Monthly Archives: November 2014

Why, As a Woman, I love the UFC.

26 Wednesday Nov 2014

Posted by in sex, UFC

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1) Yes, I know that UFC is violent and people get hurt. Sports are risky. 30% of synchronized swimmers at the national level have to leave the sport due to concussions.

2) I do not love the way it’s hyped, as if all fans are meatheads needing to be psyched for a ‘war’.

3) I competed as a gymnast and performed as a dancer. I spent six years studying martial arts. I love the endless mystery of movement.

I began studying marital arts when my son was five years old. His father lived out of the country ten months of the year and I could feel that he needed something I couldn’t give him. I chose a dojo near our home and went to watch a class. The Art was called ‘Ninpo’ which is Japanese for Ninja. Everyone wore black gis, there were no mirrors and no fake sparing, as that would train the body to pull short when in a real  situation.

As I sat and watched the students I heard the voice of my Homeopath recommending that I study Martial Arts in order to help shift nightmares I was having of being chased by killers. I joined the dojo as well. The goal of the Art was that you would never have to fight. You would develop into a person that could sense danger before it happened and leave the situation.

This Art was developed so that little people could protect themselves if accosted by bigger people. It was perfect for a woman. There is no escaping the biological reality that  a man and a woman of the same size are not equally matched. 

Although I was athletic I grew up only with sisters and our fights were done with claws and verbal cruelty. I couldn’t even throw a ball. There were times in the training that I would sit quietly in the corner crying as I was overwhelmed and disoriented by all the punching going on in the class.

After about three years I did a self defense course at the dojo. The graduation is fighting, full out, a man in a padded suit who attacks you from behind when your eyes are closed. When I was grabbed an electricity snapped through my being and I fought this giant with a force so much faster and quicker that any thought could travel. I knew in my body absolutely that it is my right to fight for myself – something that my culture and upbringing had not encouraged in me.

I was training five days a week for almost six years. One Saturday after class I was lying on my back chatting with someone with my hands under my head, looking to my left. A Black Belt standing out of sight on my right quickly and playfully jumped onto my stomach. I didn’t flinch, I just kept talking but my stomach tightened naturally, he stood on me for a few seconds then got off. I realized then that I now knew what was killing intent and what wasn’t.  I could walk with a confidence that I didn’t know I didn’t have.

So the UFC is a place to experience the meeting of two equalling matched, highly trained athletes getting a chance to test themselves, to innovate, to surrender to the chaos after rigorous preparation. It’s the evolution, the innovation, the visceral grit and mental readiness  that reminds me that I am a fighter too.

And now there is a women’s division. And yes, it took the supremely talented Rhonda Rousey who is also a classical beauty to create the division. And we watch women fight. And maybe now men will start to experience woman as fierce unique competitors with bodies that have skill and not as objects here for their own judgment and pleasure. And maybe women will start to carry in their bodies a knowing about their own fierceness, their right to be clear, be heard and be safe.

Because we are the weaker sex we are encouraged to use our sexuality to manipulate  for power, for safety, for defense.  How’s that going for everyone?

And yes, we do need men to come to the aid of women but abuse of women rarely happens when other men are around. We need your change of perception not just your brawn.

In the words of Yogi Paramahansa Yogananda from his book ‘Law of Success’ –“always give one more punch”.

Hey UFC, now that there is a women’s division how about promoting the ring girls to front office jobs and having past champions carry the round numbers around the ring? Yeah, that’s what it feels like.

Wendel Meldrum is the author of ‘Pinkylux School for Girls presents ‘What is a Woman’ because it’s absurd to be one on Planet Earth’. Available on Amazon.

http://www.amazon.com/What-Woman-Because-Absurd-Planet/dp/0692245146/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1415212707&sr=1-1&keywords=pinkyluxschoolforgirls

Stranded between Religion and Science

12 Wednesday Nov 2014

Posted by in Anxiety, Art, Parenting, Philosophy, politics, Religion, science

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Teaching Science, teaches thinking through a system of demonstrable facts. This system can be quite shocking when applied to religion.  All sorts of mental gymnastics ensue when trying to fit the mythology of religion into a scientific structure. Trying to prove religion can often lead to launching logical thought off of unfounded premises giving the appearance that logic and reason are in the house.

This also happens with science. Much of science that is bandied around in the culture such as quantum physics and the big bang theory are just that theories, not facts. Yet absolute beliefs in the way that life works eg: the creating your own reality cults that have sprung from quantum theory are acting more like a religion than a science in many cases.

