28-10-2009, 07:43 PM
What we are talking about here is the dehumanization of one or more humans. As is said elsewhere by Chris Hedges, war is the ultimate hate crime. If being taught to be a soldier to fight war tends to be dehumanizing in some cases (I will allow for the fact that the recruit brings in some of what transform that person into a rapist, war criminal or avid killer), then military training tends toward the creation of enabling other types of dehumanization.
"The importance of positivism [in the development of an athlete] has been noted [in earlier chapters of "Summon The Magic" and its source books], yet some feel that the team plays a little better when they get barked at. This continues as the young athlete moves into the world of work; some supervisors and managers are adept at barking too. Hinkson, in "The Art of Team Coaching", calls this the militaristic model which he says has "fallen by the wayside because it doesn't reflect the social realities of the modern athlete."
James Loehr** compares military and sport toughening models:
Even if we are uncomfortable with a discussion of military approaches, we have to admit the effectiveness of the system used to develop and toughen military recruits. Undisciplined, immature, unfocused and fearful teenagers are transformed, in an 8-week period, into soldiers that can undertake 20 mile hikes carrying 60-100 pounds of gear, overcome a wide variety of obstacles, and conquer their ultimate fear. The techniques involved in this remarkable conversion have been refined over thousands of years. Studying this approach might yield important insights.
The first place we might look is at the process of marching. Even today, when soldiers don't march into battle, they march because marching is for between battles. Marching develops and demonstrates an attitude that shows no weakness, no deviation, no fatigue, no negativism, no fear. What you see when you see a military unit in drill or on the march is precision, unit synchronization, decisive clean movement, total focus, confidence, and positive energy. Even the breathing is synchronized to movement. Marching is practice for being decisive, looking strong and acting confidently (regardless of feelings); it requires discipline, sustained concentration, and poise (all of which are essential elements in conquering emotions, especially the fear of death). The next time you observe an athletic competition, observe how the athletes walk into competition; watch their body language at the moments in the gaps between competitive movement.
Further inquiry into soldier-making reveals the following effective elements:
1. A strict code concerning how one acts and behaves, especially under stress (head, chin and shoulders up, with quick and decisive response to commands).
2. No visible sign of weakness or negative emotion is permitted. (No matter how you feel, this is the way you act.) [This is akin to the directives of a stern, authoritarian, abusive parent.]
3. Regular exposure to high levels of physical training as well as mental and emotional stress (courtesy of the obnoxious drill instructor) to accelerate the toughening process. (The more elite the unit, the higher the stress.)
4. Precise control, regulation and requirement of cycles of sleeping, eating, drinking and rest, with mandatory meals.
5. A rigorous physical fitness program, including aerobic, anaerobic and strength training.
6. An enforced schedule of trained recovery, including the items in #4, as well as regularly-scheduled R&R.
Some of the undesirable features of this military training system are:
1. The stripping of personal identity and its replacement with group identity. (Where this happens in civilian life (gangs and cults), it usually indicates low self-esteem.)
2. Military values, beliefs and skills have little application in civilian life.
3. Blind adherence to authority is rarely appropriate outside the military.
4. Mental and emotional inflexibility and rigidity are severely limiting. Even on the battlefield, and in any emergency situation, inflexible thinking leads straight to disaster.
5. An acquired dislike for physical training, and/or intense mental and emotional stress, is a common result of the pain and boredom of the process, although others adopt a pattern of fitness that they follow for life.
Many coaches draw on military training methods. The sports training model has many parallels. One clear commonality: A higher level of fitness automatically makes an individual tougher mentally. There are sporting codes which are similar: Never show weakness; never talk negatively; no whining; think positively; look energetic and confident at all times; follow a precise way of thinking and acting after making mistakes. Similarly, coaches suggest or require adherence to rules regarding sleep, alcohol, drugs, and meals. And a visit to any early pre-season sports camp will show repeated exposure to progressively-increasing levels of competitive stress.
But when coaches become obnoxious drill instructors, it can exact a heavy price: it undermines an athlete's natural love for sport and kills his or her motivation and intrinsic drive to excel in it. This happens over a short time frame, and potentially lasts a lifetime.
# # # # # # # # #
One approach used in military training was presented at the 19th Annual Springfield College Department of Psychology Conference in June 2002 ("Winning in Sport and Life") by Dave Czesniuk, a performance enhancement instructor at West Point. Dave's job was to prepare a team of volunteers (admittedly a group with high abilities, motivation and previous success) to compete in the annual Sandhurst event.
