Trust, Gym Class and Harnesses

As the title of this post implies yes, I will be talking about doing trust exercises in Gym class. And yes, they do involve harnesses. And since they involve harnesses, it does mean we are not going to be on the ground the whole time.

My school is a bit weird, because for a quarter of the year in both Freshman and Sophomore years we get to do something called Project Adventure. In this class we get to climb the rock walls in the gym as well as the one on the side of the building, and we get to jump off beams and platforms on the ceiling. Supposedly these are meant to be team-building activities that will help each one of us to 'be comfortable in leadership roles'. 

Last week, for example, we had to stand on a 3 ft. box and fall backwards, while a team of six-8 people caught us. I will admit I was scared of doing it. The teacher said this might be caused by trust issues. No kidding. Why would I trust a bunch of 9th graders to catch me? If it were oh, I don't know, David Boreanaz or some athlete type I would have had no problem. However, the kids in my class are all skinny and have an average height of 5'5. Mr. Quirk said if I didn't do it my grade would go down, so I did. And it wasn't all that bad, really.

After trust-falls, he had the whole class pull a person up on the rope, to show us that our own hand-knotted harnesses would actually hold. And they did. It was actually fun. Except for the part where the douche-bags in my class would run full-speed while pulling the rope and then plant their feet on the floor and shake the rope. Honestly, I would have been terrified if I had been twenty feet in the air while these idiots were keeping me up there.  

And now we're doing actual climbing. Today we learned how to do the balleying (or however you spell it). Apparently there's a certain way you hold the rope while pulling the climber up/down. And you have to have someone hold on to the back of your harness so the bigger climber doesn't pull you up if they fall. That's called being a Creep. No joke. The actual job is called 'being a creep'.