Team Building Day (Part 2)
Boy, last Friday seems like a long time ago. I’ve just finished getting caught up from today, the first day of “real” class. Now all I have to do are the readings for tomorrow… But in the meantime, I’ll finish up the Innersee experience from Friday.
In the afternoon, we did several more activities. The first one was probably my favourite of the day. There was a series of telephone poles with steel “tightropes” tied inbetween. Mind you, they were only about a foot from the ground, so there wasn’t much danger beyond spraining an ankle or something. The trick was that each of three lengths was successively longer, and you needed to get each team member safely across all of them. You had a rope tied to the final length that could be used to help steady yourself. Oh, and if any team member fell off, everyone had to start from the beginning.
I won’t give away our solution to the problem, but we managed to discuss the situation and come up with a great solution fairly quickly. We then managed to execute it on our second try. Jose gave us a hell of a scare when we were almost complete by running the first length unassisted and nearly falling off. I think the entire group would’ve mauled him if he’d actually fallen 
Next we did the classic “trust fall” from a raised platform. There was a slight twist — The group stayed away from the fall zone until you turned around. Then, instead of waiting for the group to say they were ready, you simply counted 1-2-3 and fell. The group had to get in place as quietly as possible and catch you. You had to trust they’d get there in time. Nobody got dropped
Then we did a “filler” activity while we waited for another group to finish up the big finale event. It was called “trolley” and basically involved everyone strapping on two group “skiis” and trying to walk in unison. Our group has difficulties because of the number of people (including me) with large feet that didn’t quite fit in the straps. Luckily we didn’t spend too much time on this one.
The final event of the day was what we were all waiting for — “The Wall.” This was a 12-foot high sheer, wooden wall with no hand or foot holds. 12 feet didn’t seem that high until I stood next to it and realized it was basically twice my height. The object of this activity was to get everyone up to the platform at the top sequentially, however, there were several contraints. The first person only had help from the bottom, so he needed to be lifted high enough to grab the top and pull himself up on his own. The second person (me) had to be lifted, then helped by only one person at the top. The third person had help from the bottom and two people to pull them up. From there, however, the first person had to leave the top and not help at all anymore (except for spotting in case someone fell). Subsequent people up the wall had to leave in sequence until there were only two people left at the top, and a sole climber at the bottom. Nobody else at the bottom was able to help. At that point, there are two strategies — One, leave the second last person dangling and have the last one climb up. We tried that one, but it didn’t work well. The second idea was for the last person to take a run at it, jump, and grab the hands of the people at the top. We did this and managed to get it on about the third run.
Looking back at the day, it was a great way to interact with and learn about my classmates. I think it would be a beneficial activity to do in any sort of group that needs to work together closely. Besides that, it gets you out in the fresh air doing physical activity for an entire day, which is a nice change from the norm…