Named after Great Britain's equivalent to West Point (and always won by a team of soldiers from Sandhurst, who prepare year round), the event is scored by team only and requires nine teammates to traverse five miles over rugged terrain as fast as possible while undertaking a series of challenges or skill stations that include (among others): marksmanship; the setup, use and takedown of technical gear; rappelling down a cliff and over a river; and working together to get all nine team members over an 8-foot wall without using any aids.
The team gets very limited opportunities to "scrimmage" the event; team members are, of course, also involved in athletics, other military training, and an intense curriculum of study. Dave described participation in the event as similar to belonging to a club at another college; success was based entirely on what the individuals brought to the attempt.
Training consisted of physical fitness and limited work in each of the skill stations, but Dave's primary role was to meet with each individual to establish and create an audio CD training tool. The audio tool consisted of each volunteer reading a script, out loud and in his own voice. (The brain, of course, responds much more effectively to one's own voice.)
The "script" described, in detail, each key moment of the entire event as well as the role that individual would play in the complex interaction with his teammates at each skill station. The script also utilized goal statements, affirmations and cues specific to the individual and his role. Here's a fictional example:
"As I cross over the checkpoint line, I focus on returning my breathing to a normal rate while I take the whoozamajingle out of Betsy's rucksack. Okay, now, Ralph hands me the whatzit and, remembering to deploy the ground spikes, I open the tripod and put it in place within five seconds. While I hold the tripod steady, Betsy then places the unit atop the tripod. Once this is secured, I turn to George and begin gathering all of the thingamajigs.... [After the skill station] As I place the whoozamajingle back in Betsy's rucksack, I shout "Great precision, Hellcats!" and then shout "ten seconds to mount up" and begin slow, deep inhalations as I remind myself that I have to finish this upcoming stretch first, in four minutes and ten seconds, because I'm carrying the thingamabob."
Once a complete-event recorded script is polished and mixed with appropriate music, the recruit is asked to listen to the CD at least once a day, and preferably twice, or at least as much as possible within the highly-demanding daily schedule of a West Point cadet.
As the late springtime event neared, the training intensified; each team member took part in an indoor drill during which he was asked to touch and deactivate, as fast as possible, a series of randomly-appearing lights on a 3' x 4' Activision board while simultaneously balancing on a bongo board and reciting his script out loud!
Sound stressful enough? Sound effective?"
** See Toughness Training for Life, James E. Loehr, Ed.D., Plume/Penguin, New York 1993, as well as The New Toughness Training for Sports: Mental. Emotional and Physical Conditioning from One of the World's Premier Sports Psychologists, James E. Loehr, Ed.D., Dutton Books, New York 1994.
"The importance of positivism [in the development of an athlete] has been noted [in earlier chapters of "Summon The Magic" and its source books], yet some feel that the team plays a little better when they get barked at. This continues as the young athlete moves into the world of work; some supervisors and managers are adept at barking too. Hinkson, in "The Art of Team Coaching", calls this the militaristic model which he says has "fallen by the wayside because it doesn't reflect the social realities of the modern athlete."
James Loehr** compares military and sport toughening models:
Even if we are uncomfortable with a discussion of military approaches, we have to admit the effectiveness of the system used to develop and toughen military recruits. Undisciplined, immature, unfocused and fearful teenagers are transformed, in an 8-week period, into soldiers that can undertake 20 mile hikes carrying 60-100 pounds of gear, overcome a wide variety of obstacles, and conquer their ultimate fear. The techniques involved in this remarkable conversion have been refined over thousands of years. Studying this approach might yield important insights.
The first place we might look is at the process of marching. Even today, when soldiers don't march into battle, they march because marching is for between battles. Marching develops and demonstrates an attitude that shows no weakness, no deviation, no fatigue, no negativism, no fear. What you see when you see a military unit in drill or on the march is precision, unit synchronization, decisive clean movement, total focus, confidence, and positive energy. Even the breathing is synchronized to movement. Marching is practice for being decisive, looking strong and acting confidently (regardless of feelings); it requires discipline, sustained concentration, and poise (all of which are essential elements in conquering emotions, especially the fear of death). The next time you observe an athletic competition, observe how the athletes walk into competition; watch their body language at the moments in the gaps between competitive movement.
Further inquiry into soldier-making reveals the following effective elements:
1. A strict code concerning how one acts and behaves, especially under stress (head, chin and shoulders up, with quick and decisive response to commands).
2. No visible sign of weakness or negative emotion is permitted. (No matter how you feel, this is the way you act.) [This is akin to the directives of a stern, authoritarian, abusive parent.]
3. Regular exposure to high levels of physical training as well as mental and emotional stress (courtesy of the obnoxious drill instructor) to accelerate the toughening process. (The more elite the unit, the higher the stress.)
