The SeeArts Podcast #9 🎭🚀 The Need for Playfulness 👉 with Anthony Trahair 🌈🤹‍♂️

Anthony takes us on his journey of becoming: Landing in Grenoble at the European Juggling Convention opened his horizon and he couldn't return to the UK where he had graduated in Chemistry but travelled and found then his creative home base in Rome. From there he started blending together different performing and movement disciplines, attended the Dimitri School in Ascona and until today he performs in a unique way and teaches a very holistic approach of performance and art in one of a kind retreats. With his both theatrical and philosophical views, he is contributing to an ever evolving circus scene and is still hungry and more than that full of play.

Fabian was diving in with him into moments of flow, the approaches shared in Pearls of Juggling and as well how he is creativity pivoting with online courses as all live shows are still cancelled.

The conversation led to deeply philosophical topics from the future of education towards areas about give & take and how the balance that we can learn through juggling & movement can also shape our lives.

Biography:
Anthony Trahair is an advocate of the transformative power of play for individuals, groups, processes and just about everything!
Playfulness has played a central role in his activities for many years. 
In juggling, in Yoga for children, as facilitator and in life. 
He believes that we can all live better when we (re)learn to play and take ourselves a little less seriously!

Author of the book Pearls of Juggling in English, Italian and soon German!
https://pearlsofjuggling.wordpress.com

Anthony created the playfulness festival GIOCOSAMENTE and is founder of the project PlayfuLife. www.giocosamentefestival.eu

www.playfulife.org
Follow him on his journey
https://www.facebook.com/pearlsofjugglingthebook/ 

Transcript

Fabian Seewald : 0:02

Are you ready to play? This is Fabian Seewald your host at the SeeArts podcast and today we dive into the world of playfulness Welcome to the SeeArts podcast we build a bridge between Arts and Business want to inspire you to see arts? Well welcome everybody to a new episode of the SeeArts podcast after our very first episode with Victor key. I'm very happy to have another great artist and juggling artists with us today. It's Anthony Trahair. He's been juggling for over 20 years and changed from juggling molecules in his chemistry class at university towards juggling and manipulating objects. So his unique way of those performed but as well facilitating he achieves to create a very special bond between audiences and artists. He challenges artists with his unique approach of blending different arts disciplines together and grow as an artist into a naturalistic self in 2015. He's put together his wisdom into the book the Pearls of juggling an inspirational manual for performance with a compilation of thought provoking ideas and engaging exercises in his last weekend, he successfully achieved the crowdfunding of the German translation, so an even broader audience can get access to it. I'm very excited to have Anthony with us today talk about his book, juggling in general as well his latest projects so please, let's welcome Anthony with us.

Unknown Speaker : 1:49

Hello, Fabian.

Fabian Seewald : 1:52

Thanks a lot for for joining on the short notice Anthony. And to start off we always want to get to know you a bit better as a person

Anthony Trahair : 2:00

where you are right now but also where to grow up and how to get into the arts on this journey called life. Oh, wow. Yeah, this is uh okay, so basically I was brought up in England. My mother's family's from London, my father's side of the family is from from Cornwall from the very tip from Penzance. And just before I was a teenager, we moved to Cornwall. And so we're living by the sea and very natural area. And, and I was always just a normal kid, you know, I mean, I did, I wasn't into jogging. Then. I got into juggling later. And I was pretty shy and I couldn't, but I enjoyed. I enjoy studying sciences and mathematics. And all this and I felt rather jet streamed you know, and which which took me to university to study chemistry, and then all sudden I started to think, you know me like, especially when I was at university there was there was a comedian lady. And the university was now this comedian she came from this university and I couldn't fit the together things together, how could someone go to university and then become a comedian? You know, it was, it didn't work out in my head. Yeah. And at that point, I started to get the idea that perhaps there was a way of stepping out of this conveyor belt way of you know, that you would go into a job and and this and this and then your pension, you know, and so I wasn't so happy after I finished studying chemistry, chemistry at university, about going and looking for a job immediately I felt at 21 I hadn't really seen much of the world at all. And, and with that with a friend, we went to the to the EJC, in France, in Grenoble, Basically, it was the first time I'd ever been in an airplane. I looked out the window, and I just see all these tiny houses, you know, in the mountains, and I was just blown away. I was like, there's no way I can go back now, you know, there's, there's too much for me for me to see, you know, I was like, I've cut the chain somehow. And my, as soon as he landed, I cancel the ticket. And my friend was like, Whoa,

Unknown Speaker : 4:26

whoa, whoa.

Anthony Trahair : 4:28

So, so anyway, so I didn't have a credit card and have a bank card or anything with me whatsoever. I had, like, I had all my juggling stuff, etc. And then I met I met Peter shavonda. And he's from he's from Germany. I'm not I can't remember where from but we started off performing together basically. And he was like a born performer. You could see it he was really out there and, and myself, always a little bit shy, a little bit more. Nicole, it's a. And so anyway, I'll welcome to this in a second. So then I travelled around for another two years until I finally arrived in Rome. And in Rome, I started. I held like a month juggling course there. I basically met all the jugglers in Rome. And I met I met a juggling family there. And I felt that this was a place for me to for me to settle down. And yeah, don't be the girlfriend and I met my yoga master. And it was really the right place for me to stay for a few years. And I stood I studied. As a self taught juggler, let's say I went to clown classes, the dancing classes, the aquabats gymnastic classes, all sorts of workshops I could possibly do about performing and then I was I continued performing in streets and squares and On TV and all sorts of things. And it wasn't until 2003 that that I went with my then girlfriend to see the open day at the Divinity School in Switzerland. And I was just so impressed with the quality of the work there and the knowledge of the teachers. And I just thought, I'll have to go here, no, this, this is just cooling me, you know, and it's a big step. I was 28 then, and the pop of age there is 26 I've been doing all this training was yoga. So I was more like a 20 year old physically No, but I had the experience of an older person. And I was in a class with much younger, which much younger students and actually we are across 11 in the end with eight different mother languages, the Dimitri school. So this was a this was like amazing. Leavell amount of stimulus and inspiration from how culturally you know how everybody out and it was also difficult though, interacting with so many different cultures because things that are normal for you aren't normal for other people. And so anyway, after the Dimitri school decided I went to granite granite Gran Canaria with one of my my freight my friends from the from the school with a van out to Poland. And he lives in Holland now and we have worked together since and he's my jobbing partner right now, I don't have a juggling partner, and it feels sad, you know, it's like being a seagull and I think it's much more fun. It's much much more stress. It's stressful working with somebody else, you know, because if you don't give each other a break, you know, you're always on the thing. And, but I really enjoy it's just a whole other world. Living in Italy and in Holland, you know, it's not so far away, but it's really isn't a whole nother world. And so going but waiting back a bit. So when I was in Rome for 94, I carry on teaching, teaching jugglers and I had lots of classes. And then I started to teach some retreats after reading the Zen of juggling. So I started combining what I've been learning with yoga with physical theater with cloud and dance, and just experimenting. So we started off with like a week long retreats where we've cooked. And these have been going on for 20 years now and I find them very, very important. They're very important moments for a lot of people that have come through these, through these, these sessions. Because it's not just about the technique, you know, it's like it's the effect on our whole body, whole body when it's everything is activated in a way where you can open, we start to really do some amazing stuff and start to open up and be a bit freer. And whereas people weren't said to me at the start, are these guys too technical like this? You know, I can relate to jugglers that that love their technique, you know, and whether they're aware of it or not, perhaps we're hiding behind the technique a little bit. And this is what Well, one of the many reasons I wrote this book pills and juggling in this world for self taught jugglers to ease them into a bit more self expression, not the everybody has to perform. But to know that you can do something strange with arms. And it's already a thing. You know, it's not like it has to be a move, you know, as jugglers were very like, Oh, is this a move or is this a move? And I remember wanting to work with dancers and I couldn't work out what was So it's just fully showing up in your body, you know, it's just being in your body and being aware of what's going on and taking the time and breathing. And these are the things that you need somebody to help you with this. And it's better if someone's actually been a juggler as well because otherwise they don't get it. I mean, you get to a clown Master, and they're brilliant that they get you into the clown zone. And you're there and you're fully expressing yourself and people are there laughing. And but they're not. They don't care about juggling the clown masses the start juggling is a nightmare juggle. Juggling is like my life juggling you only can juggle and this can create some crisis for for jugglers, you know they can think that juggling isn't really worth anything anymore. Or even if they take like more of an acting approach. They see acting as the being much more has more status than jugglers and then they stop being home Well, I should do some juggling then I should be do some acting normal juggling or, or the same thing with dancing, you know or even music and but juggling, juggling and juggling and circus arts, they have this gray area which is very interesting. No, it's good because it's not so defined by anybody. It has more expressive Liberty somehow. This is what I find anyway, but it's lacking a clear way to get to an excellent to get to excellent. No Kanto if you play piano is frankly the scales. The exercises with juggling now are people that sort of work. But there are like dotted around all over the places. No. I think this is also really cool that they There's no method. It This is what makes I think the juggling committee is so vast and creative and to this point

