Games

Let’s talk about a shaving cream fight. This is a special event that brings all the campers together, no matter what their age. It’s equally popular with all age groups too. So when we announced that there would be a shaving cream fight tonight during our “twilight” time, the girls roared with excitement. At the sound of the camp bell, everyone interested in joining in the messy fun would meet down at the landsports field dressed in their swimsuits.

We were ready when the girls started to arrive— about 150 cans of plain shaving cream, a couple of water hoses, some fun pop music pumping, and a big sheet of plastic for a slip-n-slide (because that’s fun too when you’re already slippery!).

How a Shaving Cream Fight Works

The point of a shaving cream fight is not complicated, and the girls somehow know instinctively how to go— spray the contents of your can of the white slippery foam both on others and on yourself. Then race around smearing, wiping, splattering and rubbing the shaving cream into everyone’s hair, on their backs, and ultimately everywhere. Beyond that, the goal is to have fun, be silly and enjoy the wild mess of it all. It’s as simple as that.

There are no teams, and this is not a competition where we pick a winner at the end like some games. So it’s not much of a “fight” really. It’s more of a group event, almost like a dance, since it’s just as much fun to be attacked as it is to splatter others. Part of the fun is surprising someone, sneaking up to them and planting a blob right on their back, shoulder or leg… as you race away grinning, and secretly hoping, but also looking out for, someone who will do the same to you. There’s no score: just the fun of playing the game.

By the way, have you ever noticed how not keeping score makes playing a game more fun. That matches up perfectly with our camp philosophy.

The whole event is absolutely hilarious! Once the spraying begins, you can’t hear anything except shrieks of delight and laughter. We all (yes, counselors and directors too!) quickly begin to look pretty funny, our hair sticking up, with white beards and mustaches, if not completely foamy. There was one little Junior tonight whose entire head was one blob of shaving cream!

The Joy of Letting Loose

A shaving cream fight feels liberating too. It’s a little mischievous and outrageous, but still sanctioned, even celebrated at camp. It’s a harmless way to go a little crazy, while at the same time laugh and play with your friends. Outside of camp, you’ll never see girls having this kind of deep, affirming fun, the kind of laughter that makes you pause to take a breath. A shaving cream fight like this taps into the deepest kind of childhood joy. Among friends, there’s nothing like it. Just ask your camper when you get a chance.

Is there something to learn from a shaving cream fight? Perhaps. It’s certainly proof that letting loose with your friends feels really good— laughing with abandon, not caring how silly you look, embracing the energy of it all.

Here we know each other so well, it’s easy for these Rockbrook girls to relax into who they really are. This community of support and encouragement opens up a quality of experience that’s hard to match. Even in something as simple as a shaving cream fight, that connection makes a real difference. No wonder this feels so great.

Sundays at camp start off lazy with the morning bell ringing at 9am, campers getting straight out of bed and heading right to the dining hall, PJs and all. We feasted on glazed doughnuts while taking breaks to sing some classic morning songs… “and this is what we hear our counselors yell. Get out of bed! You sleepy head! And do your chores on the run…”

Celebrating Juneteenth at Camp

Rockbrook Camp had many celebrations on Sunday. The first being Juneteenth! A few members of our staff helped educate and celebrate this national holiday by teaching a popular family reunion dance and working with the kitchen for a delicious soul food dinner.

What Makes a WHOA Warrior

Sunday was also a big day focused on teamwork and fun with a WHOA Warrior celebration! What makes a WHOA Warrior at Rockbrook Camp? First, we need a color to show some spirit for our lines! Our Junior line showed spirit in their best red. Middlers sported their bluest blues. Our seniors were decked out in oldschool Rockbrook green!

Next, we need sunscreen! Counselors, this is a reminder to make sure your campers are wearing sunscreen. Campers, this is a reminder to make sure your counselors are wearing sunscreen!

Water bottles. Clothes you don’t mind getting wet. Teamwork. And enthusiasm!

Our lines split up and spent some time at three different locations around camp for a variety of WHOA Warrior events – think NBCs “Survivor” but less focused on competition and more focused on teamwork and fun! At landsports there was an inflatable obstacle course and slide. Campers of all ages loved racing on the inflatables and going down the huge water slide. We also passed out some refreshing snow cones on this hot and sunny day – another major crowd pleaser.

The second location was the Carrier House lawn. At this station, campers finished creative relays and challenges requiring lots of teamwork. Campers worked together on a “Coconut Relay” involving teams racing to get a coconut from point A to point B as quickly as possible. There was also a Tic-Tac-Toe relay and a Hot Coal Walking Challenge which tested communication and listening skills as one camper directed a blindfolded partner around an obstacle course to collect ping pong balls scattered throughout.

