How did you feel about your spotters? How could you have improved as a spotter?

I felt confident that my spotters would prevent any bodily injury from coming upon me. However, I also felt that I would not need to engage in the use of their services very often. In fact, for the most part, the spotters just stood their while the people went across the obstacle. (later when Frank told us about the elimination of the obstacle theory, the higher altitude required may have made the spotters role a little more important. However, the way we had it, there were just two people that would hoist you up in to the air to allow you to have an advantage when cruising over the log to your destination on the other side.) The spotters at the other end made sure that nothing drastic happened. they seemed to have been doing a very good job, for nobody was harmed. However, for the most part they just stood there as people were falling down. When I was spotting I mainly stood there, even though the person coming across was probably looking for my help as I she was coming down. When I went across my spotter pretty much glided my path, and that was essentially what I wanted, so I tried to duplicate that when the next person was coming down. Unfortunately, she was coming down at a fast rate, and needed someone to help slow her down as she was coming, so I should have done that to help her come down, thus preventing her from coming crashing down as she did. Thus, I could have improved my role as a spotter by focusing more on the individual needs of the other people coming down, and taking into account their desires to ensure that they were able to complete the activity in safety.

Hickory Jump

How did you feel when you were a spotter as compared to a jumper?

When spotting people, I felt my job was extremely easy. There were many other people also carrying out the spotting responsibilities, so the impact on me would be minimal. In fact, I could barely feel it as someone would come tumbling down after they missed their dive. (It also helped that the primary reason that people would miss the bar was due to small size and lack of reach, which also implied light weight.) Also, while spotting the distance that we were required to jump seemed almost insurmountable. It seemed like it would be nearly impossible to accomplish the entire goal, of making it to the top jumping position. In fact it even seemed like it would be a major challenge just to make it from the bottom stump. However, once I got up on the 'platform' to jump it turned out to be much easier than I had anticipated. In fact, I even got the guts to try starting on the second level. I jumped, and really freaked myself out by actually making it to the bar and latching on the first time. I also felt extremely confident of my spotters after the first jump. However, the second jump was a little too far for me, and I failed to 'latch' with my hands as I reached out. For a split second I even feared that I might come crashing to the ground. However my spotters were great, and I survived perfectly intact.

Mohawk Traverse

What is cooperation?

Cooperation is a most essential part for this event. here, we all had to work together to the best of our ability to try to get across. At first we had many people fall down as we attempted to get across. We barely made it to the first tree. However, after a little advice from Frank, we were able to make it most of the way across to the second tree by focusing more on the cooperation. By having the people at the end wait until they were totally anchored, and gradually let the other people out, they had more luck. Everyone had to work together to do it properly. We also made the plan early on to attempt to cross it and use other people for support. Another important aspect of cooperation was the dependency on others near you when you start to fall. By using them to help bring you up, a major mishap can be averted, and you can safely be returned to safety.

Toxic Waste

What was one feeling you had as your group worked toward completing the task?

In the middle of the middle of the process, I started to feel like we were moving at much to much of a snails pace. We would never make it across if we didn't start working. However, once we started working, we were able to accomplish the task with great speed. However, this one needed very little group interaction. After a quick analysis, we discovered, that we would need to use some cross boards to allow the other boards to make it across to the next section of the bricks that would get us across the toxic river. I (along with a lot of other people noticed that the last bricks seemed to be a little closer than the other ones, however, it was easier just to not chance it and zoom across to the final bricks safely using the extra insurance of the crossbar.) I also seemed to get the attitude of I don't care while doing this one. The whether was great outside, and this activity had very little to it compared to the other activities that we had participated in.

Did the group ever lose its concentration? Why or why not?

In some of the initial phases of participating in this activity, the group did lose its concentration. People seemed to be going off in their splinter groups, and thinking about it to themselves, and analyzing aspects that they though were important, without communicating the goals to the group. There were also periods of mass chaos as everyone in the group would attempt to communicate their input at the same time, and this was just as ineffective as the other times when nobody would communicate anything. luckily, our group later regained a greater amount of cohesiveness, and by the time we actually began the crossing of the acid river, we were working close together, and nobody freaked. Thus during the main portion of the activity, the group kept its concentration, and didn't lose it because everyone saw what was going on and what they needed to d o to contribute to the greater activity of getting across.

[Note: This write-up uses the Toxic Waste activity as its base - even though it was not the actual activity we did, it was the one most closely resembling it]

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