Fabian Seewald : 12:11

i from my point I can totally agree to what Rome was to you was for example Guadalajara for me. I was to my my social service there and also rather dived into a circus family and some were juggling summer dancing. So I think it also has to do that. When I came back to Germany after this time in Mexico, I felt Germany In Germany is so much more technical, it's about skills and putting it into numbers as well rather, maybe for how you experienced Germany with in the context of juggling molecules and robbers technical approach, which is good for something. But for me, my approach was rather it's, it's about movement, it's this community thing. It's rather everybody brings something to the table. And this was also what kind of like, put this spark of inspiration into me.

Anthony Trahair : 12:57

Now, brilliant, brilliant, brilliant. Yeah, this is more or less the story. And then after I finished the Dimitri school I was very interested in before being none of charged up with performing. And I created three or four different shows. It leaves a little bit. It's a little bit frustrating for performing. There's a lot of bureaucracy behind it. And you have to really want to travel about all over the place and I wanted to just settle a bit, you know, I didn't want to keep traveling all around the place. So it's all my all almost. If you don't want to travel around, then you almost can't perform. No, it's it's a tricky one, this one so and so then I really I found let's say my expressive outlet, more through teaching them and Also with teaching yoga for children, funnily enough, you know the kids. Yeah. Because one of the methods I studied with rainbow kids yoga was like a catalyst for me. You know, it was like, it was from the yoga part of things. It was from my clown circus things. And it really allowed me to be myself and dance wild with the kids. No, you have to be like the king of the jungle with children. It's not like all on Shanti and BOC quiet. And, you know, that's what school is all about. It's all about making people a bay, you know, it's more about getting people engaged. And then you take them to listen to the silence. And then like listening to the silence, you know, and you actually become something for them rather than not doing something. And this is a this is where it's just inspiring people, you know, my last performance, which is this poster behind anyway, so what goes up must come down. I worked on this with my wife. Funny enough, she's she is she's, she's an independent filmmaker. And she directed it. And we worked on it together. And we took this book, Taoist book by john Sue. And he's like a full of parodies, paradoxes, rather and funny stories. And so we took some of these funny stories and we made a whole show with it because juggling in the end is a paradox. It is what goes up, comes down. No, and it is. So that's a really beautiful show. I really love this. We did it 10 times in Italian, and one point I would like to do the show again, but like to have at least a few lined up, you know, just to be one or two. It's like a month and a half work to get into this show. You know, I really This on this character is 99 years old and yeah he's had his whole life in the end and these get given is given some potion like a magic potion and he drinks it and it makes me feel younger and you know and well this is a bit this this is like a tiny bit of the story you know it's it's it's what happens to him whatever that allows him to juggle and how he uses a metaphor for life and death which is the other what goes up must come down most all these opposites all the time. So it's there, the show is there. Just needs like a month and a half to get into it. Then it is out there good. So yeah, this is this is lots of things on What about now?

Fabian Seewald : 16:49

Well, well, it's hoped and very soon we can perform out there again, because currently I think the whole cultural scene has gone on either assume or into like a creative current. Rather developing things forward. That's what is nice like the last few few months actually has has been for me to experiment a bit like what is possible in the digital space. And I think there are some global issues that are actually funded. You can have like a fun interactive session with people from all over the world just like that and jump in. But I think as you also mentioned, the retreats you're creating, it's something different if you cook together if you if you kind of like spend the whole week together, something very new happens, I think digitalization is not yet there that it could actually translate and transcend into entity spaces. I like to love what you said about the like the learning that you had at the School of Dentistry, we actually also performed there back in I think 2014. And it's also in a way a very special place because it's up there in the mountains and it's also a bit like maybe like in between the solitude of the Swiss mountain but also like in harmony with nature. To the different cultures coming together and read now you're also conducting these kind of special retreats. Do you think that the time at at the School of symmetry also created a as well this style of teaching for you that it's kind of this group bonding moment that the people really don't just come for a class, but it's a holistic experience that you will kind of be in one place for six days and really transform? Yeah, sure.

