The Startup Dilemma – Primary Integration Training in Mexico
by Migs Halpern, MKP International Vice Chair
We can only guess, but Mexico must have 15-20 men who have somehow attended the New Warrior Training Adventure, or more … records are sparse, people have moved and have not updated their profiles. Mexico City itself may have 5-10 of these men, the others spread out in cities like Guadalajara, Guanajato, San Miguel de Allende and beyond, similar to Centers like NorCal or The Greater Carolinas. And so Mexico’s New Warrior Brothers find it frustratingly difficult to achieve a critical mass to continue to have IGroups and develop a Center based in Mexico City, especially because there are more than 7 million men in the State of Mexico alone. These men face the same problems and struggles as men in every other global community … and this small band of brothers in Mexico wants to help!
I recently finished co-leading a Primary Integration Training (PIT) in Mexico City, along with Arthur Salazar (leader) and Carlos Legaspy (staff) of San Diego. It was an extraordinary gathering of men.
Mexico City hosted one PIT in the past, based on the best information available, back in 2005. Mexico City has had an IGroup come and go as men showed up or not. Currently there is an occasional open group going on, with most of the men who attend being uninitiated. The Mexicans approached me a few months ago (through the efforts of Don McDougle, who is trying to get an NWTA to and a Center going in Costa Rica, with similar difficulties) to help put on a PIT. They have two main goals in doing so: 1) providing men with the skills to be in IGroup and to keep coming back, and 2) to build community with an eye on uninitiated men to become engaged sufficiently so that they initiate in the USA and form the backbone of an NWTA in Mexico, and a future ManKind Project community.
The upshot of this was an experiment, at least as far as I know – we agreed to run the PIT and have as participants both initiated and uninitiated men.
MKP Mexico City 2011
So here’s the scoop: We had the three core staff as described above, with assistance from some of the initiated men. A total of 29 men attended, including the three staff. Of the 26 participants, only 6 were initiated men – 20 were uninitiated. And how did the weekend go? Here is where my amazement arrives. Every single man there went deep. Every single man there fired his rep, took off his mask. I never would have believed that so many men from such a different culture would get it like these men did in one weekend.
What do I deduce from the success of this weekend? That if we in the established MKP realms can get our act together to support these men, we can be a step closer to the dream of MKP in every country of the world. One of the uninitiated participants, Roberto, told me that he teaches corporations to have better men through a different process than MKP, but what he’s seen of MKP has so impressed him that he, an uninitiated man, is one of the movers in Mexico to make this PIT happen so that MKP can come to Mexico to make his beloved Mexican countrymen into better men. He has assured me that he will be at the next bilingual training in the USA. This is the power of our work, of our promise.
The barriers to making this happen are real. Many men cannot get visas to come to the USA. Many men do not have a financial or work situation that would permit them the time and the money to fly to the USA to initiate (or staff if they are initiated). And most don’t speak English well enough to do a non-bilingual NWTA in the US. The only way we are going to be able to reach them is to start bringing NWTAs to Mexico (and Costa Rica) based on healthy mentoring centers, and financial support.
I am pledged to be part of this work. Who among you is willing to help? Contact me at mkpmigs@me.com. Thanks.
– is a deeply personal issue that everyone decides for himself. Sometimes the price is high, sometimes low. But this is not very important for life. Life is an interesting thing. And the price on Viagra – too.
