOT cute or funny or in any way appropriate to be incompetent or discourteous. And to understand that if they want to learn to use a sword, appropriate behavior is required.

But the thing that I learned from the master that is so valuable about all of this is what happens next.

What happens next is that when it's over, it's over. There is no ongoing attitude or punishment or anything. As long as there are no safety issues, I'm fine with whatever level of ability a student has. I don't expect them to do what they are not able to do. I don't expect "perfect" behavior. And I don't keep some sort of "black list" in my head of the "misbehaving" kids. It's all in the moment. That day. That class. That drill.

It's very simple.

Follow instructions.
Do what you are told and nothing else.
Put in your best effort.
Take the study of the sword seriously.
As long as you are able to do these things, you are welcome in my class.

If you can't do these things, then whatever the reason is, you simply can't be there. I will not risk your safety, or the safety of other students.

Period.

You wouldn't enjoy the class or learn the skills, anyway. It would be far better for you to spend your time doing something else, something you really want and are able to do, and come back to fencing some other time, if you're still interested.

On becoming the sword

2008-09-26T20:41:00.002-04:00

When I first started out, I thought that the goal was to reach a point where the sword becomes an extension of my body. Something I had control over, somewhat like a part of my arm.

Then I thought no, I needed to become an extension of the sword. To take on the characteristics of the sword myself, becoming part of it, rather than it becoming part of me. I thought this revelation was quite clever, at the time.

The truth is not really either of those, and not a combination of the two, but something else entirely. A connection that cannot be fathomed before getting there.

The "getting there" part is infinitely fascinating.

I was pondering this while observing the classes today.

There is a process that is observable and predictable. People don't go through all the parts of it at the same pace, or in the same order, but they do have to go through them all. No shortcuts.

First off, it is very clear that when students start to work with a sword, it is a VERY separate thing from themselves. It is an inanimate object that they hold in their hand (or hands).

For some people, adding a sword to their learning experience makes them focus entirely on the sword, the weapon in their hands. These people hold on with a death grip. They tense every muscle, and pour huge amounts of energy and effort into wielding this strange new thing. In so doing, they lose all awareness of the movement of their bodies, and throw themselves off balance with nearly every movement. It is as if the sword moves of its own accord, and they struggle to hang on and keep up. With every movement, the tension increases, and every error of line is magnified. They come up on their toes, like a ballerina, and assume postures never before imagined, without realizing until afterwards where they are, and not knowing exactly how they even got there.

For others, adding the sword doesn't really change the struggle they are going through to control their bodies. They hardly hold onto it- and sometimes drop it. They look all around the room, trying to figure out their place in it, or simply not paying much attention to what they are looking at, with all their energy and effort going inwards, to try to keep from tripping over themselves. Some are relatively successful with the not falling over part, and others are not. Either way, the sword flails about fairly wildly, all over the place as they move about. They are not able to control the point of the weapon at all, and often are not even aware that they are not doing so. They appear to be unaware that they are pointing their swords in vastly different directions than anyone else, because they are not able to pay attention to that many things at once. They are not stupid- they are preoccupied.

These are fairly extreme descriptions of the beginnings of developing sentiment du fer. Each student will vary in which of these they are experiencing, and to what degree, at any given time, but they will all do both of these at some point, sometimes alternating between the two during the same class.

Part of what I find fascinating is how easy it is to observe a group and see where they are on this continuum. It is very easy to see from the outside what it is not easy to control from the inside.

When teaching, being aware of which of these situations a particular student is experiencing helps tremendously in knowing what they need to work on next, and why. The goal- or A goal- is to assist the student in incorporating the sword, in being able to shift focus at will and by necessity, rather than becoming "trapped" by an inability to control where they need to focus. Sometimes, I must control their focus for them, until they are able to do so. Other times, I provide a nudge, a suggestion, a direction, and they are able to follow.

When someone is trying to communicate in a language other than their native tongue, it is often possible to deduce what language they translate FROM by the types of errors they make. Likewise with the sword. Certain errors, or patterns of errors, are characteristic of certain people, and of certain difficulties they have in other aspects of their lives.

How do they deal with tension?
How do they approach new or unfamiliar situations?
What do they do when something unexpected happens, when things don't go as planned?
How well do they filter out distractions?
How aware are they of their space? Their body?

All of these will be reflected in how they handle a sword. Unerringly. This is why the study of the sword will teach you an enormous amount about your true self, if you are able to really look, and not give in to the temptation to avoid looking, or to make excuses, because it is often uncomfortable.

Fencing is about balance. About control. All of the exercises we do are to train the body- and the mind- to do exactly what is intended, in a coordinated and precise way.

In order to do this, every exercise must be done with care, with focus, with intent.
As the master says, practice slowly to learn quickly.

Make each movement as if it is the only one.
Do not anticipate the next movement. (This is very, very challenging, since anticipation, in some circumstances, is a survival skill.)
When it is necessary to move your body, focus on your body.
When it is necessary to move the sword, focus on the sword.
Yes, this means that if both must move at the same time, you MUST focus on BOTH.
In order to do this, you must be able to filter out everything that is unimportant and unnecessary.
And in order to do that, you must first learn how to TELL what is and is not important or necessary!

This takes some time.

The most common error, by FAR, of new students, and even of experienced students, is to go too fast.
To start combining things, taking shortcuts. To prioritize ease, and comfort, rather than precision.

Slow down. (Hmmm... where have I heard this before?)

Think of it this way:
Rarely is it necessary to be able to do anything with the level of precision required to be able to control yourself, your sword, and your opponent.
Even a brain surgeon only has to control two of the three. They control the "opponent" by rendering them unconscious. Chemical control. Plus, their "opponent" isn't trying to kill them at the same time.

You don't get to do that.
You have a live, conscious, dangerous, armed person to deal with.

Anything you can control, you MUST control.

Otherwise, you don't stand a chance.

Slow down.
Feel.
Breathe.
Relax.
Let the sword teach you.

Hearts of Fire

2008-09-25T20:19:00.001-04:00

I met some incredible women this past weekend, and have been trying ever since to figure out how to put into words some of the thoughts, experiences and impressions I had. There is so much that it's difficult to find a single thread of thought to express it all.

Some of these women were at Ground Zero, and that, in itself, would be enough of a story to tell. But truthfully, we didn't discuss that day. We talked mostly of the future, not the past.

Some of these women are ground breakers. The first to do things no woman had ever done. Impressive things. First woman battalion chief in FDNY. First woman to be promoted into an elite rescue company in FDNY. But I only know this because I did some research afterwards. They never mentioned it.

I think that's what affected me most.

They don't talk about doing heroic things.
They DO them.
And they work very hard to encourage young women to find their way, to excel, and to live what is in their hearts of fire.
They specifically want to help MY daughter to follow in their footsteps. The best mentors she could possibly have.

And.
They're simply women.
Extraordinary women, at times.
But ordinary women, too.

Mothers. Sisters. Lovers. Friends.

Carbon dating, of sorts

2008-09-19T08:10:00.002-04:00

Had some online fun last night.

No, not that kind. :-)

My oldest discovered that Google Maps had updated their maps of our area. We used to be able to zoom in only far enough to see vague greenish fuzzy blobs for most of this area. Now, we can zoom in far enough to see a whole lot more.

So we embarked on a game, of sorts, to try to figure out WHEN the new pictures were taken. We have it narrowed down to sometime between March 4 and June 30, 2007.

We did this by looking for things that we know had changed, and that we know WHEN they changed.

That barn that burned? Not there in the picture, so it has to have been taken after that fire. The image shows the burned house of a couple of my students, so it has to have been after their fire, but before the house was demolished. The trailers we lived in after our fire ARE in the picture, so it has to have been before we moved back into our house.

Some people date by tree rings.
We apparently date by fire damage.

We tried looking at area construction- and there is plenty of that!- but we didn't know the dates of different parts of the construction process well enough to narrow things down any further.

Anyhow.

Try it.