Anthony Trahair : 18:28

I've had experiences, teaching 10 day retreats, week retreats, and I've been to lots of like week long seminars and things and a three year workshop, let's say, it's a different thing. No, it's really, it's really very intense. And there was a class above us they bonded much quicker than than we apparently. But then after a year, they couldn't, like handle being with each other. They have lots of conflicts in their class. No, they tried to, they tried to sort them all out. But, you know, it's it's. So in my class it was, people were very easy about coming into contact with each other, you know, to avoid this sort of thing happening on a feeling that to really get to know somebody you need to be meet them, at least to other contexts. So if you just see the people just in that Betty in our hometown, you know, if you see someone in our hometown, then you really feel that you get the three dimensional pool person. So, you know, after why in the school in this isolated place, I was missing, I was missing this aspect of the people, you know, I'm inspired a little bit more as well by yoga seminars as well, you know, like really transformative, where you take the art, and then you transform it, you feel what it's doing to you, and then you allow this to happen. And then this also helps your artistic process more. No need courage and you need to want to do this sort of thing you know in in Divinity School. It's not the scope of the school is not to do transcendent experiences, let's say no, it's for me somehow sometimes it was a bit of a pity. Because it's like you take things to a point where you could transcend. But then you don't know. It's like always boiling over. But the emphasis there was always a diving into the art. Dive into the arm, dive into the arm dive into the art So it's very Dimitri schools very, the craftsmanship behind behind physical theater, let's say, it's very important that they put a lot of emphasis on this craftsmanship because you are learning a craft, like someone who makes boots, leather boots, you know, it's like you need to know all the things you need to know. The paradox is that we are our own instrument. And this creates some Mental Difficulty. No, because we're, it's hard to have distance and be in the thing at the same time. You know, it's really like that is the most challenging part of the work definitely. But I use I use a lot of what I learned in DBT school in my retreats, and I use a lot of things that I've experimented on my own and I I allow myself luxury of just seeing where things go. I mean, I have my program and just I am constantly amazed with new things that come up all the time. It's just because if you follow something, you follow something, it turns into something else always turns into something else. And also, you know, the mood of the group. What's the mood of the group? Are the groups like this today? Is it often, you know, it's like a circus school are working in boom, material method. There, perhaps they're in the last two months and then working on a performance I come in and just do my juggling class with them my critical job in the classroom, I come in and their life is really heavy atmosphere. And I'm like, Oh, my goodness. So they're not my job is to pick everybody up, you know, and I managed to do this, I pick everybody up, and then at the end where everybody's like, in a whole other mood than they were before, but it's only because I recognize what's going on you know, okay and say that's not shouting moment. Yeah, what's going on? Yeah, no, I don't, that's not the right way, you know, happy, engaged people, get them engaged. Can't blame people for being like in a dark mood, I don't know or be wise to get out of it. I think that's our role as trainers, you know, snap people out of there. Get them to feel how they are and perhaps in exchange, you can do a lot with with how people are actually feeling this moment. You could juggle how you feel in this moment. How do you feel, I feel like this and you juggle it out, you know, you give it you see it somehow. So and this is for some people and this is really eye opening part of the workshops I teach, you know, it's like, Ah, so I can actually train how I feel or not like, force myself. You know, and because when we force ourselves to train, it rarely comes out good. You know, it comes out a bit rigid or is a bit limited somehow. But we need we need to warm ourselves up into it, you know more mouths ourselves mentally as well as physically. And some music or something we need to trick ourselves to get into this state. But more fun, more fun saying no say. So. So yeah, my early retreats, workshops, training sessions, whatever you want to call them, they were a huge melting pot, lots of different things. And in the last few years, they're much more refined somehow, you know, it's like, I have a whole series of things that I can just choose from, see where people are. And some somehow and sometimes you don't do any end performance at all now, but often we do. And we always dislike a ride, trying to ride on it, you know, boxes, like one afternoon or one whole day that people are like, really hurt. Senior stuff. I try and get it. So it's pleasurable. And sometimes for some people, it's a bit intense. But it's a motivating thing. No, it's like, I'm very aware that in a teaching setting, especially with jugglers, there are things that are my own, I find it very hard to do. So I know there are some things that that it's it's much easier to do in a group setting. So I try and try and give more emphasis to these sort of things. The group collaborations perhaps you work with your own thing. But you're anyway inspired by other things which are going on now and it takes just takes that the EFF out of it. But creating a new Act is hard work. Really hard work. And especially if you're inspired to do it. It always comes up better. Yeah.

Fabian Seewald : 25:55

And so like fall for the retreats, you have a rough schedule, but then it's more about life. reading what the group needs and from there on adjust to to the individual needs. And I think it's in a group setting it's always that something more like this some of the soul parts if you put them together in this group and you're good at like kind of mixing these ingredients together, you really feel that something something new is emerging in a way out of out of naturally, that's what I found. So interesting work in in group contexts.

Anthony Trahair : 26:27

Yeah, we are we there is a there is quite defined structure. You know, we have like, we have a like a yoga Tai Chi like a walker Tai Chi before breakfast, and then we do some more bodywork and then as a training, we always have like an hour of training, where everybody works on their own thing. Like, everybody chooses music on every day. And there's nobody there's no talking it's just really work out how to train what you want to learn. And boxer first days you need to calibrate what you're doing. But after the This one hour becomes really important, everybody. And then we do a little stretching and the afternoon is always more creative work. So more movement, more essential acting, you know, it's like, there are some things that we we don't need to become actors as jugglers, but we need to know how to make the right choices. Otherwise, we end up to be really bad actors. And it's just a bit painful, you know, it's better to not do it. You know, and this is why I said in the book as well, you know, it's enough already to be fabyan the juggler, you know, not fabyan who I don't know does other things. Like this moment, I'm the juggler. So then it means something to you know, already and this could be easier for people to already get into, out of their shyness. So, so, so yeah, go Yeah, that was it. Earlier now, I'm still pretty shy in some situations, but I'm busting through it. You know, I'm busting through it. And I think the more we concentrate on, let's say what we bring to the world while I messages for the world, what I'm up to, the less it's I'm concerned with myself. No, it's like, we're shy when we're really caught up with ourselves, I think. Because we make the shift, if we make the shift from taking, to giving know where we are, as a society, generally we are obsessed by taking and not even in a good way, you know, we're not like, we don't really honor the other person we take from them. You know, it's not like, we're not stealing from anybody, but we're not like, so grateful. And, but we always want things for other people. I want this person to give me Also suppose a good boy he concerned more than just giving to other people, then it changes everything because we're not worried anymore and thing and things come to us anyway. You know, it's not like I have to weigh all my options all the time. The Bhagavad Gita, Mo and lots of other say sacred texts, they all talk about this, you know, doing things without expecting the return without expecting the fruits of our labors. And this, you know, is funny, it doesn't quite work out, you know, it's like, of course, I want to get paid for doing this or this would be you don't necessarily know where it's going to come from. When you're giving you know, and so this is a whole other area, I don't know fruit to go go into this right now or they go

Fabian Seewald : 29:55

that's an it's an interesting part that when you talked about the state personality and as well before this shift is also something I found interesting and consider myself as well as a clown, but sometimes were rather technically juggling. And for you, is this like, is this the same Anthony? Or is your, your stage personality? a different person? Is this something that you can dive into you can shift towards? Or is this like an on off? How do you transcend into like the performance mood because it's like a different one being in a training mood and then, like I think we all have have different roles.

Anthony Trahair : 30:40

Yeah, right. Okay. So what we learned at the Dimitri school is that every character has a solid nucleus, when we find this nucleus, and that's a blessing. You know, when we find this nucleus, it's like that's that's it, because then whatever's coming You,

Unknown Speaker : 31:01

you

Anthony Trahair : 31:03

you know how to react in this character, you're no longer yourself in all effect. So this happens with some of the characters I do. And some of the characters, you know, they just need more time, you know, they need 30 performances before then you're really in there. And you know how this person reacts and it's not even really knowing you know, you just you just you, you are you have all these circles around your character, you know, it's like you have your intimate circle, like the things that are going on in this in this character's lives. Then you've got other people and then you've got more and more circles around this character and the more you know, or the circles what's going on, the more you you react exactly in character This is this this is the essential work of an actor in the end. And this goes parallel though with mood work, no working with with emotions, but working with the four basic ones, which is the joy, sadness and anger. They people say that all of the emotions they're all somehow a bit of a mixture of all of these, but on stage He will make things very clear, very clear for the audience. So the emotional work is not our own lives It's just like it has an edge you know, angry Yeah, I agree. You have this energy you know, and you just like want to smash something. Oh, and when you're sad, you know a little bit more like happens it yeah happened in another way. And So I think actually even when I'm teaching, I have another role, you know, another character, but it's not really a character. You know, it's like just trying to fill people with enthusiasm as my, my goal, you know, charge people up. When are we like, yeah, we can do this. This is the this is the thing. So yeah, I remember years ago, Neil Neil Neil spall know the guy that made them is juggling hats. He made all these juggling hats. And I remember going to one of his hat workshops. It was a show, you know, his workshop was a show was like, it was like a street show. It was like you might see now the tricky really tricky one is you don't drink Yeah. And this has always stayed with me is like years and years ago and I thought breed knows like you could do anything like as if it was a show doesn't have to be like so. You can regulate you know, with who you've got in front of you, but it couldn't be always more fun. You know? could always be more fun. This is opening up another chapter now but the bytes it's been there all the time really ever but in the last two years, I've I've held playfulness in more regard in my, in my life and in my, in what I have to give to the world. And I even created a festival last year, a three day festival on playfulness. So just people working with playfulness and it's amazing you know, it's a whole other parallel world of people play similar as the arts. It's like arts, our sister brothers playfulness, you know, in a certain way. And also kindness. No kindness is also very like playfulness, you know, doing things that other people and and when you start diving into this, then you start to see really how literally everything can be better if we try and make it more engaging and more fun for other people and seeing the other person in front of us who is there. And, and trying to perpetuate this thing which is happening between us. No, it's not. You know, like, if I'd be in the, the our favorite game nowadays as a society is probably the game of who's right. So it's like, we play this dumb game, you know, it's like who's right? And it's like, we could be both right? No, this is the thing that our brains don't like so much, but sure that we can have millions. There's so many different points of view. And that's all they are in the end is point of view, you know, this. What are absolutes, you know, absolute.

