Did you have a hard time keeping your hands off the rope or belay cable?
The rope always seemed to get in the way as I was moving forward, with the desired arm position, my hands came dangerously close to actually grabbing hold of the rope. (Even though the reason was not one of desiring extra security [well at least that wasn't the conscious reasoning, maybe the sub-conscious was reaching for something that the conscious mind didn't know anything about, which is always a possibility, especially when faced with danger. However, the conscious mind knew that the belaying was adequate, and actually wanted to fall - it looked like it would be fun, although it might be a little bit of an ego smasher. However, there was a new belayer down there, so he might have messed up when belay, and I might have went crashing to the ground. Luckily none of this was significant, because I managed to make it all the way across in pretty good time. [I did not want to repeat the eternal wait of the first person to cross.]) Frank even mentioned that I might have to start over again because of the near grabbing. Luckily, my hand never actually touched the rope, it just came close. It would have been a lot easier to avoid touching it if it would have been behind me instead of in front thus keeping out of the way of the range of motion. However, it probably wouldn't do as much good in that location for supporting falls. (Though I am not absolutely sure of this.)
Where did you focus your eyes?
Actually, I had no real recollection of where my eyes were focused - at the time of the activity, or afterwards. That reminds me of my observations about people. I can easily recognize someone by their hair, but I have no clue as to what color it is, its length, or any other details. I can just recognize them. Anyway, my eyes were probably focused somewhere near the tree at the end of the cat walk, because I do remember seeing that a little. But, I also remember looking down at my hands. Thus, my eyes were probably focused near the point where they were supposed to be focused, but not exactly. In other words, I was looking forwards, and focused on moving towards the destination, but probably not the specific destination. When belaying someone, I had the opportunity to watch other people move across. Some people moved at a moderate pace that made belaying a breeze. People that moved extremely fast made belaying an adventure. I was afraid that they might fall right in the middle of the slack taking up. (I remember when I was walking across, the large amount of slack in the rope would tend to slow me down, and keep me from moving at the super fast speed that I initially desired to move at. However, I had to be careful not to slow down to much because of the basic physics principles of linear momentum and velocity.) I ended up belaying for a long time - focusing on the person crossing for the most part, except for a few instances where they were changing over to the next belayed for the Burma bridge. Unfortunately, this was a place were the chance of falling is pretty high, so I probably should have been paying more careful attention.
Burma Bridge
What did you think about this activity?
This was one of the most fun activities that I have participated in so far. It was relatively simple, but it used various parts of the body to perform the activity. Unlike other projects, there was no part of the body that was 'prohibited' from participating. Thus, I was free to do what ever I wanted to do to get across the bridge. At first, I was mostly walking, with my hands extended more for balance than anything else. However, after a certain point, I needed to use my arms to a much greater extent, and near the end I was nearly pulling myself along, with my feet more or less just hanging down on the wire. After finishing it, the really fun part occurred - descending with the belayer's help. It was great to be able top just 'fall' off the rope, knowing that the belayer would support my fall at a manageable rate, and keep me from falling straight in to the ground. After participating in the activity in the air, I had the opportunity to second. This was rather boring - the belayer pretty much followed the guy across the bridge, thus there was just about nothing to do. (That was, until the very end. The person crossing the bridge (Max) happened to weight about twice as much as the person belaying (Khan), thus I got to give the belayer extra support while he was letting the person descend in able to make sure he didn't go flying up in to the air like some person in a cheap sitcom.) After that, I had the opportunity to belay. This was fun, well, just because it was. I started to like belaying a lot after the day. Now I see why Chris used to belay all the time. It's almost as fun as the activity itself, and nobody else seems to want to do it. While belaying, you have the other person's life in your 'control', and be able to do all you can to keep them plunging to the ground. It was especially fun when they were dropping at the very end. It was a new feeling to be sort-of pulled in to the air as they began their descent.
(I wasn't able to participate in the Heeby Jeeby or High Tension traverse)
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