What change?

Posted on June 16, 2015

Having recently read Washington Rules: America’s Path to Permanent War (American Empire Project) by Andrew J. Bacevich, I believe it is essential for “We the people” to carve out a more palatable path for America. Reflecting on Bacevich’s central message that “Promising prosperity and peace, the Washington rules are propelling the United States toward insolvency and perpetual war” is disturbing. As a two year combat veteran of the Vietnam War-see Sitting in the Flames: Uncovering Fearlessness to Help Others-it is disconcerting that elected leadership re-creates and recycles national security policy and continues to plod down a rather dim path: bankrupt and unending war does not sound like peace and prosperity to this combat veteran, spouse, dad and grandpa. The past must identify our scars and lessons; and not direct us where the future needs to go. Our Founding Fathers would be unhappy with us! Read More

National security and our human condition

Posted on June 3, 2015

As a two-year, Vietnam War combat veteran, a course correction in American national security policy feels necessary. Since World War II the three pillars of American national security policy have been interventionism, global presence and power projection; and if “We the people” are to accept what media are reporting and paths Washington leaders continue to dictate, these pillars are thrusting our country down a path of bankruptcy and perpetual bouts of bloody, armed conflict. As Bacevich offers in Washington Rules, “Americans today must reckon with a contradiction of gaping proportions. Promising prosperity and peace, the Washington rules are propelling the United States toward insolvency and perpetual war. Over the horizon a shipwreck of epic proportions awaits. To acknowledge the danger we face is to make learning-and perhaps even a course change-possible. To willfully ignore the danger is to become complicit in the destruction of what most Americans profess to hold dear. We, too, must choose.” Read More

National security policy and our human condition

Posted on June 3, 2015

As a two-year, Vietnam War combat veteran, a course correction in American national security policy feels necessary. Since World War II the three pillars of American national security policy have been interventionism, global presence and power projection; and if “We the people” are to accept what media are reporting and paths Washington leaders continue to dictate, these pillars are thrusting our country down a path of bankruptcy and perpetual bouts of bloody, armed conflict. As Bacevich offers in Washington Rules, “Americans today must reckon with a contradiction of gaping proportions. Promising prosperity and peace, the Washington rules are propelling the United States toward insolvency and perpetual war. Over the horizon a shipwreck of epic proportions awaits. To acknowledge the danger we face is to make learning-and perhaps even a course change-possible. To willfully ignore the danger is to become complicit in the destruction of what most Americans profess to hold dear. We, too, must choose.” Read More

What is a golfer’s palette?

Posted on May 27, 2015

It does not matter whether we are talking about golf or life, we each have an inner artist waiting to be uncovered and unleashed to create either a desired golf shot, a minuet, a painting or a facet of life we dream to experience. A golfer’s palette is symbolic of the mental and technical skills and talents we golfers choose to practice and make available for use when putting the inner artist to work to create a golf shot or a putt. As a painter needs an easel, a canvas, brushes and dabs of paint on his-her palette, a golfer needs equipment, club and body mechanics and body-mind mastery “tools” to create as master at golf. It is no secret that playing winning golf implies focusing on saving putts, hitting fairways, hitting greens in regulation and consistently making ups and downs. As outlined in Golfer’s Palette: Preparing for Peak Performance, the palette of skills and talents can include: Read More

What is the concept of 100% responsibility?

Posted on May 17, 2015

Quite simply, the concept of 100% responsibility offers that life happens because of me and not to me. Committing to the 100% responsibility challenge is just accepting that it is our relationship to this changing life that determines our happiness or sorrow. As the song says, “Let it be.”
In 1988 a beautiful person by the name of Hyler Bracey introduced the concept 100% responsibility, along with a multitude of other leadership and management tools, to the Adolph Coors Company. Hyler was President of the Atlanta Consulting Group and his team of consultants had been hired by the Coors family to facilitate re-organization and transition from of a number of dependent, vertically organized companies to a few independent, horizontally organized companies. Read More

How are the body & mind connected in golf?

