Special Event Visitors

Our regular activities kept us busy most of today with plenty of crafts (ceramics!), sports (swimming!), horses (jumping!), and adventure (climbing!), but we also enjoyed two very special events. The first was a clinic of pocketdisc games and techniques. Our friend Patrick Groft, the inventor of the pocketdisc, came over from Hillsborough for the morning to host the sessions. You may have seen these cool discs at an outdoor store, but they are multicolored, croqueted cotton discs with a curled edge making them surprisingly aerodynamic and fun to throw like a Frisbee. They fly great and are super easy to catch, and because they’re soft, can safely be thrown both indoors and out. They are handmade in Guatemala and are a Fair Trade product, too. We liked them so much, we have teamed up with Patrick to have special Rockbrook editions of the pocketdisc made for our campers, but this morning it was about learning to throw the discs and playing some fun games that involve throwing and catching them. We played a couple of classic ball games with the pocketdiscs: dodgeball and spud, for example, but also some new ones like “Duck Hunting” and “Monkey in the Middle.” These are really fun toys, and we all had a blast running around, throwing the discs, catching them, and playing the games.

After dinner we had our second special event of the day, a dance with Camp Carolina in our gym. Local DJ Marcus (“DJ Dawg”) came over to handle the music and dance lighting for us. Marcus is always up on the latest pop music, but is also great at getting everyone dancing. For example, several times in his playlist, he pulled out “group dance” songs that included dancing instructions in the lyrics. “To the left, to the left… now kick, now kick,” etc. All of the CCB boys and their counselors came to us for this dance, so we had to be ready with extra of our homemade cookies and plenty of water to keep the sweaty dancers going. We had perhaps 300 people in the gym altogether! Most of the dancing was pretty silly, as was what most people were wearing, with our counselors leading the way. The idea we stress to the staff is to de-emphasize the “boy-girl” character of the event and to key on enjoying the music and the dancing. That’s partly why so many crazy costumes are part of the scene; it proves that what you look like isn’t important to have a good time. Even so, I have to admit, the oldest teenage girls spend a lot of time “getting ready” (hair!) and feeling a little nervous when the boys first arrive. As the girls tend to rove in a pack during the evening, it’s hard not to think of the old adage “safety in numbers.” Two hours of dancing and two hours of everyone having a good time, it just flew on by.

Here’s one last bonus picture. This is our vegetable garden down at the landsports field. Pam planted it a few weeks back and has been taking good care of i.  It’s really taking off!  She’s got heirloom tomato plants that are bushing out to 5 feet tall!  There are beans, cucumbers, herbs and squash.  Rick even used some of the squash tonight in the vegetarian stir fry he served.  Once a week or so, as part of the twilight time, we’ll invite the campers to come down at check out the garden.  Pam explains about the plants and encourages the girls to feel, smell and even taste some of them.  It’s fun for them to see such a well tended garden and to have all their questions answered.

A July Sunday

One way we punctuate the week at Rockbrook is to change the pace on Sundays. We follow a different schedule and plan special surprise events for the whole camp. It began today by sleeping in, which felt wonderful after the very full week we’ve been enjoying, but even better, the girls and their counselors came to breakfast in their pajamas and robes. Rick arrived much earlier in the kitchen and baked for us his yummy maple cinnamon coffee cake to complement the regular yogurt, cereal, and fresh fruit bars.

After breakfast the girls returned to their cabins to clean and sort things, as today is also the day laundry goes out. You can imagine how that might take a while! Around 10:30 the whole camp, dressed in their red and white uniforms, then assembled in cabin groups around the flagpole on the hill for a flag raising ceremony led by the Hi-Ups (10th graders). This included presenting the flag, reciting the Pledge of Allegiance, and singing “America the Beautiful.” As we stood in the bright morning sunshine, overlooking the Blue Ridge mountains in the distance, and flanked by the historic camp buildings, this was a very neat scene.

Next, the girls walked down the lower line to a special wooded area of camp for our chapel service. For years now Rockbrook has been explicitly non-denominational and ecumenical with no religious affiliation. It’s been a place where girls from all cultural and religious traditions (and non-religions!) can feel comfortable. Instead of specific religious texts or ideas, our chapel services are more thematic, focus on general human values (things like honesty, friendship and community), and are led by the girls themselves. For example, today the Middler line presented their chapel on “Simplicity” by leading several songs, reading a poem, and talking about what simplicity means to them. Sarah read (paraphrased actually) a short book to the girls called “Crispin: The Pig Who Had it All” by Ted Dewan. It’s about a spoiled pig who, instead of receiving the kind of big gifts he’s used to, gets an empty box from Santa. He naturally struggles with this at first, but in the end learns about imaginative play. Sarah connected it with camp, of course, noting how being at Rockbrook also encourages us to simplify (no technology!), yet equally inspires our imagination, sense of wonder and connections with others. The chapel is intended to be a quiet time for reflection and an opportunity to gather together as a camp community. It’s a nice balance to the zany fun we enjoy the rest of the week.

