Ok granted, I’m a bit paranoid, but I have always secretly believed that at some point, the apocalypse is going to really happen and the world-as-we-know-it is going to come to an end.
And in that new Terminator/Matrix reality, we’re going to need a whole different set of skills to survive, and a whole new breed of heroes to potentially save us and put things right again. Our new best friends will be the people who can build things with their hands, grow their own food, jump over buildings, and hack into computer systems to thwart the bad guys.
And as our primary job as parents is to ensure that our kids survive (and because one of my movie heroines is Terminater uber-mom Sarah Connor) my overly imaginative brain has been particularly concerned with ensuring that my daughter become one of these skilled people.
The farming thing is happening at camp. Carpentry is being covered at school and with her dad. It’s a bit too early to get into coding, though that will come, I assure you. And for the jumping over buildings part, we’ve got Elizabeth Streb.
Choreographer, philosopher, professor and all around badass, ELizabeth Streb’s dance company performs around the world (check them out walking down the side of a building in London a year ago) but also is fully dedicated to spreading the gospel and teaching kids how to be fearless. Check out the video above for a sample of what the 5 to 7 year old set is up to.
Streb believes that humans can really fly, if we just learn to let go of the fear that gets in our way. It’s all about testing limits and breaking boundaries, and the joy of pure action. Something I think we could all use a bit more of in our lives (I say as I sit here in front of my screen, typing away…)
Check out all that the Streb Lab for Action Mechanics (SLAM) has to offer on their website, and then (if you live in the NYC area) go sign your kids (and yourselves) up to learn how to walk away from fear. And learn how to do cartwheels at the same time!
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