Look at where you live, see how far you can zoom in, and see if you can find details that tell you when the picture was taken.

Dancing in the moonlight

2008-09-16T16:25:00.003-04:00

Had the opportunity to spend some time a couple of nights ago, out in the night, with brisk winds and a beautiful full moon.

I love being out in a storm. Always have.

Of course these days, "being out in a storm" isn't always just to enjoy the feel of the dropping air pressure, the wind in my face, the sense of anticipation in the air.

Our first call a couple of nights ago was for a tree on wires, causing sparks.
Never found it.
Apparently, whatever it was that whoever saw, had corrected itself somehow before we got there.
Those who responded to the call stood out in the night for a while, enjoying it, and then headed back home for bed. Not everyone is sociable at 2:00am.

About the time I fell asleep, the pager went off again. This time, for our "sister company," the other company in our district, to go mutual aid to a neighboring town for what turned out to be a large barn fire. Not for us. We listened in on the scanner for a while, and then, back to bed.

About the time I fell asleep, the pager went off again, and, for the third time, I rolled over on my poor dog on my way out of bed.

Off we go again, for a tree down across the road.

Which it was. Large tree, for once. Covered in wild grapevines. And all the way across the road. This is going to take some time and effort.

So we parked the truck, and set out to mitigate the hazard. Hazard Mitigators 'Я Us.

Gear on? Check.
Chocked the truck. Check.
Set up the scene lights. Check.
Started the generator for the lights. Check.

While my partner went to get the chainsaw, I started to evaluate the tree, to see where we should start.

I took about two steps from the truck.

Looked up.

And now that we had the scene lights on, saw what we could not see in the shadows.

Power lines.
Going from a pole... to the ground.

A few feet in front of the truck.

We rapidly formulated a different plan. An orderly retreat, of sorts.

At this point, all we could do was get out of range and wait for NYSEG. Which we did.
For four hours.

Watched the trees swaying in the wind- gusts of 40-50mph.
Communed with the deer and chipmunks.
Saw the sun rise. Stood through a couple of brief rain showers, as light and delicate as the morning air.

And we got a good reminder of a thing or two, which I would like to share.

All guns are loaded.
All swords are sharp.
All dogs bite.
And all downed trees are on power lines.
(Either that, or they have an ectopic pregnancy, until proven differently.)(A little EMT humor.)

Look into the shadows.
Look up.
Whatever you do...
Check.

Off to a good- if crowded- start

2008-09-14T16:08:00.000-04:00

Second class of a ten class series today.

Brand new students.
40-something of them.

That is a whole lotta people to fit into one class!

We're splitting them up next week, but for some of the introductory introductory stuff, it's good to have them all there and only have to go over stuff once. That way we know they all heard it, and they all heard it the same way.

It also gives me a chance to evaluate them, in order to make the best decision for splitting the group.

That was my task today.

41 students.
5 of whom have taken a class before, so I know who they are.

That leaves 36 names and faces to learn in a hurry.

Tried something today that I hadn't tried before- nametags.
The good thing about nametags is that I can keep associating name with face.
The bad thing is that a good, sweaty class does not bode well for stick-on nametags.

I had three primary goals for the class.

1. Safety. As always, the top priority.
2. Have one-on-one interactions with EVERY student, by name, at least half a dozen times each.
3. Get enough of a general idea of the group to be able to make the decision on how to split them.

Priority number one was covered.
Priority two as well.

Now for number 3: how to divide the group.

The question, of course, is how DO I make the decisions on how to split the group?

I look at a variety of things.

1. General body awareness level. How coordinated are they? Is this someone who is accustomed to physical activity, or not?
2. Level of focus and attention. Some of this is indicative of the level of interest, and some is a developmental issue.
3. Are there any kids who need to be in separate classes because they might become disruptive if left together?
4. Likewise, are there any who need to stay together? Siblings. Carpoolers. Best friends who want to take the class together.

For both three and four, it is important to watch interactions between students. Some combinations work very well together, they each encourage the other to excel, and some work the other way around, dragging each other down.

5. Age and gender. Not to discriminate, but because I like to have the classes maintain a balance, if possible. This is way down on the priority list, but if it's possible to keep a mixed group, I like to do that. This is different from most places where they try to group LIKE ages and genders.

Sometimes, with some classes, the split will be along skill level lines, but in an intro class, there are not different skill levels. Everyone is a beginner. In this specific class, all of the returning students first took the class over a year ago, and some of them, it has been several years, so there is no significant difference in skill level for those students. Difference in interest level, maybe.

6. Equipment needs. We have a limited number of certain sized weapons. We can't put all of the students who need those in the same group, or we won't have enough. So the eventual split needs to work with the equipment we have available. This is mostly a size issue. Sometimes works out to fit age/gender lines, but not necessarily.

7. Stated preferences of the students. We had a few specifically request to be at a certain time because of their schedules. As much as possible, we honor those requests. We would have to have a very good reason not to- and we don't have one.

So today I got to do one of the things I enjoy most about teaching.
I got to watch people come up against their lack of experience and knowledge in this particular field, and see what they did with that. Who keeps trying? Who starts to slack off? Who toughs everything out? Who is looking for a way to fake it? Who looks like they are enjoying the challenge? Who looks like they feel like they have just fallen off a cliff into hot lava?

It is ALWAYS interesting to watch the very beginning classes. Always.

Usually, there are a few who connect right away, who have found a spiritual home, and who really want to do this, who put in a huge amount of effort, pay attention, and start to self-correct early on. There were definitely some of those today.

There are usually some who are not developmentally ready to do this at any appreciable level of skill. As long as they are not being a danger to themselves or others, and they are getting enough out of it that they want to continue, that's fine. It will come. They will "get" what they are able to get. There's no hurry. These are usually the youngest boys- boys develop slower than girls, so we see some of that lag here. But it isn't always just that group.

There are usually some who appear to have come into the class thinking it would be easy, or expecting that they would just grab swords and start whacking at each other. These kids don't usually have a great time, and some of them will stop coming to class, usually because they don't want to do the work on footwork before being able to use the swords. Some will have their attitude adjusted, figure out the score, and do okay. Can't tell which will do which, and I'm not going to assume.

And then, usually the bulk of any class, there are those who want to do this, who find it difficult, and who aren't sure themselves exactly what to make of it yet. Everyone learns at their own pace, in this perhaps even more than in some things. Again, there is no hurry. And there is no way to hurry, either. The process of incorporating this new information takes the time it takes. These folks usually finish out the class, work very hard, and then have to decide whether they are interested enough to continue.

Our goal with the introductory series is to get them to that deciding place. To give them enough of a feel for what fencing is, for what it requires, and for what benefits it provides, that they can make a rational decision about how much effort and time they want to devote to it.

You don't have to SAY you love me...

2008-09-12T08:26:00.002-04:00

I was thinking about love this morning.

Well... not exactly. I was thinking about how it is people know when they are loved. What makes someone FEEL loved?

There's an odd thing about that.

Everyone knows that "actions speak louder than words," right? Of course.

So why is it that so many people seem to need to hear those three words? Why do they need to be TOLD "I love you" for them to believe it?

I can tell you- as can many, many other people, I'm absolutely sure- that someone SAYING "I love you" doesn't necessarily mean squat. They can say it every day, for years, and still have it not mean a damned thing.

And yet...
how do you know if you are interpreting someone's behaviour accurately? How can you tell if what they DO means what you think it means?

Some behaviours are relatively easy to interpret, that's for sure. If someone beats the crap out of you, chances are pretty good that they don't "love" you. There are all sorts of other ways of treating people badly that are a really big clue that love is not the primary motivator.

So how do you account for people who stay in bad relationships, even abusive relationships, regardless of how they are treated? How many of them believe that the other person loves them? How many people believe that BECAUSE the person apologizes, and tells them that they love them?

And the flip side... what about when someone treats you well, or nicely? There are all sorts of possible positive behaviors, but I'll cut to the big one: If someone makes love to you, does that mean they love you? Ha! I'm betting we can all easily agree that that ain't necessarily so.

