Day 2

The morning started at 7am where we would do personal training with Honour. Then afterwards was morning breakfast. I am not one who usually eats breakfast, but I figured I would need the energy so I ate a banana. Our first speaker of the day was a person from the NZ defense force. I will have to re-iterate this section with his name as I cannot remember it and didn’t take the opprotunity to write it down. However he had some valuable lessons. One of the things he went over was the problem of the chicken, corn, and the cat. A good brain teaser, which I will leave an answer to below if you feel like trying it out. The problem is you must get all 3 across without the chicken eating the corn or the cat eating the chicken and you can only take 1 across at a time. Ready … go!

Another area he talked about was 3 groups that a leader needs to keep in mind. These are team, task, and individual. He gave good examples as to how some parts can become inflated and draw from the others, but again I failed to take the opprotunity to note them. The definitions of those parts that he defined are as follows.

Task

• defining the task
• making a plan
• allocating work/resources
• quality/tempo
• adjusting the plan

Team

• setting standards
• maintaining discipline
• building team spirits
• encouraging
• communication
• training/rehersals

Individual

• personal problems
• encouraging
• giving status
• using abilities
• training

Must be aware of (at all times)

• tension
• various/changing needs

He then gave us an excercise which reminded me of the movie after the dark, which was a theory exercise on choosing who to save for the re-building of the human race after the apocalypse. I can’t remember what the backgrounds of the people but after the exercise the speaker asked us the following questions.

“Who dominated?”

“Who cam up with most of the ideas?”

“Who sat back?”

“Who felt like no one listened to them?”

He then followed up with the quote ~ “Every great leader was once a good follower”

The speaker then talked about motivating and various things you can do to motivate others. These include but are not limited to …

• With your enthusiam
• Challenge and empower
• Reward and punish
• Develop a sense of urgency
• Show concern for the individuals welfare
• Encourage to relieve tension

and control ~

• maintain discipline
• keep occupied
• influence tempo

Then it was time for some drills … nah they weren’t that bad (only 5) ~

• At ease ~ hands behind the back (left hand in front interlaced with the right) and legs spread at shoulders length
• Height ~ pulls hands down as far as possible behind the back
• Tion ~ lift left leg (knee as high as you can) then stomp close to right foot. Move hands to the sides of your body with thumbs pointing down in a fist
• Left/Right turns ~ pivot without lifting your feet (move the heel of the turn and the tow of the opposite), then lift your back leg up as far as possible and stomp next to your leading foot

Once we practiced these drills for a bit we were paired into buddies and practiced communicating the drills to our partners. Our instructors Dan, ___, and ___ gave amazing feedback for everyone when they were practicing as well which made the exercise much better.

After the drills we went back inside and the speaker finished off with some tips on communication.

10% ~ words 30% ~ voice 60% ~ body

When communicating you should always be careful, calm, respectful.

C|lear

L|oud

A|s an order

P|auses

---

G|round

S|ituation

M|ission

E|xception

A|dmin |–> D|ress E|quipment W|ater A|ccomodation R|ations M|edical supplues T|ransport

C|ommand & control

After the presentations it was time for another exercise, this time we were split into small teams. There were various stations, the first one was everyone being blind-folded and different puzzles that we did in teams of 2. My partner Matt and I’s puzzle was constructing a pyramid shape with poles and 2 long ropes. After this we moved to a tanks game where there were sponges with a little water in a circle, and in teams of 3 (1 person blind-folded) we had to communicate with the blind-folded person in order to tag people with the sponges. Then we had to change to only using animal calls which oddly enough seemed to work better. After that station we moved to the next which was one that we weren’t given much information on and were just told to split into 2’s and 1 person gets blind-folded. I was first to be blind-folded with my partner Regan, but we didn’t seem to have any difficulties with what ended up being a rope course of sorts that we had to duck, step, crawl, and waddle through. The final station was an obstacle course with various conditions. The first was everyone had to be blind-folded except for 1 person (which ended up being me). No one could talk, and I had to lead from the back of the line. The first thought that came to mind was having everyone hold the persons shoulder in front of them and then I would send movement signals via taps and pressure. This sorta worked, and by sorta I mean it worked up to the first obstacle and then failed. We were allowed to change to animal calls which ironically worked much better again.

After the days activities were finished it was time for quiz night. We were again split into different groups (this time based on a letter) and participated in a quiz that asked questions on various subjects like movies, music, geography, and general knowledge. Can’t say I’ve participated in a quiz before but it was certainly enjoyable.

Of course after the quiz was our free time for the rest of the night so the scum group got together (gaining a few more people) and played until about 11 or 12.