The Joy of Play: Learning to Sling by the River
Yesterday, we traveled to Gothic, Colorado, and spent the day playing and resting peacefully near the East river.
The valley past Gothic is one of my favorite locations near Gunnison. Gothic is an old mining town that turned ghost town fairly quickly when the wire-silver discovery went bust.
Now, it's home to the Rocky Mountain Biological Lab, where they teach students about the environment in this pristine location.
My step-father and I found a beautiful spot by the river and spent the day there, and I discovered the joy of the sling.
My step-father brought his sling and gave it to me to try. I spent about an hour figuring out how to throw it and had so much fun picking up rocks and trying to hit a target that we would pick out.
Surprisingly, I picked up the technique pretty quickly.
I realized I haven't just had pure fun learning something new in such an immediate way outside of picking up new jewelry techniques in a long time.
One of my favorite book series is The Clan of the Cave Bear. Ayla, the main character, is a Paleolithic woman who learns to hunt with a sling.
I had a ball experiencing firsthand how the book describes her learning how to throw a sling, hit the target and rejoice in seeing immediate feedback from her intention.
I was in sync with this beautiful environment and play was an essential part of the equation.
I also occupied myself with walking the small river, looking at fish, panning for gold and watching some fly fishermen work the river.
Which brought up my love for fishing, and after watching them fly fish all day, I've decided to take a class when I get back home and learn how, too.
More fun on the horizon.
Play is so essential, isn't it? The river brought back an emotion of total abandonment to the present moment that was invigorating.
Now to balance out this idea of play, I also observed an overly cautious mother thwart her kids opportunities to play because of her incessant chirping be careful.
I watched her telling her kids exactly how to cross a part of the river that was only about 2 inches deep.
They were afraid of it, and didn't want to get their feet wet.
We had a pretty strong wind gust at one point shortly after and I watched her two boys complain about the wind and the dust it was kicking up.
They left the river and ran back to the car where they were parked. They were probably 7 or 8.
This made me sad.
I remember playing without much, or any, supervision for long periods of time when I was a kid their age.
Play is the purest form of learning, and without it, or when it is supervised to such a degree, you end up with kids that become afraid of learning and the discoveries that can happen when you screw up.
What I witnessed profoundly affected me, and I promptly picked up more rocks and slung away.
Here's a cool video I found on slinging.
Random fact about me: When I was a kid, my dad bought me a compound bow. I was really good at shooting it at the hay bale target in our backyard.