Wyzga On Words

Dance And Be Smart.

Time out of mind I took every class offered by The Arthur Murray Dance Studios.  I competed in ballroom dance.  My favorites were the cha-cha, Samba and the waltz.  I had a pair of silvery regulation dance shoes with the kidskin soles that were carried in a bag and used only on the dance floor. 

As the story goes, my mother named me after her college roommate, Diane Blue, a woman who dreamed of becoming a professional dancer.  Instead, like many women of her time, she married; and gave up dancing.  I should have paid attention.  I married a fellow with no sense of rhythm and two left feet - and then my used-to-be-husband danced away. 

Still, I'm a dancer at heart.  I shake what my mama gave me at Zumba classes.  I love watching dance movies.  And Fred Astaire.

Imagine my delight to learn that 9 years ago The New England Journal of Medicine proclaimed dancing as the exercise associated with reducing your risk of dementia and making you smarter.

In a nutshell, here's how Dancing Makes You Smarter:

"We immediately ask two questions:

Why is dancing better than other activities for improving mental capabilities?

Does this mean all kinds of dancing, or is one kind of dancing better than another?

That's where this particular study falls short.  It doesn't answer these questions as a stand-alone study.  Fortunately, it isn't a stand-alone study.  It's one of many studies, over decades, which have shown that we increase our mental capacity by exercising our cognitive processes.  Intelligence: Use it or lose it.  And it's the other studies which fill in the gaps in this one.  Looking at all of these studies together lets us understand the bigger picture.

Some of this is discussed here (the page you may have just came from) which looks at intelligence in dancing.  The essence of intelligence is making decisions.  And the concluding advice, when it comes to improving your mental acuity, is to involve yourself in activities which require split-second rapid-fire decision making, as opposed to rote memory (retracing the same well-worn paths), or just working on your physical style.

One way to do that is to learn something new.  Not just dancing, but anything new.  Don't worry about the probability that you'll never use it in the future.  Take a class to challenge your mind.  It will stimulate the connectivity of your brain by generating the need for new pathways.  Difficult and even frustrating classes are better for you, as they will create a greater need for new neural pathways.

Then take a dance class, which can be even better.  Dancing integrates several brain functions at once, increasing your connectivity.  Dancing simultaneously involves kinesthetic, rational, musical and emotional processes."

 

TIP:     No matter how or when or with whom, your style or your size,  dance!

                        
                                                
                                                        

                                                                    

Q&A Tuesday: Do You Know That ASTC's 31st Annual Conference Is June 7th to 9th In New Orleans?

Q:    I heard tell that the American Society of Trial Consultants is holding its 31st Annual Conference in New Orleans.  What's happening?

A:    We are so jazzed to have the opportunity to learn, play, connect and succeed!

TIP:    Check out the ASTC website for an overview of the conference, registration and sponsorship opportunities.

TIP:    Get ready to let the good times role by reading through Conference Planning Committee Member Patricia Rhinehart's list of just a few things to do:

If you love music, New Orleans is the place to be! There’s music all over: people playing in the streets, on sidewalks and in the open-air cafes.

The best thing about the French Quarter is Royal and Chartres. Royal Street of course has great shops and all the fabulous art galleries. Check here for maps.

Stop at the Monteleone Hotel and have a drink at the Carousel Bar.  It's old, it's beautiful, and yes - it's a moving bar!

There's a great little restaurant on Orleans Avenue behind the cathedral - Orleans Grapevine - small, quaint, known for excellent wines.

Check out The Green Goddess. Something of a hole in the wall, but the food and the chef are SO worth it!!!

St. Louis Cathedral is a great stop for a beautiful church with pretty stained glass and even more history.   You may catch a wedding party spilling out into the square and second lining down Royal Street.

Frenchmen Street in the Marigny is New Orleans funky with lots of clubs for listening to music. Watch the clock for the Witching Hour!

Take the streetcar down St. Charles and get off at Lee's Circle.There's the Ogden Museum of Southern Art . A must see.

From there venture down Julia street and others in the Warehouse District  for Galleries and restaurants. 

For military buffs there is the National World War II Museum - a great and moving tribute to the service of the greatest generation.

Continue the streetcar down St. Charles through the Garden District  to Uptown and the University area. 

Stop at Carrollton Avenue and grab some breakfast or lunch at the Camellia Grill before spending some time shopping in the Riverbend area.

If you have access to a car go down Magazine Street for shopping and eating - where the locals go!

See you there when the good times roll!

It's Never Too Late To Start Heading In The Right Direction.

What does Beethoven have to do with friendship and compass headings? 