It's a quandary.

I think people often want to be told "I love you" because they somehow believe that it is EASIER to interpret those words accurately, than it is to interpret behaviour accurately. They want verbal confirmation of whatever actions they are experiencing, as if somehow, getting those to "match up" makes everything clear. They want that "missing piece" of intentional verbalization of feelings, in order to put it all together.

This would all be much simpler, of course, if people actually MEANT "I love you" when they say it, rather than the entire gamut of other things that are generally meant by those words, ranging from "I want to have sex with you and I think this is how I can get it" to "I'm afraid if you leave and I haven't said this, then if you die in a horrible accident I'm going to feel guilty for the rest of my life" to "this is what I'm supposed to feel, so I'll say I do."

It would also be much simpler if everyone agreed on what love itself MEANS, anyway.

Most people seem to think it means something along the lines of "Aren't you lucky! I have chosen YOU to be the person who meets ALL of my needs!"

I'm more of the "I really enjoy being around you, and I'd like to share some of myself with you, and do whatever I can to help you meet YOUR needs" persuasion.

At any rate, the very definition of love is not well established, nor agreed on.

So. Back to the beginning.

If someone acts like they care about you, there is often this nagging doubt (and sometimes it is accurate!) of the validity of the interpretation of such behaviour. So most people also want to be told. But if you are TOLD, then you can't be sure that it means what you think it means.

Most people default to wanting the words. Words seem to be so much more concrete, so much simpler, so much easier to grasp.

Wow.

That's mind boggling, what with the rampant misinterpretation of nearly everything ever said, about anything, whether such misinterpretation is intentional or not. And what about that "Actions speak louder..." thing?

Back to my question.

What makes someone FEEL loved? How can you know, for sure, how someone feels about you? How can you ever get off that edge of "maybe," of doubt, of having SOME evidence to support caring, loving feelings, but never enough to let down your guard?

I guess my real question is this:

Do people who have never loved and been betrayed not go through all this torturous questioning? Do they just believe, without hesitation, without doubt, without twisting themselves up into knots needing to be sure they are not, once again, misinterpreting or falling for bullshit? Are they able to give and receive love, whatever that is, without the crushing pressure of knowing exactly what it feels like to have that turn out to be a load of crap? Can they just hear the words, or be treated well, and feel loved?

And if so, is that a good thing? Or a dangerous thing?

The season is almost upon us

2008-09-10T19:23:00.006-04:00

It was chilly today. Had to start the day out wearing a sweatshirt, for the first time in months.

Ah, fall. I had that cider and a doughnut, by the way, courtesy of the little country fair we went to last weekend.

When I was a kid, my memories of this time of year are mostly the beginning of school, and the shortening of available daylight. Had to come in earlier at night, and it was starting to cool down then, anyway, so coming inside wasn't such a bad thing. Reading books in the living room by lamplight, rather than up in a tree, by dappled sunlight.

When I reached the age of paying attention to things such as time and dates, other than birthdays and Christmas, I realized that September is the beginning of that oft-dreaded time, Holiday Season™.

So I thought I'd write a little about the season, as it is celebrated in our house.

Starting the second weekend of October, we have what WE call "Christmas," the Friends of the Library Book Sale. Ooh, baby. The mother of all book sales. A few years back, when I lived out in CA for a couple of years, we went to something called a library book sale there, and woe, the disappointment, the long faces and teary eyes, to walk in and find a couple of tables with a few books on them.

The Library Book Sale here is an Event. One that brings visitors from far and wide. People camp out the night before, even in the rain. I've even camped out. It is Christmas and Birthday, Great Pumpkin and Easter Beagle all rolled up into one. As it says on their website, the "number of items for sale usually exceeds 250,000."

And that's for each sale, now that it happens twice a year.

Plus, the prices start out quite reasonable, and get progressively cheaper every day of the sale, so on the last day, everything is a dime, and there's usually a lot of interesting stuff left. Most of my classic literature collection was purchased at ten cents per book.

The sale runs right into our next family celebration. We celebrate Thanksgiving on Canadian Thanksgiving, for a variety of reasons, not the least being it's when we're all here to celebrate it. A brilliant suggestion from a friend the first year we were faced with spending the american version not together as a family. Not nearly as stressful as trying to get everything together the same time as zillions of other people, for one thing. And closer to when things actually are harvested here. Not to mention, it avoids the whole pilgrim bullshit story.

After that comes the season that most people don't consider, and those who "celebrate it," rarely wish to do so again.

I'm talking about Chimney Fire Season.
In conjunction with Turning the Heat Back On Season.
And also, Kerosene Heater Accident Season.
Celebrated by a bunch of firefighters running around like mad, trying to keep up with it all.

Yes.
This was all a long-winded introduction to a Public Service Announcement.

Get your chimneys cleaned.
Have your furnace cleaned.
Don't postpone it.
Don't decide not to bother.

Change the batteries in your smoke detectors. Add a few more smoke detectors. The more, the merrier.
Get some good-sized fire extinguishers, learn how to use them, and mount them on your wall in an accessible location. I'm a big believer in bright red home decor.

Don't leave space heaters unattended, especially any kerosene heaters.
Make sure you have Carbon Monoxide alarms if you have any kind of source of combustion in your house. Fuel oil, kerosene, natural gas, propane, whether it's for heat or hot water, your dryer or your stove.

Let's get through this cooling down time of year, without any rapidly heating up occasions.

Then we can go on to discuss the rest of the holidays.

I'll even tell you about my family's four Major Holidays of the year:
November 1st, December 26th, Feb 15th, and the day after Easter.

Cheap Chocolate Days.

Now listen up...

2008-09-05T16:19:00.003-04:00

I was catching up on a friend's blog the other day, written about her experience in Europe this past year. She spent her academic year in Switzerland.

One of the things she mentioned was about living somewhere that she did not speak the language.

She had to really listen to people to be able to follow conversations at all. And although she picked up the language fairly easily, there was still a period of time when she could not understand it quickly enough to be able to understand AND contribute her own thoughts to a conversation.

Among other things, this helped her learn the value of listening more than you speak.

It would be good if more people were to learn this.

We had the first classes today for a couple of the PE classes we teach. Brand new students.

It amazes me sometimes to watch the behavior of people in brand new situations. How some dive right in. Some hang back and observe for a while. And some seem not to notice that anything outside their experience is happening at all because they are absolutely unaware of their surroundings.

We spent an hour and a half setting the stage for the semester. Talked about safety rules, and about how nothing can be guaranteed safe, but we can make things as safe as possible. Talked about how we do that- by having very regimented classes, with everything done by the numbers. There is no improvising.

We talked about fighting, about how it's not possible to win a fight, only to survive. Talked about how one of the valuable lessons learned by boxing is that in a fight, you will always get hurt.

These classes are not for the lightweight, thin, modern fencing weapons. One is a longsword class; the other a rapier class. Much heavier. Much more dangerous. These are not weapons designed to poke a little hole- they are made to remove parts of someone's anatomy.

So how is it that after one of the classes, when asked if they had any questions, the first question asked was "When do we get to do real fighting?"

??!?

NEVER, if you're lucky. Do you get that? N-E-V-E-R. Never.

So what, exactly, happened? What was this guy thinking the entire class? Did he never get past "Oooooh! Swords!"?

These are students at arguably one of the best Universities in the country. IQs way above average.

But often, way too often, they don't listen.
They are in too much of a hurry. For what, I'm not sure. To prove themselves somehow? To have the last word? To make an impression?

Whatever it is, they would be well served to learn the lesson my friend learned overseas.

Listen.
Listen well.

And learn to tell the difference between reality and fantasy...

but that's a different story.

Two years

2008-09-03T23:27:00.005-04:00

Saw this in the news today:

   A house fire in Summit, Illinois left three children dead and the mother
   in critical condition. Investigators believe the fire started in the living
   room of the two story wood frame dwelling.

