A-Team Camp: Mission Alpha
Ages 13-19, June 22-July 5, 2008
Wilderness Survival, Martial Arts, Engineering and Mechanics, Wilderness Medicine & Live Action Paintball
The Camp: Mission Alpha
Deep in the forest of the Pacific Northwest you find yourself preparing for something big. You are part of an elite team of 8, cross training in the skills required to tackle the mission of your life!
Introducing TrackersTEAMS: Mission Alpha, the ultimate live action role playing two week summer camp! With 10 days of fun, intensive training, the last 4 days culminate in a giant live action role playing game where you are sent on a mission to defeat the “evil INSTRUCT-TORS.”
A-Team Camp: A COMPLETE learning experience designed to create real change and rooted in Team Leadership, martial arts and wilderness survival skills.
The foundation is scenario training. This is an opportunity to actually apply skills in scenarios that feel like a real world situation yet still has all the safety benefits of a controlled learning experience. This helps solidify skills developed. Used by elite trainers and coaches worldwide, scenario training is closest to experience in a completely safe and controlled environment.
Our Core Themes Throughout both weeks we cover an overall arc of skills, these include:
- Team leadership skills and agile team methods
- Stealth, Invisibility and Wilderness Survival
- Wilderness and Natural Medicine
- DIY: GREEN Creative Engineering
- Intensive fitness and martial arts training
- Situational Awareness - low stakes and high stakes problem solving with attention to environment and context
TrackersTEAMS:
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| Willem Larsen on how we teach teams | |
Request Permission to Join A-Team: Mission AlphaEarly package includes:
Who Ages 13-19 Register Online (below) or by mail |
Stealth, Invisibility and Wilderness Survival
- Intensively cross train for fitness and learning six different martial arts: Ju Jistu, Boxing, Kali Stick, self defense, jeet kun do, and kung fu
- Body, mental and emotional awareness
- Focus on nutrition
- Safe physical workouts for all body types
- Animal tracking and human tracking
- Camouflage and stealth skills
- Simple Survival Basics: orienteering, staying found, and emergency survival
- Primitive Survival Skills: Fire without matches, shelters, crafts and more
- Focus on positive attitude under stress
Wilderness and Natural Medicine
- Basic First Aid
- Naturopathic Medicine
- Nutrition
- Wild Edible and Medicinal plants
- Indigenous and cross cultural healing systems
- Basic biology
DIY: GREEN Creative Engineering, Auto Mechanics, Welding & Industrial Design (bio fuels truth and industrial recycling) MacGyver STUFF!
- Engineering principles and design
- Physics - applicable science of material and motion
- Industrial recycling and green building
- Spatial calculations and mathematics
- Resourcefulness and creative problem solving
- Metal works: forging and welding
- Woodworking and primitive crafts and skills
- Basic bow and arrow making
Last 4 days Scenario Week: Applying the Skills
In our scenario drill, select instructors STAY with the students at all time to ensure safe choices. Instructors also create space for students to really engage in their own decision making. This autonomy is a critical for learners to be able to apply the skills they have learned in a highly exciting, engaging experience.
Guarding the compound: Instructors remove themselves from the teams to create a scenario where the students are responsible for their decisions. We still have key instructors that are in the groups to facilitate a safe learning experience.
The Kidnapping: students are 'hired' to rescue a local celebrity kidnap victim. This is the call to action, a classic piece of every archetypal hero’s journey. It provides a goal for the other elements.
Working as an “A-Team”: A-Teams, Agile Teams, Apache Scout Teams are all concepts we use to signify the power of self organizing work teams. We focus on not simply leadership, but team leadership. This is where we truly develop leadership that supports communities.
LIVING Silently in the Woods: While the entire week-long scenario relies on stealth, the real reason students are out in the woods is to find “silence”. The ENTIRE role playing game is designed with that goal in mind. Imagine, waiting for hours under sword fern tunnels, watching the birds and animals pass by. This helps us remember, its not the destination, it’s the journey.
The Village and “Ernie’s Bar”: This is a chance for kids, who have been working within their own limits to take a break. This level of social decompression is critical to internalizing learning experiences. It is also a chance for parents to “volunteer” as villagers and maintain great rapport and connection with their kids.
Students with NO Paintball Guns: Our world can be filled with fear. Our expert martial arts instructor way of a true warrior does NOT depend on a gun OR fighting. That is why students will NOT have paintball guns. We juxtapose that with the “bad guys” (instructors acting a part), which are more in line with a quick and simple solution. Locked in a compound they seemingly have the most power. The reality is (as students are successful at the end of the week), true strength comes from support and intelligent connections with the natural world, their team, and community.
Mission Alpha Story Briefing
The following is the "story" of A-Team Camp: Mission Alpha. It is designed to inspire and entertain, to truly show a sense of GRANDNESS and FUN. Remember, at TrackersNW we take camp logistics and safety SERIOUSLY. It is only with the caliber and quality of our staff that we can create seamless experiences such as the one we have planned.
