When It Becomes Sensory
In my athlete days, which ended about 15 years ago, the goal was to NOT feel and just complete the tasks put to paper. It was something I was given or sought out — “more” was agreed upon by all… Read more ›
Category Archives: identity
When You Don’t Like to Practice
The PE class I created was carefully called Games & Practice. The goal is to develop skills and then utilize those skills in a larger, faster context. Sometimes this means adding people, sometimes this means creating a more complex task,… Read more ›
How to Cultivate Autonomy (Part 2)
Part One of this series looked at working with youth. My Dad is going to turn 78 this year. He is someone that I love and that I know loves me. Sometimes a close relationship can get in the… Read more ›
Reflections (2024)
I usually write these up at the school year’s end. But with nine weeks left in the semester, it seems pertinent to bring to light some things I have realized and have been chewing on for some time. (If you… Read more ›
How Much is Enough?
At the very beginning of the pandemic, I posted and article that asked, “How does one know what to do?” In it, I used the example of Kevin McCallister (via Home Alone) mimicking ‘adulting’ after his initial indulgence into… Read more ›
The Problem with Performance Training
I define performance for the purpose of this article as, “the peak execution of a skill at a particular point in time.” Though sometimes cooperative, there is most often an element of competition involved. For most athletes and artists, the… Read more ›
A Perceived Philosophical Conflict
I am the only female in my high school PE department. It’s been this way for 20 years. The one time another female came in she tried to out-alpha the football coach and got removed from teaching PE and placed… Read more ›
Relationships, Part Four: Peers
Part Four in a four-part series of relational examinations. Part One: Parents Part Two: Pets Part Three: Students The definition of peer that I most relate to is “looking at”. The people who were supposed to be ‘like… Read more ›
Relationships, Part 3: Students
Part Three in a four-part series of relational examinations. Part One: Parents Part Two: Pets I never had any aspirations to be a teacher. I’d planned on becoming a physical therapist, but when it became clear that the training… Read more ›
Relationships, Part 1: Parents
Part One in a four-part series of relational examinations. The family is your first introduction into relationships. They are the constant you are surrounded with, the base in which all other units are compared. The two people that set… Read more ›
Entering Worlds
Each of us resides in our own world. It may be one we created, one we filtered out from experience, or one that revolves around our investments in habit and attention. Once established and found comfortable, it becomes a prism… Read more ›
PE as the Incubator of Risk
Physical Education classes have gotten bigger over the course of the pandemic. The powers that be have knowingly placed too many kids within too small an area. Like athletics, it seems to have a separate set of rules that allow… Read more ›
What is a Class?
This is a question that requires more probing questions. Must there be a unifying variable of sameness? If so, what is it? The age of the people? The thematic subject? What actions are expected? How about the time of day? … Read more ›
The Future of a Social Ghost (part 3)
Part One. Part Two. At a friend’s 40th birthday party, a question was asked of the four ladies in attendance. “If you had 72 hours left to live, how would you spend it?” I immediately knew my answer, but… Read more ›
The Findings of a Social Ghost (part 2)
[Part One can be found here.] “The Ghost’s of Chris’s Present” Individuals are my jam. They are complex in a singular way. It is easy to give them my undivided attention. It is easy to gather data points. Instead… Read more ›
The Makings of a Social Ghost (part 1)
Alternative title, “The Ghost of Chris’s Past” [Part One of a three part series to help me better understand and create community.] Being social has always been a function of sports. Teammates congregated for practice and games. I wanted… Read more ›
A Chance for Change
Typically, when I write, I try to give an overview of a completed loop of learning: this is where I started, this is where I went, and this is what I found. As a public educator in the midst the… Read more ›
How I Accidentally Got Invited to the Embodiment Summit