Two years ago today, we had a house fire. It started at around noon, on a Sunday. We were watching TV in the living room when we noticed smoke coming up the stairwell.

We were able to get people and animals out of the house safely- although we had only about a minute or two to do so before the smoke was so thick you could not see. I was able to knock the fire down temporarily with a fire extinguisher, but was not able to get close enough to put the fire out.

Funny thing- fire is hot. Really hot. With an outdoor fire, like a campfire, the heat and smoke rise into the air, so most of it dissipates quickly. Not so much inside a house.

The fire department took about 7 minutes to get there. We live half a mile from the fire station, but it is all-volunteer, so the firefighters had to go TO the station first, and I knew that. I stood in the front yard listening to glass jars and picture frames in my house explode from the heat while waiting.

We had no idea at the time what an unusual situation we would have, where the fire was mostly contained to the room of origin. What they call a "good stop." The house filled with thick, black smoke, so much so that it ran down the walls in the back of my closet. The fire itself came up the stairs, and it spread outwards from the room where it started to the ceilings of the other rooms downstairs, but the fire department was able to control it before the temperature got hot enough to flashover.

It was amazing how rapidly our thoughts turned from intense concern over possibly losing our house and everything we owned, to realizing it's all just stuff.

We were fortunate. We had insurance. After living in hotels for a month, we lived in travel trailers in our yard for 9 months while our house was first mostly gutted and then rebuilt. We have been back in the house for 14 months now, and although we have yet to finish going through the boxes of salvaged stuff, we are very appreciative of being here.

My point is this:

We did the right things, in the right order, and we all made it out okay. There was a series of fortunate circumstances that made it possible for the fire to be controlled quickly, with minimal, albeit still considerable, damage.

It so easily could have gone another way.

Had it begun at night, or when we were not home, the story would have likely had a very, very different ending. I can't even think about it.

My heart aches for that family in Illinois this morning. We are so grateful, and very aware, that but for the grace of god, that might have been our fate.

Here it comes

2008-09-02T13:14:00.001-04:00

It's almost that time of year.

Colorful falling leaves, the hint of apples in the air, suggesting cinnamon doughnuts and cider on a chilly morning. Crisp breezes, with sudden surprising sunny afternoons. The first frost, which makes the grapevines wilt.

I love the Fall.

For years, I couldn't enjoy it because it only reminded me of how quickly winter would crash into town, like a retaining wall suddenly collapsing. Winter and I have not been friends for most of my life.

A few years back I discovered it isn't winter I hated, it's being cold. Stay warm, and winter has its own stark beauty. I found out I enjoy shoveling snow. It's a very warm activity, outside in the cold, yet not cold on the inside. And since joining the fire department, winter has a new personality, where the weather isn't nearly as important as getting to where we're needed. No time to indulge in not liking the snow. I've seen more of the winter NIGHT since then than I had the rest of my life, when I used to just stay indoors.

I have, in fact, had to pick up the garbage in the snow, but that's not what I came to tell you about.

Came to talk about the draft.

Err... ummm.. not exactly. :-) (Anyone who gets the reference gets a prize. Anyone except for you, SJ. If you DON'T get it, I'm going to come right over and check your BP.)

It's the time of year when new classes start. We have four starting in the next week, and that's pretty danged exciting.

When I was a child, the "first day of school" meant getting up early, and turning lights on in the morning- something I've never really done other times of year. It meant packing a lunch, and going off to a different world. It meant that giddy anticipation of finding out. What classes was I in? Who were the teachers? Who would I see that I had not seen all summer? Where am I in the complex social structure of the school-world? (That last one had an easy answer, but I digress...)

Now, it is not so much the getting up before dawn to try to get ready... I do that frequently enough, anyway, when the pager goes off in the middle of the night. But there is still that sense of anticipation, and, for some reason, I still get the urge to go buy new notebooks and pencils.

I love new classes. New students.

I love that first day, the first impressions, us of them, and them of us, watching them try to figure out what they've gotten themselves into. I love watching people see the fencing master for the first time, because it is NEVER what they expected, and that's no matter what they expected. I don't even have to know what it was, I know this isn't it.

I love to watch people learn.

They start at zero, especially in this, and then there is a continuous stream of moments of incorporation. I can watch, from the beginning of a class to the end, 45 minutes or an hour later, and see learning take place. The subtle signs of a shift in stress level as things start to connect. The bright-eyed look as with connection comes enjoyment.

It is especially fascinating at the college level where most of the new students are not only in our class for the first time, but they are freshmen, away from home and on their own for the first time, starting their entire college experience. There is a rawness to it that I find delightful.

One semester, there was a student who purchased our textbook with the first check he had ever written- I had to help him figure out how to fill it out.

Our classes are sequential in nature, each class building on what was in the class before, and it is in these first introductory classes that it is the most obvious that this is so. A roomful of students trying things they've never done, with mixed success. What we are asking them to do is both simple and complex at the same time.

I love seeing which students figure this out first. That each skill is expanded on in each class, and what appears to be "review" is in fact a deepening of understanding. Who recognizes that the master's monologues are not, as they may seem to be, irrelevant personal commentary, but are, in fact, directly connected to the subject matter? Who thinks that after a couple of days, they know how to do this, and who realizes that this is only the tip of the iceberg? Who clearly actually wants to do this, and who just wants to float through the class, undoubtedly the same as they do through everything else in their lives, without appreciation, without attention, without intent?

I look for the few who seem to have found home, at last.
Kindred spirits.

And I look for those who appear to be totally lost.
They, more than anyone, need to learn what we can teach.

Summer hike

2008-08-31T14:57:00.004-04:00

We went "letterboxing" yesterday.

Only trouble is, although we found the location we were looking for- a very clever spot, in a hollow underneath the end of a fallen log- whatever was supposed to be there for us to find wasn't there. Disappointing. It was our first attempt, and now, we're not so excited about trekking off into the wild unknown to look for a hidden... nothing.

Still love the hiking part, though.

Saw this guy move, or I never would have seen him at all.

And then this guy... hard to figure out how to describe him, standing there watching over the forest.

Letting go

2008-08-31T10:55:00.000-04:00

Stress is a bitch.

Life is full of stress.

Stuff going on in my life right now that's hard to reconcile. Things I need that I don't have, things I want that I can't have, and things I don't want that I have no way to avoid.

I feel like a shark, that if I stop swimming, I'll die.

:::conjuring up my best Michael-Phelpsian image of myself:::

The question is, how much of this is self-imposed, or self-inflicted?

It's not that I'm making up things to be stressed about. No need for that.
And it isn't that I'm stressing about things that don't matter.

But sometimes, I think there is a strong tendency- for myself, and for others- to hang onto things long past when they should be let go.

And that "letting go" process doesn't always work very efficiently.

For one thing, you've only "let go" of something when you actually do the letting go part.

If you dwell on it, stress about, or otherwise continue to let it have an effect on your life, you didn't let go.
Repeated statements of "I'm done with this," notwithstanding.

When you're over something, it's GONE.

And yet... how often does that really happen?

Sometimes it does.
For example, you meet many, many people in your life, some of whom you connect with in some way. School friends, work friends, acquaintances, really.
Leave your job?
Most people say they will "keep in touch."
Most people don't.

But for most of them, most of the time, they really do move on.
You can tell because of the large numbers of people whom you used to know, that now, you can't even recall their names. You don't think about them. You barely even remember them.

THAT is "letting go."

Contrast that with the nagging things that bother you day in and day out. The heartbreaks. The annoyances. The frustrations.

If there is ANY emotion still attached, you didn't let go.

Maybe that's the key.

Emotion is the glue that keeps you connected to things.

So if you could just not feel anything...

you'd have a serious case of clinical depression.

Not the best solution.

I don't think there is a best solution- hence the millions of therapists out there, trying to help people find ANY solution, let alone the best one.

Anyhow.

