Surfing the waves

Standing on the board, riding the wave a rush of glory hit me. I landed smoothly on the shore and shouted out a victory yell. I looked out into the ocean and gave a huge smile to my instructor. 

I has successfully rode my first wave, I successfully surfed for the first time.

10 days ago when I heard about the surfing trip my father and brother were going for, a thought crossed my mind " I am not an adventure sports person, not even in my wildest dreams can I surf." Then you may ask how I landed up in the vast ocean surfing, well thanks to my mother. With a big smile on her face she said to me, " Go give it try, you will enjoy and worst case you play in the beach and come back"

We went to this amazing place in Mulki, Karnataka called Surfing Ashram. The place is beautiful, the food is gourmet, the people warm-hearted and zealous and above all the surfing is an out of the world experience. My head swam with thoughts of fear and anxiety as we approached our three day stay at the surfing ashram. I was stepping out of my comfort zone, and I knew this was going to be difficult. 

After two and a half hours of perseverance , I had failed on day one. I was unable to stand up on the board, out of fear I clutched the ends of the surfing board and would not stand up. For those who have never seen surfing, let me tell you a little. Surfing is riding - balancing on a wave using a surf board. First you lie down on your stomach on the surf board and when you paddle into the wave - you pop up to stand up and balance yourself, riding the wave. 

The pop up was where I was finding it challenging and as we headed back a sense of gloom fell upon me. Then I thought "Hey today was your first day, yes others where able to do in the first day but so what? You will get it, all you have to do is try and you will also learn eventually. Its okay to learn slowly."

A determination to learn surfing, to get it right fell upon me, as I awaited the next day I started visualizing myself doing surfing - doing it right, I started telling myself I am capable, I am fit enough, I can do it. This self talk and self motivating with a lot of repeat visualizing really did the trick. Of course the encouragement and support of the instructors and my dad helped too. 

At the end I had a superlative trip, lots of fun surfing, playing in the beach waters, kayaking and stand up paddling. The trip was really about me breaking my boundaries and challenging myself. It was about and falling and still standing - and let me tell you , you fall a lot in surfing, falling in the water is part of the fun:)

Happy surfing :)

Asawari 

Peer Feedback in self directed learning process.

 My thoughts of Peer feedback as a process in self –directed learning, this is from my experience at Aarohi and Swaraj.

# As a self-directed learner – what measurable or credit do I have when I say that I am skilled in a specific area or I am capable to do anything. One very important credibility and assessment comes from the peers, comes from the feedback I receive from my mentors, peers, parents and facilitators.They are able to show me the mirror in both my tangible and intangible skills, as they work and observe me.

# Having a feedback process in self directed learning especially in a community of learners is very important. As the openness to receive and give feedback and the honesty with which it is done creates an environment of continuous evolving and shows that no one is perfect – even the facilitators. It most importantly creates healthy, transparent and honest relationships.

# When doing self or peer assessment – there is equal importance to the external/tangible and to the internal/self skills.  You academic performance is not what defines you as a person or defines your success. The peers are able to notice your strengths and weakness, your growth as a person.

# When observing others or self it is easy to find negative traits, places to improve or faults but is difficult to appreciate and acknowledge the positive sides, the capabilities, the growth.  During feedback, the process pushes us to look at both the sides of the person, look at where we have improved and where work needs to be done, this makes one feel acknowledged and noticed.

# Finally Self-directed learning is about following my heart and I know myself better than anybody else. At the end of the day whatever feedback I get, I have the choice to discard feedback, to integrate what I feel is right. Since there is no external assessment in open learning, I find peer feedback a very healthy and enriching process. It as if people are mirrors showing you your reflection, Showing you who you are . Peer feedback is something that I really benefited from in my journey at Swaraj.

NVC, Food and conversations.

In my journey of understanding food and my body, I went for a 10 day mentor ship to Ahimsagram, in pursuit of deepening my understanding of healthy food.

Ahimsagram is a community space in Jaipur working on sustainable living, Non - violent communication and sociocracy.
Apart from cooking delicious and healthy food in the kitchen, one important thing I learnt was NVC, food and conversations.

 Its said that in India, every house has a different culture, that is very true and when it comes to food, every individual has a different culture. How when tastes, preferences and habits are different can we have conversations on food. When it comes to food, the aspect of health and understanding our body is also very important.
There are so many different understanding of food in the world, when someone doesn't eat anything that grows under the soil, someone doesn't drink milk, while other has to eat animal meat in lunch.

In my journey of understanding food, I have come across many theories of food, many different cultures. I am myself confused on whats true and which one to follow. I now realize, that all are true but its up to me to find out which food culture is true for my body.
Another very important connection we have with food is emotions, food is a medium of celebrations, conveying love and care, comforting in sadness and point of connection with people.
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While at Ahimsagram, I learnt an interesting thing about conversations around food. How can I use NVC to understand and talk about food.
While staying at my grandmother's house I experienced an interesting situation around food.

At home, milk is a source of calcium and drinking milk means good health.
Now this was problematic for me, I am currently experimenting with reducing my consumption of milk due to multiple reasons. One being the concept of Veganism which says human are not meant to consume milk, Another being the way our dairy system works, The fact that the milk at home came from Amul dairy was not comforting for me.

At first I tried explaining them why I don't want milk, but I was counter argued and wasn't able to convince them. I then obliged to what they said and drank milk but after a conversation with Shammi Nanda on this I discovered interesting things.

When I looked at it with the perspective of NVC, I realized that at home their need was to show and express love and care for me. They wanted to play a role in nurturing me.
When went deeper,  I saw that as its in my nature not to be demanding and eat whatever is made, not  demand for things to be done for me so they felt disconnected from me. They felt they are not taking care of me and giving me what I want even though they were.

When I started asking things, saying I want this to be cooked at home, making them specially cook something for me. I acknowledged their need of feeling that they have done something to care and nurture me. When this happened, when I said I don't want to drink milk they agreed.

This was just one experience but now I see how instead of feeling uncomfortable with food differences I can understand it through NVC. This milk example I did without directly talking to them, but I think having conversations around food would be very interesting.

Another thing I learnt was when I talk about food opinions I talk in interpretation rather than observation. Example, milk is bad for us, we shouldn't drink milk is a interpretation but when I share it in observations or facts that I read a book called ' Milk the silent killer' where they said that the digestion system on humans are not made to digest cow milk. This was really helpful because when it comes to milk, I am also in a dilemma.

I also read a book 'Eat by choice not by habit'.
This book gave me interesting insight on how we can use NVC to talk to ourselves. In my journey of food I struggle with my own food cravings  but this book says to acknowledge your need when your are facing a craving. This was something new and interesting for me.

My time at Ahimsagram was very enriching in moving ahead in my journey of healthy food, I may not have learned many recipes but I learnt interesting things on having conversation with myself and others on food,

I also did an mini project of baking wholesome Ragi cookies. I thoroughly enjoyed making very yummy and healthy cookies and even selling a few:)

At the bakery, making ragi cookies:)