7/25/14
We woke up that morning and got ready for brunch. It would be our latest morning so it was nice to sleep in. After brunch the youth had some small group time to talk and discuss about the stuff they had learned up till that point. After that we moved into Paul's session. He brought us to a point about diving deeper into discussion. We learned that about different ways to listen and get more free information from people. A huge concept we talked about was making new interpretations. This is a way for us to help someone see their issue from a different set of eyes and maybe start thinking along a new track in relation to that.
After that we went swimming in the afternoon and although it looked originally like bad weather it turned out to be great. After swimming we did some martial arts stuff. Micheal said that this weekend would be a great time to bring in some of that and I could do some teaching. So I taught them the first kata we teach our students. We learned the first half and they seemed to be having a lot of fun with it. After that we went into my first session of the day. I talked about listening to understand. Basically it was about deeper listening and how to really hear what a person is saying. We talked about how you need to get into someone's world and attempt to experience what they are experiencing.
We stopped for dinner after that and had some more small group time. They would get off topic here and there but overall they were really good with that time. Then we had another session lead by me. This time it was focusing on non-verbals. For this our main exercise was sharing a heartfelt concern while one person listened and another observed the non-verbals of both other people. I did an example for them and then had them break off into groups of three to do their own. I felt that it went very well and a good majority of people stepped up to the plate and really shared some heartfelt concerns.
That night we spent the time playing Ga Ga ball. It is a game where you are in a waist high enclosed wall. There is one ball in the area. The goal is get the ball to touch the other people's feet or below their knee. Once it does you are out for that round. You can hit the ball with your hands. It is so much fun and pretty quick so you don't realize how many games you have played until you are very sweaty and gross and it is late.
Today I learned that mastering silence is a very useful skill. I am getting there but sometimes the silence even gets to me and makes me uncomfortable. It is a great tool and I love it.
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