I received an email from Daniela Welzel, whom I do not know. It was obviously of the bulk variety, not even a name in the greeting, and it touted its magnitude and asked if I was interested. I didn’t know… Read more ›
Trust, Authority, & the Human Factor
From the perspective of someone looking for you, you will be found more readily if you are specialized. A handy man might be able to fix your furnace, but a furnace guy definitely could (should?). And yet, if I needed… Read more ›
On Wanting and Being Wanted
I write this still teetering on the edge of letting go of a belief that I thought defined me. I never wanted to be anyone but myself, and lived in accordance with that desire. And yet, if I try to… Read more ›
Knowing What to Do
How do people know what to do when their structure of doing is removed? If they had choice and input to create the structure they lived within, and it served them well — fostering security and growth — they would… Read more ›
Shifting Classes Toward Students
Three years in the making, I became clear on the name for my class and what I hoped it could offer students. Up until this time, I got the same kind of kid – ones who prioritized learning and understanding… Read more ›
Sensitivity & Isolation
For a very long time, I blunted my sensitivity. It left me open to being hurt. I had to learn not to be responsive to being receptive. I adjusted my interactions with the world to protect me from it. My… Read more ›
On Aging, Work, & Enjoying Home
How does your ability to care for something affect how much you can enjoy it? When the yard is full of weeds you can’t pull and awry branches you can no longer trim, do you begin to despise the home… Read more ›
The Nature of Hurt
The nature of hurt is a protective hardening. It heeds and is hypersensitive to perceived warnings of “don’t”, so much so that it often re-wires them as “can’t”. Doubt barricades them into safe worlds where they are capable and can… Read more ›
Knowing vs. Believing
Knowing grounds us. It keeps us on firm footing, aligning our steps in certainty. We are familiar with the route and look at our phones along the way. This compass does not compel us. It is routine and habitual. Believing… Read more ›
Systems and the Self
A system is a method of getting particular results. It needs individual interpretation and application, however, to keep it alive and viable. Without an infusion of self, both the system and the user remain static. Integrated, everything evolves. Value lies… Read more ›
The Essential Act of NoThing
If I learned one thing growing up in the Chicago suburbs, it’s that lazy people are really, really frowned upon. Being worth something meant you did something. You contributed; to the house, the team, the school, the community. Willingly making… Read more ›
An Everything PE: Year Two in Review
Two years ago, I set to develop a “new” type of PE that looked outside the realms of sport and weight lifting. With the outliers as my muse, we set to examine movement with a larger lens — how one… Read more ›
The Softening of an Ego
The ego has many layers and interpretations. It can signify a sense of self, the definition of “I”, and/or the determination of esteem or importance. A psychoanalytical description fans this into, “the part of the mind that mediates between the conscious… Read more ›
Certs, Workshops, and Continuing Ed
Information is a tease that lures you to attach yourself with a particular paradigm. The consequence of consuming the free tastes is that you are left deficient. Once sampled, you’re not entirely sure what you just had, but you do… Read more ›
On Authenticity
There is a huge benefit to feeling like an outsider. You learn to trust yourself. Your different feels correct. You become excellent at observing and sifting, and finding your own truth. For a long time I mistook my almost constant… Read more ›
A New PE: Year in Review
Being a public educator means you will never be without students. The caveat is that many won’t want to be there. Shaped by a past experience of dodgeballs to the face and timed miles and pacer tests, Physical Education was… Read more ›
Loving Your Work As If It Were a Person
I live a charmed existence. I get to play with kids and problem solve painful movement with adults. Familiar with the importance of each, I also teach teens about pain and guide adults toward rediscovering play. I step between the… Read more ›
Trying Something New
Before we are funneled into a certain way of being, we believe we can do anything. We want to try everything because we have no idea what we can’t do. We are confident without realizing or understanding what confident is.… Read more ›
“It’s all made up stuff.”
