Ian Sanderson "Survival Skills Through a Contemplative Model" **** [MUSIC] Hello. And welcome to Mindful U at Naropa. A podcast presented by Naropa University in Boulder, Colorado. I'm your host, David Devine. And itÕs a pleasure to welcome you. Joining the best of Eastern and Western educational traditions - Naropa is the birth place of the modern mindfulness movement. [MUSIC] Hello, today I'd like to welcome Ian Sanderson to our podcast. He's an adjunct faculty member teaching in the Environmental Studies program. He is also a member of the Mohawk Nation Turtle Clan. And he teaches a martial art here in Boulder at the Boulder Quest Center. Thanks for speaking with us today. [00:01:04.02] IAN: Yeah, thanks for inviting me here. [00:01:05.12] DAVID: And would you like to introduce yourself further - is there anything you'd like to say? [00:01:08.16] IAN: Uh sure. Uh (in Mohawk) -- hello everyone. (in Mohawk) -- my name is Ian Sanderson. I am Mohawk Turtle Clan. I teach survival skills at Naropa. As well as what you mentioned David - I teach the martial art of To-Shin Do ninjitsu in North Boulder. I am a co-owner of the Boulder Quest Center. And uh - yeah, I've been involved in outdoor and experiential education - that's really my - my predominant professional background for uh -- 20 years or so now. And uh - that work is really informed - the basis of some of my other hats that I wear in the world. I do a lot of contract facilitation - you know work for various organizations over the years. Uh, so I am kind of a sword for hire as well as teaching at Naropa as well as owning a business. Life is good. [00:02:02.20] DAVID: You got a full deck right there. [00:02:04.14] IAN: I do. [00:02:05.07] DAVID: Awesome yeah, I am really interested to talk about survival skills. ItÕs kind of interesting because we're having a conversation about survival skills and I would almost see a class that you would teach would be in the field. So -- [00:02:15.00] IAN: As much as we can yeah. [00:02:16.06] DAVID: Yeah, so maybe you can energetically bring us to the field and talk about what you teach. [00:02:21.19] IAN: I inherited the class from Richard Dart who started the class over 20 years ago now. He taught it for about 16 years. It was handed over to me and I was pretty excited and nervous about taking that on. Richard is a phenomenal well spring of knowledge. And I am like oh how am I going to fill his shoes and uh - but we were able to overlap that first semester. Uh he kind of did this official hand off to me which I felt you know really honored by. But because I am not Richard - I am me - right, I have my own approach and the combination of indigenous paradigm - this martial art of the idea of ninja which we have a lot of associations pop up - pop culturally in our head when we hear that word. The truth is - is that itÕs still around. There really is an art of ninja too. And mean - means perseverance. Jaws of person. So, ninja literally means persevering person. Someone who faces life and is able to win - not just for themselves, but for everybody. Uh no matter. And you keep going as an indigenous person we've had to learn how to keep going in the face of enormous adversity. The spiritual lineage of ninjitsu is - is Buddhism. And so, there is a whole lot in there of how to keep going. And, I think in the background of all of that martial arts, outdoor education, Buddhist mind science, indigenous thought - a fundamental aspect of -- how to be in the world is predicated on an elevated awareness. And, that's really -- where I start in this survival skills class. We could - spend all semester learning all sorts of techniques right and you know tips and tricks and things like that, but we don't have enough time. There is no time in one semester to learn those things and if we did - we're kind of jumping the gun on some really, really important pieces, right? Mainly that most of these survival situations - most elevated situations, most dangerous situations - the great majority of them could have been avoided. Right, they didn't have to happen. And so, I kind of break down this master of in thirds. Where the first stage is really about how do we elevate our awareness moving around in the world? Before we even talk about the survival situation. Because that survival situation on average these days should you actually find yourself in one which realistically is actually pretty rare. Right, like a wilderness survival situation - pretty rare. And, even if you do - the average length of that is about three days. And so, that little window important but itÕs certainly not the whole. Right? Those three days is really like don't die. LAUGHS. How to not die. Right? So, before we get to that point we want to look at well, how do I just mitigate right any of those things happening in the first place. So, we start with really how do we carry ourselves physically around in our environment? We live in this very -- head down and forward, shoulders slumped, quick walk - don't connect, don't look at anybody. Have this little bubble. Stare at the sidewalk. Stare at your phone. Stare at your tablet. Very disconnected and yet rushing around -- [00:06:01.11] DAVID: Falling into the patterns that you currently had -- [00:06:04.02] IAN: Absolutely. [00:06:04.06] DAVID: Every day is mildly the same. [00:06:07.14] IAN: Yeah, itÕs fairly predictable. Right, you hit the nail on the head - patterns. We spend some time on pattern recognition, right - both the inner pattern recognition and an outer -- observation of reality pattern recognition. And so, the first thing we do is