Religion comes from ancient texts that are finite. We watch science evolve before our very eyes and our belief systems adjust as we learn more. In our lifetime the shifts in perception that genetics alone has given us are breathtaking eg: all biological organisms carry DNA, all humans came out of Africa, and until recently our culture believed we were at the mercy of our genes alone and now we know that genes get turned on and off from external experiences. Imagine if we had stopped science at the point where we had learned we were at the mercy of our genes? That would be a religion in the making and a false one that would lead to limitations and prejudices.

But in our culture science is owned by corporations. Discovery not for it’s own sake but funded to be commodified. It too often carries the stamp ‘how much money can be made from this, what drugs can we develop from this new discovery, can this be a tool for war,’ not ‘who are we, what is the world?’.

What do we hang onto then? Why are so many taking medications for this plague of depression and anxiety? Has leaving religion and embracing science, which is owned by the corporate sector, left people without basic human comfort. Because there is such a stigma on religion and science is a part of commerce and commerce about positioning, networking, winning, filling our minds with ‘how to get’ rather than ‘how to be’ we have become a nervous mess. What are we missing?

In their pure form outside their use to manipulate for gain, the feelings of faith, patience, kindness, comfort, generosity, empathy, love, grace, peace and wonder, are there for us to have.  They offer us nothing except the experience themselves – the reward of patience is patience. Though we often associate them with religion they were not invented by religion but are states innately available to all that have been given names and context through culture and religion. Turning away from religion and into a cynical society focused on gain have we left behind those states of being because they can’t push our agenda forward and are associated with dead religions?

Certainly this planet goes on and on despite what religion is in vogue, what government is in power, what is being taught in schools. Whatever we discover about the macro world, the micro world or our inner world we are all just riding on planet earth with our feelings of love, peace and wonder available for our pleasure, for their own sakes. Lucky us, at least we have that.

Science is always on the move and requires us to remain fluid. It is only limited by our questions. It is not an absolute and never can be as questions are infinite. That makes Science an Art. Let’s not treat it like a religion or only for the sake of the market.

Reclaim your birthright of faith, hope, peace and love. Do it with Art – poetry, painting, singing, dancing and science. That’s what Art is there for.

Arts in school? Yes but for their own sake not to please a parent, win a prize or groom a child for the marketplace but to allow them to remember their nature and to stir kindness and generosity in with their school work. Art is medicine.

How’s your ‘Dog on Dog?’ The Ghomeshi Scandal as Evolutionary Tool.

07 Friday Nov 2014

Posted by in politics, sex

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By ‘Dog on Dog’ I mean our innate ability to sense another being through our whole body. Go to the dog park and marvel at the honest way dogs sniff, lick, tail tuck, snarl, snap, hump,rub, wag, play, bark, when meeting another dog. What are their bodies telling them – Is it safe? Can I play? Am I in danger? Should I run? Initiate a Game? Walk away?

We have our own ‘Dog on Dog’ response to ‘the other’ as well. Our challenge is our own unique imprinting through our ancestry, our family, our education, our community, our generation and our experiences that we have through those lenses. Our survival has many complex layers and filters that often contradict and override our bodies instinct. And unlike an animal we scent ourselves with deodorants, hair and body products, perfumes and colognes to mask our ‘smell’ which contains many secrets that ‘our animal’ can read with ease.

‘Am I safe’ can be filtered through an opportunity to get a job over our personal safety. The hope of ‘being connected’ to a life we dream of can erode our standards of behavior. The dream of ‘finding love’ can mask our gut instincts.

Our immune system has one basic job, to determine what is self and what is non-self. Air, food and drink comes in and gets sorted into ‘Yup, this is health building or nope, not a healthy item, sending it out.’  Our immune system weighs and measures itself against our most precious gift – our homeostasis, our innate equilibrium. Our whole being mimics this process as we build our unique selves.

We spend much of our lives discovering who we are not. Which actions, decisions and thoughts are ‘who am I’ and which are ‘who am I not’. Recovery from being a victim of a sexual assault (yes, it happened to me too) is a deep and profound rising up, peeling away, re-grounding of what it is to be ‘Walking While Woman.’

I hope we are not just waiting for the next newsy soundbite in the Jian story or the next shocking news story to take our attention for a few days. Beyond justice and victim/perpetrator identities are the voices of women to be heard in how we educate, govern and treat people. Because a woman’s body is designed for patience and survival through nurturing she asks not what is good for the economy but what is good for humanity.

Can women even hear their own deep wisdom anymore?

The answer is yes, yes they can.

If they listen for it.

If you listen for it.