11/10 Inservice Camp-Trustworthiness

Today’s Inservice Day Camp for Kids focused on the lifeskill of Trustworthiness as a theme. We talked at length about personal integrity, and students were challenged to consider whether or not they were being honest with themselves when it came to personal performance and physical challenges. Wally and I consistently promote the notion of proper form being the most important factor in executing effective technique, but for larger collections of children it can be very hard to resist the urge to “race” through challenges in an attempt to be the first of the group to finish!

Our guest movement artist of the day was Ramman Turner. A camp regular, Ramman challenged the students to work on inversions, and moved incrementally through Gymnastics drills that eventually enabled them to execute an aeriel butterfly kick. It became obvious from the first two drills, that many of the kids had concluded that they were working towards a cartwheel. As the class progressed, the content changed and built on itself in unexpected ways, and students grappled with the unexpected twists that came with latter drills. We had to encourage many of the children to switch gears and try the challenge at hand, not the kick they could more easily demonstrate!

The belief is that part of being honest with oneself also involves accepting that you actually may not have a solid grasp on what’s happening! Our hope is that in learning to let go, and admit that you may not know it all (being an”open cup”) one may develop into a fabulous student of life:)