Location three required teamwork and creativity. Cabins worked together to create their own “Redbird Idol,” a beaded necklace, to represent their cabin. After creating their idol, cabins went out to different locations of camp to hide their idol. After dinner, the camp came back together for a camp wide “Redbird Idol” hunt. After 30 minutes of searching, there was a three way tie for the cabin who found the most idols! Middler One ended up winning the prize of “Floats on Floats” – Rootbeer and Cheerwine floats while relaxing on floats in the lake at resthour!

Teamwork Over Competition

The teamwork and enthusiasm for WHOA Warrior is really what makes the event special. Whether it’s going around in a circle taking turns adding beads to a “Redbird Idol” or cheering on a teammate as they’re hopping with a coconut in between their knees, our campers were working with each other rather than against each other.

Shaving Cream Fight and Slip-n-Slide

Tonight we witnessed how these Rockbrook girls know how to let loose! After dinner and signing up for next week’s activities, we had an all-camp shaving cream fight and slip-n-slide dance party down on the grassy sports field. It has a gently sloping area for the long sheet of plastic, a couple of water hoses to keep it slick, and a large area for everyone to romp around in.

First we piled up about 150 cans of shaving cream (not menthol!). We lay out the slip-n-slide plastic and soaped it up a bit. We got a water sprinkler going. We set up our sound system. Add a bunch of excited camp girls, and you have a shaving cream fight!

They came dressed in their swimsuits and wearing their water shoes. They tossed their towels in a pile, grabbed a can of shaving cream and were off!

Some first sprayed a little of the foam on themselves, as if testing the can. But most immediately began chasing someone else, can outstretched ready to fire away. Of course, that’s exactly the point, emptying every can of shaving cream on everyone there. Frolic with the foam! Squirt it, slather it, and smear it everywhere and on everyone.

Yes, there’s running to get away from an attacking friend, but really, everyone realizes its fun to slow down just enough to be caught and splattered with the white slippery stuff.

The mood is complete hilarity, laughter turned up as high as it will go. Laughing perhaps as hard as they have ever laughed. There’s a mischievous twinkle in their eyes as they sneak up on people with a handful of shaving cream, ready to strike. There’s also a sly grin as the girls enjoy themselves, since getting this messy is ordinarily “not allowed” at home.

And messy it is! Unavoidably so. In about 5 minutes, there’s white foam everywhere— no person unscathed. Getting the shaving cream in your hair is part of the fun. Friends help each other with that goal, and soon there are mohawk styles, helmets of foam, twists and random blobs decorating almost everyone’s head. Some of the littlest girls made it a goal to cover every inch of themselves with shaving cream, while some of the oldest girls want to draw on each other and pose for a group photo.

Throughout this “fight,” the girls would take turns sliding down that sheet of plastic. All that shaving cream covering them made the ride fast and easy. Yes, messy here too, as the water and foam sprayed up during each slide. Some of the girls really loved the slip-n-slide, taking ride after ride.

Even though we made participating in all of this optional, this was one of the largest shaving cream fights I can remember. It was most popular with the Middlers and Juniors, but there were plenty of Senior girls enjoying the event as well. All-ages fun!

As the sun was setting and the many cans of foamed had been emptied, a few girls took their last ride down the slip-n-slide as others began hosing off. The temperature was dropping and these girls needed a warm shower.

Letting loose like this with your friends feels really good. It’s all smiles from the girls because I think it taps into a basic urge to be completely silly and experience a moment free from regular decorum. It’s the messiness of it all. We can’t be messy like this ordinarily, so when we can, it’s hilarious and fun. There’s really no other feeling quite like a shaving cream fight at camp.

Sunday morning again took on a more relaxed pace. After our active weeks at camp, we love a little extra sleep and a casual breakfast in our pajamas. It actually felt a cooler, almost fall-like, in the morning, so most of the girls showed up with an extra long-sleeve layer. A fun treat of doughnuts complimented the regular breakfast fare. With the only the full session girls here at camp— the August mini girl finished their session last week —we now can eat all together in the dining hall and still space out the tables appropriately. This has been a nice coming together of sorts after being spread out previously on the two eating porches.

Chapel on Joy

After the flag raising ceremony led by the Hi-Ups, the girls turned their attention to the notion of “joy” in their chapel gathering. The Senior line girls decided on the theme, and led the program. It included a rendition of the song “Joy to the World,” and a reading of “Ferdinand,” the story of the bull who would rather smell flowers than fight like other bulls. Joy can be found in the most unexpected places.