My friend, Stephanie West Allen, sent me a post she wrote in 2002.  It's a wonderful story about the importance of friends who turn us in the right direction.  I call this direction "True North" on my personal compass heading.  I am gravitating toward it with the help of faith, family and friends.

For me, the heart of Allen's blog post is the series of questions she posed which may also be a help to you.  Excerpt.

"Some Questions for You

What gift inside of you is so strong that it must triumph over any adversity (or shyness or inactivity or busy-ness) and  come out for others to enjoy? Are you still holding it in, sapping creative energy by squelching it? What will it take for this ability, this genius, to flow out of you on a stream of inspiration?

We all have our genius with which we can make our world and that of others a more beautiful place. Part of being a member of the brotherhood of man is sharing our gifts with each other. What will bring your tear of joy?

And one more question, who in your life gently turns you around when you are facing in the wrong direction so you can see your standing ovation?"

What are your answers? 

And what other questions does this writing prompt as you turn and head in the direction of your True North?

After A Few Days Of Radio Silence, Sing Forth.

Ah, blessed silence.

Unless, of course, it is not yours by choice.

What if you want to help another speak again?  Would you get them to sing?  It does help.

Take a listen to the NPR broadcast: Singing Helps Stroke Patients Speak Again

And help make a joyful noise.

 

What's Your Favorite Christmas Hanukkah Kwaanza Festivus For The Rest Of Us Holiday Tune?

Nothing beats The Carole of the Bells otherwise known as Hark! How The Bells.

Unless, it's Straight No Chaser & the 12 Days of Christmas.

What about you? 

 

Snow Globes Make Me Happy.

One Christmas my former brother-in-law gave me a musical snow globe as a gift.  My then husband and I traveled on to spend the holidazed in Vermont with the snow globe in the trunk. During the silent night the water froze and the globe burst.  Go figure.  There was snow on the ground.  It did get into single digits.   

Another Christmas my mom and dad gave me a musical snow globe that turned as caroles played.  The mechanism malfunctioned.  Now I just turn it around in my hands and hum the tunes.

One Christmas the mother of a sweetheart gave me a snow globe that played a loon's cry while snow fell over the deep woods.  The mother has passed on and the sweetheart is gone.

Then I see a sign in airports: no snow globes!  I wonder if they mean me.  No, Homeland Security feels that snow globes can make life difficult for other folks besides me.  Who knew.

With this track record you'd think I'd give up on snow globes.  Not a chance.  Here's one I pick up and shake this time every year.   Click here.

It won't break.  It keeps playing.  And it reminds me of a night in Crystal City when my flight was cancelled after long days of focus group research and the man of my dreams drove a red Miata through the softly falling snow to eat burgers on the bed before I flew in the wee small hours of the winter morning back to relentlessly sunny Southern California.

See why snow globes make me happy?

Words That Work to Spark Legal Stories -> Onomatopoeia

Remember grade school English?

Remember "onomatopoeia?"

For those of us who snoozed through that class,  Merriam-Webster defines "onomatopoeia" word as "the naming of a thing or action by a vocal imitation of the sound associated with it (such as hiss or buzz)."

This site offers examples of onomatopoeia used in a variety of literary devices.

My favorite site is a word list for writing and illustrating children's books.  But it has huge application for legal stories.  As does this list from Scribd.

How often do we say, for example, "The car ran the red light"?  What about using words that give the feeling and sense of what happened?  For example, "The car zoomed or sped or hurtled or blasted or careened through the red light."  Instead of "The knife struck the man," what about "The knife slashed through the coat, shredded the sleeve and gouged a gaping wound leaving the blood to plop, plop, plop on the sidewalk."

There are as many uses for living breathing language as we have ideas to blurt.  Have a little fun plucking words that creak and crunch and crackle to take the ho-hum out of your legal stories.

 

 

Kodo & the Heartbeat of Your Trial Story

Imagine thousands of mostly white folks quite nicely dressed and seated expectantly in the plushness of the Segerstrom Center for the Arts, previously called the Orange County Arts Center.  I was up in the first tier with a bird's-eye view of the bare stage and one great drum.

Orange County is a world unto itself: pretty white, pretty wealthy - but not all of it.  It's just not a place given to primal feelings, or expressions of them in public.

Until Kodo begins drumming.  Kodo (which translates to "heartbeat") cannot be explained; it must be felt. 

Click here for a selection of YouTube clips of the Kodo performers.  Irodori is one of my favorites.

So many lawyers claim to use storytelling but I often find that they lose the beating heart of the Human Narrative in legalese, in stiff presentations, in hollow shells of cases that are at odds with their own moral cores. 

Like these drums appealing to our primal instincts, the Human Narrative must also have the power to penetrate our resistance and engage us at a place of action that we cannot always intellectually articulate. 

