Building play relationships may be one of the most high-leverage actions we can take to create and ensure more healthy and peaceful children, families, communities, and nations. This is what ten year old Anna said about Original Play:

"Play is being able to tell the world that you don't like what it is doing to you and not harming anyone while you do it."

Original Play's safety, love, and belonging re-pattern the habits of aggression, violence, and revenge that disrupt children's attachment, decision-making, and threat perception abilities.

The idea that a pattern of kindness and unity lie at the heart of our world and can be discovered and experienced by us is the fundamental principle of Original Play, and reshapes the brain-mind-environment connection.

By means of this dynamic transformation a person undergoes potentially concrete and sustainable changes that are profound. This pattern change has two important qualities: enrichment, or capacity for choice, and plasticity, or capacity to change.

Original Play's benefits are not limited to children but are available to all of us.

The benefits of Original Play include:

• An ability to recognize good and bad touch
• Improved self-esteem, emotional flexibility, and increased acceptance of differences
• Reduced anxiety, stress, and defensiveness;
• An ability to think beyond contest;
• An active habit of kindness;
• Development of an inclusive sense of belonging;
• A decrease in the energy used for self-defense, tactile defensiveness, body fatigue, and injury;
• Improved range of motion, fine and gross motor exploration, balance, resilience, flexibility;
• Positive effects on immune, cardiovascular, and endocrine systems;
• Increased brain plasticity.

The Original Play Program is directed towards:

• Adults - tutors, teachers of all levels of education, parents, workers of educational, cultural and protective institutions for children, nursery schools, institutions for special-needs children, rehabilitation centers for children, institutions for juvenile criminals and other centers for which provide education and help for children, and for those like police, probation officers and health service workers, who deal with situations of potential conflict.
• Children and teenagers irrespective of culture, age, and psycho-motor development.

The practice of Original Play is useful in everyday life.

Workshop participants learn how to:

• deal with conflicts and rivalry in private and professional life;
• achieve the feeling of safety, belonging and trust in their relationships with others;
• deal with stress and fear;
• deal with moments of surprise and change;
• change behaviour patterns, from aggressive, anger, and violence to kindness, caring, and openness;
• improve emotional flexibility and self-esteem;
• develop non-verbal interpersonal skills.

Workshops prepare adults to effectively participate and join children and teenagers in play.

Workshop participants also learn:

• what is the role of play in a child's life;
• how play creates strong foundations for learning and development in children;
• what is the role of adults in play;
• how to join children and teenagers in play.

The Original Play Program has been recommended by the National in-service Teacher Training Centre in Poland  for the values it promotes, simplicity, and variety.

This guideline is written primarily for those people, who after taking workshops in original play and beginning to play with children, decide that they want to pursue original play with a more serious commitment.

The following guidelines are written for six reasons:

1. Sometimes people want to be recommended by us.
2. Some people assume that they can “teach” Original Play or “lead” others in play with children after taking a few workshops.
3. To focus prospective participants on the necessity of learning Original Play from children, it is necessary for each person who wants to continue growing with Original Play to have a keen understanding of the integrity and responsibility involved in such a choice.
4. It is important to present some guidelines that create a sense of the breadth and depth of the commitment required in original play in order:
5. To provide ways for people to make connections with and support others who are playing.
6. To learn how to effectively present oneself to the public.

People often ask us, When can I teach “Original Play? This is the wrong question. The more we play the more we understand that we know less and less. So the crucial question is to ask instead, “How do I keep learning more about Original Play?”

While Original Play remains difficult to define, the process of experiencing it can be pointed out and mentored. The one seeking to learn to play needs an environment that fosters gentleness, compassion and kindness in thought, spirit, and action. This is the ecology of the playground created by children.

What follows is the first step in an apprenticeship in Original Play. Original Play is a long and at times difficult psycho-physical and spiritual discipline. Each person may play differently though each applies the same principles in their play. When we begin to play after years away from it, we bring different habits and backgrounds. Therefore, the length of an apprenticeship depends upon the individual. In the final analysis you alone are responsible for your own growth in Original Play.

An apprenticeship in Original Play has no standard length of time.
Fred's apprenticeship, for example, lasted over 40 years.

Those who seek an apprenticeship in Original Play must be able to see beyond the categories and touch the hearts of those with whom they play. There is no easy way to discover this. Original Play cannot be taught, only learned from experience. As you play you receive a direct and first-hand experience of another being. You must learn to respect the fact that in this giving and receiving you are being mentored. You will feel your strengths and weaknesses. You will learn to play with your spirit, not your ego.

What follows are guidelines for a basic foundation in Original Play. It is important to point out that Original Play is learned from masters—children. One does not learn Original Play from adults, nor by attending workshops. Workshops are introductions and are by design what we call accessibility training—that is training to prepare you to be mentored by children. Only then will your experience, training, and time expand your compassion as you play in your daily life.

What follows is a basic outline of an apprenticeship in Original Play. The following elements are by no means complete. They are intended to give those who already play reference points or hints to the direction one must follow. The numbers are minimums. You may have the certificate of recommended apprentice when you meet the following criteria.

The apprenticeship consists of a minimum of:

• 3 years of a constant and definite pattern of playing with kids and teenagers
• 100 hours of playing with children/year= 300 total hours playing with children
• 2 basic training seminars
• 2 advanced training seminars
• 2 individual trainings with Jolanta or Fred
• 3 supervisions each including a number of play sessions with different kind of children under the individual mentorship of Jolanta
• 300 hours of play must include at least 100 hours with special needs children
• Minimum number of children played with in 3 years=3,000 including children and teenagers in different kind of kindergartens (public, privet, integration, special kindergartens) and different kind of schools (preliminary school, gymnasium, high school), nurseries and orphanages.
• 300 hours of play has to be confirmed by officials of participating institutions.
• Apprentices who want to attend training seminars can’t have a break between last workshop and basic training seminar longer that 1 year. If it is longer the introductory workshop has to be repeated.
• Only those apprentices who completed all apprenticeship training and have an confirmation certificate can be listed as a recommended apprentices on main official original play website (www.originalplay.eu).
  Recommended apprentices are required to continue playing with children and attend workshops, individual training and supervision at least once in year in order to maintain their Recommended Apprentice status.

An apprenticeship certificate is an affirmation of, not an end, but a beginning.

It is evidence of one’s moral responsibility and commitment to the discipline, wisdom, and compassion of Original Play.

Jolanta Graczykowska MA and O. Fred Donaldson Ph.D are the only designated mentors in Original Play. They give certificates of participation in workshops and seminars as expressions of an individual’s participation. In addition to workshop and seminar participation certificates, The International Foundation for Original Play will provide certificates of recognition to those who have completed the apprenticeship training.

Individuals who want to be listed on European website as a recommended apprentice can send the following information to Jolanta Graczykowska for consideration to be placed on www.originalplay.eu . Each person is responsible for the accuracy of the information they present and for updating it as necessary.

Name, Address, Phone, Email

Type and Date of Original Play seminars, practical trainings (not workshops) taken

Years/hours of experience doing Original Play with children

Types and numbers of institutions with children played with