Fabian Seewald : 35:52

I think it relates to what you mentioned before with giving and taking and the playfulness and kind kindness as well that if we show up We kind of invite others to play we can totally create a different culture in this kind of offering this kind of let's let's play an A that's let's not ask like who's right who's wrong and stop this game in a way and rather play a game where it's not so much about competition but rather collaboration which then relates again to two I think we both conceived as a perceive jangling as as a as an invitation to to play to play with the arrows to play with. Yeah, be human.

Anthony Trahair : 36:31

Yeah, no, no, absolutely. Absolutely. jugglers, and the Jovian community is very playful. Generally you especially when we when we get together. There is this aspects that started to just have got me thinking, you know, it's like I was thinking, I met a lot of jugglers, and they didn't seem very playful at all to me. And I was thinking, Hey, you know, jugglers they should be not the most playful people around what's happening here, you know, and it's like this many reasons behind it but there's this thing about being professional somehow, you know, when we get put our professional hat on, we lose that we become very serious or sudden and it's a it's a strange thing. So this really got me thinking about all sorts of Yeah, there's this whole whole work and play, you know, they don't have to be separate things, they can actually be fused together. Play doesn't have to be the thing that you do at the end of a long, hard, hard day of work. And then we have Stuart Brown, which did a lot of work. In his book, he played a lot of work on people's play histories. So what we did as children, when we were very young is quite indicative of what would be satisfying prices. adults. Yeah. So is asking these questions finding out what was it we like to do as kids and puts us like, in the place where we should be as adults? You know, far too many people are in their own jobs, basically, you know, they hate their jobs. They do it just because they feel they have to. I mean, there are situations of course the tragic you know, and and devastating and but a lot of the time Yeah, we we skated, really following what it is we want to do because we don't think we're going to be able to do it, you know. So this is all this is a little bit tricky, you know, because we're paid to be in a state of play or FLOW ZONE. We have to accept the challenge a little bit. We have to take risks, whether it's emotional risks, or whether it's just learning something we've never did before. Or why it could also be doing something that's potentially a little bit dangerous like climbing a tree. Now, all of these things they get us out of, or even like, somebody else's risk is like giving someone a compliment.

Unknown Speaker : 39:33

Hey, you look great today.

Anthony Trahair : 39:37

Uh, yeah, so always risk being actually in this point in time. I found what saved me partially is trying to do at least one thing a day. That was scary for me somehow, you know, which was challenging, like audience is a conversation with you, you know, this, this is for me is already my challenge for the day. And so, you know, because it's getting out, I don't know what to say, I don't know what you're going to say really. And so it's just it's just opening opening the space and so, so what we do to help others play more? This is a question what we can already allow to create a safe space. You know, this might sound paradox. This might sound like a paradox, but is on before I say when you take risks, but to be able to take risks, we need to feel safe. So we need to, we could feel safe by getting everybody to know each other their names for example. Doing some silly moves and dancing, having a laugh, and this already starts to create a safe environment and if I take care of people will love out for everybody is everybody okay? Then we can we can start to play and, and, and start offering invitations, you know, to be able to play I need to offer you an invitation. And an invitation isn't. I'm not saying you have to do it. Otherwise it's not an invitation more. So, this is a subtle, subtle ground, they need to be able to invite you or not. And then we start to loosen up a little bit. So this we if we if we bring this in, in, let's say in business already, you know, where it's already competitive, and it's all very on like half dues and you've got your deadlines and got to do this. If there was already like a little bit more safe area where people would fail. You know, it's okay to fail, you know? Or it's just like, how are you today? No, are you don't look so good. Perhaps you need to have a walk and come back in a while. Just like tiny little things on this Just sparks up a whole more camaraderie and good feeling and then you want to really you want your your company or your project project to see succeed. No, you're not they're looking at what people think they are. This one is often my job or either I don't really know how it goes on goes on though. I'm just I could just imagine. But so yeah, we're making the shift. And this is important shift that in from a control mindset, you know, and when things fall apart when that what happens is we put in even more controlled mindset when they don't work any more controlled mindset and even more and even more in the middle. But perhaps there's another way, perhaps there's another way, which isn't just like chaos. It's about giving people trust a little bit. You know, I trust you. You can do this, you know, and and Yeah, great. You did a great job. Yeah. And this is all tricky. Oh, we're always scared that people are taking us for granted or whether or not redoing their thing that we working and but I think there's a lot to explore here with a playful mindset, and a trusting mindset. And also allowing people to be themselves a little bit more. Yeah.

Fabian Seewald : 43:31

Well, from my experience in the business context is the main challenge is how to wrap it because I think this playful self or this playful, inner child, we all have it, and it's just like, some people have lost their exes in a bit more and some people are more connected to it. And so as you said, it's about creating this safe space, but the Safe Space might look for a group of persons all a bit different. So how can you kind of like pick them up at the right point and then bring them them into this this sown in a way, and then then open them up because right now the business context, there's a lot talking about this notation of gamification. But same like gamification sometimes about collecting some, some points be like that the daily business work is like a jumping run game. And then at the end of the day, you have collected a few more diamonds, but I think playfulness and gamification are still as well two different content because the playfulness is, in a way I would say it's the unconditional one. gamification, it's kind of two more to go and playfulness. It's it's like for the sake of playing which is which is so good and so natural, because kids Why are kids so perfect learner and, and they within one year, they know how to walk and then they learn a mother tongue. And afterwards like we are, if you look at like the learning curve, I think like within the first three years, it's amazing why because they explore and they do all the errors. So connecting to to this one would be super important, but Yeah, it's easier to talk about it then really get into it because sometimes there are other pays to build it. There's this professional, whatever mindset it is into to get out of it. Do you have any like hints how, like you said, to the parents in time you were current, or like you were continuously putting some, some risk into life some, some challenges to accomplish, what could be other ways to stay in this playful mood.

