Thank you to Don for writing last week’s blog while I participated in my karate club’s annual tournament.
1. Karate
13 years ago the local paper advertised a karate and kickboxing school starting up in Nipawin. “YESSSS!”
And then the internal dialogue: “You silly old broad. You’re 48 years old. Give your head a shake.” But I’ve always been intrigued with martial arts. I couldn’t start at 7 or 16 or 35 years old but I could start at 48, or older, or never – and I didn’t want to pass it up. And I love it.
I used to be one of few adults amongst the Little Dragons. Now, more parents, grandparents, adults are joining including this past year, Joan, a 63 year old retired school teacher who does long distance bicycle tours and wants to learn belly dancing. (Readers under 35 will shudder; over 50 will grin and thumbs up; and the ones in between “whateverrrr…” at those visuals)
Joan is a good sport and I was surprise when she seemed a little miffed after a Points Sparring match last Saturday. “That woman is as old as I am and she actually punched me in the head.”
“Why didn’t you block it or get out of the way?”
Adversity happens. What can you learn from it so future outcomes are more to your liking?
2. Temple Grandin
Temple Grandin is widely known in North America for her work on livestock handling and facilities design and her advocacy for autism.
Animal handling and welfare standards in North American packing plants have improved dramatically, largely because Temple Grandin had the guts and tenacity to crusade on and do what it takes to make change happen.
Some history
Don and I first heard of Temple Grandin in 1984 when we asked the provincial swine vet about market load out designs and he sent us several articles written by Temple. (The original package resurfaced a couple of months ago.) An article she had presented in 1979 contained this diagram.
The diagram is clear and simple and easy to remember: an effective teaching tool. We embraced it wholeheartedly and tried to apply it every time we moved pigs no matter what the situation.
Some times it just plain didn’t work. But that wasn’t Temple Grandin’s fault. Written in plain English right next to the diagram were the words,
“This diagram illustrates the correct positions for the handler when a single animal is being moved through a curved chute…”
We rarely moved pigs in our barn one at a time through single file chutes like in Temple’s diagram but we tried to apply its principles universally – in all handling situations. As with any tool, we shouldn’t have expected it to work effectively for every application.
The diagram didn’t give us all the answers but when we eventually started thinking for ourselves, it acted as a reference point that helped guide the questions we asked ourselves about the dynamics of pig handling.
Telling people what to think isn’t nearly as valuable as stimulating them to think for themselves.
Truckers’ online course
I spent most of 2009 developing our online Low Stress Pig Handling Course for Truckers. There wasn’t much else happening; the Canadian pork industry had been bleeding profusely for many months and understandably, no one was spending money on training. There seemed to be no end in sight for the downturn and I was ready to throw in the towel on pig handling training and go do something else.
Prior to final editing of the online truckers’ course we asked some 20 or so pork industry people from packing, transport, and production to review it. I also asked Temple Grandin to review the course. During our phone conversation I mentioned I was considering quitting my work with the pig industry.
The gist of Temple’s response was – and here’s the link to karate:
You can’t quit. What are you going to do if you quit doing this? You need to get more exposure. People haven’t heard of you. Use the web and YouTube and tags to get web traffic. Become a writing machine. Get your stuff out there. Don’t worry about selling your ideas – give them away so people know what you’re doing and will want to hire you….
Summary:
Adversity happens. You’re likely not the only one or the worst off. What are you going to do about it? Change what you do to get the outcomes you want.
Thank you, Temple Grandin.
That’s it for this week
Take care
Nancy Lidster