It is widely believed that adventure sport develops personality. But how? What is the process of adventure based learning?
Most people believe thatakes climbing Mt Everest or something similarly exotic. However, that is not so. When we speak of adventure as a means of personal development, we are talking about any experience that challenges us and takes us beyond our known capacity or challenges our assumptions about our existing abilities.
It could be something as ordinary as a walk on some peaceful mountain trail, or even a beach, or it could be a high voltage rescue situation. Each is something we are doing newly, and it accesses parts of ourselves that we don’t ordinarily use. We end up ldiscovering something about ourselves and our responses in different situations that we didn’t know before and this information is then known to us and available for us to count on in future situations – voila – a development in us!
In other ways, we could speak of adventure as a means of transformation. Transformation is simply becoming aware of more and more of our unconscious behaviour and being conscious of it. You may choose to change it or not. That is a different matter. But simply knowing that in such a situation, I feel like this, and tend to make choices like this empowers me to account for my own needs and decide if those automatic choices are what I want or if I’d like to take care of my needs in another manner and make a more useful choice.
All transformation is essentially this. Be it one on one work, like coaching or counselling or group work methodologies; whether the setting is indoors or outdoors.
However, outdoor activities offer a distinct advantage over other methods by magnifying the unconscious processes and making them more visible.Physical space, and involvement in the physical activity remove conscious “presented behaviour” and allow natural choices to be enacted.
For example, what could be me taking a mental vacation when someone I don’t like speaks becomes me staring at the horizon or physically doing something else in an outdoor context, which is easier to observe, and more difficult to ignore. If I get along with someone, In an indoor context, I may simply agree with them, or support or complement their opinions; which in an outdoor context could become as visible as me standing next to that person often, acting physically on their suggestions, etc.
In short, my unconscious choices get more space to be enacted in a manner that becomes highly observable and specifically definable. This helps me become aware of myself, or others to share their feedback about me in very specific and unambiguous language, enabling me to recall that moment and get in touch with the exact subject of the feedback or insight. This naturally makes these learnings more powerful.
The other great advantage of adventure based learning is that it happens in an atmosphere of fun. Even when potentially disturbing feedback is shared, it is in the context of a low stakes fun activity, leaving me to absorb it to an extent that I can comfortably cope with and process.There is no salary, promotion or professional image at stake, so I can embrace the risk of change easily, because the cost of failure is not threatening to my well-being.
This leads to ready acceptance of feedback and experimentation with change.
While the change that happens in the person happens in the context of the activity, that learning is accessible to try out and utilize in any aspect of life, enabling the participant to address problem areas with greater flexibility and ability to functionally engage in change.
And THIS my friends, is how adventure sports develop personality….. and why they are such a preferred method for change.
