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In-Depth Post #5

My Progress

For the past two weeks I worked on three main skills.  The first one was simply balancing on each foot for as long as I could. As you can see at the beginning of the video, I can comfortably stand on my right foot for around twenty-five seconds on average. Next week I will mainly work on my left foot because I practiced on my right foot more in the past two weeks. I’m pretty happy with my progress on balance so far. I’ve noticed improvements in my slab climbing, which is mainly balance based.

The second skill I worked on was walking on the line slower and more controlled. There were a couple good walks along the line, and I improved significantly from my messy running walk from the last post. I feel a lot better walking along the slackline now. I hope that I’ll be able to walk along almost the entire length of the slackline in less than a month.

The last skill I worked on is jumping onto the slackline from a running start and trying to balance or walk along it. It took many attempts (Many are not in the video), but I was eventually successful. I was able to walk along the slackline right after jumping on. This was probably the most excited I’ve been to finally land a skill. It feels really good to land it. After the first successful attempt, I was able to continually land and walk along the slackline. Unfortunately, my phone died before I finished recording my attempts, but I continued practicing the jump until it was more solid.

In all the sessions I borrowed Climb Base 5’s slackline, so it was a little more worn than my own. This was recommended by my mentor. My mentor said that, “Using a different slackline from your own will help you become better at balancing with different tensions and friction.” The reason for this was because the slackline was older and was made of a slightly different material from mine. It felt a little different than my own and I think it helped me improve overall.

I’m proud of my own progress so far and I hope to continue improving over the next few months!

How to Have a Beautiful Mind:

In the past few sessions, I read into Edward de Bono’s Parallel Thinking – The Six Hats. The chapter based around parallel thinking talked about The Six Hats method and how it can “help you enhance your conversation and so develop a beautiful mind.” Each hat represents a different method of thinking .The white hat is for information, the red hat is for emotion and intuition, the black hat is for critical thinking, the yellow hat is used to look for the positives and point out the value of an idea, green is used for creative thinking and the blue hat organizes the conversation. To practice recognizing The Six Hats, I looked at conversations I had with my mentor and categorized certain parts into each hat.

The Green Hat

For the green hat, I asked my mentor, “What can I do to improve my balance on each foot.” With that question, I asked for advice and ideas from my mentor.

The White Hat and the Yellow Hat

My mentor responded with two different techniques and reasons why they are good or bad. The first technique was to simply “stand up on the same foot for as long as you can, then determine why you are losing balance after that period of time.” He said that this was good because it “is a way for you to understand why you are falling and how you might be able to fix it.” The other method was to, “Walk in a straight line on the ground with your eyes closed as if you were walking on a slackline, then try walking with your eyes open on the slackline.” This method is good for practicing control and awareness of the slackline. I will try this method next week. I think this includes both the white and yellow hats because it includes information on the different methods and shows the positives and value of each technique.

The Red Hat

When I was balancing with one foot on the slackline and fell, my mentor said that I was “leaning too far with [my] body” and that I was “sticking [my] leg out too far.” This was helpful criticism that made me realize I was leaning too far. This is the red hat because my mentor realized something was off.

The Black Hat

I used the black hat by determining the best method for me to practice first. I also used the black hat to split my time into practicing the three skills listed above.

The Blue Hat

The blue hat is simply the entire post because it organizes my progress. thinking, and conversations I had with my mentor. It also defines the purpose of these meetings and sets up the other hats.

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