There are a number of things in my life that I need to let go of. Emotional baggage that drags on me day after day after day. Just when I think I've finally "gotten past it" I realize that thinking about whether I have or not kind of proves that I haven't, really. Not yet.

Oddly, it isn't the "big" things that hang on the hardest.
It's the little ones.

I've often thought my mind was a sieve- maybe the holes are so large they can't filter out the little things?

Ego and honor

2008-08-28T22:55:00.002-04:00

A wise man once said:
Ego says "Whatever I do is right."
Honor says "Whatever is right, I will do."

Been thinking about honor lately, especially after watching The Kite Runner.
I highly recommend it.

I am frustrated with people who proclaim things as truth, who do not have enough experience or knowledge to be able to legitimately make such claims. Who go only by their own limited viewpoint, refusing to do any research or to evaluate any other information besides that which they have already decided to believe.

Who basically make shit up, and then preach it as gospel.

Truth requires the ability to see OUTSIDE your limited view, to enlarge that view, to take in all available information.

How can you have honor if you make no effort to discern what is right, what is true, but, instead, do whatever you want, whatever is easier or more convenient, and then make up some justification for it?

Blood lines

2008-08-27T15:08:00.001-04:00

While I'm thinking about school experiences... I have a story to tell. Partly because I know you're reading this, Allen.

I took biology in 10th grade. Liked it, really, although I'm pretty sure the teacher didn't know that. I wasn't, exactly, the best student she had ever had. Didn't always pay attention in class. Had what I'm sure now was a really, really annoying habit of writing song lyrics in the margins of the tests while I was waiting for the rest of the class to finish the exam. I got decent grades in the class- I always got good grades, school wasn't difficult for me- but I was, by then, disenchanted with the whole school experience, and, quite frankly, bored. I didn't cause trouble, but I'm sure I was one of the forgettable students, who didn't "work up to potential."

For what it's worth, she was one of those teachers who seemed tired of the job, who was what I felt was unnecessarily strict in class with rules for the sake of showing who was boss, who didn't seem to like the students, and I didn't understand why she was even there. Until one day when I had to stay after school, and, in that environment, with just a few students, rather than an entire room, her love for the subject came through, and I had a completely different opinion of her from that point on. Too bad that happened in May, rather than in September.

Anyway.

One of the things we had to do in that class was blood typing.
Someone had the brilliant idea to do something that would never, ever, happen in a public school now.

We were expected to type our own blood. Lancets were handed out, and glass slides, and such, and we were told to get a blood sample.

No way.
NOT happening.
There was no way in hell that I was going to STAB MYSELF to get a blood sample for a freakin' biology class.
I was of the firm belief that my blood belonged inside my body, thank you very much.

While most of the boys in the class were jabbing themselves repeatedly and making little blood fountains come out of their fingers, I steadfastly refused.

After a brief period of... difficulty... the student teacher in the class volunteered to let me type his blood instead, provided that I get the right answer.

Fast forward a few years.
Okay, quite a few years.

I have told this story more than once over the years, to a variety of different audiences.

One day, during a break in one of the fencing classes I taught, the subject came up about my knowing many of the teachers in the school district because not only had I grown up here, but my mother worked in the schools for many years. One of the students in the class, a man who had fenced off and on for several years, and whose children also took classes, mentioned that he had been a student teacher at the high school years ago.

Oh? I hadn't known that. What subject?

Wait for it.

Biology.

And yeah. No kidding. He was that very same student teacher who had offered his blood to me.
Small world.

Very small.

For what it's worth, the high school no longer has students do this exercise, and it stopped not because of the HIV scare. I heard that they stopped when there was a controversy when a student typed his blood and came up with a blood type that was not possible for a child of his parents...

Fast forward a couple of years again, to a few weeks ago, when I was in the lab class where we were taught to start IVs.

We were told that we could practice on each other. The one condition was that in order to practice on someone, I had to allow someone to practice on me.

No refusal this time.
At all.
We had a great time.

It wasn't ever about the blood, or about the needle. It was about being told I HAD to do something with my body that no one had the right to tell me I had to do.

And Allen? I owe you one.

Lasting impressions

2008-08-26T21:15:00.001-04:00

When I was six years old, I lived in Tifton, Georgia, in a house with a driveway lined with hibiscus. There are pictures- slides, really- of me on a warm sunny day, standing in that driveway, dressed in a little blue and white sailor suit, holding a book bag, all ready for my first day of school.

I remember that day.
Part of it, anyway.

I had looked forward to going to school for a long time. I had been in a nursery school before then, at Mrs. Seller's place, since I was three years old. My mother didn't live with us, so I had to have somewhere to be during the day. The past year, I had been the oldest kid there, and although being the most experienced certainly had its advantages, I was more than ready to trade that in and go to a "real" school.

We had bought my school supplies, according to a list we were given. Things I did not ordinarily have at home, since we were of modest means. They included a brand new box of crayola crayons. All of my very own. Sixty-four colors. With the sharpener in the box.

To make a long story short, I found out at the end of that first day that I would not be allowed to take my crayons home with me. They had to stay in my desk.

I was devastated.

And I don't remember every using them in school, all year.
I don't remember any other specifics about first grade, either.

When I was seven, we moved to upstate New York. In April, leaving warm spring weather to come to the cold, wet and gray. I first saw snow a few days after we arrived. It was during recess at school, and I was excited to be going outside, after having seen the flakes out the window of the classroom.

This new school was very different from what I was used to. A big old stone building, and very strict teachers, none of whom seemed to be able to understand much of what I said. Whenever the teacher left the room, the students would all misbehave and even cheat- something I had never seen before.

What I didn't know, that no one bothered to tell me, was that there was a rule in this school that children who talked in the halls had to leave their coat on the back of their chair for a week. So on about my third day there, in my excitement, I said something in the hallway about the snow.

I was forced to go outside with no coat on- the first time I had ever been in freezing temperatures in my life. And then, to go home without my coat, as well, and I had no other coat to wear.

This memory is one of only two that I have of school that year. (The other has to do with valentine's day, and I probably don't need to describe that one; it's very common.)

These two incidents are minor in the grand scheme of things, for sure. Crayons and a bit of cold are not worth worrying about. Certainly not worth the feelings I had at the time they happened, when looked at from the perspective of an adult.

My point is that when they happened, I was NOT an adult. I was a young, naive child.

It is the intensity of an event that carves out the deepest memories.
What qualifies as "intense" varies based on many different things. Age, experience, apprehension level, personality, and context, among others.

I try to remember every time I meet a new group of students that what is routine for me, is brand spanking new for them, that they walk in not knowing what to expect. And whether they are eight, or eighteen, or any other age, I want them to leave my class having learned something, not having had such a negative experience that they will never be able to forget it- or remember much else.

The second test

2008-08-25T10:45:00.003-04:00

Some weeks after that first "test," I stumbled through my second. Almost literally.

It was a simple thing, really.

We do some exercises in class in a line. Then we do some with partners, in two lines, facing each other.

I know this.
I had done this, many times, as a student.

But this one day, in the middle of class, he asked me to have the class form ranks for the partner exercises, and for the life of me, I could not remember what to SAY to get them to do that.

"Okay, now you guys over here, come over this way and then you guys go over there and then turn around, no, not all of you, just this group, and spread out and..." was not going to cut it.

Funny how you can hear commands given over and over, and know how to respond to them appropriately, but not really be conscious of what they ARE before they happen.

Saw this same thing happen to someone on the show "The Academy," the reality show that is about training to be a deputy sheriff. Some poor woman, having been in training for weeks, was told to give the commands for something, and she blanked.

She got yelled at, embarrassed, and harassed, to the point of tears, all in that stupid, pseudo "military" hogwash of proving who is in charge, and that all the new people are lower than low, as if that's going to improve either morale or performance.

I didn't.

He just stepped in, took the reins, and the class went on. It is possible- even probable- that he and I are the only ones who knew I messed up.

We had a little talk after class.
I started paying more attention to the transitions, both verbal and non-verbal, in the class.