As practioners and coaches, teachers and students, we are constantly seeking out information to make us better at what we are trying to do. We stalk and search. If only we could see and know, then we could do. Despite… Read more ›
Rediscovering Play (part 1) – Shifting Structure and Perspective
“To enjoy the process you have to re-frame desired results.” Give a kid a list of tasks to do, and you’ll find yourself with one unhappy kid. Give an adult a checklist, and they transform into blissful busyness. One… Read more ›
Feeling Loved
Finding and being able to engage in what you’re passionate about is touted as the end all and be all of existence. Though loving what you do can lead to a love of self, it doesn’t quite translate into feeling… Read more ›
Try Awarded
feature photo credit: telegraph.co.uk Work has always made me feel accomplished. I did stuff simply for the sake of getting it done. Checking off a box or crossing off a project was immensely satisfying. Afterwards, I waited anxiously, bouncing my… Read more ›
Movement as a Story
Movement is communication. It is the giving and receiving of signals, of input and outputs. When you watch someone move, whether it be dancing or jogging or getting out of a chair, the manner in which they carry themselves and… Read more ›
Minimizing Sport in Physical Education
featured photo credit: theindianschool.in I’ve had the good fortune to work at an arts school the last eight years. The students, many disenfranchised with Physical Education in the past, were open and willing to trying different things. I’m not… Read more ›
Developing Your Own Movement
As a young athlete, I did whatever my coach told me without asking questions. I rewound video tape of Michael Jordan again and again to get the footwork right. As I aged, I accepted and attempted to perform summer programs… Read more ›
My Father’s Curse
My father takes pride in being a worker. He grew up poor in Italy and emigrated to the U.S. when he was 16. He had $20 in his pocket and no grasp of the English language. Somehow, though, like so… Read more ›
Leaving Home
There are two ways to leave something — choosing or being forced. The decision to walk away from something is based on faith and competence. There are few things more empowering than making plans to leave and following through with… Read more ›
For My Mom, On Mother’s Day
This is an ode to mothers everywhere. Your ability to give and withstand suffering makes you the most exceptional people on earth. The following is one daughter’s account of how her mother shaped her, and how knowing her story put… Read more ›
Time Constraints Kill Curiosity
For a very long time, my ability to do work was my defining feature. I needed to get stuff done to prove myself capable and worthwhile. When I was younger my Mom made us chores lists. She wrote them on… Read more ›
To the High School Athletes
Dear high school athletes, Sport can teach you a lot of things. It can help you understand self-belief and show you how to contribute to a group. It can make you feel as if you belong. It can provide you… Read more ›
The Influence of Dirt
The dirt must have confidence. It’s capable of so many things! Even if no one notices and it doesn’t look like it’s working, it gets some pretty amazing stuff done. It holds up the entire world, grows plants, supplies food,… Read more ›
The Tribal Effect
featured photo credit: jimmy nelson, beforethey.com Humans are hard-wired for connection. Brene Brown’s fantastic work continues to dig into this truth. The purpose of connection is not to simply fit in; it’s to belong. The difference is immense. Fitting in is… Read more ›
Pain affects our esteem
Pain science is a hot topic. Our brain interprets inputs, perceives something as a threat, and outputs pain as a protective measure. The way we feel about our injured part, though, can be even more damaging. Far beyond placebo and… Read more ›
What I learned from my first therapy session
I consider myself as someone pretty well put together. I’m genuinely happy, positive, and upbeat. I am confident in my abilities to figure stuff out and get things done. If I want to know something and can’t think it through,… Read more ›
Living Up to Expectations
When I was freshly 20 years old, a guy named Pete Steinberg told me to get on a plane. I’d been playing rugby for a few months and he’d spotted me at a regional tournament. In three weeks, a developmental… Read more ›
The Competitive Want
Athletes all have the same goal. It’s handed to them the first day of little league or church basketball practice. Get better at this. They’re given a coach, schedule, space, and playmates. All they have to do is show up.… Read more ›
The Community of Fitness
There are a lot of camps in the fitness world. There are the lifters, the runners, the yogis, the crossfitters, the athletes, the extreme ethusiasts, etc. etc. etc. Generally speaking, each tribe believes their method of training is superior. That’s… Read more ›
Of Heroes and Guides
Everyone wants to be the hero. The one who defies the odds, puts in the work, and wins the day. Heroes have the heart of a champion, and inspire others by simply existing. We want to believe this guy succeeded.… Read more ›
Bodies As Commodities
In an age where fitness has become it’s own competitive sport, are we treating our bodies as a way of marketing our worth? The internet is riddled with ripped physiques and feats of strength and speed and power. But why… Read more ›
“You’re An Animal.”
A sweet, fifty-something woman said this to me while I was lifting yesterday. I looked at her blankly and inquisitive. “You’re wondering if it’s a compliment, ” she said. “It is.” I smiled and thanked her and she went on… Read more ›
Dear Mr. Jeter
photo credit: theonion.com Dear Mr. Jeter, We accept the fact that you are retiring. We just hope you do too. It will be argued for quite some time whether you were the greatest ever. People will… Read more ›