I was going to meet up with some of the guys from the outdoor class and go with them to my first outdoor class. With a little anxiety and butterflies in the stomach I meet them and we walk to the I. building and meet up with Len. Here we were learned how to take care of our skies and our boots, and then we went out in the snow.

Out there he challenge our coordination, skills and competitive side with different games and relay… It was quite fun and after a while we went fooling around on a small hill. We tried to do the telemark on the cross country skies but it is quiet hard because the balance is very different on the cross country skies then on the modern telemark skiies.

After a while Len split us into groups and said “go out and

teach and explore”. I went with Sædis and I could very fast see that she had tried skiing before. Therefore I wanted to challenge her a bit. Therefore we went up the hill and on the way up there I was focused on by doing it myself getting her to practice the techniques that Len had showed us earlier. Up and up we went with the vaffel technique, the sidewalk technique and then the zic zac technique all the way to the top. From there we went a little in the woods and luckily for me it was not that steep, so I knew that Sædis were fine going down or i figured. Which resulted in that I asked her which way she thought we should go, and we described it together. When we went down the small hill, and went around a small circle. At one point we came to a point where it went down hill and with a small turn, I told her the technique of how to turn with the skies and she was all in for going down. I went first and she followed and we had so much fun. If I should see this in a situation of group communication, I would say that my role here were the Sædis were the Resource Invesitgator because she had so much energy and ent

husiasm for just going with it and myself the shaper because I just went with it and saw the situation as it was, a challenge for both of us. So We went down the big hill again in zic zac and when we got down we meet up in a big group and talked for a little while and Len showed us different techniques (Group Communication, slide: 3-10)

This was where I saw Jill being frustrated with herself and there were actually people around her trying to help her. I don’t know, but I kind of felt within myself that I understood the feeling that she had. I went over and asked how she was and right away she cut me off with a “I’m fine, I’m just very competitive and that’s why” and I h

ad to say to her, «yeah I can see that you are fine, you hadn’t broken any legs or arm and you are standing up, but how are you really feeling?» I was asking about how she was feeling about the situation and after talking a little bit we went anyway from the big group. Here we just focused on her and I focus on giving her a good experience (Group Communication, slide:14).

At this point I came to think of a situation that I had been very frustrated with my own performance, which was at the sports academy in a climbing situation there I got so frustrated and it made me so mad because I wasn’t able to do it myself, but he asked me: «why do you need to do it alone, there are so many people around you that want to help you, so let them help you». Afterwards he pushed me in different directions, from one extream to another and I was inspired from this way of getting me through it, to help Jill. I believe that you can make a connection to the new definition of cohesion: «a dynamic prosess in a group which is reflected in the tendency to stay together and work together in an effort to acheive/realise the set goals or aims and / or satisfy the members social and emotional needs” (Group Cohesion, slide:8). Because it was in this situation with Jill where I new that the common goal of the day for the hole group was that everybody had to have a good experience on the skiis.

But first I need to her to stop thinking negative about the situation so I felt that I had to be very instructive in my way of telling her what to do, and I pushed her like the friend of mine had pushed me, though with that in mind that maybe it was not going to work because people are different and learn different, but I didn’t knew what else to do (Group communication, slide: 8-10).

So I explained what I wanted her to do and then she did it herself. She got out of the negative mindset, because she understood where to ex. put her weight on the skiis. After that I took her to a very small hill, as Len had advice me to do, and I show her the all the basic techniques again, like how to get up and so on. She took her time and did all the basic techniques. The second time she went up I asked her just before she went down the small hill for the second time «Don’t think too much”… And she just did, she didn’t fall!! And she was like “one more time”, smiling all over her face..

I felt within myself that I was very surprised that the stuff that I asked of her and that it actually worked, and she reached the goal of the day, to just have fun and just do it.

– It became a win win situation !!