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Copyright 2002 Team Building in the Wilderness
Drumming It is, without a doubt, possible to do things in the wilderness that one could not do – even with the same people – in some other setting, such as an office or boardroom. There is something sufficiently primal about being in the deep wilderness that lets people behave in ways about which, in other contexts, they might feel – well, foolish. Take drumming, for example. People enjoy drumming; humans have probably been drumming for hundreds of thousands of years; people will – when they think no one is looking – drum on the steering wheels of their cars, on the desktops in their offices, and on their own bodies. But people will hesitate to drum in front of other people. Drumming in the wilderness can help to group create cohesion in several ways. First, as we discuss elsewhere as well, taking the risk of appearing foolish in front of others, without in fact being penalized, helps to build trust and confidence in the group. Second, drumming, just by itself, creates group interactions that serve as metaphors – implicit or explicit – for forms of team cohesiveness. There are two basic ways to drum in the wilderness, which we can call drum circle and trance drumming. In a drum circle everyone does something different, and, ideally, the different thing each person does creates a single perfect whole. Drumming in a drum circle can require intense concentration, to keep track of the fundamental beat, called the one, which can get buried in layers of sound. More important, it requires thoughtful consideration of just what the evolving rhythmic structure requires, at that moment, to be more complete; for example, a participant may perfect the rhythm with, say, a single shake of a rattle on the seventh of eight beats. The smallest of contributions may be just what is necessary to make the rhythm whole. Since the totality shifts as participants move in and out, or change their contribution, what is required from each participant changes from moment to moment. It is hardly necessary to belabor the metaphor. A successful drum circle is exhilarating, and participants easily internalize the lesson without prompting. In trance drumming, on the other hand, everyone does the same thing. The rhythm is repetitive, although it may be complex and is frequently rapid. For example, a typical trance drumming rhythm is the eight-beat sequence 1-2-3 1-2-3 1-2, where the boldface type indicates an emphasized beat. A more complex rhythm is the sixteen-beat sequence 1-2-3 1-2-3 1-2-3 1-2-3 1-2 1-2. The complexity and rapidity are important. It is not difficult – in fact, it is boring – for the whole group just to drum 1-2-3-4 over and over again in unison; when the rhythm is, say, 1-2-3 1-2-3 1-2, however, it can require concentration and effort to get everyone doing the same thing at the same time. Some group members will pick up the rhythm quickly, and some will require encouragement; yet even the most agile learner can lose the beat and have to stop drumming and listen carefully – perhaps even to one of the slower learners – to pick it up again. As with drum circles, to keep a trance rhythm going for ten or more minutes can be exhilarating; and, again, the metaphor need not be belabored. | |||||
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