Learning ‘respect’ at a Tribal Warrior gathering post a challenging PT session. Love it!
Respect is a word that gets used lots in pop culture, but it’s actually quite a complex term with many different layers of meaning.
As I have gone through my life I have learned different variants of respect based on context. This has included respecting people in the Military, Gang Members when I did undercover work and people based on their character throughout my regular life.
It was just recently I met the awesome Shane Phillips from Tribal Warrior Aboriginal Corporation where he won the City of Sydney Business Award 2017 for ‘Business Excellence’.
He is a very cool guy who spends his life helping the Aboriginal Community and I recently met with him in Redfern (Sydney) and have been drawn to the cause and what they stand for.
As I write this blog, it’s about 7:42AM on Wednesday morning after a 6AM PT session at the National Centre of Indigenous Excellence. THEY ARE AN EXTREMELY FIT AND STRONG lot and they have inspired me to work on my own health (which is another side plot).
What impressed me about this session was the great group of people that came together to train. You had Elders, Community, Policing, Military and Political People all with their ‘uniforms’ off training together and having a wonderful time.
When this all ended there was a wonderful discussion on the term of ‘respect’ and their take on this topic. As a Persian Christian / Aussie, I am most certainly an outsider looking in trying to interpret a rich culture through my own biases, thinking and worldview. They really broke it down for me and from what I could tell, there were 3 key bases they were coming from:
– Respect for oneself: That meaning you push yourself, live clean and treat yourself like you are worthy of being treated well.
– Respect for others / community: This is where you understand others around you and do your part to assist and support them.
– Respect for the land / environment: This was quite different that what you hear in the media, it was more of acknowledging that it’s the ‘land’ from where you came and it’s critical to remember that and look after it in what you do.
Overall it was a great session and one of their key initiatives that is making life better for everyone in the Redfern (Sydney) community and beyond.
My take and lessons from this all? As we respect ourselves and others it helps us ‘clean up our own backyard’. As we clean up our own backyards, it sets an example for others to live by and be inspired by.
I think I have lots to learn and Shane Phillips and the Tribal Warrior team are most certainly wonderful educators in this area.
I love their work and check out the Tribal Warrior website here!
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