Transcription of Pushing Limits #128
Dr. Lisa: This is Doctor Lisa Belisle and you are listening to the Doctor Lisa radio hour and podcast, show number 128 Pushing Limits airing for the first time on Sunday February 23, 2014. Today’s guest include Shelley Koenig, ultra distance obstacle racer and Eric Denny, executive director of the Hurricane Island Outward Bound School.
We can never be entirely sure where our limits may be. As we live our lives we develop a comfort zone within which we tend to stay. When given the opportunity to move out of the stone, we realize that limitations we may have thought existed are not real. Today’s guests regularly work outside of perceived limitations; ultra distance obstacle racer Shelley Koenig pushes herself to engage in physical feats that most of us would never attempt. Eric Denny helps individuals push past their limits through the Hurricane Island Outward Bound School. We hope that their stories will inspire you to reconsider what your limits may be, and perhaps seek to push past them and discover what might be found. Thank you for joining us.
We know that making change can be challenging and often requires us to push beyond limits that perhaps we’ve constructed for ourselves or maybe we feel have been constructed around us. Today we’re going to speak with Shelley Koenig who is a competitive endurance obstacle and adventure racer, mother of two, and high school chemistry teacher at Carrabassett Valley Academy. Shelley is someone who knows that it is like to push beyond limits. Thanks for coming in and speaking with us today.
Shelley Koenig: Thank you for having me.
Dr. Lisa: Shelley I’d like to start with reading from an article in the Sugarloaf issue that was written about you, which is called ‘Whole Beyond the Breaking Point’ and this was written by Sophie Nelson. “After days of little to no sleep and coldness and wetness and dozens of miles and obstacles for the sake of obstacles, Shelley Koenig, high-school chemistry teacher and mother of two, was presented with a 60-pound backpack and told to hike eight miles up a mountain and back. Saturated with exhaustion, with her heart at her feet and her gut in her mouth, Koenig somehow managed to get the backpack on, and, buckling under the weight of it, walk toward the trailhead. Then she fell on the weighted pack like a beetle on its back. Next there were tears and overwhelming doubt, and finally one faithful stranger and some deep-seated strength that brought her up and down and through the rest of the course. Koenig never gave up in the Spartan Summer Death Race, which, in the world of obstacle and adventure racing means a win, and admission into an elite group of crazy brave individuals who know themselves in ways most of us never will. Or so she tells me, and so I’m inclined to believe.” Why does one take part in something called, The Spartan Summer Death Race?
Shelley Koenig: That’s a great question. I think, truthfully, from all the people that I’ve talked to that do Death Race, I think there’s a lot of different reasons why people show up on the starting line. I think we all have our own stories. For me, my own story I think really just came down to the fact that after having two kids and moving away from my former life as an athlete, and my former life with my own … living for myself I guess, and having spent the last nine years as mommy. I guess I wondered if I could do it. It’s a race that very few people finish, they usually have about a 10 to 15% finisher rate. Generally speaking, most of the people that show up to start are already well-prepared. There’s a lot of military, big military presence, a lot of endurance athletes. I guess I felt if I was going to try to do something challenging I might as well shoot for the top. That’s what I, what motivated me to get into it. Probably different than the reasons I’m still doing it now. Going the first time you do for one reason, going back a second time you have very different set of reasons. For me I think it was just I’m pushing 40 and I wanted to see if I still has that in me or not.
Dr. Lisa: What type of an athlete were you previously?
Shelley Koenig: Not a super athlete. High school and college I was competitive in both running and alpine skiing. After college I moved away from competitive athletics. I think I was tired of the pressure I put on myself all those years to compete. I moved into a lot more outdoor oriented activities that were much less competitive; distance backpacking, things of that nature. It was a good, probably a good 10 year lull between competitions, when I decided that I wanted to see what was in me to see what was still possible.
Dr. Lisa: You work with competitive athletes at the high school level even now. You’re a chemistry teacher and you’re teaching kids who are really hoping to go on and do things nationally and internationally with skiing. What’s that like for you?
Shelley Koenig: Well that’s part of the inspiration for me. I think as adults in the community at CVA it’s really important that we role model lifelong health, lifelong fitness. Fitness isn’t something that when you turn 18 and you’re college you abandon that and move to the next phase. Some of our kids do continue to compete through college or beyond, we certainly have some really successful elite athletes and Olympians, but for the majority of kids most of them go on to college and they go on to a desk job or a career. I hope that I can inspire kids to realize, hey even the teachers at CVA they value fitness, they value the holistic approach to living as opposed to focusing on one thing and putting all of your energy there and letting the rest of your life crumble around you. I think fitness is a really important thing that we should all, in some way, keep in our lives. I like to have kids be part of what I’m doing, which is very similar but different to what they do.
