A couple of weekends ago, I ran a birthday party at the gym (yes, we do that) for Alec LeFurgy.  The theme: survival.

Many people associate that word with the wilderness and the skills to hunt, forage, and build fire with sticks, etc.  But survival is simply not dying in a situation that would kill others.  If your car broke down in a bad neighborhood in Richmond, you’d need a very different set of skills and tools to survive than you would if you had gotten lost in the Mojave.  But the mindset in both situations is the same.  My goal for the party was to teach some skills and create a variety of challenges that would allow the kids to test certain aspects of the survival mindset.  I taught them about teamwork and communication, as well as basic movement patterns of crawling and climbing and some basic first aid.

Becoming a Team

People that make it through nasty situations will tell you that the only thing that got them through was the thought of seeing their family again.  Or the thought that they couldn’t let their friends down.  The idea of a team– a group of people who support you and who count on you– is extremely important to the survival mindset.

Teamwork and Communication

Communication is really an aspect of teamwork.  But just as the concept of team is important when you’re alone, the idea of communicating with yourself (also known as thinking) is of vital importance to survival.  It’s been said that most people lost in the wilderness die of shame for not doing the one thing that could save their lives, thinking.  Using  reason while stressed, creating and implementing plans and having the physical ability to overcome obstacles were other concepts that I utilized in creating challenges for the party.  The kids picked up on this quickly and used it to their advantage.

Applying newly acquired skills.

Finally, having skills, knowledge, teamwork and the ability to communicate does no good unless you can do it while stressed.  We created some of that stress by allowing the kids to compete, putting them on the clock, and providing obstacles that would frighten many other people– such as a tight, enclosed crawl and a weighted climb to the top of a scaffold.  We also added an element to test their newly acquired knowledge of first aid (without actually hurting them…).

The day ended up being quite a success.  Not only did everybody survive and learn some important skills and concepts, they also had a whole lot of fun.