Tuesday, April 29, 2014

THE ART OF CONNECTING: "PROFESSOR" IRWIN CORY




These are the final moments of "Professor" Irwin Cory's live comedy "act" after a screening of Jordan Stone's beautiful documentary "Irwin & Fran" about "Professor" Cory, and the 70 year marriage of Irwin and Fran.

During his career, Irwin was billed as "The World's Foremost Authority." He is 100 years of age at this time. His remarks about friendship here provide profound insight and perhaps a standard for measuring "trust" in any relationship.

Irwin's son, the painter Richard Cory sits in the second row behind José Angel Santana who is shooting. The "godfather of avant-garde cinema" Jonas Mekas is in the second row on the far right capturing the event on his camcorder.

Visit: https://www.artofconnecting.org/

Tuesday, April 15, 2014

THE POWER OF EMPATHY & NATALIE PORTMAN



"...Our job as actors is empathy. Our job is to imagine what someone else's life is like. And if we can't do that in real life, if you can't do that as a human being, then good luck as an actor." - Natalie Portman, winner Best Actress, 2011 Academy Award, for "Black Swan".  

(Video Source:http://blazenfluff.com/2013/12/the-power-of-empathy-animated-short-explains-the-difference-between-empathy-and-sympathy/

Monday, April 07, 2014

DAILY PRACTICE IS THE SECRET OF SUCCESS




A drum teacher once told his student, "if you can't do it effortlessly in performance, you haven't practiced enough."

Leading scientific research in the field of elite performance has determined that the key characteristic of world-class performance is,"10,000 hours of deliberate practice"  In their landmark paper, "The Role of Deliberate Practice in the Acquisition of Expert Performance" K. Anders Ericsson and his co-authors state that "deliberate practice is a highly structured activity, the explicit goal of which is to improve performance."


 "Practice isn't the thing you do once you're good. It's the thing you do that makes you good." wrote Malcolm Gladwell in 'Outliers: The Story of Success" his bestselling book that popularized the "10,000-Hour Rule", based on Ericsson's research. 


"Deliberate practice consists of specific training activities, drills, and exercises designed to stretch the individuals skills and thereby provide growth. It is not business as usual." writes David Burkus in Fobes, about the "10,000-Hour Rule." 

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​ THE ART OF CONNECTING  was created for the purpose of teaching a daily practice of specific training activities, drills, and exercise designed to establish and strengthen the specific skills needed to achieve excellence.