I’ve been fascinated by the notion of delivering Adventure Therapy on bikes since reading an article about Lee Craigie’s cycle therapy work (https://leecraigie.com/cycletherapy) in MBR magazine. As I was already looking into becoming an NLP practitioner and getting more involved with outdoors activities, as part of my teaching job in a PRU, I began to fully appreciate the connection between physical outdoors activities and developing more positive behaviour patterns. After a few years, this led me to leave the classroom and spend a few years working in the bike industry and eventually set up Breaking Cycles CIC to combine my passion for behaviour change and Bikes!
Over the years, having a keen interest in the subject, my mind has been drawn towards a plethora of research, anecdotal evidence, heart-warming articles and stories about the benefits, of getting fit and being outdoors, to our mental wellbeing. This has led me to ask the question ‘When is it just a ride and when is it adventure therapy?’
Cycling, particularly when you venture into the hills, helps us to de-stress and gain perspective on the challenges we face in life. On its own, simply getting out for a ride can be the answer to your problems, but adventure therapy adds a more purposefully directed experience to this and provides me with truly awesome environments in which to share NLP techniques in a meaningful and memorable way.
This week, I have been providing some Adventure Therapy taster sessions for pupils of The Alternative School (https://www.thealternativeschool.co.uk) at Harwes Farm CIC (https://harwesfarm.org). Developing a generic taster session was a bit of a challenge for me as I would generally think about specific aims for each pupil and general aims for the group as I plan the activities for each session, which would generally be a full day too. So, following in the footsteps of Albert Einstein, I went for a ride and came back with an idea!
The best classroom is outside! 
Sharing the trails 
Learning new skills 
already wheelie good! 
Extending the rock garden 
Testing the extended rock garden
I’d like to take this opportunity to publically thank Anderton Bossonet estate agents (https://andertonbosonnet.co.uk) for offering some financial help to provide these session and 3 Peaks Cycles (https://www.3peakscycles.com) for the excellent quality and well maintained hire bikes we used; my tools stayed in my bag all week!
The session was built to include elements of learning new skills, developing confidence and gaining a sense of community by giving something back. We concentrated on understanding the cone of movement and how our position on the bike affects our ability to lift the front wheel over an obstacle (wheelies!), using a couple of trail features that myself and volunteers at Harwes Farm had built the week before. After a brew, we returned to the developing skills area with tough gloves and shovels and began to develop the trail features further. As Harwes Farm has an ethos of environmental sustainability, we only used materials that we could find on site too!
Groups from both the Accrington & Rossendale and Pendle Campus’ of TAS are keen to return and continue the development of an accessible, sustainable MTB skills are and themselves!
“We already have the resources we need, or we can create them” – Presupposition of NLP