How to Capture the Moment

I’m knee-deep in near-freezing water, groping for footing across stones and pebbles rubbed smooth by the water rushing off of Laurel Fork Falls. The lush foliage surrounding the falls smells fresh and full of life, but I can’t see it; the heavy mist spewing from the turbulent water to my right blinds me. The roaring water drowns out the shouts from my fellow hikers giving me words of encouragement to keep going. I taste nothing but my own cottonmouth; if I fall all of my gear will be soaked. The goal is to reach what will be a make-shift camp ground in an out-of-bounds area circa the falls.

Days, weeks, and months pass with little notice when you're not present and aware of yourself. So, when traveling, it can be maddening to board the plane on your way home and have that "oh my God that flew by" feeling. There are ways to avoid this, some of which I'm sure you already know. Journaling, photography, and saving scrapbook mementos are a few of the popular memory-savers, but one I've created (and have been using regularly) has been really helping me to save individual moments during an adventure.

Try the following:

1. Become aware of yourself and your surroundings and remind yourself of where you are.
2. Choose 1 of your five senses to focus on and ignore all of the other four.
3. Repeat step 2 until you finish all five of your senses.
4. Combine all five senses to complete the memory.

It can be tough to focus on one sense at first, but after very little practice you can focus in on each sense with great intensity. Try writing them down using the format below to help. This gives you a small slice to remember from any given adventure which you can access at anytime to help you remember why you work so hard to escape into an epic expedition.

Sight:
Smell:
Touch:
Taste:
Hear:

Extra Tip: When focusing on sound, smell, and touch close your eyes to heighten the strength of the sense you are focusing on.

-Supervising Educator Hunter Cambon

Why Endgame Adventures Will Conquer Tough Mudder

Just the fact that Tough Mudder is a 12 mile run is enough to persuade some people not to do it, but it’s so much more than that. You are putting yourself in an alien landscape of obstacles, and as an individual you ask yourself “How am I going to do this?” At Endgame Adventures, that foreign experience and extreme challenge is exactly what we look for.

I was attracted to Tough Mudder because this race represents some of the core aspects of Endgame Adventures. The shared anticipation of the race and the connection not only with your teammates, but the other participants, is something you’ll never get to experience again. You could show up alone and have 150,000 teammates who will support and challenge you to achieve the very difficult or you could run the race with a team. You’ll be able to feed off of the energy from all the competitors and push yourself to accomplish what you thought impossible. How often to people get to experience that again or for the first time?

The chance to be authentic and find out who you really are only happens as you move forward into an unknown. The Tough Mudder race represents the unfamiliar and will challenge any participant—new or returning. We want to push ourselves both mentally and physically to conquer the Tough Mudder race and we want to do it as #teamendgameadventures. Will you be there?

-Chief Visionary Officer Rob Biasotti

Age Doesn’t Equal Experience

I met a girl named Fred. She was heading south through Costa Rican hostels while I was working my way north. Fred was beautiful, but I couldn’t help but notice how young she looked, too young to be backpacking through Central America alone.  Every morning, we would be the first two people up in the hostel and would take advantage of free pancakes and O.J. Our hostel, Tranquillo Backpackers, was across the road from a beach in Santa Teresa, Costa Rica. This continued for three mornings.

We talked about our travels and where we had been; her list was so much longer than mine. She had hit every continent at least once and explored Canada, the US, and Europe extensively. She explained she was a French-Canadian model and whenever she was low on funds she would return home to Canada, work for a few months, and then head back out and continue exploring. She had no parents and no extended family for as long as she could remember so she really was on her own.

On the last morning of my stay in the hostel, Fred and I met again in the community kitchen. I had learned a lot from her but still had so many questions about how she managed and what life was like, always on the run.

I asked her how old she was as we were parting ways after breakfast. She shook her head so I asked her again. Although I pushed for an answer she wouldn’t tell me. She simply explained: I have seen so much in my life, more than most people three times my age. Age isn’t important, age is an invention and one that leads people into thinking the older someone is, the more experienced they have to be. That’s simply not true. I won’t reveal my age because you’ll only feel that I am “too young” to be venturing out into the world like this alone.