Dr. Lisa: What is it like to try to get high school kids interested in chemistry if they’re simultaneously very, very interested in skiing?
Shelley Koenig: Well I have found over the years that once I can connect with kids, at whatever level it might be, and sometimes it is on an athletic level. Once I can connect with them and they realize that we have something in common and we value athletics, sometimes that in itself, is something that allows me to be able to bring them into chemistry and carry that through. Sometimes that’s a bit of the connector.
A lot of our kids are also, they’re high-achieving kids, and so many of them are already quite motivated. Once they find something that they’re interested in it’s not all that that hard to keep them engaged in chemistry or, I teach earth science and physical science as well, in science in general most of our kids are pretty excited about it so they make it easy for me.
Dr. Lisa: You have two small children, smallish I guess.
Shelley Koenig: Seven and nine now.
Dr. Lisa: Seven and Nine, and you’ve always, well you’ve known children who are slightly older and you’ve known yourself and your own competitive mind. What is like to be a mother and be thinking about, “Okay, are my kids going to grow up as skiers? Are my kids going to grow up as runners.”? How does that work for you?
Shelley Koenig: I don’t want to make those decisions for my kids as to what their passions will be. I think that once they find something they’re passionate about it’s a lot easier for them to carry that through. I do think that if they learn to be active as kids, I think that becomes part of their lifestyle. It doesn’t become something where they have to get up and say, “Okay, how am I going to work out today?” They’re kids they do think about that. You either provide them the opportunity to get out, get fresh air, be active, and enjoy that or they don’t learn that as a kids and then they have to learn it forcedly then they’re adults. I think my husband and I both agree that there’s no particular sport that we push on them, nor do we have any expectations of them for results or as competitors. Our family is active, we move, we go, and they’re part of that.
It’s funny how they see you role model something and they want to do it. My kids have been watching this whole obstacle racing thing unfold over the last couple years, and in the last 12 months they’ve, they want to do it. They set up their own little miniature obstacle course in the woods with limited success, some of their challenges, they don’t always work the way they had them planned. They’ve done two Spartan Race with me, they do, they have a kids race. They’ve done that. I did one this past weekend and they really wanted to come, but we couldn’t logistically make that work. They both love skiing, so they both, they do a season long ski program up at Sugarloaf. They look forward to every weekend. I think just role modeling it they pick it up and they see the kids at CVA. My son Noah has already decided, at age nine, that he will come to CVA and he will do the outs programs, and there’s no discussion mom, I will be doing that. It’s pretty easy to make them love it, especially when you love it.
Dr. Lisa: Sugarloaf really is in your blood, you family has had a house up there. Do you … you call yourself a ‘Sugarloafer’ since 1973.
Shelley Koenig: Right.
Dr. Lisa: Technically I think.
Shelley Koenig: I didn’t start skiing then so I don’t know if that counts.
Dr. Lisa: Right, right, right, but still your family was already there. Does that influence your love of Sugarloaf, your love of skiing, and the person that you are now?
Shelley Koenig: Oh, no doubt, absolutely. Anybody who has been up to Sugarloaf knows how just magical it is. As a kid we were up there every weekend, season long programs from age five on. In the summers we would come up sometimes just to get away. I grew up in Auburn and so it was very close by. My parents had a camp that we could come up to fall, spring, summer, but really in the winter we were up there a lot. I moved away, I moved as far West as Idaho and was convinced I was destined for the West Coast. There’s something really magical about, when a job opportunity popped up, it was actually random the way it all worked. I thought I have chance to live up at Sugarloaf and work at CVA. From that point on there was no decision to be made because it’s just, it was a very strong pull for me to come back. Never looked back.
Dr. Lisa: Was your husband able to find a job up in that area as well?
Shelley Koenig: When we came up, we came up knowing that if we couldn’t both find jobs it wasn’t going to work for us. We came up and we both, we applied as a couple and both started at CVA the same year. Yeah, we did it together.
Dr. Lisa: That’s unusual, sometimes the reason that people can’t move back to Maine is that one or the other in a couple isn’t able to find a job, so that’s pretty fortunate.
Shelley Koenig: Yes, unbelievably. Yeah, I had a lot of friends that live in cities, have amazing jobs, and every time I see them they say to me, “I got to make a change. I want to come back to Maine, I love Maine.” They just can’t find a way to make it work, so I do feel really lucky, and I do realize that opportunity. At the time I didn’t realize what an amazing opportunity it was, but I’m glad I jumped on it, because I look back now and realize how hard it would be. We were in DC the year that we made the jump, and I have some friends that are still there, and they still say, “Gosh, I just I don’t love living in the suburbs here, it’s not for me. My blood is in Maine.” They just, they love their jobs, they’re passionate about what they do and they can’t find that opportunity here. Hopefully, Maine seems to be growing, and hopefully those opportunities, if people look hard enough or make their own opportunities they can do it.
