On the early morning of August 11th, players of the Stafford Arsenal embarked on a trip to the Northern Virginia 4H Educational Center in Front Royal, VA for a day of "team building" experience.  The day started off with our instructor, Avery Born introducing herself and immediately beginning fundamental games.  The team began their first event "The Falling Game", a game that immediately builds trust in your teammates while learning the proper stance for spotting participants for the other events throughout the day.  The players took turns stepping into the center of the circle, closing their eyes, and freely falling in any direction while trusting their teammates to spot them and pass them around the circle.

The Arsenal played a few other games like Protected and Protector, and Samurai before moving to the low ropes obstacle for the morning.  The low ropes obstacles consisted of events that required planning, team-work, trust, leadership, and physical and mental strength.  Events like the Spider Web and the Porthole involved all team members successfully passing each player from one side of the obstacle to another.  While other obstacles like the Water Wheel and the Wall challenged the team to use more physical strength to overcome these obstacles.  Nevertheless, the team pulled together to conquer each obstacles.  It appeared that a favorite of the team on the low obstacles was the Lava River.  Avery Born laid out the parameters for the game indicating that a stationary rope was suspended in the center of the lava river that the team members had to acquire and use for each team member to get from one side to the other.  The boys questioned that they could just jump out and grab the rope but this was not acceptable for this task.  They had to work together as a team to develop a plan to bring the rope to them on one side.  The Coach and other team member began developing a plan using articles of clothing such as belts and T-shirts to fabricate a rope to try and reach the rope in the center of the river.  Unsuccessful at first, the fabricated did not acquire the suspended rope and as the belts and T-shirts were being retrieved for another attempt, the T-shirts fell into the lava river.  Avery Born stopped the play at that time to remove the T-shirts from the rope as they were consumed by fire in the lava river.  The team continued to brainstorm to find a successful means of reaching the rope in the center of river.  Finally the team realized what their rope was missing, an anchor.  Additional T-shirts, shoe laces, and a shoe were added to the combination to successfully retrieve the rove from the center of the river (MacGyver would be proud!).  This was not the final challenge for this task; Avery Born also placed a stick in the center of the river.  The stick was a "Nitro stick" that had to be retrieved from the river before each player completed moving from one side of the river to the other.  Team members Joe Kairys and Jake Lusczek strategize the idea of suspending from the rope upside-down and reaching down to grab the stick as you pass over it.  The team was informed that you can use any means to retrieve the stick, but if you touched the river while trying, you would have to go back and cross again and the stick would remain in the middle.  After a few rounds of rock-paper-scissors, Lusczek was elected for the challenge was not successful at retrieving the Nitro Stick; Kairys did the second attempt and retrieved the stick for the team.

The team hiked up to the Appalachian Trail to eat lunch and returned back to the course for an afternoon that challenged each player's individual confidence in themselves.  The afternoon challenges were on the high ropes course that included the Vine Walk Eagle Walk.  After a detailed safety brief, each member climbed to the first high rope, the Vine Walk where they used a safety harness, carabiners, and helmets to navigate at 40 feet above the ground from one tree to another.  The only assistance provided on the Vine Walk was the use of ropes (vines) dangling from another overhead cable.  Each member had to walk on a single cable using the vines.  When they reached the distant tree, they were met on a platform by Avery Born where she assisted each member in changing from the Vine Walk to the Eagle Walk.  The Eagle Walk consisted of a four cable ensemble, an overhead safety/pulley line, a single cable to walk across, and two cables about waist high to assist you as you walk to the distant tree.

The Coach and parents that accompanied the boys on this trip noticed a contagious effect of personal accomplishment, team work, and improving relationships of the players that attended.

The Arsenal is looking forward to attending the course again in the future when we can have the other team members attend also.  As a coach, I hope that these young men who attend the ropes course maintain the knowledge and experience they gained here and can use it to be leaders on the team by demonstrating to the entire team concepts of teamwork.