After lunch, which was a classic combination of baked ham (or tempeh), green beans and mashed potatoes, and after rest hour, which included a brief, welcome thundershower, the whole camp geared up for the Rockbrook Olympics. We divided into 3 teams, anticipating tomorrow’s holiday— red, white and blue —so that teams included girls from all three age groups. Each team, dressed and painted in their color, came up with a cheer and assigned participants for different relay events to be held down on the landsports field. We had a water balloon toss, a sack race, three-legged race, dizzy lizzy, spoon and egg carry, army crawl, sponge relay, frozen t-shirt thaw, a wheelbarrow race, and a huge, group hula hoop relay. The energy level was intense as everyone raced from one event to the next, stopping now and then for a drink or snack under the tents. For the final event, we all headed back up to the lake for a greased watermelon relay. Even more cheering! As is typical around here, we’re not really sure who “won” because we didn’t keep score. There’s just no need, and it’s really not that important, when you’re having this much fun playing and cheering everyone on.  So much fun!

Beginning Archery

Can the youngest girls at camp try archery?

Yes they can! Even the youngest campers, the girls who have finished kindergarten and first grade, can sign up for archery. Just like all the campers, they too can learn about the equipment, safety procedures and archery shooting techniques.

To fit a smaller person, we first of all provide special bows that are easier to pull and shorter arrows to match these smaller bows. Also, to make things easier overall, we move the shooting line much closer to the target.

Likewise, the Rockbrook archery instructors take extra care to introduce the youngest girls to the important aspects of the sport. With plenty to learn when you’re just starting out, it’s a big adventure right from the beginning.

Beginning girls tend to really like archery right away, and it doesn’t take long for them to improve, hit the target more consistently, and even score a bullseye. It may start quite young, but archery can be a lifelong sport for all!

Tennis at Camp

Forehand! Backhand! Lob! Volley! Groundstroke! Cross-court! Serve! It’s all tennis.

And at camp there’s plenty of chances to play tennis. Campers can sign up for tennis as one of their scheduled activities, which gives them about an hour on the courts. They can grab a friend and hit a few balls around during their free time before lunch or dinner. They can even get in a quick game after dinner during the “Twilight” time before evening program. And finally, girls can look forward to the end-of-session tennis tournament with Camp Carolina, a long tradition at Rockbrook.

With all this tennis going on at camp, Rockbrook girls can really learn a lot. They can build their tennis skills and become much better players if they want. But at Rockbrook, no matter what we do, the most important part is to have fun doing it! That’s why tennis can be pretty silly. It can turn into some kind of relay game, a trick shot contest, or even a new dance move. No pressure. No intense competition. No worries about whose the “best.” It’s a girls tennis camp dedicated to having fun, even when that means mostly playing around. Yes it’s all tennis, and it’s all fun.

Camp Carnival Fun & Games

Welcome August Mini Session Campers!! Welcome to Rockbrook! Today a big group of new and a few returning campers arrived for this, our last mini session of the summer. Like our other mini sessions, these are shorter sessions perfect for younger and first-time campers, so for the majority of these girls, this was their first day at Rockbrook. After waiting most of the school year and now until August, their anticipation made for high pitched, and maybe a little nervous, excitement. It doesn’t take long though to settle down after meeting the staff members and other girls, and realize how friendly and welcoming everyone is. Parents are sometimes surprised how quickly and easily their daughter is ready to say goodbye, and to run off with her new cabin mates.

While the new mini session campers were checking in and getting settled, the full session girls followed our regular Sunday schedule— sleeping in a little, enjoying a breakfast with fresh Krispy Kreme donuts, dressing in their white uniforms and red ties, performing the flag raising ceremony, and attending the wooded chapel service. Chapel today was put on by the Senior campers and the theme was “Growing.” Right before lunch the whole camp gathered under the big walnut tree on the hill with the gorgeous mountain view in the background, for our Sunday assembly. This a chance to introduce key staff members (e.g. Mandy, Jessi and the Line Heads), see skits about the various activities available at camp, present the “Mop Awards” to the cleanest cabins, learn and sing a couple of new camp songs, and afterwords, take state photos. Biggest state this session? North Carolina, by far.

Right after lunch the new campers and their counselors zipped down to the lake for their “swim demonstrations.” Sarah, several lifeguards, and Elizabeth, our head of the waterfront, ran through the exercise designed to test everyone’s ability to swim and tread water. When a girl “passes” the swim demo, she receives a special colored buddy tag alerting the lifeguards of her swimming skills. If someone’s uncomfortable in the water, or if they can’t complete the “demonstration,” she will have to wear a life jacket and stay in the shallow end of the lake, but is certainly welcome (though not required) to come down for swimming lessons during her swimming activity or during one of the free swim periods.