Each and every client who comes to your office carries in his or her hands the beating heart of the Human Narrative they are entrusting to you.  What do we do with it?  How do we convey loss, injustice, abuse, fear, damage, treachery, betrayal, or avarice?  We have to feel it.  And that's scary because our lives are already full of things that go bump in the night.

Yet, when we agree to experience the beating heart of each Human Narrative we absorb that client's story much like we absorb the thunderous reverberations of the Kodo drums.  Storytellers like to say that the bones of a story have found their way into the teller's body.  And it's true.  Stories are not a recitation of events; stories are words that come to life.

"They can come alive; they can follow you home; they can sit at your table; they can sleep in your bed."  [Excerpt from Magic Words (after the Nalungiaq) Shaking the Pumpkin (Traditional poetry of the North American Indian) Jerone Rothenberg (editor)]

Maybe the message of the trial story is best expressed with music, a tune, a line of poetry, an instrument, an article of clothing or a toy.  Give yourself permission to invite the jurors out of their torpor, build the anticipation, engage their primal hearts, claim your space on the courtroom floor and pound the drums of the Human Narrative. 

Q&A Tuesday: You Fill Up My Senses....Bring Your Story To Light & Life With the Senses

What if I had the tools to bring my story to life?  What would be the experience for the listener?

 

No matter what language or subtitles (Spanish,  German, English), John Denver's, "Annie's Song," still gives chills.  

Why is that?  Some might dismiss this song as just a schmaltzy tune for folks who grew up a few decades ago.

But listen to the words Denver uses to express his feelings for a woman.  He calls on all the senses, not just what he sees, so you are there with him:

"Night in a forest" is scented pine trees, wind whistling, owls hooting, raccoons rummaging, starry starry nights.

"Mountains in springtime" is floral meadows, songbirds, rushing brooks breaking free of ice, fiddleheads fried with trout and butter.

"Like a walk in the rain" is two hands in one pocket, misty sidewalks, trickle down drain spouts, shower clean fresh smells, raindrops on a tongue.  

"Like a storm in the desert" is lightning zigzagging, the tremble of the desert floor, the echo of thunder, dry electric odor, metallic taste of ions. 

"Like a sleepy blue ocean" calls up the sense of lullaby rocking rest, briny breezes, gull cries, vast vast expanses stretching to Tonga, primal tastes.

The listeners (and decision-makers) to your stories travel virtually as you invite them into the story.  The stronger the use of senses to describe what happens, the more likely you are to bring your story to light and to life so the listener is actually there as it happens.  Once there the decision-maker can virtually experience your client's story through their own sensations and memories.  Those sensations and memories prepare the decision-maker to act on the client's behalf because her experience is "real."

For example, you can describe a car wreck with the sound of shattering glass, twisting steels, exploding tires; the smell of burning rubber, leaking gasoline, hot asphalt; the taste of grit, blood and teeth; the feeling of thudding, jerking breaking; the sight of twisted wreckage, hair, skin, clothing.  You may have a medical malpractice case. 

What about a broken contract case?  You have the feeling of the shattered dream of the business venture - or betrayal. The sight of your competitor besting you.  The hollow sounds of explanation or apology.  The bitter taste of regret.  And the sight of a document that bears witness.

Not everyone is familiar with the inside of a hospital. In your writing and oral argument provide the decision-maker with the antiseptic, steamed food smell;  the sound of hushed voices, the overhead pager system, beeping monitors; the sight of curtained beds and patients glimpsed through doorways; the acrid taste of indoor heating; and the touch of cold instruments, strangers hands.

Here's a longer example from a case I worked on: An unmarried single mom struggling to resolve, or at least get help with her drug and alcohol issues is doing a good job raising a child, interacting with friends and family members, living a life one might even consider relatively normal.  Walking through a protected pedestrian crosswalk one afternoon she was struck by a bus.  The bus driver turned left and didn’t even realize what happened, not even with the thump of the body striking the fender.  The resultant brain injuries left this young woman in a permanent vegetative state.  The care facility where she lives and where in all likelihood she will remain for the rest of her days smells like urine and vomit and stale food.  One can hear the moans of patients restrained, like herself, in a bed.  Walking into her room the first thing you notice is that this young woman has developed thick masculine eyebrows and the shadow of a beard.  The caretakers say this is from the medications; a clean shave would help her look (and probably feel) more like a woman.  You know that there is a light on, however dim, behind her eyes.  You know because Thursday is chocolate pudding day at lunch.  And when the aide puts the spoon close to her mouth, she yawns over at it like a baby bird. 

Storytelling thrives on imagination.  We know what we experience. We know what we experience with our senses.  Turn on your stories with the 5 senses and experience high fidelity that translates the images you have into action you want.