Honour the Child / Grandmaster Film #31for21 #motivationalmonday

Seeing if I can catch #31for21 2017 and #motivationalmonday.

In the last year I have been enjoying Chess the musical and also looking forward to it being re-released/rebooted for 2018.

Lucas on Big Blueberry Eyes - he is such a big player against his cousins.

It made me wonder how Freddie Trumper started [The American] especially as he had no such family support:

When I was nine
I learnt survival
Taught myself not to care

and what a rough lesson that is for any nine-year-old in particular one who is recognised as a genius or a prodigy or a savant [to use neuropsychologist and champion-maker Allan Snyder's wonderful conference title of 1999].

This one is Florence quits and Pity the child from YouTube. As such my very first video embed in some 16 years of blogging. Will check for the relevant subtitles and closed captions. It is a serious business - this accessibility in multimedia.

Then I remember:

When I was twelve
my father moved out
But with a whimper not with a shout.

A big thing in this Chess song is how Freddie reveals his vulnerability through his relationship with his mother which has been stirred up by Florence leaving his side as his valued and valuable second.

And then in between there is this companion and comfort and the part about the helping hand because no-one will understand.

***

In early September I became aware of a wonderful film about a young girl called Maya Freeman who might come from the Majority World and she might come in the form of a 7-11 or 11-14 year-old autistic girl or young woman who knows how to play chess very well.

In fact, not just very well.

She is aspiring to be the youngest Grandmaster.

Now to be a Grandmaster in chess and indeed in lots of mind sports - you have these qualities and these characteristics.

When I was 12, for instance, I discovered a game called Go which was played as one of the prime exemplars of artificial intelligence.

https://www.thegrandmastermovie.com/casting-call/

I wondered if Grandmaster would have a mentor or a consultant.

Competitive chess is something else from social or recreational chess. The intensity is huge and the duration is formidable.

Maya, we are told by the creators, has a "brilliant" and "fantastical" mind.

https://www.thegrandmastermovie.com/creators/

This film above shows us what The Grandmaster has been based on socially and culturally within the last five years.

And it shows us also how important it is to honour the child. Honour the child for being a child; for who they are and what they can do and everything.

I believe the children are our future / let them lead the way as Whitney Houston once sang. This song became deeply motivating for me because of the 2009 Black Saturday bushfires in the first week of February, burning a good deal of central Victoria.