The Eye Of The Leopard

Some of you who have visited my website previously, may have realized that I have changed the look and layout of the blog. Having taken some inspiration from Hawk’s website, and having spent a lot of time fine tuning, I am finally satisfied with the look of the page. What I really love about this template is the ability to customize the header, which leads me to the name of this post.

I guess if you are familiar with the Rocky movies you would probably be doing a double take at the headline and thinking, “that doesn’t sound right! Isn’t the phrase the Eye of the Tiger”? Well, yes it is but it didn’t fit my requirements, so I adapted it to my own use in order to write this post. Now, there is a very good reason why I am using a Leopard as my header. And there is also very good reason why this big cat is at the top of my list when it comes to animals that have behaviour traits that I admire and aspire to incorporating into my way of being.

You see it all goes back to my first trip to South Africa with my wife (who at that stage was my girlfriend of 12 months). We were there to visit her family for the first time. To say that the trip was a rough one emotionally would be an understatement! There were all sorts of interpersonal dynamics and new and previously unresolved family issues that I needed to adapt to and navigate just to survive my trip and keep my relationship intact. It was during this trip that I took inspiration from the Leopard and adopted it as a sort of totem animal.

In Africa they have what is known as the Big 5. These are the 5 biggest killers of humans in the African wild. They consist of the Lion, Rhino, Elephant, Buffalo and Leopard, although the Mosquito and Hippo deserve honorary placement in the list. When you go on a game drive through an African wildlife park, the Big 5 are the animals that you really want to see and you’re very lucky if you see 2-3 of them during a game drive, if you happen to be lucky enough to see any at all!

Now before you go off on a tangent and start thinking that I wanted to take out my future in laws like a wild Leopard, allow me to elaborate on why the Leopard is so inspirational to me. Due to the increasing urban sprawl that is occurring in Africa, many native animals are struggling to survive in the face of competition with humans. Not so the Leopard, which displays an amazing capacity for adaptability and is thriving!

Here is a run down on the Leopard’s adaptability from:

http://www.freewebs.com/killerpredators/leopards.htm

Distribution of the leopard reflects the diverse adaptability of the group, extending throughout the African continent and much of southeast Asia, including the Arabian peninsula and Indonesian islands. It is at home in woodlands, lowland forests and mountain heights, savannas, and even dry steppe habitats. The leopard’s remarkable adaptability to different environments is an indication that it is basically an unspecialized animal, favoring forest and forest boundary habitats where it can utilize trees for protection and observation platforms.

 

The leopard’s lifestyle is a direct reflection of its environment, where it hunts a wide variety of prey species, being truly opportunistic in their feeding habits. Leopards catch and feed on everything from insects and rodents up to large ungulates such as giraffe and buffalo calves which may weigh in excess of 200 pounds. In areas where scavengers such as lions and hyenas are a threat, often stealing the prey, the leopard’s remarkable strength and agility allow it to climb trees in search of a resting place, vantage lookout, or a place to store and protect dead prey animals.

As you can see, the Leopard demonstrates a significant degree of behavioural flexibilty and adapts to it’s environment. Animals and people to a significant degree that lack adaptibility are usually overwhelmed by unfavourable circumstances and fail to survive.

During my NLP training, it was demonstrated to and impressed upon me, that behavioural flexibilty is an important skill to become proficient in. In order to be highly influential and effective with a broad range of people in all types of environments (personal, professional, or spiritual), being fixed and rigid in one’s beliefs, behaviours and attitudes can be extremely detrimental.

I believe the first law of Cybernetics also known as the Law of Requisite Variety or Ashby’s Law sums the Leopard up nicely:

The part of the system with the most (behavioural) flexibilty has the greatest control over the system.

For those of you who are in to the martial arts, I believe this is something the old masters were well aware of. Being “ONE” with the environment requires a significant degree of behavioural flexibilty as circumstances may change dramatically. Some of these masters were said to have ended a fight before it came to physical blows. Could it be that if one adapts quickly enough to the environment, there is nothing to be in conflict with?

One last take home thought. The next time you find yourself in a particular situation where you hear yourself saying “I can’t or won’t do X. That’s just not me, that’s not the way I do things.” STOP and think to yourself, “How can I become the type of person who could do X? What sort of things can I incorporate into my approach that will enable me to adapt?”

You are a human BEING not a human BEEN. What you did in the past is in the past, how you choose to adapt to your present circumstances right now is a way of BEING.

 

P.M

 

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• Bossaball (repost)
• New sport (http://www.bossaball.com.sg/)

~ by Paul Mischel on October 8, 2007.