OUR PHILOSOPHY
“Obstacles don’t have to stop you. If you run into a wall don’t turnaround and give up. Figure out how to climb it, go through it, or work around it.”
Michael Jordan
The Sarnia Super Ninja Obstacle Course Racing (OCR) Club offers a unique program that helps our participants build athleticism and more importantly resiliency. Our motto from our inception has been to help our participants develop mental toughness through challenging physical activity, discipline, skill building, dealing with frustrations, accepting failure as part of the process and celebrating successes.
Our program is tough. Our students need to be disciplined not only to learn how to conquer new obstacles, but to ensure the safety of everyone in our gym. We have three primary rules that govern our gym:
- I will be safe.
- I will be respectful.
- I will always try my best.
WE EXPECT EACH AND EVERY STUDENT AND PARENT/GUARDIAN to abide by and support these rules.
We ask our participants to step outside their comfort zone and learn that failure is inevitable. If a skill or obstacle is ‘easy’ guess what? We’ve got a harder one lined up. Once that next level is achieved, guess again? We’ve got an even harder challenge in store. That is what makes our program so unique and challenging, but also so rewarding. We ask each of our participants to be the ‘best version of themselves’, by working through their frustrations, fears and uncertainties all while “accepting failures as part of the process”.
As athletes, coaches and parents ourselves, we recognize that we are all, children especially, living in a unique society that ‘protects’ us from failure and self-responsibility for our own actions and decisions. Over time, this ‘bubble wrap’ approach leads to greater feelings of inadequacy, the inability to accept loss, lower motivation, the inability face criticism, feelings of entitlement, etc. To that end, our program uses challenging physical skills and obstacles in a disciplined yet fun environment to help our participants develop into the strongest physical and more importantly mental, persons they can be.
Albeit the bulk of our program is recreational, we do have a rapidly growing competitive stream that permits students to prepare for competitions within the World Ninja League, Canadian Ninja League, Spartan Kids, etc. The competitive stream is BY TRYOUT ONLY and is ONLY OPEN to those students that not only demonstrate athletic ability, but more importantly demonstrate what we call the 3 Ds. Discipline, Desire and Dedication.
Resources:
1. Public Helath Agency of Canada (2020). About Mental Health. https://www.canada.ca/en/public-health/services/about-mental-health.html
2. Ministry of Health and Long-Term Care, Government of Ontario (2018). Mental Health Promotion Guidelines (2018) http://health.gov.on.ca/en/pro/programs/publichealth/oph_standards/docs/protocols_guidelines/Mental_Health_Promotion_Guideline_2018.pdf
3. Public Health Agency of Canada (2011). The Health of Canada’s Young People. https://www.phac-aspc.gc.ca/hp-ps/dca-dea/publications/hbsc-mental-mentale/assets/pdf/hbsc-mental-mentale-eng.pdf
4. Participaction (2020). https://www.participaction.com/en-ca/resources/children-and-youth-report-card
5. High Five Ontario (2020). https://www.highfive.org/
6. Active After School (2020). http://www.activeafterschool.ca/