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Conflict
Dancing with
Conflict
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"In
the frank expression
of conflicting opinions lies
the
greatest promise of wisdom."
Justice Louis Brandeis |
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"The
heart of power
and the heart of love
are one
and the same."
Martial Arts Proverb
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Program
The
Dancing with
Conflict Program
You can't
shake hands with a clenched fist.
Indira
Gandhi
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Bottom-line,
whenever people come together, whenever there are multiple goals and
values, and whenever time and resource constraints are present,
conflict happens. In other words, conflict is a fact of life.
Our
problems with conflict lie in how we deal with it. Just the idea of the
possibility of conflict is enough to shift your chemical balance,
muscular tension, internal conversation, mood, and your readiness to
respond.
From
the non-verbal perspective, the way we handle encounters shapes how we
handle everything that comes our way, objects, people, events, or
deadlines.
Because
this topic is so important and charged, we have created a safe,
enjoyable, and effective way to draw out your natural capacity to meet
life and events with an open and creative heart and mind.
Learning
to dance with the non-verbal dimension of conflict translates
automatically in a whole new level of skill in handling the conflicts
of work and life.
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We emphasize the non-verbal dimension
because research shows that working only in words – especially with
issues like conflict - is not enough to learn new skills and change old
habits.
We have also found that when you add the
non-verbal to your normal verbal learning process it translates more
easily to the rest of your life,
personally as well as professionally.
But what
is “conflict”? After reading through a wide range of
definitions, it seems that the essence of “conflict” is profoundly
basic.
Conflict
refers to any
situation where the forces involved seem to be in opposition.
These forces can be external, internal, or more usually, both.
These forces can take the form of people, resources, ideas, feelings,
muscular tensions, or “energies.”
What if
our
problems with conflict lie not in conflict itself, but rather in how we
deal with it?
One of the secrets of learning and upgrading your conflict skills is to
focus on the way you handle encounters. Your tendencies and
habits of meeting events and people shapes how you handle everything
that comes your way.
Imagine that someone you do not know is
approaching. As they get
closer and closer, how do you find yourself wanting to respond?
- Do you find yourself shifting forward to
meet them?
- Do you find
yourself shifting back to adapt?
- Do you find shfiting upward to turn out
of the way?
- Do you find
yourself shifting downward ato resist?
It is upon these incredible primal
movements that our habits of dealing
with conflict are built.
What
does conflict mean to you?
What
would you like to change about your understanding
and ability to work
effectively with conflict?
We
designed this program to walk
you step by step into a way of being where dancing with conflict is
natural, easy and spontaneous. Plus, of course, to assist you
with some of your most important concerns re conflict.
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Benefits
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The Benefits You Can Gain
- Improved skills for
presentation, conflict, negotiation, and mediation.
- New
tools and new skills
for recovering your center under
pressure.
- A non-judgmental
assessment of your habits of responding to stress.
- More
effective maps for
interpreting the non-verbal dimension.
- Simple and powerful
methods for expanding your conflict handling repertoire.
- Enhancing your ability
to dance with conflict - with an open heart.
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Sticks
Sticks: A Safe and Effective Practice
Learn about its
history and see it in action
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History
of the "Sticks" Exercise
Twenty-five
years ago, in the midst of a sparring exercise in the Philippine stick
fighting art of Arnis with a 10th Degree Karate Black Belt (Sifu Rick
Alemany), a light went off. In the same room was a group of his
black belt students. I realized that they were practicing with a
very different attitude than their master.
The
pressure of conflict
begins to rise as the intensity of the encounter increases. When
the stress level crosses a certain threshold, it is natural for one's
perceptual-motor coordination "to feel" threatened.
When
this began to happen for
either Rick or myself we found ourselves spontaneously separating,
relaxing, and laughing. Then we would begin again.
This
wasn't what the other
experts were doing. As the stress level increased and their
coordination was threatened, you could see them taking this very
personally and instead of relaxing and laughing they would tighten up
even more and push ahead even more. They were definitely not
dancing with conflict.
During
this same time, I was
developing a curriculum for the first accredited master's degree
program in Holistic Health Education, an early version of professional
coaching training. I was working on a new course in Stress
Psychology and I wanted it to be interactive and skill-based.
To
make a long story short, I
stripped the sparring exercise down to its fundamentals and rebuilt it
as a way to introduce ordinary people to another way of appreciating
and working with the energy of conflict.
I
changed the goal from
winning over your opponent to using this encounter to non-judgmentally
discover your habits and then to learn new and more effective ways of
responding.
The
first thing we discovered
is that everyone really loved it. Even those who were the most
conflict phobic realized that intense engagements could be fun.
Since it was practiced with a pair of sticks, they all decided to call
it that. The name stuck.
The
next use of this exercise
was a non-verbal tool for Marriage, Family and Child counselors.
If you could teach a couple to find their flow in the midst of this
game of "high stakes patty cakes", it became very easy and safe to show
them when their own personal stress responses closed down their hearts
and minds leading to, usually, stupid fights. If they could keep
the flow going when the conversation got tough, then they usually were
able to take it to a new and more effective level.
The
Sticks practice has been
used in organizations across the U.S.A. and in France. It is also
part of our leadership program for systems engineers.
The
actual sticks we now use
are made of hollow PVC plastic covered by foam rubber making this
adventure even safer and more endutaining.
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Sticks: A Partner Exercise for
Discovering and Upgrading Your Abilities
to Handle Pressure, Stress, and Conflict
Click on the image for a movie introduction
Judi and Dayle - Dancing with Conflict
Serious & Enjoyable
Learning
Judi is a
Social Worker who works with victims of abuse and violence.
Dayle
is an executive with a
major company.
"Movement
never lies."
Martha
Graham
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