we start looking at what are our tendencies in terms of our physical self-moving around in the world? And, can we - get our body back in fidelity with the way itÕs designed? Because the way we're moving by and large - that's not how we're designed. ItÕs just not. Right, but we've learned like you've said all these habits and patterns and things like that. So, we start with movement. We start with movement. How do we - clean that up a bit? Never mind all the health benefits, but that just elevates our awareness right away. Just in terms of the brass tacks reality that is going on around us. And then from there, vision. You know we are also in this modern age - have such a hyper focused tendency on things, right? Everything is like right in front of face. We got all the screens. We got all these things that's very direct. And, there is a lot more going on around us than just the - thing that is one foot in front of our face. Right? And so, then we add in how to skillfully learn how to use our vision to take in our environment more. And really, really notice. Right? So even just those two things over the years I've had students come back with all these stories of things not happening in a good way. Just because of that. Right? The cyclist that they didn't hit. You know the person that they were able to save from walking in the street you know getting hit by a car because that person was staring at their phone - head down, you know not paying attention. And so, itÕs a simple idea - but itÕs not easy. Actually. And I tell my students never confuse those two concepts. Simply is not synonymous with easy. Patterns - like you said. Habits, right they are entrenched and so it takes a minute. You know to just even carry our bodies a little differently. To use our eyes a little differently. [00:08:23.05] DAVID: Yes. [00:08:23.13] IAN: And then from there we - start looking into the inner self levels of awareness. How are you perceiving things? Dr. Stanley's podcast. It was fantastic - itÕs those ideas I also bring in, right? ItÕs how do we get confused as human beings as to what is actually going on. [00:08:45.07] DAVID: Yeah, he was talking about sense perception and how color and reflection of the eye and how we perceive it and who is the perceiver - very interesting. [00:08:53.23] IAN: Right yeah. Absolutely. And so, we see something happening. We're having a conversation. And vision is our primary mode, which were you know getting information, but like you said 98% of it is not even accurate. Right? Its - its uh - and -- [00:09:09.14] DAVID: ItÕs a reflection of reality. [00:09:10.16] IAN: And it by and large made up. Right? And so, we have all these things that we put onto it, but we are just making it up. And so, then we spend a lot of time checking out that - that story - inner story generator. And give students tools to compare that to the reality of what's actually happening. And, the basic premise is - I feel that in this day and age especially with I think we can all agree the world is different you know there is - there is some really - really chaotic stuff going. Really -- [00:09:46.19] DAVID: Undesirable events taking place. [00:09:49.22] IAN: Yeah, insane stuff. [00:09:51.07] DAVID: Avoidable. [00:09:51.23] IAN: Insane stuff. Yeah. So, we kind of have this sense of every day survival I think even if we are not aware of it. Right, we've really generated this culture of significant consequence that really isn't there that often. You know we have a relationship and itÕs the end of the world. We didn't get the job interview very well - itÕs the end of the world! And I didn't get that A+ on my paper and itÕs the end of the world! We have this like survival response - to some pretty just everyday human things. But I think our stress response is you know there is all sorts of research recently on basically like new pathologies for young people in this day and age - what they are suffering from as a result of you know modern society. And, what's generating all of that? Right, so - never mind that life or death wilderness survival situation. Right? How do we have the tools just to you know keep our mmm together. [00:10:49.00] DAVID: Daily survival. [00:10:49.00] IAN: Daily. I mean that's what the practice is right? Because if we look at a survival situation. The common denominator is humans, right? And its fundamentally an exaggerated or a bigger example of what a human being will or will not do - anyways. Right, itÕs just rite large. Right, so if - if we have all these story generators going on in our lives just day to day getting into survival situation but we're all going to die. We're all - right that kind of thinking. Uh being stuck in the past. Being in denial. Right. Those things can really get in the way. So, if we take some tools and then have students apply them just to every day stuff - the relationships and you know work and school. Then they are getting not only practice for a more significant event, but they are navigating their day to day world more effectively and efficiently and with less attachment and less suffering. [00:11:49.00] DAVID: Yeah, itÕs interesting to think how stopping, becoming aware, practicing awareness, looking around, seeing what is around you and how things can benefit you is - is part of the survival mechanism, whether you are in the wilderness or you're surviving the stress that you are daily presented with. Uh when you think of survival skills you almost think of oh I got to act quickly but sometimes itÕs the slowing down that allows you to act quickly to - to see what is needed in the