September 28, 2018 | Annie Salness | 5 Comments | Blog
I’ve been participating in the 3 Dimensional Coaching online program. It’s a teaching tool to encourage and educate the coaching community. I got involved because my husband is a coach and we’ve coached football, volleyball, and basketball together.
The framework of the program helps coaches become more:
Fundamentally sound (1st Dimension) Skilled at coaching the mind (2nd Dimension)Focused on developing the heart (3rd Dimension)
I work on the program while I ride my spinning bike every morning.
Here’s a peek at what the program covers.
3D Companion Study Guide
And here’s an example of the teaching.
“The purpose of play is to engage our whole beings: body, mind and spirit. Play is marked by joy and wonder, which has the ability to capture our imagination and our effort… The desire to play seems to be hard-wired into every human heart.” – 3D Coaching
What moved me so much was when he says: “Play is always done for the pleasure of the activity.”
He talked about how kids naturally love to play, but how learning skills, strategizing and focusing on competition can take away that pure pleasure of playing. It becomes about pressure and performing, and kids start to worry they might make a mistake.
I started to think about adults–and myself. Why don’t we play? How did we get away from playing? And what does “play” look like in art? In music? In writing? In anything?
And, do I even let myself play?
That’s when I was brought to tears. Since my stroke, I’ve been working so hard on getting better, that I have neglected to play. I always used to play–taking hikes, playing games with my kids, shooting hoops for fun. ALL the time.
Recently, I was visiting my daughters at college, and they had a ping pong table in the dorm. So I played–with my left hand. And I laughed. I felt so much JOY and I was having an absolute blast!
When I’m in my painting studio, I’m very focused on the outcome of what I’m doing. I want to create art that someone will want and I don’t want to make a mistake. While I certainly do feel moments of joy while I work, it’s not necessarily about having a playful, joyful, experience. It’s about making something that has value.
Plus, I’m always alone while I work. I like working alone, but for me, playing is better with someone else. Someone to laugh with, to ask “Would you look at this?”, and to share the excitement, joy, and comradery.
That’s why I like to do commissions and teach classes. There’s so much interaction in both–and the opportunity to play.
I had a lunch meeting yesterday with some of my art friends and I asked what they did to “play.”
Gretha Linwood, Jo Reimer, Randall Tipton, Barbara, Sarah Peroutka, Patti McNutt, Don Gray, Mona Cordell, Mitch Burrell
Here’s what they said:
Go to workshops: you get to be a kid and learn something new
Do Plein Air painting: there is a freedom of being outdoors and the comradery of friends
Shared canvases: where you paint something and someone paints something
Musical chairs painting (only the chair doesn’t get taken away!): you get 30 seconds to paint or draw and then switch onto a new tool, mark, color, etc.???
All this talk about play has inspired me. I am setting the intention to play more in my work and bring more play into my classes.
What about you? Where do you PLAY in your life? What activities do you do for the sheer pleasure of doing them?
I’d love to hear from you! Please feel free to email me your thoughts or add a comment below.