Dr. Lisa: What’s it like to work with your husband?
Shelley Koenig: I don’t know any other way, to be honest with you. We met when I was in graduate school, we were in the same program. We did that one year in DC where we did work at separate schools, we never saw each other at all. Then ever since that one year we’ve both been at CVA, I think it’s been 13 years. I don’t really know what it would be like to not work with him. It’s great. I think for some people that have never worked with their spouse and then all of a sudden they have to find a way to work together professionally, it may be challenging. If you have your own space cut out and someone feels like they’re invading that, but no, Dave and I are both in the same department. Our math and science department is four people and we’re two of the four. We, I think we work pretty well together.
Sometimes the kids will have double Koenig math and science blocks, I’m not sure if the kids would agree with that. They go directly from his class to mine, but they think that we conspire over dinner when we’re going to have tests and quizzes.
Dr. Lisa: Maybe you do.
Shelley Koenig: I’ll leave it like this, maybe we do.
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Tom Shepard: I’m a lacrosse player still. It’s something I’ve been doing for more years than I can remember. Over the years I’ve had my share of aches and pains, scrapes and disappointments. Regardless of what happened in the last game, I always look forward to the next one, because each time I gear and step onto the playing field I know I’m there to push myself to new limits. To ignore the perceived limits of my 40 plus years and attack the game with the same gusto and joy as I did when I was younger. Each time I do this I feel a great sense of accomplishment; not because of the score or who won or lost, but because I challenged myself. I push forward knowing that in those fleeting moments of game time I’m growing and experiencing life to the fullest; limits be damned. If you want to push on in your financial evolution give me a call, 207-847-4032. I’ll help you evolve with your money.
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Dr. Lisa: It sounds like, even though what you’re doing is physical, the bigger part for you is the mental emotional piece.
Shelley Koenig: Yeah, there’s really two different types of events. I go to some of the shorter distance events. This weekend I went to a Spartan Race in Fenway Park. It was three miles long, running up and down stadium stairs, carrying sandbags and more of a plyometric crossfit thing. For that, absolutely not, I go to that because it is fun. It’s fun to throw yourself over walls and climb up a rope as fast as you can and run up and down through Fenway Park; there’s no question. The loner more grueling events, I reserve just a couple a year. That’s not something I can bang out once a month. I have some friends that do. I have a friend that just did five consecutive Iron Men triathlons all in one, I think he did it in 90 hours maybe, I could actually look that up. Actually I had two friends that completed that event. There’s some people that need to do that more frequently than I do.
For me a couple times a year for that emotional piece. Interestingly you wouldn’t think this, but in those really long events another piece of it is the comradery that you experience with other people that are out there. Some of friends are dealing with cancer, some of my friends are dealing with loss of children, some of my friends have these amazing stories of things they’ve been wrestling with and that’s why they’re out there doing it. Those things come out in those hours that you spend together, 70 hours with somebody in a death race is like spending a mini lifetime with them. The comradery and support that I get from that community of people who do these events is a very important part of my life.
Dr. Lisa: You’re also a Tough Mudder, from what I understand.
Shelley Koenig: Yup.
Dr. Lisa: Tell me about that.
Shelley Koenig: The Tough Mudder, we did a couple of those. That was what started all of this madness, couple years ago, my friend Lanny who is my ultimate partner in crime. We train together all the time, she can’t always go to the events that I go to because she has a summertime, she’s a canoe guide. Her business in the summertime is very consuming and that’s when I can do a lot of my events because I’m a teacher and that’s when I’m off. Lanny and I did our first Tough Mudder together two and a half years ago. We honestly laughed the entire time. To think of what that takes out of you to giggle for four hours straight, honestly I think what hurt most after the event was my stomach from laughing. We’d go through these horrible mud pits and stained color dyed obstacles and I’d look over at her and I’d say, “You look terrible.” She’d look back at me, “What do you think you look great?” We just, just laughing at ourselves. It was just so much fun to break free of whatever we’re expected to do on a daily basis and just be kids, 40 year old kids playing in the mud.
After that event, that was what inspired us. We thought well if we can do one, why don’t we do 24 hours of Tough Mudder. We signed up for the 24-hour World Mudder, which, actually that event this year just happened this past weekend. Two years ago we were involved in that. That was the first endurance event that I ever signed up for. We didn’t really make it the whole time, so I can’t really say that I did 24-hours. We were there for 24-hours, but we succumbed to cold. We were not prepared for how cold it was. It was in New Jersey on December 18th, and we’re breaking through the ice with our hands trying to get on the obstacles with just a two-three millimeter wet suit was all both of us had and wasn’t nearly enough.
