The feast

Thanksgiving holds a special place in my heart - there's something magical about sitting down to share a meal with family, friends, and loved ones. Much has been written about cultural constants - themes and values that appear over and over again among all our tangled human tribes. The importance of sharing food is one of them. The line that separates humans from the rest of the animal kingdom is fuzzy at best, but what we do with food is unique. To paraphrase a quote I heard once, animals 'eat.' Humans 'dine.'

And since there's no such thing as too many feasts, Fifth Ape is throwing one. Call it an end-of-year celebration and a way for us to say thanks for making this a great year. Two of our most stalwart members, Becky and Anna, have volunteered to organize everything, which is incredible. This is going to be a big potluck, so if you plan on coming get ready to cook. We'll be keeping things pretty Paleo, so no grains, white potatoes, legumes, sugar, or processed food please! Dairy is neither encouraged nor discouraged. If you're confused, stick with meat and vegetables. If you want some recipe ideas, try here.

The feast begins at 6PM on Saturday, December 3rd. We have a room in Caldwell Hall on UNC's campus reserved - it's a short walk from Forest Theater - an interactive map can be found here.  We'll be in room 213.

If you're local to the Triangle, please come! If you plan on attending, please RSVP on our Meetup site so we know who to expect. Please also use the comment area for the Meetup event to let us know what you plan on bringing - it would be funny but sub-optimal if everyone showed up with sweet potatoes!

...and the winner is...

Oh, hey, remember this? Guess I should probably announce a winner, right?

First, thanks to everyone who participated. We got a lot of great entries and we'll be using a whole bunch of them in our programming. Get ready for a whole lot of fun new drills in the coming year :)

But, in the end, there can be only one, and the One is Sylvia Toth with her entry of "Bravely Bold Sir Robin" which took the cake due to its clever use of alliteration and due to the fact that I spent way too many hours as a child skipping about singing that song.

So, one Fifth Ape shirt to Sylvia for a job well done. If you're interested, you can get your very own Fifth Ape shirt right here.

Let's keep this party going, ya? If you think of a clever and appropriate name for a flow drill/HIIT drill, send it our way. Use anything and everything for inspiration - movie quotes, internet memes, pure originals, etc. If it meets our stringent criteria (i.e. puts us on the floor in a fetal position due to laughter) we'll use it and send you a shirt. Not bad, huh? In celebration of Sylvia and the perpetuation of the naming contest, please enjoy the best thing ever:

Happy Thanksgiving everyone!

Physical Education/Culture

Check out this video that friend/child development crusader Dr. Kwame Brown posted a few days ago:

This video made me sit up. It also made me really wish I spoke Russian because that graph at the end looked meaningful. All I could really tell is that one of those circle triangle people was holding a balalaika.  Therefore, I will be immediately be integrating balalakias into Fifth Ape classes.

All jokes aside, this is some pretty incredible physical education. In fact, as noted in a comment on our facebook page (you should like us!) this veers closer towards physical culture than physical education.

Physcial culture is a fascinating subject and I'd hate to deprive you of a fruitful hour or two of procrastination googling while you sit at those desk jobs we all seem to think are so important these days. To me, the essence is this: Education is something that happens to you - you learn a new subject or skill. Culture is something you dwell within. It influences all aspects of your life, including education. We in the West live in a plutarchy that has lost any real trace of unified physical culture. Those folks in the video have not. I think there are some pretty important lessons to be gleaned from this example:

1) General but complex movement skills.  No sport specific training here, but they aren't afraid to go deep with the movement skills. Quick direction changes? Check. Accuracy? Covered. Climbing? Got it. Adaptability? You bet. Drop rolling?? Yup... wow.

2) In the wake of continued budget cuts for physical education in schools we should all be facepalming over what these guys are able to do with a few benches, some tennis balls, and some rolled up rugs. We don't need expensive buildings or sport specific equipment. We do need time and dedicated, creative movement teachers. I guess my guidelines for "fixing" childhood education can be summarized thus: "Less test prep, more rolling."

3) I really loved the bits with mixed age groups playing together. I'd been thinking about this very subject for some time so it was fantastic to see a good example here. Mixed age group play is highly beneficial for young and old kids alike. This is another rich google vein that I'll let you tap, but the basic idea is this: older kids get to demonstrate and cement mastery while younger kids are able to achieve more than they could on their own (know as "scaffolding"  Some more here and here) This can be broadened, of course, to include adults and kids or even, as we see in the video, adults, older kids, and younger kids all together. Make you wonder why we insist on rigidly batching children together by, as Sir Ken Robinson would say, their date of manufacture?

I've been fortunate enough to participate in events that epitomize these points. Our local Parkour gatherings usually find adults, college kids, highschoolers, middleschoolers and a few bold elementary school children all training together. Everyone helps and everyone learns. When these days come together right, it's a magical experience. I encourage all parents out there to set something like this up.  It's not hard - all you need is a space (preferably outdoors), maybe some simple equipment, some kids of varying ages, and a willingness to jump in and play yourselves.