and the process continues....

January 29

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‘It rains and then it stops. It thunders and then it stops.’

Venturing outside the comfort zone forces you to experience something new; something that you may have never thought you could do. Without putting forth that effort you will never know how much strength the inner warrior inside of you holds.

Hiking up to Muller Hut near Mt. Cook wasn’t exactly pushing me outside my comfort zone, but it definitely challenged me both mentally and physically. The hike up was stair after stair and power move after power move.  In the beginning I put energy out towards the idea that I might not make it to the top. “The Rock Warrior’s Way” refers to the idea that you should not put energy towards an outcome that you are not working towards because that energy is wasted when it could be used to get you further towards you goal. I tried pushing myself to keep this in mind while hiking. My goal was to get to the top and the effort climbing up rockslides was completely worth it while I watched avalanches at the top of the mountain.

“Only ten percent (of people) have the wisdom to accept both life and death as facts and simply enjoy the dance of existence. After all, growth and decay are everywhere, all the time.”

Taking risks requires awareness of the cause and effect relationship of every action that is made. This awareness of the risks involved in partaking in outdoor activities keeps you fully aware of the here and now. If you are not aware and observant, you are putting yourself in a dangerous area within taking risks. But, when you aware these risks involved become the catalyst of learning.

“Potent: a conscious yet spontaneous response to what is happening in the here-and-now; no calculations or manipulation.” (In regards to potency of leadership)

When risk is involved awareness is the key ingredient. When you are aware, you have to trust your intuition in regards to your responses. There is no room for second guessing yourself. Through this process you learn about the depths of your inner self and personal processes you go through when put in challenging situations.

Doing my first lead climb at Payne’s Ford relates directly to this idea. At a certain point when I was almost near the top of the climb, I found myself in a situation where my last anchor was 5ish feet below and I could not figure out my next move to clip in to the next anchor. This was the one time during that climb I was honestly nervous about the situation I was in. Practicing becoming aware, I tried to step back and become an observer of my own thoughts. As soon as I took the time to become aware of my through process, I was able to push myself forward and found a move that I completely looked past.  While hanging on the side of a cliff, I had to trust my own process and act on my own intuition.

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“The leader does not accept one person and refuse to work with another.”

In Queenstown, we decided to go on the world’s largest bungy swing J it was really cool to see how the bungy operators interacted with all the people participating. Their attitudes were effervescent and it was awesome how they joked around with all of us the WHOLE time. Their joking added to the whole experience; it also helped calm my nerves and kept me distracted about the fact that I was about it do a 70 meter free fall. As an adventure facilitator it creates a better environment when you are actively involved in having a good time with the customers.

“Good leadership consists of motivating people to their highest levels by offering them opportunities, not obligations.”

On the bungy trip we went on, there were 70 ways that you could jump off and swing. They were rated by various degree of difficulty. The operators were there to help customers throughout the process of deciding what type of jump they wanted to do. For the dare-devils you could even pick the operators choice jump. People were given the opportunity to get whatever they wanted out of the experience; no one was pushed into doing a jump that was to scary. Having options of the jump styles, I think appeals to more people, thus creating a more popular site to jump.

“The greatest things a leader does go largely unnoticed”

I was surprised to see how friendly all the lift operators were. A huge part of gaining people trust when being thrown off a cliff is forming that interpersonal relationship.  There were multiple operators and they all took the time to interact with each of us individually; they knew everybody’s names within the first 5 minutes on being on the plat form. As simple as knowing someone’s name is, it really does give that person a since of importance (in a way).

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Different types of tourism attract different types of people, even when it comes to adventure travel. Many outdoor enthusiasts enjoy the feelings of solitude within nature when it comes to adventure type activities. Anyplace has the capability of creating this feeling that we seek. Take for example, Mt. Cook, tourists have the option of spending their time in ritzy hotels, in campers or tents, or they can stay at one of the numerous huts based on what they want out of the experience. Mt. Cook definitely was populated with lots of tourist, as with any other place, but it was not a huge deal because you can separate yourself easily when in the wilderness. In regards to sustainability, it more difficult to maintaining a healthy balance in desired destination becomes over populated with people and stores. Places such as Mt. Cook have the ability to control the growth of the amount of tourism by limiting the number of accommodations for stay and having park restrictions on the number of people allowed. This would help maintain a healthy balance for sustainability.

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Finding a balance within yourself is the key to having ‘flow’. As the quote suggests, you have to find a balance between boredom and pushing yourself too far; when you find this balance is when the greatest amount of learning takes place. You have to push yourself out of the comfort zone but not too far where you put your mind and body in danger. Having personal confidence in what you strive to do, will push you to conquer your goals. I feel I struggle most with finding my inner flow with rock climbing. Im finding that I do have a fear of heights which has caused me to be afraid of pushing myself to the edge of falling on a climb.

February 8

275

‘Consider the lives of plants and trees; during their time of greatest growth, they are relatively tender and pliant. But when they are full grown or ready to die, they become tough and brittle.

In order to grow and learn you must be flexible. One of our challenges was to get from Manly with a partner without being given directions. Through this process you were expected to make a few wrong turns along the way and learn from the mistakes that you made. During this process Tim and I made it a goal to not ask informational services for help or directions… And we did it without any difficulties. ‘Everything that grows is flexible.”

‘Talking about the process is one way to block process and lower the energy of the group field.’

As the Tao suggests, too much theoretical talk distracts the group from what is happing and the process its self. It is important to focus on the now rather than allowing energy to focus on overly reflecting on the past and what cannot be changed. As a group it is important to debrief about situation, but finding a balance and not dwelling on the past is an important aspect to consider. So far in my observations debriefs that occur naturally flow a lot better than conversations that are forced within our group. It is important to understand that different groups will have different dynamics when it comes to communication.

‘All growth spreads outward from a fertile and potent nucleus. You are a nucleus. ‘

The ripple effect is live and active within the group dynamic. It is very east to have personal energies affected by energies being put off by others. Meditating in the park before leaving for Christchurch was a great way to center our energy as a group. It was a great time to stand back to become aware of the challenges that occur alongside the process we are all a part of.

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‘Consciousness or awareness is a source of your ability. Learn to be increasingly conscious.’

Traveling in pairs to Manly was an eye opening experience. I felt independence and liberated from the group, by being alone and able to make my own decisions. Instead of asking for advice, we were completely conscious of the process and were able to make decisions based on this clarity.

‘Stillness, clarity, and consciousness are more immediate than any number of expeditions into distant lands of one’s mind’

We did not experience anything overly stressful during the process of making our way from Sydney to Manly. A few times though we did get a tad confused on where to go and where to find a map. We didn’t let this overwhelm us because we knew we would make it, which caused us to stay centered in this process. We worked together along the way to find the hostel.

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I feel a lot of outdoor enthusiasts have the expeditionary behavior as suggested in the story. An ego that feels that someone who may not be as experienced in wilderness activities has less of a right to experience what nature has to offer. Of course having ignorance to the conditions of mother nature can leave a person with no experience in a deadly situation, but they still have just as much right to that experience as someone who is geared up in expensive outdoor attire and has ‘trained’ for that experience. Like I have said earlier within some of my blogs, my main goal as being an outdoor educator is to let people regain a connection with nature. When people finally feel their naturalistic roots ground alongside the trees and mountains it is an exhilarating feeling that will stay with them the rest of their lives, and everybody should have the opportunity to experience what Mother Nature has to offer.