Yes, we’ve done those, that was the gateway, Tough Mudder was a gateway. I would do more, I would go back, they’re really fun. I’m not hugely keen on the shocking part. Sometimes you get it and sometimes you don’t, but when you get it, it hurts. That’s one of the reasons why I don’t do a lot of those events. I like the Spartan events now just because number one I don’t get shocked, but number two they’re more physical challenges as opposed to mental challenges. Hocking yourself in a bucket of ice water, to me, is a mental challenge. I think that whether I’m fit or not fit all I have to do is get the courage to just dump myself in it and I’m there. Whereas the Spartan obstacles you fail them or you succeed them based on where you strong enough to make it, could pull yourself up and over something, or are you taking a penalty because you couldn’t.
Dr. Lisa: I want to back up and ask about the shocking thing. You mean an actual electric shock is applied to you?
Shelley Koenig: Yeah, they have these little wires that hang down. There’s actually a couple of obstacles now that have them, but these little wires, there’s little tentacles that hang down. They’re so close together you can’t avoid them, you will hit them. Some of them have 10,000 volts in them. Now I don’t really know in terms of amps what that is and how that translates, but I can tell you that when you hit the big shockers it will drop you to the ground. You just, you lose muscle control and you’re on the ground. If that same one is still hanging above you, if you haven’t thrown yourself forward, then when you try to get up it’s going to get you again in the back. I’ve seen people multiple times they try to get up, but right back down.
One time Lanny and I were running together and we thought it would be a good idea to hold hands and support each other while we tan through. I hit one of the big guys and I felt it but it wasn’t terrible painful, but I felt it pass through my body and it passed into her body and knocked her down, took her out. The next thing I knew I was on the other end of the obstacle and Lanny was still laying in a pit of little electric volts hanging over her with a broken finger it turns out. I, that part for me, makes it, that’s mentally hard for me to keep going back over and over again for that. The Tough Mudders, they usually have a couple of those challenged per lap. I’d do it again, but not once a month.
Dr. Lisa: Now please don’t take me judgmental, because I embrace whatever this is that … there’s so much about what you’re describing that sounds really great and really positive, but that piece seems so extreme. The fact that this thing is out there and people are doing it more and more. What does that say do you think?
Shelley Koenig: I don’t know, but I can tell you that at a Tough Mudder event anybody who goes into it knows about the shocks. I would say the typical Tough Mudder even that I’ve been to, over the course of two days, it probably draws 14 or 15,000 people.
Dr. Lisa: I don’t know, let’s just venture a guess as to why we like this thing or why some of us feel this is a good idea.
Shelley Koenig: I don’t know if I have a really good answer for that question. I think that there definitely is a piece of appeal of just doing something because you can, because it’s a little crazy and people I think are tired of being safe. I think people are tired of sitting at their desks all day long, not feeling like they’ve done anything dangerous or unsafe. It’s unsafe to an extent, it’s not like driving your car 150 miles an hour down the interstate where you’re really going to … the worst case you’re going to fall face first in the mud, probably have your … there’s a certain amount of dignity that lost when you go face first in the mud. Apart from bruised dignity and maybe a broken finger, really unlucky people I guess something, but you can break your leg, twist an ankle jogging through a part too. When you look at 15,000 people, if I took 15,000 people who went on a Sunday jog through a park, one or two of them might break a leg if they feel in a hole or something. The injury rate really isn’t as high as you would think. I think it is a little bit about that safe but not safe zone that people like to be in.
The Tough Mudders are a lot more popular than the real extreme endurance events, Death Race or the Fuego Y Agua Survival Run. Those races will only have anywhere between 50 and 300 competitors maximum. Those Tough Mudder, there’s a lot of people that are seeking a little bit, a little taste of it. I’m not alone.
Dr. Lisa: Again, I want to go back to this notion that there’s no judgment implied, please. I just, I think sometimes, I just, I don’t know. It’s very interesting just from a cultural standpoint where we’ve come from. You’re right, I think that maybe we’ve come from a place where things were less safe and people didn’t need to seek unsafe things, and now we are in a relatively safe life, or at least we like to believe that we are. Maybe we feel like reaching out for something that isn’t quite as safe.
Shelley Koenig: Isn’t quite as sterile.
Dr. Lisa: Sterile, maybe that’s the word, yeah. The other thing I want to go back to too is there are people who are listening to our conversation don’t have to think to themselves, “Well I don’t ever want to run a Tough Mudder Race or I don’t want do a Spartan Death Race. I don’t want to do all these extreme things, but I do want to push myself somehow.”
Shelley Koenig: Right.
Dr. Lisa: What are some things that you could suggest to people who are, who’ve been listening and really want to start pushing themselves a little bit, but there edge isn’t quite as far out as yours?