Anthony Trahair : 45:29

It's observing, observing is number one, connecting with what we're seeing, and really connecting to what we're saying. Taking time to look at things you know, look at how trees they move a little bit, the wind, how, how animals interact with each other, how children, how children move, how they play, how they cool, how they sing, to really connecting to the observing and observe other people. Though we have this thing called an anchoring bias, which means that we make our opinions on people and situations very quickly. And if we're not aware of this, this sticks, even if it seems to be the opposite in the end, you know, this anchor bias. And if we are aware of this, then then we can, we can do something about it. Now, in, in the medical profession, they are very aware of this anchor bias and their whole protocol, which allows them to reevaluate all the time on patients. Otherwise, they might say, this guy's gone and got a stomachache, and he's actually got appendicitis, let's say, No, but if I'm convinced he's got a stomachache, then perhaps I'm not going to do certain tests, you know, and, but, and this is, this is pretty evident in the medical world, but this happens all the time, on a personal level, so Just catch ourselves, making firm affirmations about what a person is. Before we really know, you know, I might, I'll catch yourself, oh, I'm making judgment about this person, do I know this person? And if if you're in a safe situation, if it's your job or whatever, perhaps you can just small talk to like, Hey, how are you? How's it going? And then we're already this already breaks the ice into the unknown that this thing here and it's already a bit scary. No, ask you people who don't know, Hey, how are you? Well, how's your day been? And people always respond. Some people may be like, well, this guy won't come in. If you're really going for a genuine place of curiosity and even laugh, you know, and say, I didn't know you make it up. But so I would say that the other thing we could do that invite more playfulness into our lives is really being Keep being aware of invitations into play. So we're, there's not only just play for us going around the world around us, we don't see it at all. There's also a lot of people that want to play with us that we label as annoyances as annoying. Now let's check take a three year old kid, you're doing something important, his kids, guys. What do you do push away? Or you say, Okay, I'm gonna do this later. I don't know how you be cut off your thoughts on this thing. And then you realize that we wanted to actually play with you, you know, we didn't want anything. You know, we think this guy wants something he wants. He wants to go to the bathroom. I don't know. He wants to

Fabian Seewald : 48:46

know what's interesting, right?

Anthony Trahair : 48:48

Yeah, we will say interact. And some people say is looking for attention. But that's a that's this, of course is that this is what's happening but he's not just looking for tensions looking for the exchange. But exchange like he wants to give you as much as he wants to take from you. And, but this also, you know, this also happens with our partners, you know, it's difficult, it's difficult, you know, it's like, they don't really want to play but they want an exchange, actually they like to play as well. Not Have fun joke or something. And, and this is, this is I think true. Everything you know, and I would even go as far as to say it gets a bit it gets perverted at certain point, you know, when when we don't get into this play. I mean, people that they're invitations to play don't seem at all like playing war. You know, it might get a bit violent and they might start breaking things or getting into angry tempers. Or getting a critic criticism. Get a critic Critical. No. But I think also anyway, it is not too late to undo something about this. But we really need the clarity to, to work out what's going on. And also like myself, I need to play. I do you need to play? Hmm. So it's a, it's a, it's a bonus for me, you know, it's like, I've got this person who's teaching me how to play with their children or animals. They're going to teach me how to play they're going to teach me how to get back into playfulness. It's this is it, you know, and why have we lost it as adults? There's all sorts of reasons while you've lost it as adults, but that's irrelevant. You know, we can gain a lot of it back. And I think we could really do a lot of good for the world. If we could gain gain all this back. It doesn't mean doesn't mean we have to be frivolous. No. There is a way that there's a there's a place where seriousness and playfulness can meet. You know, and this is perhaps this is perhaps like an elevated adult, you know, it's like when serious and playfulness meet, and sometimes it becomes playful, sometimes even more serious, but not rigid, serious, you know, and not just like clowning around, you know, if I'm wrong, it's this

Fabian Seewald : 51:24

balancing. I totally agree that we have to find this balance, not just being the professional one and never able to love about, about anything. And on the other hand, as well, like taking as much playfulness as much of this giving and accepting this invitation to play. So yeah, that's a that's a major takeaway, that first of all, like, remember to, to observe the beauty around us and the beauty of, of these relations, the beauty of these interactions, these encounters and I have two small kids. So it's So good to see them. It's like, yeah, a show show every morning, how they, how they meet, how they mingle, how they sometimes argue but then sometimes seek for attention. But in the end it's it's rather's display and also Yeah. When you said this, like they always want to play and sometimes you are with this busy business head and you have to finish this and then he comes and you're like, yes, no, yes. Not just yeah. The basic improv rule is yes. And then you go for it because it will actually spark your, your imagination so much more. In your book, in the very beginning of the perils of charging, you're also mentioning the benefits of juggling and I when I was reading through them from boosting your confidence, opening your mind learning through arrows is actually all the way to soft skills, but all like the, the attitude that startups should have. So I think there is a certain interrelationship between Between juggling as not just as a metaphor, but also as a way to to make better. Do you do agree with that? And do you also sometimes are also sometimes able to build this bridge towards business towards life?

Anthony Trahair : 53:15

Okay, so um, gambling definitely teaches us a lot of soft skills. And it teaches us also about how we learn, teaches a lot on learning how to learn. This is very important to know how we learn, you know, how do we learn, we learn by doing something again and again and again, having a break and then coming back to get back to you as jugglers. We know that we work we work, we leave it to one side, we come back the next day and it's working for the better, right? It's our brain elaborates things even when we're not doing them anymore. Actually, it does it better when we give the right pauses things. No, we need this, this space to integrate and also if we do a relaxation After juggling or we just sit still meditate and feel all the physical sensations moving about we give even more possibility for this data to settle and find its right place I would say right now i i can I help people more with juggling in their life? For some reason I've not really got into the business world yet with teaching them you know, it's like I have to find the right context because it's just I'm gonna go in and teaching juggling today. It's not it's not the right thing. You know, it's not that happens as well. But it's broken out on a few lessons from the art of juggling this one here.

Fabian Seewald : 54:49

No should be on my bookshelf soon.

Anthony Trahair : 54:52

Yeah, Michael Jacob. He does a lot of work with with businesses with corporations. inspiration. And Tony buzzin I mean, this book is amazing. You know, Tony balzan he's the guy that invented mind maps. You know, this is just like, they wrote a book about juggling. No, it's just like, whoa. And it really is it this is it, you know, it's like they started off here. I don't think I'd do anything with juggling a tool anymore, you know, but it's, it's, it's, it's a skill to learn what I enjoy when I'm teaching people to juggle even just one ball to start with no, playing around with one ball is really the reaction, but I have the immediate first reaction and to see it, like brutally see it. I've said to myself, no, I can't do this. This isn't for me. You know, you see this is it's like horrific, you know, if you mean do it all with playfulness and lightness, but if you actually see this as by yourself, which isn't willing to give something a try, because already decided that he doesn't want to be embarrassed in front of others. And this is why it's so important to create a safe environment that's friendly. You know, it's like this like a

