Course challenges variety of participants

Scaling a 30-foot pole before swinging headlong onto a trapeze is usually a talent reserved for circus performers and trapeze artists.

But Brian Pritchard, the coordinator for the UCLA Challenge Course located in the Sunset Recreation Center, says the experiential-education-based obstacle course is accessible to pretty much anyone.

“We’ve had people as young as three and as old as 70 go through the course,” Pritchard said.

He said the goal of the course is to facilitate group communication and trust, as well as help the participants to overcome personal obstacles.

The course includes both low-level initiative activities, such as games that facilitate group problem solving, and high-level activities, which involve everything from walking on cables suspended 22 to 55 feet in the air to climbing a gigantic two-person ladder.

“In the beginning of the day, we play games with a lot of icebreakers,” said Cody Smith, a third-year political science student and facilitator for the course.

Smith said the “low-element” activities are designed to make people comfortable with each other and work together as a cohesive group before attempting the more challenging activities.

“Sometimes you come across people who are really afraid of heights and you want to challenge them. … We like to have the team members encourage them,” Smith said.

Smith said one such activity, the “Low V,” in which participants walk on wires that are barely suspended above the ground, is a replica of a high-level activity in which participants walk on cables that resemble a tightrope strung between two trees.

The “High V” involves two people simultaneously scaling a 35-foot pole before walking on two separate cables that gradually move farther away while the participants hold hands.

In addition, the “Leap of Faith,” one of the most popular exercises, involves scaling a 30-foot pole and leaping onto a trapeze several feet away.

But for many participants in the course, the sheer height of the suspended wires that constitute the bulk of high-level activities is a harrowing experience.

“There have been times where people get stuck and we have to rescue them. We’ve had people start crying,” Smith said.

In addition, Pritchard said the responsibility of each other’s safety can be unnerving to some group members.

“We have the participants belay each other, and honestly some people are more afraid of having someone else’s life in their hands,” Pritchard said.

Other staff members emphasized the importance of building trust and cooperation among team members early on in the day.

“Trust games and communication are key. It’s more of a perceived risk. What’s more difficult is the psychological frustration that gets in the way,” said Jillian Ganzfried, a staff member and a fourth-year history student.

But Pritchard added that the 22- to 55-foot climbs on structures that resemble telephone poles, and crossovers to thin lines of cable are completely safe.

In fact, Pritchard said the cables have been tested to hold about 14,000 pounds.

“If you and four of your friends were in a car, (the cables) would hold them,” he said.

While the experience can be harrowing, Pritchard maintained no athletic ability is needed to perform the skills necessary to complete the course.

Instead, the biggest tasks involve participants facing their individual fears and cooperating as a group.

“We’re not trying to make people get rid of their fear, we’re trying to get people to face their fear,” Pritchard said.

He said the course is used fairly often, and about 4,200 people participated in the course over the last fiscal year.

With about 20 climbs and thousands of different activities, the UCLA Challenge Course has been used by corporations such as Toyota and Ford, various student groups, and will even play host to a blind student group from Tibet.

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