Shelley Koenig: Absolutely, I think the number one things that I would say to people that are looking to get out of their comfort zone, number one is to find, it’s always so abstract to say, “Set a goal.” We all know what setting goals is important, but it’s so hard to say, “Well I want to be fitter. I want to be stronger.” Well, how do you measure that, or how is that attained? I think the most successful people find an event of something that they’re interested in. It doesn’t have to be a marathon, it doesn’t have to be of any distance, but all it has to be is a commitment to yourself that you’re going to prepare for a particular event in time; it has a date, it has a time, and it has a certain set of expectations. Okay, it’s a 5K run that I’m going to do, so I need to be able to run 5K and I have three months to prepare myself for that. I think that first step is the hardest one for people to take. They sit in the stage of, I really want to do this, but I don’t know how for so long that they just become overwhelmed.
I was just, I was chatting with somebody earlier today who said, “I do into the gym and I’m overwhelmed. I want to just do everything. I see all the classes and I see all of the equipment, I want to do it all. I go in and I spend two hours in the gym and I burn myself out and then I don’t go back for a month, because it just, I don’t have the energy to do that every day.” That’s not the way to start. The way to start is to pick something that’s fun. Pick something with friends that will hold you accountable. Then if it’s a 5K race that you picked, start by walking, start by going out and say, “Okay, I’m going to walk a mile everyday this week.” Then next week maybe you’re going to go a little longer or maybe you’ll pick it up to a jog. Every week say, “Okay, well what did I do last week?” Just grab it up one more step.
I have to say that one of the things I love about the Spartan Races is they have all different distances. They have their Death Race and they have their Ultra Beast, which is a marathon distance, which those two events probably aren’t for everybody. Their main events are a Beast, which is about 13 miles, a Super, which is about eight, and a Sprint which generally is about three, three to five. What I love about getting people excited about those events, is it’s not just running. People who say, I have shin splints and running is just miserable. I go out, and I just, it’s not fun, I don’t enjoy it. These events it’s your run for five minutes at a time and then you have to stop and do a balance obstacle. It changes your focus and it’s like a giant playground.
To train for it you don’t just run, you go in and you, you don’t even need to go to a gym. You just work on things like body weight exercises, try a few push-ups, try a few air squats; different ways of strengthening your body that are a little bit more dynamic and fun then just going out to run. I personally, I am a runner, so I love just to go out and run when I have the chance to just run. For me that’s where I find, I have my little Zen workouts. Those I love, but I understand that’s not for everybody, but it doesn’t mean that fitness can’t be for everybody. You just find something you love. If you love to swim, find some event that involves swimming next summer and then make baby steps of goals of improving yourself to the best of your ability up to that event. Then when that event is over, for most people it’s really easy to sign up for their second, it’s really easy to say, “Okay, I’m going to look six months out and pick another because that was awesome and I want to have that feeling again.” Usually after you get one done, most people don’t have difficulty motivating to do another one.
Dr. Lisa: Shelley, we appreciate you coming in and talking to us today about pushing limits. We’ve been speaking with Shelley Koenig, a competitive endurance obstacle and adventure racer, mother of two, and high school chemistry teacher at Carrabassett Valley Academy. You can read more about Shelley in the 2000, December 2013 Sugarloaf issue of Maine Magazine. Thanks for all the work you’re doing to inspire the kids of, the Carrabassett Valley Academy. Thanks for coming in and inspiring us today.
Shelley Koenig: Thank you for having me, it was fun.
Dr. Lisa: As a physician and small business owner I rely on Marci Booth from Booth, Maine, to help me with my own business and to help me live my own life fully. Here are a few thoughts from Marci.
Marci Booth: Sometimes I get scared, while it’s difficult to admit to anyone, much less myself. There are times when what lies before me stops me in my tracks and makes me feel that I can’t go on. That’s when I know I have to dig deep, take a deep breath, step outside my comfort zone and move ahead. Each time I do that I grow and learn something new about myself and what it means to not be daunted by fear of the unknown. I talk of this often with my clients, by helping them understand that while some decisions can be scary and make you feel uncomfortable, none should frighten you into an action. That only limits progress, and they should be seen as growth opportunities. A mantra we use at our offices at Booth is, power through. If something is holding you back today, my advice to you is power through. I’m Marci Booth, let’s talk about the changes you need, boothmaine.com.
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Dr. Lisa: I’ve done quite a bit of traveling around the state of Maine and I’ve seen the turnoffs for various intriguing places, twice I’ve seen turnoffs for the Hurricane Island Outward Bound School. One up near Sunday River and one right off the coast of Maine. It always makes me think, “What are they doing down there and why is that I keep being so intrigued?” Today we have Eric Denny who is the executive director of The Hurricane Island Outward Bound School in to talk to me and us and all the people, all of you who are listening, about the Outward Bound School and the intriguing things that are going on there. Thanks for coming in.
Eric Denny: Thanks for having me.
