Challenge Course

Yesterday afternoon my company sent my department to the brand new LSU Challenge Course for a half day Team Building exercise. The course consists of elements which range from balancing a team of people on low rise cables to climbing to the top of a twenty feet high catwalk and walking across while holding on to nothing! It was one part Extreme Sports and one part Fear Factor, but let me tell you it was also 100% pure fun!

There was this one element in which I climbed to the top of a 25 feet high telephone pole and balanced on the top like this:

note these pictures are the promotional photos of from the official website. this is not me. there is supposedly a picture of me performing this feat, but i will not have it until early next week for reasons you do not care about. since i will not be blogging here by that time, i hope to post my picture on the benchwarmer(s) blog.



Then jumping to a suspended "trapeze" like this:
this is not me-see above



this is not me-see above



I grabbed the trapeze. However, my upper body strength was inadequate to hold my body weight and when that weight followed me thru on my jump, I was knocked from the trapeze. We had double safety harnesses on so I was caught by those, and lowered down gently by the instructor who was standing on the ground.

I can't tell you how cool this was. About half way up the pole, everything in me wanted to quit. Then when I got to the top, it took all the concentration, will power, and pep talk I had to get first one foot, then another to let go of the climbing rungs and balance on a 6-8 inch diameter pole, 25 feet in the air!

How does this build team work you ask? The answer is, I would never have done it without the shouts of encouragement from those teammates standing on the ground below.

And, you would be surprised at how it makes you feel when you've done something that everything within you told you that you should not and could not do. On the other side of completing it, you not only have an extreme rush, but you also have boosted self confidence.

If you ever have a chance to do one of these type challenge courses, don't miss it.

Questions, comments, concerns? Please feel free to E-mail me!