Mop Awards and Assembly

We had a quick assembly on the hill were we announced the mop awards, recognizing the cleanest cabins. We likewise announced campers who were especially helpful around camp this week (the “bend-a-back” honor) and others that showed remarkable camp spirit at some point.

• 

• 

• 

Carnival of Hilarity

The main event of the day was an afternoon carnival of games and inflatables down on the grassy landsports field. The girls wore their swimsuits because one of the inflatables was a giant, dual water slide where two campers could slide at once. The other was a crazy obstacle course race, also for two campers at a time.

The games included a ball toss challenge, a surprisingly difficult pingpong ball toss into jars, and another that involved water guns fired at pingpong balls. There was a hula hooping club, a face painting station and a caricature drawing table staffed by two counselors. The silliest game was a team event that had one girl tossing cheeseballs onto another girl’s head as she wore a plastic shower cap with a blob of shaving cream on it. The goal was to “catch” the flying cheeseballs in the shaving cream. We found yet another form of camp hilarity involving shaving cream!

Throughout the event we played up-tempo music turning it into a fun outdoor dance party as well. With this kind of camp enthusiasm and ideal sunny weather, it was an afternoon of positive energy, smiling faces and laughter— girls feeling totally relaxed and confident. It was one of those classic camp experiences that can’t really be recreated anywhere else. It takes these people, and this place, and this spirit. That’s a rare combination, but thankfully you can count on it at Rockbrook.

Take a look at these photos. Obviously, they are of the shaving cream fights we had on Sunday afternoon. We had three, one for each age group neighborhood— the Juniors, the Middlers, and the Seniors. On a sunny summer afternoon, romping around in your swimsuit with friends, sprinklers and water hoses going, is always a lot of fun. Add in cans of plain shaving cream, and you have a hilarious good time.

Calling this a “fight” isn’t exactly accurate. There’s no aggressive behavior, no goal of conquest. There are no teams or score kept to be announced in the end. For that matter, there’s no defined way for a shaving cream fight to end.

What Makes a Shaving Cream Fight Work

So what is it? Well, it requires only a few things: a grassy field, cans of shaving cream, and a group of fun-loving friends who are comfortable with each other and are willing to get messy. High tempo dance music is optional, but recommended.

It doesn’t take long for a shaving cream fight to begin. Without any prompting in fact, the girls know exactly what to do; squirt the white slippery foam on someone. Splatter the stuff on anyone nearby. Squirt some in your hand and plop it right on her head. Get as much shaving cream on everyone else as possible, even if they try to run away. Chase after them, and spray! Rub it all over their backs. Launch globs into their hair and help them create the most fabulous hairdo they’ve ever experienced.

Of course, as you chase, you’re being chased. As you spray shaving cream, it’s being sprayed on you too. Soon everyone is covered, slippery, and looking pretty silly. Most importantly, everyone is also laughing hysterically. The feeling of being covering in shaving cream, seeing your friends’ reactions, and watching the chaos of it all, are uniquely funny. Outside of camp, you’ll never see girls having this kind of deep, affirming fun, the kind of laughter that makes you pause to take a breath. A shaving cream fight like this taps into the the most genuine of celebratory joy.

Adding the Slip-n-Slide

With all these slippery kids, what’s more natural than sliding down a wet sheet of plastic? At camp, that’s completely natural! The gentle slope nearby our grassy landsports field makes a great place to spread out the slide. Soon the girls were taking turns sliding two at time. Run, launch, and slide on your belly. It’s a fun challenge to stay upright, but flipping and flopping as you slide is a fine way to go.

Why Camp Fun Feels Different

An afternoon shaving cream fight like this proves once again that these camp girls know how to have a good time with each other. The shaving cream, water hoses, and sheet of plastic didn’t make it great. Those bits served as a catalyst of sorts for the girls themselves to create the fun. Their positive relationship with each other, the trust and goodwill already proven through days of common experience, made that fun a possibility. You can imagine a group of random people who didn’t know each other would have a hard time having fun in a shaving cream fight. Especially adults! There’s no way that could happen. A camp shaving cream fight is inherently more genuine than what could happen among any other group of people.

Perhaps that’s true about a lot of things at Rockbrook— the authenticity of our relationships, each of us living and showing our real selves, makes us enjoy ourselves more. Knowing each other this well, relaxing into who we really are because we sense this community is here to support and encourage us, opens up a quality of experience that’s just out of reach ordinarily. I do think that’s part of what makes camp life so special and enjoyable for your girls, and truly for everyone here at Rockbrook. Blame it on the culture of camp, but there are real effects… even in something as simple as a shaving cream fight.