Dr. Lisa: Eric, you’re not originally a Mainer, but you’ve had Maine experiences all your life and these have contributed to your doing what you’re doing now.
Eric Denny: Absolutely, yeah, I’m not Mainer in the classic, clinical definition of being a Mainer which is probably generations and generations of Denny’s, but I was island kid on Swan’s Island from the time I was born. It’s been my anchor point. We moved around a lot when I was a kid, but every summer we’d get up to Swan’s Island and that’s where home was for me.
Dr. Lisa: Swan’s Island is a special place. I’ve only been by it on the ferry, I’ve been out to Frenchboro and there’s something really interesting about that island.
Eric Denny: There is, as you know there’s not a whole lot of commercial activity as far as tourism goes. It’s really a fisherman’s island. There’s one teeny weenie general store and it really pulls the community together, both the folks who are living there year round as well as the islanders. There’s not that summer resident islander type of dynamic that you find on some of the other islands.
Dr. Lisa: Why did your family end up there?
Eric Denny: Because it was quiet, and because my father, who was a Unitarian minister, felt it was a soulful place. To this day, that resonates with me still and my kids now are going up there. It’s great, I have kids in elementary school and they write about different experience that they had in their life, and many times their touch point on what is most special is there time at Swan’s Island. Not just with the island environment, but with the family and the community, which is wonderful.
Dr. Lisa: We’ve had Phillip Conkling from the Island Institute or formerly of the Island Institute, on twice to talk about islands and the ocean and Maine and the specialness of it and how it really impacts people deeply. This is something that Hurricane Island and Outward Bound understands. This is one of your things. How did this originally come to be?
Eric Denny: The founder of the Hurricane Island Outward Bound School was an educator at Andover, his name was Peter Willauer. He was a lifelong sailor and has had a place on Prouts. He was touched at one point in his educational career with a fellow by the name of Josh Minor. Josh Minor was the individual who brought Outward Bound over to the US back in the early 60’s. Peter fell in love with the educational outcomes, the pedagogy of adventure and being a sailor and Outward Bound at that point, being a very bland and mountain based program here in this country. Peter thought there was no better way to educate for character and for tenacity and for resilience and grit and service and community than being on boat. That was his touch point in terms of expedition medium.
He sailed around the coast of Maine in 1962, 1963 and it was recommended to him that he see this island 12 miles off the coast of Rockland, this bold island called Hurricane that used to have a vibrant quarrying community on it. When he got there it was overgrown, it was the great Bruce jungle, but it had this fantastic quarry face where a school could do rock climbing. It had a great anchorage for boats. That was the spot, it took my about 10 seconds to realize that his was a magical place.
In 1964, the first students came to the Hurricane Island Outward Bound School and actually started building up the buildings and the infrastructure, then heading out on expeditions to learn, not for the sea but through the sea, things about community and service and leadership.
Dr. Lisa: This was another thing that I was struck by when reading one of Phillip Conkling books, which was this, that quarrying was such a big deal off the coast of Maine. The nice thing about having these big sheets of rock and the boats nears by, is that you could transport them. It’s just another example of something that we come across interviewing people on the show all the time, which is that Mainers use their resources. Maybe it’s not a quarrying community anymore on Hurricane Island, but now it’s a different community and people who are using the rock in a different way.
Eric Denny: Absolutely, and that’s I think the magic of islands. Yes, we run land based programs out of the Mahoosuc Mountains and up in Greenville and there’s wonderful opportunity for paddling and hiking, but there’s something about islands. The fact that you need to have a sustainable community, you need to use the resources that you got in place, because that’s really all you have. You need to use the human resources and the community to be supportive because if something happens out there it’s just you. That’s a big metaphor for what Outward Bounds stands for.
Dr. Lisa: Not only is it a metaphor, but it’s also how you began your original, the founder of Outward Bound was a German Jewish man who fled Germany. At the time that the Nazi’s were taking over, and really needed to show people how to operate in a resilient self, I don’t know, self-caring type of way.
Eric Denny: Well his educational philosophy came to be when he saw in between the period of World War One and World War Two, the youth in Germany were becoming, as he put it, complacent. They were relying more on technology. Now think about that, and think about where our kids are today. He felt they were losing those pieces of education which were so critical to become an adult in the community, things like spirituality. Not in the sense of religion necessarily, but just in the sense of wonder. The character and the strength and the resilience was not there. His educational philosophy going down to a worm engine room, they were up in the rigging, dousing the sails, striking the sails. They grew up and trained in an environment that was harsh, challenging, and they knew that they could overcome those situations.
The first Outward Bounds School was based off the coast of Wales and small boats to give these young British sailors that experience, that life experience, that they could then draw on when the odds were against them.
Dr. Lisa: The goal of the Doctor Lisa radio hour is to help make connections between the health of the individual and the health of the community. The goal of Ted Carter Inspired Landscapes is to deepen our appreciation for the natural world. Here to speak with us today is Ted Carter.