Posted on May 11, 2015

As our golf game evolves, literature suggests that 80-90% of on-the-course performance becomes mental because of the continuous flux of external conditions. Learning and practicing a meditation skill can enable the golfer to be in chaos and yet deliberately calm the mind and trust the club and body mechanic skills to unleash the artist within to deliver a shot to a visualized target. As Tim Gallwey offers in The Inner Game of Golf, “I am convinced that the happiest and best golfers are those who have realized that there is no single gimmick that works and that good golf is attained only by patience and humility and by continually practicing both Outer and Inner skills.”
Having experienced that awareness and simplicity are my best coach and caddie, the inner and outer seeds that bear fruit and are deserving of continued nurture are daily meditation practice and practice of set-up and one-piece take-away. As golf technical literature offers, 80-90% of a decent golf swing requires good set-up and one-piece take-away. Read More

How can golf be a game and therapy too?

Posted on May 2, 2015

As a graduate of the United States Military Academy at West Point; and proud member of the Long Gray Line, the memory is etched with passing in review on The Plain for General of the Army Douglas MacArthur; watching him during football games at Michie Stadium; and hearing him deliver his farewell address to The Corps of Cadets in Thayer Hall on May 12, 1962. On this historic day, he remarked,
They teach you to be proud and unbending in honest failure, but humble and gentle in success; not to substitute words for actions, nor to seek the path of comfort, but to face the stress and spur of difficulty and challenge; to learn to stand up in the storm but to have compassion for those who fail; to master yourself before you seek to master others; to have a heart that is clean, a goal that is high; to learn to laugh yet never forget how to weep; to reach into the future yet never neglect the past; to be serious yet never to take yourself too seriously; to be modest so that you will remember the simplicity of true greatness, the open mind of true wisdom, the meekness of true strength. Read More

Give the inner golfer a big hug!

Posted on April 26, 2015

Give the inner golfer a big hug!
Peter Kostis, a Golf Magazine Top 100 Teacher and CBS Sports Analyst, nailed the concept of unleash the artist within in a May 2015 Golf Magazine article, “Embrace the Golfer Within.” Today, since the majority of golf instruction has become technology and technical skills driven, it feels like instructors may have left the human being behind. Perhaps it is time to re-focus on the person swinging the golf club, as Tommy Armour, Tim Gallwey, Bob Toski, Bob Rotella and Fred Shoemaker have helped this student of the game begin to understand and experience.
As a Naropa University trained meditation practitioner, coupled with learning to play the piano and having studied in India with a Tibetan Buddhist thangka painter, it has become quite clear that each of us have an inner artist that is waiting to be unleashed to use a golf club to hit a golf ball to an emotionally embraced target. We just need to have an inner experience of the shot and then trust the inner golfer to deliver the shot.
How does one uncover the artist? As with club and body mechanics skills, our mental skills need training and practice, too. As a golfer, my experience has been that during set-up, learning to go to the breath, deliberately quieting the mind and “connecting” with a target is of exceptional value to a decent golf shot. “Connecting,” at will, in the moment, with a golf target, a loved one, or Beethoven’s spirit when he composed Fur Elise, can become a priceless treasure and skill. Read More

Myth and Experience of War

Posted on April 20, 2015

Sitting in the Flames, CHAPTER TWO: Immersed in the Myth and Experience of War
In the “Gripping Hands” section of the Spring 2015 issue of the West Point magazine, a brief article about a Class of 2004 graduate reads,
Captain William N. Eberle receives Distinguished Service Cross
For his courage and gallantry while in close combat with insurgent forces during an attack at Jalalabad Airfield in the Nangarhar province of Afghanistan, Captain William N. Eberle ’04, a commander with 3rd Special Forces Group, received the Distinguished Service Cross on February 10, 2015 at a ceremony held at Fort Bragg, North Carolina. Read More

Why do we need wars?

Posted on April 13, 2015

Why do we need wars?
Words taken from daily headlines certainly paint a sensual, harsh reality of war: “hostage slain,” “deadliest month,” “terror in the streets,” “stress disorders,” “war toll a horrific cost,” “airstrikes and bombs,” “deadly clashes,” “bloodshed,” and “prisons.” And a recorded history of 15,000 global wars, in 5000 plus years, and counting, seems to imply that the pain and suffering of war continues and will continue. As a fan of the NBC television show “Dancing With The Stars,” it has been quite moving to watch double amputee-left arm and left leg-Noah Galloway and his professional dancing partner Sharna Burgess perform. Noah is a storied Iraq combat hero and shining physical and mental example of the freedom, with proper support, that can rest beyond acceptance of the trauma of war. The question lingers: Why do we need such pain, trauma and scars to connect with life as it is intended to be? Read More