Since then, I have had the pleasure of having a couple of assistants have the same difficulty, and guiding them through it.

The trouble with expanding your comfort zone is that inevitably, something will come along that is way outside the new lines.

The few, the humble

2008-08-22T11:20:00.002-04:00

There are a variety of different kinds of people who become EMS providers.

During my EMT-B class, and now my EMT-I class, other training classes I've taken, the calls I've been on and the various ride-alongs I've done, I've met many of the local EMS providers.

Most of them, I have a lot of respect for. Almost all of them, really.

Each person deals with the stress in his or her own way. Far be it from me to declare which ways are appropriate and which are not. As long as the quality of patient care is high, I'm not going to argue.

Some are "trauma junkies," who really prefer the "big" calls, and get easily frustrated with some of the medical calls, and especially some of the times when there isn't really much to do for the patient other than get them to the hospital to "be checked out."

I haven't been doing this long enough for that to frustrate me.
I haven't dealt with call after call from people who really should be seeing their own doctor, but who either don't have the money or don't have the transportation to do that on their own.
I haven't seen enough drug seeking behavior to ever assume that that's what is going on.
I haven't had to get out of bed in the middle of the night in a snow storm enough times to be tired of it yet.

And I haven't seen enough of the really difficult stuff to need to have the same macabre sense of humor that some of these folks seem to have.

As a rule, the EMTs and paramedics in this county are a dedicated bunch of people, some of whom have been doing this for 20-something years. All of whom put themselves out there to help other people, whether paid or volunteer. I have to respect that.

I have found, though, that there are some of the local providers who really love what they do, above and beyond the average. Who have a calling to do this. Folks who are really good with people, who stay calm and in control during a stressful situation, and who communicate genuine caring to every patient, regardless of what the problem is. Who don't seem to get frustrated, whatever the calls they get that day.

Those are the ones I want to be like.

I'm working on it.

I'm about at the point of realizing just how much I don't know and/or can't do. How much I need to remember, and how much I need to practice.
Frustrating, in its way, but a lot better than assuming I know everything.

Begin the Beguine

2008-08-17T23:43:00.001-04:00

The fall semester starts soon- students will be moving into their dorms this coming weekend.
This means my teaching schedule will be much busier in a couple of weeks.

This time of year, I'm always reminded of when I first started teaching.

Shortly after I expressed an interest in learning to teach, I was invited by the master to be his assistant in the university PE classes he taught.

When I started, pretty much all I did was lead the warmup. That, and watch him like a hawk.
At the time, I was not yet familiar with all his teaching techniques and stories.

Now, I know his, and have a few of my own.

I used to make lists. Lists of stories. Lists of what was covered in each class. Lists of things I wanted to remember about each topic. Lists of equipment needed for each particular class.

There is a rhythm to how he teaches.
Each class, and each lesson, has a rhythm, a flow.
Each series of classes has a plan.
There is an order underneath it all, a predictable, reliable order.
Almost a ritual, even.

It calms the mind, and focuses everyone on what we're doing. It creates a separation between the rest of the world- "before" and "after"- and "now."

From a student's perspective, everything starts with the warmup.

What I needed to learn is that it starts BEFORE the warmup.

My job, as the assistant, was to be ready for the class before I even got there, so that from the moment I walked into the room, the class would begin. Before I did or said anything- at least anything anyone would consider to BE "anything."

It took me a while to figure this out. Not a long while, but a few classes.

This was because from my perspective, still being a student myself, the class began when the MASTER arrived.

I had to learn to separate myself from the other students. To be an instructor. To command (not demand) respect.

At first, I didn't recognize the need to do this because I arrived with the master, not before him, so it was his presence that the students responded to. We would arrive together, he would greet the class, they would all focus on him, and then he would ask me to begin the warmup.

This routine was repeated in every class, whether it was the college class, or the youth class, or one of our other classes.

At some point- and I don't recall when it was- I was given my first "test."

It was the morning of one of the college classes.
I arrived early, as always, and waited for the master to arrive, so we could walk in together and begin the class.
Only he didn't.
When it was the time he usually arrived, he wasn't there.
Odd.
It got later.
Closer to the time for the class to start.

Fortunately for me, I hate being late.

So I went into the class alone.
The students, already having been trained, by repetition, in how to begin the class, simply did what they always did. They waited in the usual place, gave the usual greeting, and, when he was still not there at the time the class started, did the warmup I led, no questions asked.

So far, so good.
But what if he doesn't show up at all???

While leading the warmup, I made a plan.
A simple plan, no doubt.
But a plan.
I knew what the class needed to work on that day. Had it on one of my lists, I'm sure.
So if he didn't arrive, I would simply go on with the class after the warmup, as if we planned it that way.
Even though we didn't.

HE did.

This was a test, I learned later, to see what I would do. To see if I would take the initiative. To see if I would simply sit and wait for him to get there, not starting the class, wasting everyone's time.

He arrived, precisely timed, as I ended the warmup. Walked in, took off his shades, and continued the class as if he had been there all along.

I passed this first test.

Not so much, the second one.

How do you KNOW?

2008-08-16T15:46:00.003-04:00

That cricket rescue reminded me of something I want to write about.

My sister is contemplating a career change. Being a very thoughtful, methodical, careful type of person, she has done a significant amount of research into this. She does many things well, even brilliantly, but making quick decisions is not on that list.

She chose a school she wanted to attend, and began the application process. It's a small school, run by two people, one of whom she spoke with, and of whom she formed a positive impression. She was quite excited about the possibility of attending this school and progressing towards her career change goal.

As it happened, she was not accepted to the school. This is a fascinating story in and of itself, that I might write about at another time.

I'm bringing it up now because it is an excellent example of how you can do tons of research, look at all sorts of information, consider things very carefully, and when it comes down to making a decision about what to do, end up being stymied by differences with one person.

If you plan to dedicate your life and your time to studying with someone, how do you KNOW when you've found the right person? How do you evaluate whether you can learn from someone? Even beyond whatever knowledge or skills they have, how do you know when their way of being, of knowing, of teaching, of learning, when their spirit, their soul, is compatible with yours?

When I chose (was chosen?) to study the sword, I based much of that decision on my impression, my perceptions of the fencing master I would be studying with, and what I thought of his ability to teach me what I wanted to know.

The thing is, at the beginning, I didn't know enough about either the sword, or about him, to be able to MAKE a rational decision. So when I first started, I was taking a lot on faith, and, quite frankly, hoping I had made a good choice, and that things would work between us in the intensity of the master/apprentice relationship.

When I first started, I was not alone. There was another student who also expressed the desire to become a teacher. We trained and worked together for quite a while.

The two of us had very, very different experiences.
Some, because we are different people, and came to the situation with different backgrounds, different strengths and weaknesses, and different goals.

But some, because we each had very different communication styles and abilities.

It turned out that she and the master were not a good match for this sort of intensity.

And it turned out that he and I ARE a good match. We work very well together, communicate very similarly, and generally see the world in at least compatible, and usually quite similar, ways.

But how do I know this?

And how did I first come to know it?

There was a moment, a very specific situation that I remember as confirming, in a concrete way, that we were on the same track.

I mentioned it to him today. He didn't remember it- which is part of the point. It was not a big deal, not a memorable event for him. It was simply an expression of who he is. I only recall it because it was the first time I saw it.

It was in the late summer.

In front of his house there is a space he uses to give lessons. It's a rectangular spot, with gravel, large enough for fencing. It is lined by railroad ties (often used as chipmunk highways), and takes up about half of his front yard.

At one end of the space, there is a small raised bed that has been home over the years to a variety of herbs and vegetables. One year there was sweet corn. One year some castor bean plants, something I had never seen before. Very interesting looking.

This particular year, there were several pumpkin plants growing there. The vines had begin to drape down over the edge and grow out into the fencing space about a foot or so.

During my lesson, at one point, as he stepped back, he inadvertently stepped on a small pumpkin tendril.