Unknown Speaker : 56:14

hole up in your arms. Yeah, you

Anthony Trahair : 56:16

get a lot of this going, you know, physically opening opening. Yeah, this thing. This helps enormously, you know, yeah. And then realizing that to learn something you have you go through it from failure, you know, things are dropping things a job. And in a group setting is raised so much energy and enthusiasm, excitement. You don't have to dose it a little bit because there's always people that learn it quicker than others, you know, and then you partner them up. You know, I don't know how this works with the coroner. These things don't work. So well partnering up, but this part of this moment will pass. You know, there's always other ways of doing things. We have a creative mind. There's always ways of doing things, you know, always go, we go back, what do we need? You know, and this is same thing you know, when we talk about business. What are we talking about? Are we talking about? What is our place in the world? Are we talking about what can I do for others? Or am I just talking about making money? You know, it's a tricky one. No, but then like, what is it? I really need, you know, and this is all on the whole work with Michael Rosenberg, you know, and nonviolent communication where the invitation is always what is my needs and purposes another way of meeting this need isn't this way you know, and and these are interesting questions are they gets out of, they get out of doing things in a certain way, especially business now it's like, with this Coronavirus thing, you can't do things as you've always done them. There's not there's not going to work you know, I mean, the first see what did you build a mask making factory. I mean, that's like the first most obvious thing but it doesn't have to be this you know, That's like a commercial or fitting a commercial need. Well, there's lots of needs, there's needs everywhere we're all in desperate need, you know, everyone's lost that without like a real meaning in their lives scared to death. By this other thing with a playful mindset, we have to we can't be in a fearful mindset. Otherwise it doesn't work, you know, when fear we're not. So this again, creating a safe space people. That encouraging space, you know,

Fabian Seewald : 58:33

hopefully the Coronavirus will also create a new environment where people rather were able to zoom in a bit like rather maybe be able to observe again about the beauty that they have at their home but also the beauty of not having to like drive two hours to work every day for sure there's some fear but I think it's all about the maybe also the artists duty to transform this fear into into something rather Engaging into something rather see see the new opportunities coming in. And I totally agree that we should not we should not go back to normal but rather go forward to a new normal and if people have the chance like to experience two months or two and a half three months and different reality you might see hey, let's let's leave the stuff that we didn't like behind and take some of the new many digital tools but rather get get human again. It's beyond all like the economic crisis that we might be into. It's a big gentle for human reevaluation. What What does it mean to be together to play together and also rather foster a global community despite all of these, like right now the borders are opening up again, but it was a funny thing that like digitally, we're more connected than ever. While all the borders are close to an extent that we would have never expected again. And for me, what worked for me was rather seeing the positive things happening. Not being Too much focused on just the news that are rather trying to have us in the future for my Incidentally, keeping us watching that rather engaging as connecting with connecting with people. And in your book you also mentioned rather from performance point of view, there's annotation of stopping or not stopping and like a bit like the power of a pause. And I think if we zoom out a bit and like put this power of this past and perona put on the wall, it might be also like a big chance.

Anthony Trahair : 1:00:31

Oh, no, absolutely agree.

Unknown Speaker : 1:00:35

There who there now people that

Anthony Trahair : 1:00:38

definitely use their time wisely here, definitely. And for everybody's, I opened something, you know, even if I, this is my thoughts is this. I mean, we've had all sorts of different thoughts come to us in this time, you know, but one of the thoughts that came to me is that we can't eat my You know, it's like it's actually somehow worthless as well in some situations. So we need a plan B as well. Definitely the plan B. We have we have this thing where we think that if we only had enough money or our problems will be solved, no. This is a big question. And this goes this question infiltrates down to everything, you know, it's like, only there wasn't so much carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. There would be no global warming, you know? And it's never really asking what is behind all of this? See, the invitation is always to ask what's going on? And then there's this other factor No, that will so heavily polarized. And this is for me, this is where playfulness comes in big time because he can help us out this post. thing. No take things lightly. I mean, at one point on my Facebook feed, I could see all these things like people complaining about people being offended so easily. I mean, I wasn't getting this thing going to buy could buy from other people. I was getting this idea there were lots of people getting offended easily. So why why do we get offended easily? What what is going on there? What's happening? You know? Is it really that people are getting offended easily? Or is it they're reacting in a way that we weren't? Always we're reacting to the way they're reacting? No. I don't know. You know, some people are offending. Basically, we don't know how to communicate, okay, this sounds funny off this blurb here. But if I really communicate and say like, I feel that this is like this, but we generally say things in terms of absence, if I say an absolute like, oh, everybody should play, you know, people get back up and say, No, no, we should play plays this mature If we all played there was no getting that any work done and, you know, but I'm not saying this, you know, for examples like everybody should play. Like, if we adopted a slightly more playful mindset, I feel that we can have more human interactions between people you know, I say this in this way way, then you're not going to have this strong counter attack let's say no. So we need to be after be able to express ourselves in a soft way. Otherwise, we're going to get heart attacks and I'm pretty sure there's however this Oh, anyway, I'm probably won't blow your now let's let's move on.

Fabian Seewald : 1:03:49

Well, I like that like we both like communicate in a software but also in a clear manner. And maybe sometimes if we put it too soft, it also gets a bit blurry and then like the message that we wanted to make the point that we want to make it's too blurry and then like the the receivers also kind of like not getting made.

Anthony Trahair : 1:04:11

Sure. Sure, sure, sure. No, I understand what you mean, Nigel. It just has to be from my point of view. Like this is how I feel about it.

Fabian Seewald : 1:04:20

Cool. Well, we talked already a little bit about this playfulness and and flow in Ubuntu describing flow as well as something like going beyond limits being self explanatory. And also you you are Stefan Singh who was putting it as like a state of almost being being meditating despite the fact that well, Jacqueline is apparently useless. So tell us a little bit. How did you get into your personal juggling flow? Are there any routines you talked about the warm ups? How do you get into maybe the flow of juggling but also the flow in your life and your most creative when you're inspired

Anthony Trahair : 1:05:00

started by start off, getting into a body reaching out to the air stretching being my body I'll be at my opening up my whole chest area you know this is all a bit Gregory's always stuck together sometimes this so like moving some music on playing around maybe one ball and and ideally I mean there's so many different ways of training and getting into this by like the work the idea of starting off with one slow playing around with all the different variations of it. Adding a second and a third prop maybe and taking as themes Well, I did a lot of training where I would go from this to this to this to this to this to this to this. Yeah, I don't really train in that way anymore. Really. I zap quite a lot. I try not to to two months of zapping no because then it's just like your brain buzzing around but try and do what I'm interested on you remember trickly or did you try this oh this is cool because I get if I found if I write a whole list of things I want to do he just gets longer and longer and then I end up not having enough time to train all the things you know so it's a it's a tricky balance this thing so then I'm not in the flow at all if I have a list of things I have to do basically so so yes, stopping every now and again feeling what my body wants to do. music helps enormously to get into the flow Definitely. Definitely. And you know on I'm interested in this for a long time now, but I still get caught out. No, I still definitely coil and find myself stuck in serious mindset. Let's say like this. I often use this And the chat with this guy, Benny, five each once of the, he came up with this idea of serious mountain. No, we're surrounded by a mountain mountain of seriousness, which is reflected back to us all the times. It's not really our fault, you know, but we contribute to it as well. And it comes back to us and we've been living in this thing for long time. But so there's this very interesting idea about flow which to get into it, we need to push our limits that tiny bit, but not too much. No, I like set little challenges for ourselves. And as jugglers where we're used to sitting challenges yourself, man, they can't be too difficult, otherwise we don't get them through the right size. And then I was listening to something a while back and they even mentioned, even like, trying to be kind for like a lot of though how long But trying to do kindness act is already enough to get into flow because it's already a challenge for yourself. So then this all of a sudden opens up things in a really strange way. You know, it's like, well, a challenge doesn't have to be something physically demanding. It can be something like asking someone for help, almost even though it's like, we're not used to asking people for help at all. Actually, we try not to do it because that means then we're indebted to somebody that's and it's a strange one, you know, because I don't want to feel like I'm indebted to anybody. I try and but it's it's something which moves about between people you know, I'm not talking about like, heavy debts. No, I'm talking about someone's come around and and fit my cats when I went away or something. So so it's like this whole idea of play it on no trusting that people will play it on and i i think this is a this is a great way of getting You know, and personally, you know, I always I always start the day going outside. And then with my yoga practice, no, this is all by essential to me to center myself center, find my own center. You know, when you wake up and bring awareness into my whole body and breathing,

Fabian Seewald : 1:09:23

what just came to my mind talking about yoga but also flow. How would you say is the relationship between mindfulness and playfulness? Do you see a relationship?

