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Dialectic
Jan 26th, 2005, 07:52 PM
While most people on this site haven't acknowledge ITP one way or the other (which is fine), and while a few have become genuinely interested in what it has to say, there have also been a few who have mercilessly and unreasonably attacked it as more New Age or Postmodern crap being spit out by pie-in-the-sky morons. I say "mercilessly," because it's obvious in the way they discourse that their minds are closed and they posted with the intention to simply desroy; I say "unreasonably" because their criticisms are invariably gross misinterpretations and flat-out contradictions of ITP itself.

So I thought to myself, wouldn't it be nice if we could somehow relate ITP back to an Asian (as opposed to White, which is generally the ethnicity it's associated with) face, and demonstrate that it does have something to offer us, and that we have something to offer the theory/ practice.

If you check out this link:

http://www.integralinstitute.org/seminars/#

And scroll down a little bit, you'll see profiles of a few people who are involved in the Integral Transformative Practice seminar. One of them, a co-director of the Center and CFO of the Institute, is a conspiciously Asian dude named Huy Lam:

Huy Lam serves as Co-Director of the Integral Transformative Practice Center at Integral University. Huy is a martial artist, teacher, businessman, dancer, rock climber, and snowboarder. He is also currently working as the CFO of the Integral Institute.

Huy began his career in finance, working with high-tech companies in Silicon Valley. It was during this time that he started his martial arts practice by joining a Tai Kwon Do class. After just over a year, he felt the need for something deeper and discovered Shaolin Kung Fu. It was the body, mind & spirit connection of kung fu that inspired him to explore the realm of ITP.

He recently has been having fun developing and teaching a martial arts module at the Integral seminars. His practices include Kung Fu, Qi Gong, Tai Chi, meditation, mindful relationships & parenting, spontaneous dancing, and attempting to keep up with Ken and all the work at I-I. Huy currently lives in Boulder, with his wife (Jackie), daughter (Sky), two Labradors (Kenai & Jahla) and a few dozen tropical fish (red ones, blue ones, yellow ones?).

Now if this is not a cool description of a cool North American Asian, I don't know what is. At any rate I hope his presence lends a sort of "ethnic credibility" to some of the 44 skeptics out there, and also a sense of possibility of where ITP can go and what it's capable of doing. I actually just spoke with Huy today, and he seems like a damn cool guy; I'm very excited about the possibility of working together to build the worldwide Integral community. If any of you want to come along, you're more than welcome.

KeJia Sista
Mar 4th, 2005, 04:53 PM
I've been slowly sifting through your info on ITP but its extremely scholarly.. and assumes that the reader is familiar with a variety of other philosophies and theories. maybe someone can break it down into more basic precepts.

Its good to know an Asian brother is involved, but it seems this was around for 30 years and he's fairly recent?

Ke Jia

Dialectic
Mar 4th, 2005, 05:51 PM
Spiral Dynamics has been around longer than ITP. As far as I know, the Integral Theory was first formally and thoroughly experessed through the publication of Sex, Ecology, and Spirituality in 1995 (second editino in 2001). Even here, it was not formally integrated with Spiral Dynamics, and the encomapssing term of ITP (Integral Theory and Practice) had not been coined.

While it requires a certain familiarity with the development of philosophy, religion, feminism, etc., the actual works (and not my summaries) do, in my opinion, an excellent job in summarizing and immersing the reader in the basic mindset and outlook of whatever it is discussing.