moment. [00:12:20.16] IAN: No, that's absolutely right. Absolutely right. And that's one of the commonly accepted practices in survival skills teaching is ok if this happened, stop and its actually an acronym. LAUGHS. Stop, think, observe, plan. Like no stop. Just stop. And, so part of our class involves them finding - a sit spot that they go to X amount of time in a week for precisely that purpose. For stopping - just stop. Get connected. Get present. See what's there externally. See what's there internally. Really stop and look. And think and contemplate. Set aside that time. Very difficult to do without that kind of structure in our lives. Right? Because I think again this society is just go, go, go, go, go, go - we're not good - we're not good at slowing down. [00:13:16.08] DAVID: Look at this. React to this. Here we go. Oh, I am late for that. I got to go. [00:13:19.21] IAN: Yep, absolutely. [00:13:21.11] DAVID: Everything is on the move. [00:13:21.20] IAN: And then any little gaps are filled with all sorts of stimulation and uh fear and you know stories and its just - it just keeps going. [00:13:32.16] DAVID: Stresses add up. ItÕs almost exponential how stress adds to your life. You know and so when you do have an acronym STOP or the actual word stop and contemplate of what is going on - you can prioritize what is meaningful to you in how you can reduce stress. [00:13:49.13] IAN: Yeah oh yeah absolutely, right? I mean you know we just have this background noise going on - this meaning making machine. Right? That is just 24 / 7. Its on - itÕs just on a 24 / 7 broadcast. And, we all 7.2 billion of us we all have it. [00:14:09.16] DAVID: That's a lot. [00:14:10.04] IAN: Yeah, itÕs a lot. And itÕs just human. There is nothing wrong or bad. ItÕs just that we do. The problem is it gets in our way because itÕs not accurate. Right, itÕs not accurate representation of reality. Right? So, if we can just learn to hit the pause button on that constant feed - then something else can be available. And so that's that inner awareness that we try to get students to get in touch with. Can they notice that constant broadcasting? That's - that's almost silence at this point, right? Because itÕs so tacit to our perception and how we do things as human beings that even though itÕs very - its constant - itÕs almost silent because itÕs just part of us. But, if we can interrupt that - if we can hit the pause button and you know recognize that that's what we're doing - then there is room for a little bit of more elevated discernment - around what's going on for us, what's going on for other people. Especially other people. I mean this is also how we can get to empathy for other people. Right? If we're having a conversation and I'm able to stop making that conversation about me. LAUGHS. Right, I am able to stop filtering all that stuff about you know I am getting from someone and how do I feel about it. And how do I want to respond to it. If I can just pause all that. Right? And then I can be over there with the - the other person. [00:15:38.18] DAVID: Yes. [00:15:38.18] IAN: Right, entirely. Survival situation - if I can just stop right, all that inner stuff and get into ok. This happened. This is the reality now. Ok. What's next. [00:15:53.10] DAVID: Wow, ok. So, one thing that is coming up for me I am thinking about is - when you are say itÕs in a wilderness survival situation - there is things that you're presented with that you almost never had to think about water, shelter, food. And then when you have a moment of stopping and realizing the seriousness of the situation - you're like what are the priorities in which I need to go in. And usually itÕs like probably water and food and shelter. There is these things that you need to take care of that when you're in a - a city where you're paying rent to a house that has plumbing and has a refrigerator - things you never had to think about. [00:16:29.14] IAN: Absolutely. [00:16:30.06] DAVID: You know and all of the sudden these are - in front -- [00:16:33.23] IAN: In your face. [00:16:34.09] DAVID: Things you need to take care of. And teaching the skills of being mindful and being aware and being able to negotiate what's important in the moment is - is really crucial. [00:16:47.00] IAN: ItÕs absolutely critical. Yeah, itÕs the difference in many situations of dying and not dying. But you're exactly right. We - the - the survival priorities - shelter, water, fire, food - we just take for granted right we live in this - first world, right, very convenient very privileged in all sorts of ways. Even the less privileged are also privileged. If that makes any sense. We talk about privilege a lot, right, but we also have to understand the bigger context. Right? And yeah, for the most part we're not concerned about shelter and water and fire and food. On a fundamental not dying level. So that's exactly it is all of the sudden you're in a situation where the most basic necessities - you got to figure out and pretty quickly. So that's what we get into later on during the semester is - ok, despite elevated awareness, despite preparation - something happened. Why? Because that's life - something happened. [00:17:48.08] DAVID: Things happen. [00:17:48.08] IAN: Things happen. So, despite best efforts here you are. And then we get into more like the brass tacks kind of like ok here is what you need to do but even that again in one semester - there is no way we can teach the techniques - for all the hundreds of different kinds of shelters and all the hundreds of different kinds of ecologies around the world. ItÕs just