4. Precise control, regulation and requirement of cycles of sleeping, eating, drinking and rest, with mandatory meals.
5. A rigorous physical fitness program, including aerobic, anaerobic and strength training.
6. An enforced schedule of trained recovery, including the items in #4, as well as regularly-scheduled R&R.
Some of the undesirable features of this military training system are:
1. The stripping of personal identity and its replacement with group identity. (Where this happens in civilian life (gangs and cults), it usually indicates low self-esteem.)
2. Military values, beliefs and skills have little application in civilian life.
3. Blind adherence to authority is rarely appropriate outside the military.
4. Mental and emotional inflexibility and rigidity are severely limiting. Even on the battlefield, and in any emergency situation, inflexible thinking leads straight to disaster.
5. An acquired dislike for physical training, and/or intense mental and emotional stress, is a common result of the pain and boredom of the process, although others adopt a pattern of fitness that they follow for life.
Many coaches draw on military training methods. The sports training model has many parallels. One clear commonality: A higher level of fitness automatically makes an individual tougher mentally. There are sporting codes which are similar: Never show weakness; never talk negatively; no whining; think positively; look energetic and confident at all times; follow a precise way of thinking and acting after making mistakes. Similarly, coaches suggest or require adherence to rules regarding sleep, alcohol, drugs, and meals. And a visit to any early pre-season sports camp will show repeated exposure to progressively-increasing levels of competitive stress.
But when coaches become obnoxious drill instructors, it can exact a heavy price: it undermines an athlete's natural love for sport and kills his or her motivation and intrinsic drive to excel in it. This happens over a short time frame, and potentially lasts a lifetime.
# # # # # # # # #
One approach used in military training was presented at the 19th Annual Springfield College Department of Psychology Conference in June 2002 ("Winning in Sport and Life") by Dave Czesniuk, a performance enhancement instructor at West Point. Dave's job was to prepare a team of volunteers (admittedly a group with high abilities, motivation and previous success) to compete in the annual Sandhurst event.
Named after Great Britain's equivalent to West Point (and always won by a team of soldiers from Sandhurst, who prepare year round), the event is scored by team only and requires nine teammates to traverse five miles over rugged terrain as fast as possible while undertaking a series of challenges or skill stations that include (among others): marksmanship; the setup, use and takedown of technical gear; rappelling down a cliff and over a river; and working together to get all nine team members over an 8-foot wall without using any aids.
The team gets very limited opportunities to "scrimmage" the event; team members are, of course, also involved in athletics, other military training, and an intense curriculum of study. Dave described participation in the event as similar to belonging to a club at another college; success was based entirely on what the individuals brought to the attempt.
Training consisted of physical fitness and limited work in each of the skill stations, but Dave's primary role was to meet with each individual to establish and create an audio CD training tool. The audio tool consisted of each volunteer reading a script, out loud and in his own voice. (The brain, of course, responds much more effectively to one's own voice.)
The "script" described, in detail, each key moment of the entire event as well as the role that individual would play in the complex interaction with his teammates at each skill station. The script also utilized goal statements, affirmations and cues specific to the individual and his role. Here's a fictional example:
"As I cross over the checkpoint line, I focus on returning my breathing to a normal rate while I take the whoozamajingle out of Betsy's rucksack. Okay, now, Ralph hands me the whatzit and, remembering to deploy the ground spikes, I open the tripod and put it in place within five seconds. While I hold the tripod steady, Betsy then places the unit atop the tripod. Once this is secured, I turn to George and begin gathering all of the thingamajigs.... [After the skill station] As I place the whoozamajingle back in Betsy's rucksack, I shout "Great precision, Hellcats!" and then shout "ten seconds to mount up" and begin slow, deep inhalations as I remind myself that I have to finish this upcoming stretch first, in four minutes and ten seconds, because I'm carrying the thingamabob."
Once a complete-event recorded script is polished and mixed with appropriate music, the recruit is asked to listen to the CD at least once a day, and preferably twice, or at least as much as possible within the highly-demanding daily schedule of a West Point cadet.
As the late springtime event neared, the training intensified; each team member took part in an indoor drill during which he was asked to touch and deactivate, as fast as possible, a series of randomly-appearing lights on a 3' x 4' Activision board while simultaneously balancing on a bongo board and reciting his script out loud!
Sound stressful enough? Sound effective?"
** See Toughness Training for Life, James E. Loehr, Ed.D., Plume/Penguin, New York 1993, as well as The New Toughness Training for Sports: Mental. Emotional and Physical Conditioning from One of the World's Premier Sports Psychologists, James E. Loehr, Ed.D., Dutton Books, New York 1994.
"Where is the intersection between the world's deep hunger and your deep gladness?"