Something happens when adults step in and organize child's play.
Kids stop calling the shots and negotiating the fouls.
When adults set the schedule, play becomes practice.
Neighborhood pick-up games disappear.
Front and center, everyone is watching,
try-outs, grades, grown-up rules and regulations.
One wins. All the rest don't.
What we call play has become a compulsive race for recognition,
especially for the unbonded child, the unsafe child,
the child who doesn't know what it feels like to be
unconditionally loved and accepted.
Deep in our nature is another quality of play,
an original play far more fundamental than the 
games and rules we have invented.
Original play is both an all embracing vision
of reality and a practice of kindness
which permeates all of one's relationships.
To play in this way is to be in touch and to be touched deeply
by our authentic human nature and the natural world.
Original play cultivates an ever renewing sense
of enchantment and engagement with the world.
It develops calmness, awareness and
a flexible ability to handle stress, surprise or challenges 
without aggression.
This play develops radically different behaviors
than those encouraged by the dominate contest culture.
The response is deeper, more universal and authentic.
When in this play the limitations of our cultural identity
drop away leaving the dynamic relationship
of the two faces of God, exploring, learning together.
Original play is truly an ecological intelligence.
The sensitivity this play develops needs to be understood
and integrated into all aspects of family,
community and professional life.
Discovering The Intelligence of Play
opens once again the genius of childhood
most of us lost long ago.

O. Fred Donaldson, Ph.D.
Michael Mendizza

Actualizing Athletic Excellence Through
The Intelligence of Play

Introduction
With the best of intentions we have transformed "child's play" into a high-stakes, high-pressure, adult organized competitive environment. The current model places clear limits on learning by emphasizing conditioning rather than adaptive, flexible learning in education and athletics. Our goal is to reverse this trend by helping parents, coaches, educators, and health-care providers, understand the innate intelligence and infinite capacity for children to learn and to love, which unfolds spontaneously in the state of authentic play.

A New Model of Learning & Performance
Magical athletes, and great human beings, rise above the norm, some dramatically, because they feel safe to completely "play" the game, whatever it is. Play is the catalyst for development, which occurs when one feels safe and unconditionally accepted. Being safe, the child (or adult) can meet the challenge fully, with all their energy, all their passion, never questioning what others may think. They play with challenges, learning and adapting as the environment plays with them. Most are not so fortunate. Fear or anxiety splits attention. Limitless potential constricts into narrow, well-defined boundaries, compensating for culturally induced fears and self-doubts. The Intelligence of Play will change this.

For the past five years we have collected interviews with leading educators, coaches and professional athletes, exploring with them how The Intelligence of Play impacts learning and performance. More specifically, we questioned how early family relationships influences development.

Our Pilot Project - Golf & the Intelligence of Play
From these interviews we produced Golf & the Intelligence of Play, a sixty-minute video targeting 2.5 million young golfers, being coached by 20,000 PGA, LPGA teaching professionals, and 18,000 junior, high school and college golf programs. The project will help adults rediscover The Intelligence of Play within themselves and from this renewed state, evolve dynamic new learning environments for children. Ultimately we plan on developing a similar project featuring top athletes in each major sport field.

The Educational Package & Goals
Each of our sixty-minute documentaries, training guides, and regional play clinics, will:

• Redefine the role of authentic play and its importance in learning and development.
• Demonstrate, through the lives of top athletes, the impact bonding and being safe have on learning and performance.
• Explore the difference between learning and conditioning.
• Communicate what takes place when authentic play is eliminated or replaced with conditioned mechanical reflexes.
• Offer specific guidelines on how adults can rediscover The Intelligence of Play and how this renewal will impact the happiness, self-worth and long term learning and performance, on the playing field and throughout their lives.

Vision, Experience & Leadership
This project is the combined vision of Joseph Chilton Pearce, Chuck Hogan, Michael Mendizza, Stuart Brown, MD., and O. Fred Donaldson, Ph.D. Joe is an internationally recognized author and lecturer and best known for his visionary synthesis of research on learning and human development. Chuck is one of the most respected sports educators in professional golf and the vision guiding LPGA's revolutionary teaching strategy for young players. Michael is the founder of Touch the Future and a veteran documentary film prouder, and educational filmmaker. Stuart Brown, MD., has studies play and play depravation for more than twenty five years, he is PBS producer and author of National Geographic cover story on play. Fred Donaldson is an educator, researcher, a play specialist and author of the Pulitzer nominated book Playing By Heart.

Beyond Athletics
The Intelligence of Play has important applications in other areas. Planning is under way for a comprehensive package on Mother and Infant, Bonding, Communication & Play, which will be of broadcast quality and distributed to new mothers giving birth in our nation's hospitals. This will be followed by a similar package targeting day-care providers and HeadStart programs. Concurrently, a program targeting Adaptive Leadership in our nation's corporations is moving into development. Plans are under way for a PBS series and university level televised-course on The Intelligence of Play. Combined, these efforts represent a dynamic new model of learning, communication, and personal development; one we feel will light the way into the next century.