not realistic. [00:18:13.22] DAVID: Yeah, location is a big thing too. Because where are you located? How do you make a shelter in one area is going to be different in how you make a shelter in another? [00:18:20.08] IAN: Yeah, itÕs absolutely dependent on where you are. Where you are is where you are. Right? And, that could be real different. Right? Are you in the desert? Are you in the mountains, the ocean - are you - so the approach for a kind of a one on one survival skills that I come from is just like this martial arts. Its principle based, right? What are the principles behind all of the techniques? Because if we can really get the principles - then we can let our intuition and our innovation as human beings take us from there. In a survival situation. [00:18:59.00] DAVID: Yeah and this seems like the principles will relate to any landscape that you might need to use a survival skill whether it be urban, whether it be isolated. [00:19:07.19] IAN: Yep. Absolutely on a fundamental level - right? If you can get those principles, then - those principles can inform the specific resources that you do or do not have. By and large if you look at the course of survival situations - uh - that you hear about in like books and you know movies and things like that - the majority of those people they never took any survival skills classes. They didn't. They found themselves in a situation - and, a few things they made happen. Number one, and this is one thing that we just can't teach is will. The will to survive. It so often does come down to the decision over and over of a person saying I am going to make it out of this. Its already decided. Its already reality. There is no room for - not - not - this not working. Right? I will see my wife again. I will see my husband again. I will see my children again - that's it. And, when that's been present that's uh - what allows people to amputate limbs on their own in the middle of the - you know the crazy stuff that you hear that does happen. You know there is a movie about the climber with the arm - there has been other examples. There has been other examples of people doing whatever it takes. Uh, and even - in less extreme situations - once people make to and adhere to that commitment and decision to live innovation takes place from there. Outside of any courses that they've learned or not learned. And so, it really you know comes down to that now. WE can't really - this is where any kind of training - any kind of class in any context has to fall a little short. Right, even SWAT teams. Right? They'll train for extreme situations but itÕs still training. Martial arts - we're learning how to protect ourselves and other people but itÕs still training as vigorous as we might be able to make it. As generalized as we might be able to make it - safely - itÕs still training. And so, the uh - the tricky part is we have to uh - accept that we won't actually know - ourselves - in that context -- unless we're actually in that context, right? So, that's - that's the tricky part. [00:21:23.14] DAVID: And we almost prepare ourselves, so we don't get in those -- [00:21:27.14] IAN: Yeah absolutely. [00:21:29.02] DAVID: And in the martial arts setting it seems like you're training enough to be confident with your skills and with situations that arise that you can walk away from it. You can - [00:21:38.23] IAN: Or not even be there in the first place. That's the kind of awareness we're talking about. Is I - I've developed that kind of spidey sense ok. [00:21:46.09] DAVID: I like this. I am going to cruise that. [00:21:49.02] IAN: Yeah, you're going to make left instead of that right. Yeah, the - itÕs what they call the paradox of the martial arts. Is we learn - all of these very empowering ways - so that we never have to use them. That's a tricky thing for some people too is because they learn all of this amazing stuff. And it gets cooler and cooler. And as you learn that you are less likely to ever, ever have to use all of that. Because you know your own power. You know your own - intuition and awareness and because you - you have that confidence and power you are less likely to need it. Right? And so, you aren't there. Or your diplomacy is more elevated, and you can - deescalate situation and you know things like so that's the - a bit of the irony - that's why they call it the paradox of the martial arts. Is -- [00:22:35.02] DAVID: There is something beautiful about that though. [00:22:36.05] IAN: Absolutely. [00:22:36.18] DAVID: When you're learning how to defend yourself. You're learning how to survive. You're learning to be more of situations and you're just so functioning at a high level that you almost don't allow those situations to manifest fully. You know you can skillfully exit the room somehow. [00:22:54.00] IAN: Yeah, absolutely. [00:22:55.16] DAVID: Very cool. So, I wanted to ask you - when it comes to - because Naropa has a contemplative model of education of becoming aware and diving deeper into the human psyche while learning an educational background. Uh, how does contemplative education and survival skills - how do those gel together like - uh - if you were just to teach survival skills that - just so like a random course compared to contemplative model - do you notice a difference in how people receive information or how you teach the information? [00:23:27.18] IAN: Uh yeah both. One benefit of being able to teach this - at a university is there is more time. One of the constant challenges for me is the - uh - the workshop. Right? We have lots of workshops. [00:23:47.03] DAVID: Weekend