And then he did something, totally un-selfconsciously, without thinking, as if anyone would do the same thing.

He did exactly what I would have done.

He turned around and apologized to the pumpkin plant. Took a couple of steps forward, and we continued the lesson, as if apologizing, out loud, to plants, was the most normal, natural thing to do.

That I think it IS, is how I knew I had made the right choice.

So far, I think it has worked out pretty well.

quite cricket, actually

2008-08-15T14:56:00.002-04:00

The first time I heard it, I wasn't really paying attention.
Then I saw it, and still, didn't really recognize what I was seeing.
But the third time, one of the commentators said something, and I suddenly realized what was going on.

The "bug squad" at the Olympics.
Several times now, a woman with a large net has gone out on the beach volleyball sand court to rescue a cricket and carry it to safety.

Coming from a fencing salle where we regularly stop fencing bouts to rescue ladybugs or spiders, I think that's just fabulous!!

Safety Dance

2008-08-13T00:18:00.001-04:00

Risk a lot to save a lot.
Risk a little to save a little.
Risk nothing to save nothing.

Words to live by when fighting fire, no question.

But what about other things?

People often talk about the "risk/benefit ratio." As if we can calculate every risk and make a rational decision.

I've been thinking about risk this week, while watching the Olympics.

I love the Olympics.
Some of it, anyway.

I love the concept of people all over the world who train to become the very best at what they do, getting together with other people from all over the world, who do the same thing. Temporarily, at least, a culture of excellence, instead of the usual excuse-making. A place and time where there is not that absurd popular habit of whining and complaining.

In every Olympics I've seen, there have been those moments where an athlete has stepped up and done something unexpected, overcome adversity, and, for a brief shining moment, brought the world's attention to the power of sheer heart.

Mary Lou Retton comes to mind.

A couple of nights ago, in one of the qualifying heats of one of the swim events, there was a young woman who mystified the commentators by swimming her heart out, even though she only needed to place to get into the next round. While they were questioning why on earth she would work so hard, instead of "saving herself" for the finals, she broke the world record.

Gotta love it.

It got me thinking.

People put a lot of thought into that risk/benefit thing. As if the optimal situation would be no risk, all benefit.

I don't think so.

I think that without risk, there is no benefit.

It's about risk. Taking chances. Giving it all you've got. Putting yourself out there.

And yeah.

Going for the Gold.

You can't win if you don't play. If you want something, you have to go get it- ain't no one going to give it to you.
Nothing ventured, nothing gained.

"Safe" may not be the best place to live after all.

A paradox, that.

Emergency services personnel frequently tell each other to "stay safe."
And they mean it.

Perhaps because they, more than anyone, know there's no such thing.

The fluidity and comfort of answers

2008-08-04T23:37:00.002-04:00

When I started this blog, I made a list of topics I knew I wanted to write about. On the list is "the fluidity and comfort of answers."

I have no idea what I meant by that.
Too bad, since it sounds like such a great topic.

Most people don't like questions, but they sure love answers. They spend a lot of time wanting to KNOW something, to really know it, no questions, no doubts. (Not necessarily to understand, but that's a different subject...)

When I was very young, I used to envy the Pope because, I thought, he was the one person on the planet who really, truly KNEW whether there is a God, because he had a direct line, so to speak, and could talk directly to God. Everyone else could believe, but they couldn't KNOW. (I know. Lots of people argue with this belief. I don't need to hear those arguments. I was four years old when I had this train of thought, so give it a rest, okay?)

But what if what the Pope knew was that the whole thing about his being able to talk to God was a scam?

Ouch.

Maybe sometimes, it's better not to know.

Like my attic.

I haven't looked in the attic since our house fire. I don't know whether the cleaning company tossed everything that was up there, or whether it's still there, and if so, what condition it is in. A whole lot of smoke went up and out through there, so probably, anything in the way was at least severely smoke damaged.

There was a lot of stuff up there. Old toys- lots of lego, for instance. A box of photographic negatives. Several storage containers of quilting fabric. The hand tooled leather covered "hope chest" that was my high school graduation present.

Nothing I couldn't live without. But some things with sentimental value.

I haven't looked because as long as I DON'T look, I don't KNOW if it has all been destroyed, so in my mind, it can all still be there, undamaged.

Kind of like Schrodinger's Attic.

I have been tempted, but so far, have not given in.

What else don't I want to know?

I don't want to know what certain people really think of me.
I don't want to know what secrets my kids keep from me.
I don't want to know the airspeed velocity of an unladen swallow...

One of my personal mantras has long been "people who snoop find out things they don't want to know."

Having so much that I don't want to know leaves room for the things I DO want to know.

But even those things, I understand that it might not be possible to know.

Someone asked the master recently if he ever gives a straight answer.
He didn't give her one.

It's true, he rarely does.

And yet...
often, whatever answer he gives, although it may not be possible for me to understand it at the time as a "straight answer," turns out later to have been the simplest, most straightforward, answer it was possible to give. The literal truth, but so masked by my own viewpoint that I couldn't see it.

So much of the "straight" in a "straight answer" has to do with the receiver's perspective.

Like how a line on a map showing the most direct route to somewhere does not always look straight.

I have often been amused by how obvious the answer was, later, when I could see it.

It's a lot like the FedEx logo.
Once you see the arrow between the "E" and the "x" you can never "unsee" it.

Go look.

I dare you.

FedEx

'tis a gift

2008-08-02T19:52:00.000-04:00

Learning is an interesting thing.

Much has been written about teaching, but not nearly as much about learning.

I don't recall any time spent in any school I've ever gone to that was dedicated to teaching anyone HOW to learn.

If this culture wasn't so messed up, that might be legitimate.
Babies don't need to be taught how to learn. Learning is what they do, totally focused and un-selfconsiously.

Come to think of it, my kids haven't ever needed to be taught how to learn, either.
But then, they've never gone to school, either.

I did.

And although the elementary school I went to from 2nd to 6th grade was an awesome place, indeed, and I started junior high with a somewhat different mindset than average, apparently, somewhere along the way, I picked up some bad habits that I've had to struggle to overcome.

The most obvious one, the one I see all the time, is the "teach to the test" syndrome, where classes are taught only in order to enable the students to pass a test. In return, the students, more often than not, study and regurgitate only what is needed to pass the test, and remember it for about that long. For example, how much do you remember from your high school classes? If you took those final exams right now, today, would you pass them?

Didn't think so.

Since a lot of the stuff taught in those high school classes has relatively little, or sometimes no, real world importance, that's not a huge problem.

But lately, I've seen it in classes where I would hope that the students really want to understand and be able to apply the subject matter. EMT classes, for example. There seems to be about a 50/50 split, from my limited experience, of people who really want to know, and those who needed the certification for one reason or another, but were not particularly interested in the subject. They just wanted to pass.

This is a hazard with any class that has a certification exam. OFTEN, the teaching is geared to that exam. People need to pass it.

It's a scary thought.

The other school-induced learning disability I see often- and I'm not immune- is where people who normally find most subjects to require relatively little effort to "pass," don't usually expend the extra effort required to MASTER the subject. And, when they find themselves up against something that is difficult, they don't have the skills required to be able to meet the challenge. They've never had to work that hard to learn anything before.

This, among other things, is what I find enormously appealing about fencing.

When I first started fencing, I was in that category of people who had not really found anything difficult to learn before. What I didn't realize, and therefore, didn't expect, is that while I was very good at intellectual learning, I had very little practice with physical learning. And understanding how to do something, and being able to actually do it, are two very different things.

In other words, it seriously kicked my butt.

And I loved it.

It forced me to learn how to learn in ways I had never had to experience before.

For one thing, I had to learn to allow myself to have difficulty with something, without giving up. I had to appreciate learning as a process rather than as something that just "happened." Perhaps most difficult of all, I had to learn to accept guidance from someone else, rather than being able to figure it out myself.

