New Warrior Training Adventure: My first staffing
by Gonzalo Salinas
A few weeks ago, I had the chance to participate as staff for the first time on the New Warrior Training Adventure.
I had completed my own weekend in Central Florida in April 2013. I remember the feelings in my heart right before it started. Fear, excitement, anger, happiness, more … every moment was a discovery and I remember going through every emotion I’ve ever felt in my life.
I had similar feelings on my first staffing. The staff arrives one day before the participants, to prepare the site, get staffing directions, and for a first-time staffer like me, to see the “behind the scenes” of the Weekend. I witnessed the huge amount of work that close to 40 other men were putting in as volunteers to help the men who would be arriving on Friday (often called initiates) have a flawless experience: Men of Service, Elders, the Certified Leader Team, the Lodge team, in general every member from the staff adding his gifts to accomplish the main goal: to offer a group of men what could be one of the most powerful weekends of their lives.
This time I was the one on the other side of the wall. On my weekend I was discovering and living my experience, but this time I was more concerned for every man in front of me going trough their process. Something that I couldn’t avoid, almost immediately I began to care profoundly for every man going through the weekend.
Talking with one of the elders about why I was feeling my staffing experience in a more heartfelt way than my own initiation, he said to me with a big smile:
“Now you have the privilege of being in service to your brothers.”
One by one, I saw men breaking through. Understanding the importance of accountability in their lives, seeing how every action, no matter how small, has an impact on our families, on our society, and on the world. Seeing how they had set themselves up, and seeing the way through to a new way of being as a man.
At the end of the weekend, driving back to South Florida, with fresh memories of the men going through their process, a thought hit me, and I fully realized what happened on the weekend:
“The cycle has been fully completed,” I thought, “some other men voluntarily did the same thing for me on my weekend, and now I’m doing the same, so other men can realize they are complete, whole men, great men, strong and loving men that can exercise power and compassion, love and accountability in every act. Now they know what I only learned less than a year ago.”
The words of the writer Sam Keen were resonating in my heart:
“A man must go on a quest to discover the sacred fire in the sanctuary of his own belly, to ignite the flame in his heart to fuel the blaze in the hearth to rekindle his ardor for the earth”After arriving in Fort Lauderdale, I went to my girlfriend’s house,
“How was your weekend?” she said, excited to see me, giving me the most tender hug.
I hugged her dearly (a long and a very strong hug), and the words came from my heart:
“My love, the cycle has been fully completed.”
She smiled and continued hugging me. Now I can return to the “real world” satisfied that I’ve witnessed many miracles on the weekend.
Gonzalo Salinas is the MKP Journal assistant Editor for the ManKind Project USA, a nonprofit mentoring and training organization that offers powerful opportunities for men’s personal growth at any stage of life. Salinas studied Literature in Lima, Peru at San Marcos University, and has been living in the United States since 2003. He lives in Miami, FL, and is committed to his development with the organization and the dissemination of the message of the Mankind Project.
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