NYT Interviewed me bout Double-Dutch Yesterday and more SWTOS...

INTERVIEWED FOR NYT ON DOUBLE-DUTCH
A reporter from NYT called to interview me for a piece about double-dutch. Readers you may or may not know I am an award-winning author on the subject. Why now? Because in the NYC, Double Dutch will become an officially sanctioned varsity sport in city public schools in the spring of 2009. Here's one of the many stories generated after the AP reported on it July 27th: http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=92963767




GOOGLE TRENDS AND CLICHÉS
This story has spiked the Google Trends register getting the highest marks ever as news. I suspect perceptions about black youth, teenage girls, and juvenile deliquency lurk behind spiked interest in the story in so many media outlets. I love how the story gains credibility with certain assertion that would not be considered all that if black kids were valued from the get-go. The stories all repeat the same thing about the participants saying they will "learn skills that will help them succeed in life. They learn how to negotiate," ..."how to talk, they learn discipline. And they learn to work together." Quoted from http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5gKSye5cor223IOhAkN-iNG7-DKQwD925RC0G1

A GIRLS' GAME AND GENDER POLITICS
During the interview, the reporter was taken by my favorable view of incorporating double-dutch into the school system. I told her it will be great to have a sport typically associated with females become sanctioned as a varsity sport that both sexes participate in. One concern that I have that I didn't talk about is how lots of things that were once female dominated get reincorporated as predominately male practices not unlike making beats (girls been making beats in composing and producing cheers, handclaps and double-dutch for decades since they were young) or midwifing. The school system should be careful to keep the feminine energy of double-dutch alive for all the students. The chants and cheers. The singing and dancing of the so-called sport.

MI THEORY & EUROPEAN CLICHÉS ON READING AND WRITING
I told the reporter that double-dutch as a sport in schools will allow a fuller range of kids' multiple intelligences to be explored (see MI Theory by Prof. Howard Gardner of Harvard). I even got all cliche and said that this inclusion allows urban children to explore more than traditional European modes of intelligence like reading and writing. But that is too cliche because black kids and people love to read and write even if we do it in alternative modes of expression. That is as much African as it is European. Having double-dutch in the schools will bring up the same thing I wrote about in Chapter 5 of my book. Once black forms are institutionalized, not unlike street ball, we have to be careful to allow the spontaneity of the play to be present and be generated from the players not the judges. I don't know if what happened with basketball is possible anymore--meaning that the owners of a tradition will simply let it go to reclaim it in a much different age of Web 2.0, social media and mediation of knowledge, expression and identity. Next spring will be the test.

I can't wait to see what got quoted. More to blog about then. Will keep you abreast of when it is published.

FINAL "TRICK" (a double-dutch competition term)
A professor I have some acquaintance with emailed me yesterday to tell me how one of her students was so taken by my book. She had played double-dutch growing up and it affirmed her place, her experience of being in the world, and she also is classically-trained as I am. Black, female, classically-trained and R&B expressive. That's me! Kyra G and her P.H.&D.

Really Getting What You Want in a Romantic Relationship

Last night I got some of the best coaching I've had about my romantic relationships. I participate in transformational work at Landmark Education and last night one of my coaches shared a great insight with me about my dating life and I'd like to share what i got and what I see for my work with Success with the Opposite Sex: Get Related not Dated(TM).

So lately I've been meeting some wonderful men but it's also been ending rather quickly without a clue. I always think it's me and it's personal. I bet I am not alone in that. I also think at age 45 I'm gonna end up like one of my aunts who has never been married. It seems like she's just given up on the idea of having a life partner or being married. And everyone in the family seems to think that about her too. I am the only one in my generation who has not been married in my immediate family. But most of the marriages in my family are not working as well as any of them would like them to. There is no LOVE and AFFINITY truly present to me in those relationships but I am an outsider. People have often associated me with my aunt because we both aren't married. But the operative word for me is "YET!"

And I've had people who've participated in SWTOS ask well what about you? You aren't in a relationship. How can you coach other people in Success with the Opposite Sex? A quote I love says "“The greatest barrier to success is the fear of failure.” Sven Goran Eriksson I am convinced that I am not and will not be stopped by failure. And I am out to teach others that the answer is to stay in the game, on the court, until you win the game you're out to win. “Success is not the key to happiness. Happiness is the key to success. If you love what you are doing, you will be successful.” Herman Cain

When holidays roll around, I seem to experience or feel more lonely. I went to a great film the other night alone (Check out THE VISITOR). The trailer is so perfect in this context (the voiceover begins "I haven't done any real work in a very long time. I pretend"). I really enjoyed the film and yet the next day I couldn't stop thinking about how lonely holidays have been for me and even worrying about what the 4th of July would be like. I had spent the weekend at the Bazaar at BAM (Brooklyn Academy of Music hosts an annual event called DANCE AFRICA every Memorial Day). I was "melanating" with hundreds of black people and still I was insisting in my head that I am alone or lonely. Saw a handful of good friends and old friends I haven't seen for a while. Met a new friend or two as well as meeting some wonderful men, too.

All of this started when it didn't work out with one gentleman I really liked. I've been making his disappearance mean (like a broken record in my head), maybe I'll always be alone...like my aunt. Great story, wrong answer.

Last night, the coach said to me, "maybe what you think is going on, isn't happening at all." And something about what he said hit me. He added, "maybe you know exactly what you want and the men you've been meeting really are not the ones. You are simply learning that quicker than ever and not wasting any time." I loved that! In many ways that's exactly how I've been trying to read things but hearing it from someone whom I'd just met practically who had been complimenting me on how great I am, that made a real difference in how I listened to the whole matter. It is through such interactions, dialogues that matter, that most of us continue on our journey and pursue the fulfillment of our dreams.

This left me thinking about how to have people who participate in SUCCESS with the OPPOSITE SEX (tm) this summer REALLY get what they want out of being in relationships. I have been planning a relaunching after a few months of hiatus and rethinking. Click the RED NAMETAG on the left for more details about the Meetup - a relaunching mixer this Sat night at 9pm in Brooklyn.

I'll be sharing a real pathway to producing results you truly want in the dating for partnership and marriage game or maybe you just want to date. Whatever you want, that's what I am committed to causing with our members.

Hint: The answer ain't sitting at home in city with 8.2 million residents. You forget that New York is the most densely populated city in the U.S. More blogging on this tomorrow.