Hawaii Report
Ahhhhh! The Hawaii Playshop!
This is truly an international event with participants from 11 countries. We North Americans were out numbered by our international community. Participants came from Japan, Korea, Taipei, Hong Kong, Australia, Malaysia, Singapore, Brazil, UK, Norway, Canada, and the US. This diversity of culture reflects the result of all of the international facilitator trainings that I have been offering these past years.
My biggest Hawaii learning this year, is to trust my councilors and the processes and “If I do THIS, I get THAT.”
The Hawaii Facilitators Playshop Training is always an experiment in how I can best input my 35 years of drum circle facilitator experience into the participants in 6 days with out killing them.
As some of you know, the experiments have some times not gone all that well and I have killed a few students, or at least given them a good case of “over whelm.” NOT THIS TIME
As the DC-Facilitator community evolves and matures so does the Village Music Circles curriculum.
Every year we make changes and improvements in the program. This year has made major strides in meeting my teaching goal “Creating maximum learning with minimum stress.”
Below are some of the reasons why.
#1. The 10 day Mentor program has matured to the extent that by the time the level one people show up, the mentors are all on the same page in regard to group processing feedback as well as as being aware of how to work with all the interpersonal work that goes on in the program. A big thanks goes to Augie Dog Peltonen, Neysa, Mikiael Khei, and Stu Needle for being our Mentors this year.
(see their photos on the left)
#2. We shaved off 1 to 1&1/2 hours of curriculum time a day and translated that to “Hang out” time for the participants.
#3. We eliminated most of the Arthurian after dinner lectures by incorporating the facilitation techniques and concepts info into the Jump Time feed back sessions.
#4. We used advance copies of the "new book" at the playshop.
Everyone received an advanced copy. They were given progressive reading assignments as well as time to actually read the book.
In the past programs I had to impart to the students, many of the facilitation techniques and concepts using the lecture form. That was because they were not in the old Drum Circle Spirit book. They were in my head. Now EVERYTHING is in the NEW BOOK.
Every one has asked for the past three years, "when will the new book be published". My answer has always been "In the Spring, but I am not telling which Spring." Well "IT IS SPRING."
Ahhhh the late night moonlit rainbow over the Pacific. It only happens at the playshop...
#5. We moved Jump Time to right after dinner, and added a new Musicality piece right before Late Night. Doing the Musicality piece improved The Late Night jams considerably. On most nights, Late Night started at 9 PM. instead of 10:30 or 11 PM. That early start gave everyone opportunities to get in some good non-facilitated magic grooves and still get plenty of sleep.
All the other things that has made every Hawaii Playshop so special are still in place. We just made the program easer to enjoy with out eliminating any of the learning.
Normally after the Hawaii training Diana would put me in a hotel and let me sleep and recuperate for 2 days while she plays on the Island by herself. This year I finished the playshop in as good a shape as the rest of the participants and even got to go with Diana on the annual after the playshop boat ride with the usual after Hawaii party graduates.
I give thanks to my brilliant curriculum team and Meta Mentor Staff of Jim Boneau, Mary Tolena, Steve Hill and Kerry Shakerman, for helping create a relaxed an fun learning environment. In fact this time I think the participants were even able to notice that they were “IN” Hawaii during the program. There was a lot more turtle swims and beach walks and a lot less sleep deprived burn outs.
Now on to the rest of the tour.... Share your Spirit ...... Arthur ...... [";-)
