Learning to Lead: Dartmouth Peak Performance

DP2 (Dartmouth Peak Performance) Leadership Exercise

We all woke up a little early last Wednesday for our ‘Leadership Exercise’. We had about as much information going into it as you have now. That it was a leadership exercise, and that it required rainboots. We all packed into cars, and headed to base camp, a pullout on the side of the road. Mist was lying low all around us. It was getting intense. Steven Spaulding, a.k.a. Dartmouth’s leadership advisor pulled aside Elisa Scudder, a ‘14 middle, and I to get the lowdown on the morning’s activity. We each had to lead a group through the New England forest to a clearing with a large stump, from which we would find a camera attached to a tree in the surrounding woods. Trick is, you had to travel in groups of 2, and had to pre-select the tree you were going to look at from the center, go look on that tree and if it wasn’t there head back and do it again. No looking around in the forest! Then we would cross the Appalachian Trail, find a rope tied to a tree and do a variation on the human knot challenge. The first group back to the cars wins. Go!

Both groups ran through the forest to the clearing, which ended up being more of a marsh. I remember thinking to myself, “Wow, this is a really rocky marsh!”, only to find out later that in fact I was stepping on unfrozen ice chunks left over from winter. We all turned out to be exemplary icy swamp muckers however, and my group raced through the camera finding mission with the help of Holly and Kayden, 16’s, who found the tree on their second time out. We then raced to part two of the mission and completed the knot task, but soon realized we had dropped an essential item (one of the ropes) on our way. We combed the forest, not wanting to give up our lead, and after a long and fearful 10 minutes we heard a coyote call of success and started our race back to the car. Albeit the icy water and long trudging all of our faces were lit up with smiles.

Having that kind of morning is awesome in many ways. First I love nature and being out there with the mist, flying geese and rising light was gorgeous. Secondly, walking into my statistics class at 10 am after that while everyone else had just grabbed breakfast in the cafe made me feel pretty accomplished. But most importantly, the leadership exercise was awesome because it enabled our team to work together in new novel situations and teach us new things about what it meant to lead and to serve. We learned a clear definition of leadership, and were able to see where we fell short. Fortitude and a positive attitude are particularly important to our team because of the high standard of focus and dedication we all agreed was necessary to take us to the level we want to be playing at. I know the team is so grateful for the opportunity to learn these lessons and to have such great resources available to us through the Dartmouth Peak Performance program.

Till next time!

Lucia

Kaira's tryout for the USA Junior National Team

 

Waking up at 4am on a Friday is not my idea of fun but I was so focused on the tryout for the USA Women’s Junior National Volleyball Team that sleep deprivation was the least of my concerns. I arrived in Colorado Springs at the Olympic Training Center early in the afternoon of Friday, February 22^rd and two hours later I began the first part of the tryout. Actually two tryouts were going on simultaneously, one for the Junior National Team (WJNT) and the other an open tryout for the National Team (WNT). We started by playing 6 on 6 wave drills. Although doing the same drill for two and a half hours can seem daunting and repetitious, the level of play was fast paced and extremely competitive. Since I haven’t played since September 1^st, it was exciting to play with athletes who understand what it means to compete at a high level.

   

The second day began with physical testing. This included a one-meter sprint, standing reach, block touch, agility test, height, arm speed, and attack contact height. The interesting thing about all of the physical testing was that all the measurements were done electronically and many were recorded on camera to be reviewed later. At our second practice we learned the USA Volleyball blocking system that involves a split step and intense focus on reading the setter. Then after a short break those trying out for the JNT played timed matches with different teams. Even though I was just playing with college freshman and younger the level of play was still so high it felt so good to be playing.

On the final morning we were divided into teams. We played a mini tournament (my team won all three of our games). It was a great experience and I hope to bring back a high level of play to Leede Arena this spring. The hardest part at the end wasn’t the physical and mental exhaustion but trying to return to college. Mother nature has a way of intervening in travel plans and my trip back to Hanover, never an easy place to get to under normal circumstances, was stopped dead in its tracks. A big snowstorm in Denver and the surrounding area caused the cancelation of many flights, including mine. I would have been stuck in at the airport in Colorado until Tuesday if my dad hadn’t been there to drive me home to NM so that I could travel from Albuquerque where the sky is almost always blue.

Observations:

-       the majority of the players at the tryout were 6’ and above, the tallest player being 6’9.5” and the highest reach 11”

-       some schools send a large number of their players to the tryout and they travel in packs and some schools like Texas and Penn State send none at all

-       the Olympic Training Center has an awesome dining hall where we all ate more than 3 meals a day

-       in the end it doesn’t matter how old someone is or what school they come from, just that they are playing their best not only for themselves but especially for the 5 other people on the court and above all USA