I've seen this issue with suddenly finding something difficult manifest in two distinct ways, and I wish I had the time and energy necessary to do a serious study of this. I find it fascinating.

Category one is where I started out. At the very beginning of trying something new, I had trouble. A lot of trouble. Finding this a novel experience, and having it happen right at the start of something, I accepted it as part of this new thing- fencing- and every step I took, every bit of progress I made felt like an accomplishment, which was enormously rewarding. So I stuck with it long after I might have given up, struggled through frustration, and here I am today, still learning.

I have had several students who have also been in this category. They tend to continue for a long time- often until they move away, or for some other reason are unable to continue. Most of them do not just quit, or disappear. They keep in touch after they move away. This is so predictable that I particularly enjoy having students who have tremendous difficulty as beginners.

Category two is less common.
These are the people who DON'T find it difficult at first. Like everything else they've ever tried, it's pretty easy. It might require physical effort, a hard workout, but they pick things up quickly and easily, without the bouts of frustration that seemingly plague the category one people. They progress quickly, and greatly enjoy what they are learning. These are the people that some people might view as "naturals" or gifted in some way. Often, they ARE academically gifted, if you want to call it that.

But then...
eventually, they hit that place where it suddenly isn't easy anymore.
Because they hit it after months or even years of finding fencing easy, they don't understand what has just happened. It sucks the joy right out of them. They are, generally, unable to make the shift to appreciating the difficulty.
And they quit. Abruptly.
It's not "fun" anymore.

I have had several of these students, too.
They do not keep in touch. They disappear.

I would love to see studies done on this phenomenon. I've seen it primarily in the limited area of learning to fence. Is it consistent across other fields of study? I think it might be.

If so, then perhaps being "gifted" is not always such a gift.
Maybe it's better to have to work for things.

Hmmm.
I sound like my mother.

Four in Four

2008-07-23T22:56:00.003-04:00

My daughter is at Phoenix Firecamp. She is having a fabulous time. I'm sure she is having experiences she will eventually tell her grandchildren about, making friends she'll keep in touch with for life. Thanks to the Fire Service Women of New York State, she is getting the chance to find out first hand what firefighters do, and how difficult- and rewarding- it can sometimes be.

That's the good part.

Since her arrival at the camp, there have been four firefighter Line of Duty Deaths in the US.

Four in four days.

On July 20th, David Meron, a 58 year old volunteer from Hoosick Falls NY, died from a heart attack.

On July 21st, Ryan Hummert, a 22 year old career firefighter/paramedic, from St Louis, MO, was shot and killed as he exited his apparatus at the scene of a vehicle fire.

On July 22nd, Brian J Munz, a 24 year old volunteer from Fairbury IL was killed during a structure fire when the floor collapsed, trapping him in the basement.

On July 23rd, Frank Wichlacz, a 75 year old volunteer from Pulaski WI, died when he was pinned between two vehicles while fire apparatus was being backed into the bay.

Four in four days.
Ten so far this month.
Sixty-seven so far this year.

IS the scene safe?

Wouldn't you just know it?

2008-07-22T23:56:00.002-04:00

All that writing about not procrastinating, and what did I do?

Take home test due in my class tonight, one last thing I needed to write up for it, and I was gonna do it right before heading out there.

But.

It had to happen.

We got a call.

And.

It was my Dad.

He's doing okay, but will probably be in the hospital a while. Don't know how long.

The hospital that is an hour away.

So all that other stuff I need to do this week? The stuff for the fire company fundraiser that I had put off?

I still have to get it done.

Don't know how I'm going to do it, what with driving back and forth to the hospital, trying to keep up with the class I'm taking, and the classes I'm teaching... and it's time to schedule my clinical time at the hospital here, as soon as possible.

There's a lesson in all of this, for sure.

Don't procrastinate.

Don't wait.

And anything you say can and will be used against you...

Ticking away the moments

2008-07-20T22:36:00.006-04:00

Life is short.
Stop and smell the roses.
Live like you were dying.
Live like there's no tomorrow.

There are many of these little bits of advice, all about appreciating the moment, and not putting things off until it's too late.

Everyone knows that life has no guarantees, that any moment could be your last.

Most people happily ignore this for most of their lives, until something happens that forces them to pay attention to it. Some tragedy, usually. And most often, this tragic thing has already happened before people pay attention, and then it's too late to do anything about it.

Being a volunteer EMT/firefighter has given me new perspective.

The obvious thing is that EMTs are sometimes in a situation to appreciate how very quickly and easily life can end. That moment between living and dying is so very brief.

But fortunately, that happens relatively rarely.

What affects me far more is something that happens all the time.

It's this:

I wear a pager now.

At any moment- and I do mean ANY moment- that pager could go off, and I'll need to immediately stop whatever I'm doing, and take off. I could be sleeping. I could be eating. I could be in the shower. I could be grocery shopping. Filling the car with gas. Writing this blog. Anything.

Most of the time, it's not a big deal. Most things can be interrupted without much difficulty.

But some things are challenging.
Like if I've just put something in the oven.
Or I'm on the phone, and the other person is just answering.
In the register line at the store, with a cart full of frozen food.
Waiting for dinner to be served at a restaurant.
Having just sat down on the toilet (you knew it had to be on the list).

What this means is that I need to pay attention to what I'm doing, and have a plan for if I have to go on a call. For example, I might be sure someone else knows when to take food out of the oven. I warn students that a class might need to be suddenly canceled. I tell anyone I make an appointment with that I might have an emergency and not be able to make it, and let them know what I will do if that happens. I consider back-up rides for my kids. I have to anticipate whatever of these sorts of complications there might be.

Someone in our fire company told me that if he is in the grocery store when there is a call, he puts his cart in the beer cooler and comes back for it later. Interesting idea. I've yet to use it.

The other thing I've had to learn to do is not to procrastinate.
There's the long term "don't put things off" because you never know if you'll get hit by a bus tomorrow, but that's kind of abstract, and doesn't really affect what I do or don't do. Sure, it's POSSIBLE that I'll get hit by a bus or suffer some other calamity, but none of those scenarios are particularly LIKELY.

What DOES affect it is having a paper or exam due... if I put off studying or writing until the last minute... what if there's a call in that last minute? Oops. I can't let that happen. So I've learned to do assignments as soon as possible, because I really DON'T know if I'll have time to do them tomorrow. This goes for anything that is time-sensitive. It is relatively likely that we'll have a call between the time something is assigned, and when it is due. The question is mostly WHEN that call will happen. I don't want to end up not having a cake for my kid's birthday because I was "going to" make it, but ran out of time.

And you know what? All of life is like that. I don't want to run out of time, period.

Learning to build flexibility into any plan is a very good thing.
Having a plan B, and a plan C, is a good thing.

Prioritizing everything is also a good skill to have.
It's good to be able to change focus quickly, and to stay in the moment and go with what needs to be done.

All of these skills are directly related to fencing, so this cross-training is beneficial all around.

But I swear, if I hear another page for one assistant chief to call another that sets off my pager and has me in my shoes and out the door before I realize it isn't an emergency...

Grassroots

2008-07-19T23:30:00.007-04:00

I spent the last couple of days volunteering at Grassroots.

Had a great time. Got inspired. A song for you.

Grassroots Festival of Music and Dance
(from the perspective of the EMS tent)

Raindrops on tent tops and bandaids on blisters
Bright colored clothing on brothers and sisters
Brown broken flip flops patched up with tape
These are all part of what makes Grassroots great

"Do you have an aspirin and can I get sunscreen?"
"Can you stop the bleeding and make sure my cut's clean?"
"I cut my finger and stepped on a nail
then sliced my toe on a sharp piece of shale."

"I'm feeling dizzy, oh what was I thinking?"
"I'm starting to sunburn; the toilets are stinking."
It's raining again and the dancers are muddy.
"My bandaids fell off and I can't find my buddy."

When the ants bite
When the bee stings
When the sky starts to clear
I simply put on my bright blue nitrile gloves
and I'll come right back, next year!