Ted Carter: I think that one of the things that I have noticed, time and time again with spaces and places that I’ve created over the years, especially my meditation room in particular. That was a space created, I just drew a box out in front of my house one day with spray can and I told them to get the backhoe and dig a foundation and let’s get this meditation room built. That was in 2005, since then I’ve had amazing experience in that room, and those … that journeys within that room have been astounding. Whenever I go back in that space, that is so powerful and so wonderful, I think spirit definitely welcomes me, I feel it surrounding me. It’s important to realize that we too can create these amazing spaces that welcome us. In a book entitled, ‘Plants, Spirit, Medicine’ by Eliot Cowan. I’m going to read you one little passage it says, “I think it is quite ethical to use the abandon power places with travel people. In fact, the spirits of such places are often lonely for human attention. Since they achieve their own greatness by conferring greatness upon their devotees. Remember this, and remember the power places in your landscape.” I’m Ted Carter and if you’d like to contact me I can be reached at tedcarterdesign.com.
Dr. Lisa: The Doctor Lisa radio hour and podcast understands the importance of the health of the body, mind, and spirit. Here to talk about the health of the body is Travis Beaulieu’s of Premier Sports a division of Black Bear Medical.
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Dr. Lisa: We see more and more experiential learning programs out in the United States and around the world, but it seems that there’s something that continues to be very core with what you’re offering. Also, again it probably has to do with this ability to let people take risks. Some other programs they will see that something bad happened when a participant takes a risk so they pull back and then they don’t push them as far, they don’t push the participant as far. What you’re finding is that if you’re consistent about what you offer, educationally, and you’re consistent about your desire to have people go out on a solo; that taking a risk is not as risky as it might seem.
Eric Denny: You’re right. I think one of the big misperceptions sometimes of Outward Bound is that we’re a guide service. That your instructors are there to shepherd people through their experience in the wilderness, when in fact, we’re a school. In schools, the best schools that I’ve been a part of, and the best educators that I know guide and facilitate and allow mistakes to happen and eventually get their students to point where they are taking self-control over their education. That’s what we do in a wilderness environment in Outward Bound. Our instructional staff, who for 50 years have been setting the bar for the industry, the experiential wilderness industry, intentionally let the students make mistakes. In a way that allow, that exposes them to risk but not physical risk. Risk of failure, risk of concern that they’re not doing well, and then they bring it back; allow that point of reflection, allow for that growth to happen after mistakes are made, and then push them again into the, in the same direction of taking ownership.
Our courses are structured where our students … we go through three major phases of any one of our expeditions. We have a training phase, where our instructors are with the students all the time, teaching them the skills; both the wilderness skills as well as the group management and self-reflection skills. Then we break into a middle phase, we call it the Maine expedition, which the instructors take a step back. They’re still there, and they’re still coaching and guiding, but they’re allowing the students more freedom and flexibility to make their own decisions, their own successes and their own mistakes.
The final phase of every Outward Bound course is final expedition, where the instructors have intentionally pulled themselves out of the group. Not necessarily physically, we’re there from a risk, a physical risk standpoint, but the group is completely self-sufficient. They’re on their own both as individuals and also as a team. It’s in that final expedition phase where you see the galvanizing of that group. It’s where you see the highest highs and the lowest lows because they’re owning it, they’re owning it all. Many organizations that take people out into the wilderness don’t intentionally let that process happen, of letting go and letting that self-ownership take place.
Dr. Lisa: The solo aspect of the expedition is also very important, from what you’ve said. What I find really appealing is that somehow doing the solo piece is very, akin, to what was done once with Native American youths and the pushing them out into the wilderness to learn to be self-sufficient but also see how their souls could reconnect with something bigger.
Eric Denny: Yeah. It’s funny because there are a variety of different stories on how the first solo and Outward Bound came about. Some saw it was intentionally put in to mimic the vision quest of the Native American. There’s also another side of the story that says that an expedition, a group of folks on an Outward Bound course, were suppose to meet up with a resupply of food and fuel and the resupply truck was a couple of days late. The instructors didn’t know what to do with their students so they invented this called solo and stuck them out by themselves for a couple of days. Either way, solo is an important part of every Outward Bound program.
From my experience in Outward Bound, it tends to be the most powerful thing too. It’s challenging. To be alone with yourself for two days, in the wilderness, with no cell phone, with no Ipad, with no book, and with minimal previsions. We have a saying it’s, if you’re bored think about the company that you keep, because so very rarely, and I can speak to this as an adult now. My solo experience when I was 16 years old on a Hurricane Island Outward Bound course off the coast of Maine, four days, three nights all by myself on a teeny weenie little island, as been the only time that I’ve had the experience of being alone with myself for that period of time. Even when I’m driving in my car and I do a lot of traveling now, I’ve got the radio on, I’ve got things going on; I’m not alone with myself. The solo is one of those unique experiences that we hold very dearly to from an educational value standpoint.
