Rough Housing

I have spent the last week surrounded by young children, lots of them.  That is not a situation that I have too much experience with.  It is interesting to see how much their parents have adapted to the constant chaos and noise, and it is even interesting to see how much I adapted to it in just a week's time.  Explosive crying isn't as jarring to me as it was a week ago, but I can't tune it out by any stretch of the imagination.

We were out on the trampoline yesterday, and after a couple hours of other types of general rough housing, they decided that they wanted to try to tackle or wrestle me to the ground.  There wasn't really a discussion about it, they just started.  Presumably, I wasn't their first "victim" to be waylaid this way.  And five on one, it was almost a fair fight.  Obviously my primary objective is not to injure any of them, but I have no intention of just surrendering either.  So we probably went for close to an hour, in an epic conflict.  Eventually the did get me to my knees once, but that knee landed on the one who was pulling on it, removing them from the battle.  Whenever there was a break in the conflict, where I had broken free, I would ask if they were finished, and they would surge onward.

Eventually they were pleading with me to give up.  As in for me to give up, and let them win.  To which I asked, "What would be the point of that?"  Basically it came down to their pride and wanting to win, on any terms, and maybe wanting to maintain a perfect record of defeating anyone they had invited into the domain of their trampoline.  As a guy who builds rope course elements that many people can't climb, I am not one who is concerned about ensuring that everyone wins, whether they earn it or not.  Things started on their terms, and it wasn't even that imbalanced.  It wasn't like I was C.K.Louis taking on hundreds of toddlers.  There were quite a few times that they nearly had me, and that is probably what kept them at it for so long, because they knew they were so close.

So obviously I am a stubborn guy as well, and not interested in losing, but I don't feel too bad about that.  I am preparing to teach a workshop next week on pushing people farther, and that doesn't happen by rolling over for them.  I think that our culture does far too little pushing, and far too much caving.  We make things way too easy, always catering to the lowest common denominator.  And a little rough housing is probably good for people too, as long as it doesn't get taken too far.