Anthony Trahair : 1:09:33

Sure, sure. Sure, actually on what we have this giocoso Mantra which is playful Fest, most festival organizer last year we did online this year. And the first panel session was dedicated to playfulness, kindness and mindfulness. And there is a there is a connection between now and mindfulness is also observing what we were saying earlier, is this you know, interacting with things and So we could see it as a as a step into playfulness. But when we're playful, we are mindful because we are interacting with what's really there in this moment, almost jokingly, you know, I, I like the idea that playfulness somehow is a more fun way of doing this one. But we can all think about this a lot more than you know. And what I say now, I probably will consider it differently in a few weeks, even you know, but mindfulness can be thought of being as more like the first steps into something playfulness is being a bit more active. No, it's then smiling at strangers. It's doing be allowing yourself to be a bit quirky, a bit silly every now and again, not to get attention from anybody just because you feel like it, you know? And then even if you get attention from people, you know, if you smile Or if the exchange is smaller than this, like, going to be a good thing you know? And so yeah, for sure there's this thing of playfulness, mindfulness, this thing about being full, being full of being total, you know. And then like we can say that like, what was being playful, then we can then listen and feel ourselves, you know, and we have lots of echoes going around our bodies that can be mental anchors, listen to them and feel what's alive in me right now. And now, I've not really done a specific mindfulness work as such. I've done a lot of yoga, a lot of meditation, yoga, meditation. And so yeah, it's like, sometimes, you know, we meditate We practice we wake up a lot of energy, you know, we need to express it in somehow. No need to express this joy. Otherwise it sort of goes a little bit against us, you know? So it could be it's like a dance. A little dance up before breakfast or I don't know. Not. It's really easy when you only have like a practice going on for years. But as soon as you finish practicing you, like look at your phone or you immediately go to breakfast. I try and deliberately not to look at my phone until I finished my practice in the morning. And I find the days I do look on my phone beforehand. They always go a bit weird, you know? It's, but this is a whole other topic. whole other topic,

Fabian Seewald : 1:12:53

about like finding well flow the daily life in a way and also establishing routines and rituals that both bring the best out of us without all of these distractions because no one inside it's cool to have soom and we can talk while you're in Italy, right? Yeah. You're in Italy and I'm here in Germany, but as well I feel as well. It's it's sometimes challenging. But talking about digitalization, to certain point you also said you did the playfulness festival online. How do you will play with digitalization for your work for the courses that you do? Let's Let's dive a bit into this like the chance of digitalization as well for the arts for for juggling what you do but maybe as well the risk of downside that we already discovered a bit that like before a morning routine, you try to put the cell phone in airplane mode far off where you could find it.

Anthony Trahair : 1:13:48

Yeah, I am. In this whole area this whole time. I started I had this idea of offering a cheap Realizing my career started recording. I thought this is good because I can sit and watch people. And I can do things that aren't too demanding and still feel good. Not to people that maybe are people who don't have evidence. And people older people will do as well. And often the first lesson I heard lots of like people's parents, they joined in and so it was clear I had to keep on these things. So I did. And I still I'm still doing this in the summer just being once a once a week. I'm just offering these online chair yoga sessions on a Facebook Live. So I'm offering these in the gift. So if people watch them and enjoy them, then they can make a donation. This is the invitation. I don't really I didn't really feel like making anything behind the paywall. Right in this moment, I felt really bad like I had all my work canceled and nice Two eyes felt that there were lots of people in the same position, you know, and

Unknown Speaker : 1:15:06

so

Anthony Trahair : 1:15:09

so yeah, so and this is being good, being good for me, it's been good for people been watching now it's like, really putting my creativity into this, you know, Chair Yoga is not just adaptations on your chair, you know, it's, it's, it's really, it's really, you can really dig deep stuff without thinking on your map, obviously, because it's like in you know, so. And with juggling, I hadn't done anything really. Like just before the quarantine period I started to do some talks about on on pills and juggling around going beyond technique. And I think I did another thing about juggling and movement. And then this helped me to then do live things on later on because I'd already, I'd already done them before the before the coin team. And they were they were always pretty nervous about doing these things let's dive into. And I started up my own podcast, play for life and interview people around the world from different aspects of playfulness. And being very interesting, very interesting. So I'm not really I'm just having fun right now. I don't know I'm not. I'm trying to work exactly out how to be more benefit to people. But really, I like to. I like to work with people physically. Like people. I think online with the online festival worked out, it worked. There were people that came for the whole three days. In the end, there was a community. And there were talks and panel sessions and there were play sessions. So there are lots of activities you can do on zoom. Where you actually feel like you You really playing you really getting out of your and the other day actually, when we finish the crowdfund had a zoom juggle Party and the workshop before the beginning, then, yeah, just there was some music and everybody was doing their own thing juggling.

Unknown Speaker : 1:17:31

And that

Anthony Trahair : 1:17:33

you know, it's a pretty weird thing to do, if you think about it, but it worked. You know, it was really I didn't have this tightness thing the sometimes you have a zoom, you know, I felt really refreshed from it. No, because I wasn't like here with the screen. No, always with myself playing a moving around. As important is to move around every now and again. Yeah, so um, and I also have a, I have an online course about cultivating playfulness. And that's also donation based. And perhaps I'll set up some other things, you know. So that's one of the things for juggling and police there, everything takes so much time, you know, hopefully, will slowly start to get more of our crew together to work out how to do things and make it a bit make a bit easier. Not less work on any one person. So, yeah, so either they fall to you about your gamification said earlier. But yeah, it's if he gave a patient come to a place where you have to do it then never works. No always has to be an invitation. You know, Otherwise, yeah, people know they're being tricked somehow as well, I think. Or you do it and then you get feedback from people. How is this? What can we change? Make it you make it. We make this more fun. Now there's this concept of being finite and infinite games. There's this book James calls, I think it's called. And an infinite game. Something is open ended. It's carried on the finite game. Is the game of football has its rules. It ends in an infinite game, we would say, can we use two footballs? Or three balls? What if we are to do just like on one leg, you know, you start, start to question things. And then it brings in more just brings in more More fun and more participation from from from from people you know. And

Unknown Speaker : 1:20:10

this this

Anthony Trahair : 1:20:13

when my young kids do the trick trick training hits, he would say, if there's a kid he pulls your T shirt, turn into game, say, yeah, guys, let's all pull everybody's t shirts. No. And then this this, this just just disappears. You know, it takes about two minutes and this guy's happy play this game. We'll do it again. Maybe Maybe it doesn't maybe he's had his full. Maybe he's had He's like, two minutes of start time and it said like this. And if you don't even try these things, you would label him as a nuisance. This gives a nuisance. Yeah. I don't know if you have any more. Any more questions?

Fabian Seewald : 1:20:58

Well, I think we covered A lot from your from your history overflow the power of the past, maybe, as a as a last point, I like the larger points that you're differentiating in between seeing juggling, but also seeing things as a sport as something competitive, rather seeing something as our diving into this crap. And as well putting this one on the meter level, sometimes we see businesses well a lot as rather competition. And we talked a bit about about the concept of flow, but as well about the concept of playfulness. But let's dive a little bit as a final point into this one. What do you think for the future of education? Could this mean rather see education as well as an art and not as a competition?