Dr. Lisa: It’s also something that has been traditionally a rite of passage or an initiation into something. Whether it’s the say your Native American group or another group. These rights of passage in the sense of needing initiation, is something I believe is lacking in today’s society. It’s interesting to see that these very big transitions that happen between young adulthood and older adulthood, somehow they’re not marked by anything and yet they’re enormous.
Eric Denny: They’re absolutely enormous. There are, you still see rites of passage in many religious areas, the Bar Mitzvah, the Bat Mitzvah, communion, things like that. There are some rites of passage but I do believe that as a society we’ve lost a lot of important ones.
Dr. Lisa: Well and that is true. I raised my children Catholic and they went through First Communion and all of the rights of passage all of the sacraments, but I don’t think as many people are engaging in traditional religion as they once did. I think sometimes there is this sense that there is something spiritual that people feel drawn to, but they don’t know what it is and there isn’t anything set up to help them experience it.
Eric Denny: The natural world used to be the place where rite of passage occurred. In our society, and many societies around the world, as we’ve withdrawn from the natural world. It’s not just American society, it’s happening all over the globe. As we retreated into cities and suburbs, we’ve lost that connection with what’s happening out there in the natural world. It’s important to get back there, it’s important to use that as the environment for reflection, which is a lot of what rites of passage are for; with challenge and reflection.
Dr. Lisa: Eric, I think that having had this conversation just really causes me to be even more intrigued about what it is that you’re doing and helping people push their limits out on Hurricane Island and also in, at your site in Western Maine. How do people find out more about the Hurricane Island Outward Bound School?
Eric Denny: They can go to our website, they can go to outwardbound.org or hiobs.org that’s H-I-O-B-S.org. There you’ll have all the information you need on the courses that are offered, not just here in Maine but all across the country, as well as background on who we are, how we do it, things like that.
Dr. Lisa: This is a good time of years for people to be thinking about this because your summer programs are very popular and they fill up fast. If anybody is making newish New Year resolutions and they can be possibly be thinking about Hurricane Islands Outward Bound.
Eric Denny: Absolutely, and yes right now we’re accepting enrollments for our summer season and enrollment is looking great. We’re going to be jammed packed this summer.
Dr. Lisa: We’ve been speaking with Eric Denny who is the executive director of the Hurricane Island Outward Bound School. I encourage those who have been listening, who are interested in finding more about reconnecting with themselves or pushing limits or even simply spending time on an island off of the coast of Maine in a very different way, to look at the Outward Bound website. I appreciate all the work that you’re doing to bring this information and experience to the people of Maine and across the country.
Eric Denny: Well thanks for having me Lisa, it’s been a pleasure.
Dr. Lisa: You have been listening to the Doctor Lisa radio hour and podcast, show number 128, Pushing Limits. Our guests that included Shelley Koenig and Eric Denny. For information on our guests and extended interviews visit doctorlisa.org. For the Maine Magazine article on Shelley Koenig visit the mainemag.com. The Doctor Lisa radio hour and podcast is downloadable for free on Itunes. For a preview of each weeks show sign up for our evening newsletter and like our Doctor Lisa Facebook page. Follow me on Twitter and Pinterest and read my take on health and wellbeing on the Bountiful Blog. We’d love to hear from you so please let us know what you think of the Doctor Lisa radio hour. We welcome your suggestions for future shows. Also, let our sponsors know what you have heard about them here. We are privileged, they enable us to bring the Doctor Lisa radio hour to you each week. This is Doctor Lisa Belisle, I hope that you have enjoyed our Pushing Limits show. Thank you for allowing me to be a part of your day. May you have a bountiful life.
Speaker 1: The Doctor Lisa radio hour and podcast is made possible with the support of the following generous sponsors: Maine Magazine, Marci Booth of Booth, Maine, Apothecary by Design, Premier Sports Health, A Division of Black Bear Medical, Sea Bags, Mike Lepage and Beth Franklin of ReMax Heritage, Ted Carter Inspired Landscapes, Tom Shepard of Shepard Financial, Dream Kitchen Studios, Harding Lee Smith of The Rooms, and Bangor Savings Bank.
The Doctor Lisa radio hour is recorded in the studio of Maine Magazine at 75 Market Street Portland, Maine. Our executive producers are Kevin Thomas and Doctor Lisa Belisle. Audio production and original music by John C. McCain. Our assistant producer is Leanne Ouimet, our online producer is Katy Kelleher. Become a subscriber of Doctor Lisa Belisle on Itunes. See the Doctor Lisa website or Facebook page for details. Summaries of all our past shows can be found at doctorlisa.org.