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Alpha ScoutMartial Arts, Stealth, Invisibility and Wilderness Survival We intensively train ju jistu, jeet kune do, kali stick fighting, knife fighting, self defense, weapons disarms, and stealth and invisibility. Wilderness survival skills is introduced along with advanced Tracking and Bird Language. Bird Language is the art of interpreting sequencing of bird alarms and calls in an effort discern the source of the disturbance. It is a highly refined art form, not widely known and practiced except as a invisible hunting method of indigenous people the world over. Apache Scouts frequently used advanced bird language skills to warn of approaching armies. We will also begin American Sign Language (ASL) instruction along with other language immersion. |
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Taoist MedicWilderness, Combat and Natural Medicine Run scenario drills for emergency medicine. Local healing botanics, basic biology and functional knowledge of indigenous and cross cultural healing systems are also introduced, plus principles of minor field surgery. This week may be divided into 2 sections as we work toward the goal and maintain the integrity of establishing Wilderness First Aid Certification for each participant. |
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Junkyarders
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Mission Alpha
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Our Lead Instructors for Mission Alpha
These staff biographies are tongue in cheek & part of the STORY! To understand the full resonance of our experience as leaders and innovators in environmental education and caring for students, please see our regular staff biographies. And these tall tales (of mostly truth) still reflect the history of lives lived with gusto and a passion for the value of the adventure of life we hope to pass onto all the children we work with.
Dr. Mike Owen, ND has been doing martial arts since he was born. Mike's parents raised him in one of the most acclaimed knife fighting, kali stick, ju jistu, muay thai, american boxing and jeet kune do schools in the country. After training with his parents Mike went on to work with key masters in each of these respective styles. He become a naturopathic physician and practiced medicine for over a year in small Nicaraguan village. Dr. Mike says that his time as a professional skateboarder has done more to inform his skill as a martial artist than anything else. At TrackersTEAMS: Mission Alpha, Mike will be a mentor of Martial Arts, Naturopathic Medicine and Principles of Field Surgery
Willem Larsen apprenticed with one of the lead team development consultants in the world. His work with tools of clarity and communication make the way for peacemaking in our business and our programs. He mixes agile and Collaborative Team tools employed by some of the top tech development firms in the world with Taoist philosophy and Military training methodology to form a highly effective model for wilderness education. Willem appreciates "cutting through" the drama to help people find highly functional ways of working and caring for each other. He also focuses on teaching linguistics and different language matrixes to actually facilitate new mind sets for learning. Willem is the glue that keeps us tight. At TrackersTEAMS: Mission Alpha, Willem will be a mentor of Personal Communication, Team Communication, Linguistics, Martial Arts, Tracking, Klingon and American Sign Language
Emily Porter a.k.a. Penny Scout hails from the Far East…Pennsylvania that is. She grew up next to the Allegheny National Forest, exploring the ancestral hills and rock shelters of the Seneca people. At age sixteen she ran away in depths of the night…by canoe. Like the fabled Yamabushi (forest warrior monks) her passions include herbalism and healing touch. She has a degree in environmental studies from the University of Pittsburgh, and is a certified Reiki II practitioner. Making a living as a botanist/model/ writer/educator, she keeps track of undertakings on her blog: Adventures in Feral Failure.
Billy Williems is one of the best Trackers in the Pacific Northwest, period. He sees tracking and hyper-sensory awareness as a tool to peel back the layers of a challenge and get the real root for problem solving. He bow hunts with handmade bows every year and makes part of his living as metal cutter and machinist while raising a family of four in McMinville, Oregon. Billy also trains Brazilian Ju Jistu. Every student says Billy asks questions that instantly fundamentally shifts how they see the world. No one knows how he does it, as he looks like a typical suburban hobbit father. Every tracker recognizes no one can touch Billy for sheer tracking awareness. At TrackersTEAMS: Mission Alpha, Billy will be a mentor of: Stealth and Evasion, Ju Jistu, Tracking, Wilderness Survival, Personal Care
David Jacobson grew up tearing through the logging back roads of Yamhill county. With his friend Chris he barely kept his yellow VW bug running. Together as teens they single handedly protected their favorite natural areas from illegal partygoers. Sneaking into dangerous illegal (we don't recommend this) camps invisibly and creating legends of haunted woods and bogeymen in Yamhill County. David still hunts and gathers while teaching environmental education and performing survey and assessment for wildlife corridors through the ancient art and science of animal tracking. At TrackersTEAMS: Mission Alpha, David will be a mentor of: Tracking, Wilderness Survival, Stealth and Evasion and Camp Coordination
Ernie Wisner worked on the deck of an aircraft carrier in the first Gulf War (one of the most hazardous jobs in the military). He has been on boats and ships before and ever since. As our only giant crazy redheaded norwegian sailor Ernie has a huge responsibility. A year and a half ago a car hit ernie while he was working on a natural building intersection project. Now his permanent limp and crutches, along with his gruff and stern demeanor, make him even more like a pirate. At nearly 40 years old we are no longer shocked to learn that he has done practically everything including professional ballet, wilderness survival, natural building, regular and green building, being a licensed sea captain, blacksmithing, living in every port of call and helping code high level security software. We are not actually sure what else. A gentle giant at heart, with "hands the size of dinner plates" Ernie has quickly become the wise mentor that every kid loves and appreciates. At TrackersTEAMS: Mission Alpha, Ernie will be a mentor of Common Sense Skills, Camp Coordination, Blacksmithing, Tender of Ernie's Bar (where we serve Kombucha), Military Strategy and Staged Bar Fights
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| Arriving National & International Participants Its easy to fly into Portland's airport and get a ride out to your workshop. We pick up and host up to two nights before. Fees $75 for each non-workshop night: meals and safe lodging included. Contact Us to make your travel arrangements. | |