Anthony Trahair : 1:21:47

Okay, so one tiny talk before this is that we take it Darwin's theory. as being the survival of the fittest, strongest, and not the more adaptable, you see, and this this slide in neurons makes a huge difference, because playfulness makes us more adaptable. And actually, this is one thought about why animals play in nature is because it makes their brains elastic and it makes them more adaptable to their environment. So whereas there are some casualties through play it like small cubs going out into the open and then eaten by birds. The average is an evolution for the species because they are becoming more adaptable, you see. So, so play in schools. This is a question know about playing schools. Yeah. Of course, I think big play, but it's a tricky one, you know, because teachers themselves aren't so playful. No, no.

Fabian Seewald : 1:23:11

Yeah, yeah. No

Anthony Trahair : 1:23:12

and, and all of these Yeah, we just go we go into one thing after going into another thing he you know, there are people they should be teachers. No, they should be teachers and that's their right place for them. There's lots of people that shouldn't be teachers. No, it wasn't their calling.

Unknown Speaker : 1:23:33

And

Anthony Trahair : 1:23:35

by the way, let's say anyway we have I don't want to go too much into like a solution for this thing here. Right? But if we already have like, this is, this is analogy my friend Pete white. This is this. It's like you have one shoe, medium size. If it's too big for you just put a bit of paper at the end. And then you'd be okay. If the shoe is too small for you, perhaps you have to cut off your toes. And no, so this whole idea of one size fits all. Doesn't work doesn't work, you know? And I use this whole thing. If we learn through joy, or we learn through our interests, no. So right now, I don't have all the argumentation here. know that there are colleagues that talk much more detail about all this, you know, it's just that we can do tiny things to let people feel freer. But also even even Not just playfulness, even the Rosenberg He also wrote a book about nonviolent communication school in schools. If we really ask people how they are, what's going on, allow him to talk allow them to express themselves. It Calm down, you know, hyperactive kids probably should just be in the nature, you know, perhaps they should be behind desks. That's what was the story. I don't remember what the story was. Now, there was a story about this girl. She was, uh, she couldn't sit still already. And then the president, they came into the office, the President put some music on. Then they left and they just watch from the corner. They could see that she was dancing, you know? So your child doesn't have a attention problem. She's a dancer. No.

Unknown Speaker : 1:25:52

So

Anthony Trahair : 1:25:56

it's really tricky, because teachers honestly They were they they come from a place that you know, you know, as a culture, we're not used to play for us attitude. So if you didn't come if you didn't come to you spontaneously, it's tricky and they all have their pressures. Of course, they have their pressures. They have their pressures to get grades or the pressures to get this and all of these things, because the parents want them, you know, it's all got, it's all we're in a bit of that we're in a bit of a sticky up here, you know? But we're trying, I'm trying anyway, this would be these new projects in mind with a playfulness festival now lots of people out there promoting

Unknown Speaker : 1:26:43

tools.

Anthony Trahair : 1:26:44

For playfulness, no. And also in this quarantine period, I saw a lot of ideas that people could do at home with their children. The simple things, no, it's things that connect you together and just even with stories throwing balls along the floor, you know. But But yeah, I think we need to question this. I can only say this. We need to question this a bit more. It's not It's not a question of, yeah, play is great in schools or play now It shouldn't be in schools. It's a risk. I could say this. It's a risk. playfulness recess, as they call it in America, in lots of places. They're they're taking removing it because there are more important things to do. I don't know. I think this is a this is not the best way to learn. But that said, you know, at school when I did school, we had music and arts and they were both the strictest teachers of the whole school were the music and arts teacher. You know, so this was strange to me as well. You know, it's like, always scared of these teachers. You know, you had to do the homework for these teachers. You know, so

Unknown Speaker : 1:28:01

there again you know it's like

Anthony Trahair : 1:28:02

perhaps this guy could have been he could have expressed this passion more I don't know you know I don't know is is too easy to say you know I don't know what this guy was maybe I don't know what situation he was in I know that people draw a lot now every week we'd be recruiting things a homeowner basis. I don't know. So

Fabian Seewald : 1:28:30

that's great. And I think what what you put us like people have to see and feel they're calling in for some people teaching my dear chi i think for you as well teaching and facilitating is is a calling that's so important to also take pauses like this to refocus on on your own your own calling. As the last question, I think you definitely find your calling in this infinite game called called juggling. Whether you are Your visions and also your your project for the next decades. Is there anything that you'd like to share with our audience?

Anthony Trahair : 1:29:10

Yeah, I would like to. I just we just managed to successfully crowdfunded the German edition, which I'm very grateful for people supporting it. I would quite like to make a Spanish addition as well, perhaps some other for for additions. Let's see, we need to create some teams that are interested and then and then it's all a lot, a lot easier. A possible more than easier. This year, this summer, I'm organizing a teacher training for bills of juggling. I don't know if I'll do this again. Maybe Maybe next year. You know, I've always had in this 20 years I've always have in the back of my mind that it would be good to do like a month or two Three months by 342 much a month juggling workshop, you know, it would be a school. It's a school, you know, like like a Zen of juggling. It's just finding the amount of people that could possibly do it. And perhaps he needs sponsors or some sort of financing because jugglers they don't have the money to do these things. So working out how to do this, that would be I'll be great. And I'm looking a lot more into playfulness right now, this is one way I'm interested in. But I've realized also that juggling is my playful practice, you know, essentially, W is my creative and playful practice. So yeah, she writes some more things. And

Unknown Speaker : 1:30:52

yeah, carry on teaching.

Anthony Trahair : 1:30:54

Corona this whole situation as I've made a lot of changes for teaching and a lot of changes from moving about, you know, I'm very happy that we're not flying about so much now. You know, I think it's really important. So I don't even want to encourage people flying about anymore. None. So, where we work in the world, like, on the internet, I think this is important. Now with a stick. It's really important to work locally to do lots of things locally. I think we need both of these things.

Fabian Seewald : 1:31:30

Right. Well, yeah. Think global act at local, I think that that will be a new new mantra that we all have to integrate more and more for, for having our planet as we're ready to, to play on for the next generations.

Anthony Trahair : 1:31:45

Yeah, man.

Fabian Seewald : 1:31:47

Thank you so much, Anthony for your time, your well, pearls of wisdom from from journaling or education. Towards the end, what it means to be an artist to dive into this was was really an honor. An epic episode. Thanks. Thanks for much. And you have anything like the last words of wisdom that you would like to share with our audience, your credo?

Anthony Trahair : 1:32:14

Well, there are a lot of things that that I think is important to this is what Alan Watts says as well and he's going to be used on YouTube where people are made videos of his dive into what you love, you know, and then you become a master of it, and then become what you do know. So we can't think right now is the best time in the world to just experiment. try things out. This feels good to try out. You know, we have nothing to really lose now. So just go for it.

Fabian Seewald : 1:32:52

Great. Well, let's let's go for it. Let's experiment. Let's Let's juggle, virtual High Five And yeah, Stay Stay tuned for this episode and thanks so much Anthony. Wow 90 minutes of wisdom about the power of play, and why we all have to experiment. I hope you could learn a lot in this episode. Let's please stay in touch and follow us on Instagram at SeeArts now