workshops. [00:23:47.23] IAN: Yeah, weekend workshops. I am not slamming those at all, but I think itÕs indignative of the time that we think is only available to explore something. Right, so its back - yes you know people all these jobs and families and commitments and so we're - and yet there's a desire for more knowledge, understanding, compassion, whatever it is and so we're trying to squeeze these things in. In these little you know kind of intensives and things like that. And that's great - I'll take it. Better than nothing. Better than nothing. But, it really will never - be able to compare to consistent practice. Right. [00:24:31.14] DAVID: Yeah repetition. [00:24:31.20] IAN: Repetition. [00:24:32.09] DAVID: Plasticity of the mind comes in. [00:24:34.23] IAN: Mastery fundamentally comes down to repetition. You just have to, right? [00:24:42.00] DAVID: The body practice. Like when you are doing martial arts, your body starts like - like how you said in the beginning how extreme the body - so how you move through the world and all the sudden you don't have to think about that anymore. You're on to the next. You're like how do I move energy whether it be coming from an external source or I'm internally pushing energy out. So -- [00:25:01.00] IAN: And that's just - that's just going to take a while. Right? So, that's what I appreciate about being able to teach these ideas at Naropa is at least we have like a semester where seeing everyone we have a consistent practice that we can at least get going and hopefully students walk away with their own desire to maintain some kind of - consistent practice. Those things. And uh what it also allows me to do is really get to the human nest of what we're talking about, right? Because whatever it is that we're talking - about - its - its we're the common denominator, right, human beings are the common denominator. And so, this is really -- helpful to have this consistent repetitive contact with folks. Right, so that we can really dig through the humanness involved. And then look at how that plays out. How it could play out. How we want it to play out. And practice those things. Practice you know getting rid of some of those things. Un-attaching from some of those things. Letting go. And then - you know getting in touch with the reality of stuff and so far, I really appreciate Naropa students because they're really willing to take on some of these more esoteric and trickier and sometimes vulnerable you know kind of things. Looking at self is kind of scary sometimes, right. And so, I really commend uh the school and the students for generating a culture where they are really willing to take that on and we can get pretty far in a semester because of that willingness. [00:26:29.01] DAVID: Awesome. So, we only got like a minute or two left. But I am - I just have this weird kind of question for you. So, uh at the end of the semester normally what you do in a class is take a test. Uh at Naropa we do warriors exams. So, we sit and we authentically come with information of a question that we pull from you know like a bowl uh we can go deeper into that, but I am curious what in a contemplative survival skills - what do you do for your final? You leave your students in the wilderness for like a day or two? [00:27:01.11] IAN: If we had two semesters I would change my approach, but no the fundamental kind of final piece - is an oral reflection of ok - fundamentally how are you a different human being? Since August 25th or whatever day it is to right now? How are you different? Because they have been taking on this awareness work - they will be different. They will be different human beings and the uh - over the course of semesters what I have heard from so many students - itÕs amazing. I am blown away. I am blown away by the insights and transformations that they were able to achieve for themselves through these different awareness practices. Like really, really taking it on. And uh - stuff that I couldn't even anticipate. Uh - just absolute paradigm shifting for some of them. And uh - so, it feels good to know I am doing my job well when you know that happens. Because yeah this is like the least academic course we can kind of like - think about right - survival skills. Wilderness survival. Its - so we really got to focus on the - the human-ness and really did you contemplate? Did you engage? Did you really take this stuff on and if you did - you will be different? [00:28:21.15] DAVID: There is a lot of life skills that are coming out of that. Sounds like you come out a different person and that propel you further in any endeavor that you chose to go into. [00:28:34.08] IAN: Yes, no absolutely. Uh - one of the uh - the feedback I got on one of the recent evaluations - one student said that they loved this class because they use it every day. Oh great, done my job. Right? Using it every day. Wait wasn't this a wilderness survival skills? Yeah. And they are using it every day. Perfect. [00:28:53.16] DAVID: Very cool. [00:28:53.16] IAN: Perfect. [00:28:54.22] DAVID: Awesome. Well, I really appreciate you speaking with us today. [00:28:58.21] IAN: Well, thanks for inviting me. [00:29:00.14] DAVID: That was Ian Sanderson on our podcast. He is an adjunct faculty teaching in the Environmental Studies program. And, we just like to appreciate you so thank you very much. [00:29:10.04] IAN: Thank you. [MUSIC] On behalf of the Naropa community thank you for listening to Mindful U. The official podcast of Naropa University. Check us out at www.naropa.edu or follow us on social media for more updates. [MUSIC]