Today was yet another fun filled day for me. It was a day that started out well partially because I woke up earlier, got to go for a 1.5 mile run, had a nice shower, breakfast and then devotions.
For class I found myself, yet again, over at the new Outdoor Education Building. We started things off by going out into our two groups and continued to work together on some challenges that were presented by our fearless master who I will call Master M. Master M is a great guy who has done some fantastic things in his life and is a wonderful leader because he knows when to ask the right questions, when to let us get frustrated over a problem and when to step in and guide us in the direction he thinks we as a group need to go.
We did several elements that I really enjoyed. One was a problem where we had to get a certain number of people to run through a jump rope that was being rotated by Master M and an assistant. The tricky part was when the 10 people in our group had to run through in various numbers or increasing amounts of people. For example
our group would have to run through in groups of 4. No problem you think, just run 4 people through, 4 more and then the final 2. BUT there had to be 4 people in the group that runs through, that means that 2 of the people from the first group must go back and run through with the final 2 thus making another full group of 4. The hardest part was the final challenge in which we had to run an increasing amount of people, up to 9, through the rotating jump rope with only 4 deadbeats (a rotation in which no one runs through) total. So 1 person would run through, then 2, then 3 etc. The problem arises when you need a group of 5 but everyone has run through already. That means that some of the original people who ran in groups 1, 2, and two from group 3 must come back and run through. Then you need a group of 6 to run through. That means you need that extra person from group 3, all the people from group 4 and then 1 person from the group of 5. As you can tell by the reading it was a very complex activity at the end. What I learned after completing it up to a total number of 8 people running through at the end was that we could do things that seem complicated. The guys in the group wanted to just run through and figure it out as we go along. Whereas the ladies usually wanted to work this through without trying yet. To get organized and plan was the key. In the end it helped to be set up in the beginning.
Another activity was where you had to get all 9 people, 3 of which are blind and mute as well as 4 of which are mute, across to a smaller plate form and finally over to yet another plate form. The spaces between the 3 islands were 8 feet and 1 inch. The board that we were given to cross the expanse was only 8 feet long. Thus we had to figure out how to get people to jump across etc to the middle island and then everyone over to the final island. In this exercise it was difficult because, I could not speak and I have done this element about 100 times (okay so I am exaggerating just a little) and really wanted to be able to talk to tell people what to do. We dropped the bridge plank several times, people fell off the islands or we just kept letting the end of the bridge fall in the lava. In the end I found out that I have a tendency to take charge instead of letting some people experiment or take charge themselves. I have challenged myself to take a more passive stance in future challenges so that others can try at being the leader and working out their own issues.
Overall today was a huge success in the fact that the group as a whole realized some areas we are strong in and other areas that we need to work on a bit. We shall see what tomorrow has to offer in further education into my craziness!
i failed to comprehend one sentence of that blather!