The afternoon’s activity was a crazy water carnival we held down on our sports field. It was crazy because there was so much action, so many girls having fun in different ways at the same time. We had a giant inflatable water slide where after climbing up, would shower you as you flew down into a pool of water at the bottom. There was a tent where several counselors were painting faces (and arms, and backs and stomachs!). We had a coconut bowling game going on, and a “cake walk” game where the girls danced in a circle, landed on numbers, and if lucky won a tasty cupcake prize. The snow cone machine was making icy treats non-stop, and everywhere there was someone working out a hula hoop.

The slip-n-slide was probably the biggest hit. What could be a better use for a long sheet of plastic? Stretch it down a gentle hill, add a little baby soap and water, and launch yourself down for a wet slippery ride! Add some upbeat music and you’ve got an awesome time. The big surprise though, was a shaving cream fight at the end of the Carnival. We passed out a couple of cases (yikes!) of shaving cream, and the girls took off trying to spray each other, splatter it in each others’ hair, and ultimately cover their entire bodies in white slippery foam. All kinds of creative hairstyles soon appear, with laughter and smiles all around. Be sure to check out the photo gallery to see more of that. We rinsed off a bit under the hose, and headed back up for a quick shower before dinner. Whew! What a fun afternoon, and a great way to open the August Mini session.

Learning to Split Leap

It’s a “split leap!” Taken directly from Ballet and applied in gymnastics to Floor Exercises and the Balance Beam, this gymnastics skill begins with a leap forward where the athlete does a 180 degree split in the air, leaping off one foot and landing on the other.

The split leap is more that just doing a split in the air. Judges look for style, proper arm, hip and shoulder position as well. For example, it’s important to keep your shoulders and your hips square. This is a common error, in fact, because many young girl gymnasts have to turn their hips in order to do a split at all, and once they learn this, it’s difficult to “un-learn” it to do a split leap properly.

Of course, the trick to doing this gymnastics skill is excellent flexibility and strength, both of which come from proper form when practicing. It’s important to keep your hips and shoulders square as you stretch and improve hamstring, hip flexor and quadricep flexibility.

The Rockbrook Camp gymnastics activity is a place where girls can practice their split leap, improve their flexibility, and learn the correct techniques for this important gymnastics skill.

Summer Camp Archery

So let’s say you get to summer camp and you’ve never tried archery. Sure you’ve seen it on TV and you know it means pulling back an arrow in a bow, releasing it while aiming at a target, and hopefully hitting the target in the center. But you’ve never really tried it before.

At first, it’s kind of funny. After learning the basics about the equipment and how to shoot, you give archery a try and shoot arrows over, under, to the side, and anywhere but on the target. Slowly but surely though, each round lets you make small adjustments. A little coaching gets thrown in, and you are soon scoring points on the target.

Next thing you know, you’re hooked, and you’re selecting archery again for one of your daily camp activities. Archery becomes one of your favorite things to do at summer camp.

That’s cool, but what do you do when you get home from camp? How can you keep shooting, and improve you archer’s skills? Well, there might be a local archery club near you. You could also form an archery club and join the Junior Olympic Archery Development (JOAD) organization.  If you can find an adult supervisor, set up a safe archery range, and gather the proper equipment, you can begin to practice shooting archery all year long.  This might be tough to do by yourself, but if you can get several friends and their parents to get excited about the idea, you can do it!  Your club can then compete in local or regional tournaments, and you might even be able to join the youth world team and compete in other countries representing America.

Archery can be a lifelong sport, and just think, it all started at summer camp.

Tetherball Games Strategies

Do you have this in common with Napoleon Dynamite— being a tetherball champ? Sure you’ve played before at camp, and you know how to play tetherball, but maybe you need a few more strategies to really pump up your game. Here’s a couple of things to practice.

The most important strategy is mastering an extreme angle when serving. By hitting the ball sharply down, it can swing high over your opponent’s head. This is always a good tactic.

It’s also important to use both hands when playing tetherball. You can hit the ball more powerfully, but also add unexpected spins and hits by changing which hand hits the ball. You can surprise and confuse the other player with different fast/slow, open/closed, left/right hand maneuvers.

Equally important to mastering tetherball is being quick on your feet. Moving forward and backward quickly, and knowing when to move sideways. This not only makes it difficult for the other player to decide how to serve or hit the ball, it gives you a better chance to make defensive hits.

Of course, being a tetherball sports champ takes practice, but that’s what camp is for!

OK, do you have any other tetherball tips, strategies or tactics?