Roll Over Mamas

I love my creative expression class. I make stuff for it every week, this past week I made an instrument, a very large rattle, from eucalyptus acorns and bark, pine cones and jute twine. It ended up being the coolest item in the room, and I didn't mind the attention.

Lots of creation generated and expected from us. One assignment that we have involves creating a group project. Blaech. If we had been able to choose the people with whom we would work/create, no problem, however our partners were chosen in a rather random, though interesting, fashion.

In class one day we were to move in various ways to some theme the instructor was calling out. After about 10 minutes of this were were to sit and draw a pattern of how we felt that we were moving. 25 pictures lay on the floor of the room. The teacher had us as a class divide the pictures into five groups anyway we wanted to, and you could move other people's paper to other groups. Basically a very subjective group organization. When it was decided that we felt finished and the papers were in the 'right' groupings, she had the creators sit in the groups, and that was how we were thrown together.

Ugh.

There are four women and one man in our group. I am having a problem with the man whom I'll call Scott.

Scott, I've come to decide, is a wolf in sheep's clothing. He's one of these thin men, in his early 40's, who is intensely intense in an intense way, and who claims to be unique as a man in that he is quite empathic in a feminine way. He comes off as a friend to women, but in the end he really is a Double-Standard exploiter. He wants to be seen as sensitive in a good way, yet he wants his way, in a very domineering male way.

He originally glommed onto me in our program, but once I got wind of his essence, I ran in the other direction.

So, for our first group meeting he says, "I don't want a plan, let's let the project grow organically." And basically passive-aggressively manipulated the group by his unwillingness to participate in discussing how we'd seed our group inspiration and creation.

My skin is on fire at his sneaky intimidation and manipulation. The other women in the group roll over at his non-idea, and I am saying, but there's no there there. C'mon people, we need something to bounce off of.

What I don't understand is the lack of initiative and true understanding by most of the class regarding the experiential stuff we do, in this class and others. So many of them whine about wanting to hear more theory in the class setting. Hello, this school is about experiential learning because your cells will absorb the teachings if you sincerely participate in them, and know, "aha, this is stuff my clients will be facing, hmmm, if i feel this way, i wonder how they'd feel," it generates empathy for the people who we will eventually work with.

Instead people complain, ugh, more theory, I don't want to do another exercise. Yet the same people also yammer for 'more intimacy.' I could barf. I even said in class that if people wanted more theory they could follow up by reading the recommended reading on their own time, asking direct questions, and taking further classes and seminars specifically relevant to the subject that they seem to be interested in.

I see the smoke screen. They are afraid to stretch, to grow, to be vulnerable themselves in class, and want to hide inside of lectures. *I* have been stretching, I make myself. I share when I really am not interested in sharing, but i know it is good for me ultimately. Etc.

Anyway, so now I'm facing my own creative dilemma of how to deal with Scott and the Roll Over Mamas in my group.