How the hard sport used the soft skill.

Working in pairs to teach each other a braid they’d just learnt.

I recently got booked by the RFU (the national governing body for rugby in England) to come and teach their Elite High Performance coaches how to braid.

What’s rugby got to do with hair braiding?

Quite a lot as it turned out…

It was one of my most challenging bookings to date.

For the students and for me.

Usually people book on to my workshops because they want to learn braiding skills to use in their every day life.

This was TOTALLY different.

I was a complete surprise.

The first they knew of it was when they walked into the meeting room full of mannequin heads at 4pm on a sweltering Friday afternoon.

I was booked by their coach to use braiding as the tool to explore specific skills in their training criteria as well as a brand new skill. We worked out a syllabus that was meant to really test them.

90% of the group had no hair experience at all.

Comfort zones were left ENTIRELY at the door.

In 2.5 hours they learnt 3 different looks and had a challenge to create their own ‘look’.

At one point they were paired up and had to teach each other a braid they had only learnt moments before, whilst blindfolded or wearing ear defenders!

Believe it or not, it was HIGH pressure stuff.

Entirely new skill sets, at pace, in front of each other and their course leaders.

Knowing they were being critiqued on their performance.

The shoe on the other foot.

It was daunting. Especially the first 15 minutes or so. For them and me.

I think we all had to dig quite deep to find our feet with each other.

But of course they nailed it, they’re the top of their game. They’re not quitters.

Got quite into it too, I’d say*.

We definitely all learnt ALOT.

Endurance, teamwork, competition, communication, thinking creatively on the fly…

Who knew how many parallels there were with a humble braiding class and the great game itself?

It was corporate training, team building, life-skill learning.

All of the above.

And not a raft in sight.

I ❤️ my job.

*One of them came up to me in the restaurant afterwards pointing out a girl with a bad parting that he wanted to correct.

I can’t tell you how happy this made me.

If you’d like Braid Maidens to visit your workplace for a session like this, or just for a social where you happen to learn a really cool life-skill, then please drop us an email and we’ll ping you over our shiny pdf.

Hope to teach you/ braid you soon,

Annis x

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Learning in Progress.