Since I invited Pecs Minor to the party, man are "my guys" having fun or what?!

Don't know what I am talking about?

Pecs Minor is a muscle: one of "my guys" = Pectoralis Minor. Pecca for short.

Thanks to Don (not Burton, Weed, but the Burton started all this 40 years ago) I recently discovered my little Pecca.

My little Pecca is behaving in scurrilous manner, getting away with all kinds of mischief for a number of years now.

How's yours behaving?

Here's how you find that out…

***

I had to lie to get my first acting job.

I landed a part in Jack Hibberd’s Dimboola – one of Australia’s most successful plays. Trouble was, I was still only 17.

So I instantly became 18, just like that.

Back in those days, things were lazier. Trust was stronger. I said was 18, that was good enough for everyone. I was in!

Boy was I nervous on the opening night. Shaking.

“Rafferty Rules” was the biggest day in my little 5 year old life.

It happened on Fridays, I don’t remember much more. All I remember is that Dad said I could do…

ANYTHING: Rafferty Rules = There Are No Rules (Wow)

To my magical baby mind, that was, like – incomprehensible. Anything? I can do anything? What will I do? I know, stay up late. Which was about all I could think of (since in those days no one was obsessed about sugar intakes).

Better question – who writes a blog on Xmas day?!

I do. Why? Well, why not?

The day is to celebrate the things that make life worthwhile: love, compassion, friendship, family, giving, receiving.

Xmas a great time to practise generosity of spirit.

When I was 11, I played a dangerous game of running on rocks at Avoca Beach in Australia.

I didn’t think it was dangerous, instead I was exhilarated.

It was dangerous because the rocks were sharp and bulky – crashing into them could have split my little head open. They were boulders with diameters as wide as my nimble legs. The rocks extended onwards from the beach, reaching into the overhanging cliffs and disappearing around a headland.

The game was simple: running on rocks as fast as I can.

This is an excerpt from a class I taugh at our Osaka studio in Umeda at the start of a ProCourse class on Thursday, December 8th.

Years ago, an American neighbour of mine expressed mild interest in Alexander's discovery –because of her migraines. One day, she asked if it could help her, and got close to agreeing to have a trial lesson…

Then suddenly she blurted out a startling question:

“It’s not going to change my personality, is it?”

And I immediately thought ‘yes’

and re-wrote a little Shakespeare in my head:

Cry ‘Havoc,’ and let slip the hands of change;

That this great deed shall flow around the earth

Tokyo. November 9th. 2016.

I am watching the election slowly confirm Trump’s ascendency to the Presidency of the United States, when Skype rudely interrupts my despair.

It’s my 17 year old daughter calling from Australia…

“Daddy, I’m scared.”

What can I say to her?

My conclusion surprises even me. We cannot, must not, condemn those who voted for him, as we all suffer from the same condition that led to this unexpected outcome.

Anger, despair, rage belong to all of us.

Viktor E. Frankl - in his seminal work Man’s Search for Meaning - tells the story of a well-known composer and librettist whose death illustrated a mechanism of hope. One day the man gushed to Viktor that he had dreamt he would be free of the Nazi concentration camp. “When?” asked Frankl. “On March 30th, 1945” whispered back his friend.

He died on March 31st.

Cause? The death of hope in Frankl’s estimation. The loss of his hope triggered a deadly weakening of his immune system, and the man ultimately fell to the ravages of typhus.