She asked me to drop the subject, I smiled and nodded, she gave me a hug and I never saw her again.

So…I never found out Fred’s age and thinking about it now, I doubt Fred was her real name. Such a peculiar but insightful experience. Endgame creates an environment for our teammates to experience these types of relationships authentically and naturally.

There’s so much to be learned and in the strangest of places. Keep your ears and eyes open and actively search for knowledge.

-Supervising Educator Hunter Cambon 

Breath into Control

Yoga is, at the root, a practice of meditation to reach a higher level of consciousness.  One great way to reach this higher level of consciousness is through steadying the breath and keeping awareness on the breath.  This kind of breath control is referred to as Ujjayi.  To do this correctly, inhale and exhale through the nose with the back of the throat and the vocal diaphragm contracted.  Your breath will be louder than normal, which is what you are looking for with this practice.  The breath does not need to be loud, just noticeable to you for your awareness. The deep inhales through the nose brings in oxygen and prana (life force), and the exhales through the nose removes the carbon dioxide and toxins.  The breath through the nose is important as it is more controlled than through the mouth and warms the body.  Keep the inhales and exhales at an equal length and allow space between the breaths.  So, if you inhale for a count of three, then wait a second, and then exhale to a count of three.

Continued awareness to the breath leads to a connection of the mind and the body and can create a meditative like state leading to a deeper relaxed or meditative state.  This can be practiced anywhere, anytime.  This is a great way to relieve stress and calm your mood.  I practice Ujjayi in the car a lot as traffic can make one very stressed... and it works.  I also practice when we travel on our adventures because it keeps me focused and grounded.

Try Ujjayi breath now for 10 inhales and exhales with a minimum of three seconds each.  See how you feel during the practice and after.  While practicing breath control and awareness, try to quiet the mind and only focus on the breath.  Compare your mood and feeling after this short practice to that of before your practice.
Namaste ~ Lori

A lesson from adventure travel

I was walking out of Havasu Falls  for the second time in 2009 and was utterly exhausted. The hike into the Supai Indian Reservation and ultimately the waterfalls is an alien landscape and I am sure the only differences between the landscape of Mars and Havasu is the temperature and the lack of Nitrogen/Oxygen atmosphere.

I felt pretty ridiculous as I was supposed to be the leader of a 13 person adventure experience. I was last. There was even another hiker on the trail who was clearly not conditioned and was wearing low-top non-hiking canvas shoes. He passed me along the 10 mile trail. I had spent months physically preparing for this adventure which would be my second time at this location.  Candidly, I was disappointed. I understand that adventure is not necessarily a competition. It’s about the experience.  

Walking up the switchbacks and rounding a corner, Leeman Leclair (cameraman) sat on an outcropping at about 150 yards out. His elevation was at about 60 degrees. He had a couple of hikers sitting with him and while he filmed me they made light of my lack of progress. “Come on Coach B!”  “Run Forrest Run.” I found myself exhausted, mad, and laughing at the same time. When I got to the top, I asked Leeman why the hike was so difficult for me when it appeared to be so easy for him. We were good friends and he told me bluntly, “That’s what you expected to happen, you have been saying how hard this was going to be from the very beginning, you came looking for something and you found it.” 

That's what I love about adventure travel. You always end up learning something about yourself--at the core of who you are--good or bad. My second trip to Havasu Falls taught me something that I apply to my everyday life: Your attitude about the situation is what can make or break it. So approach challenges with a positive attitude and you'll get the best out of them. DREAM BIG, TRAIN HARD, NEVER SETTLE

Travel is Education

Hunter Cambon, Supervising Educator

I don't know anyone who doesn't think Indiana Jones is cool.  He is famous for his adventures and of course, his whip, but we must remember he always returns to his professorship. The development of Endgame Adventures is focused on travel, intense self-transformation and learning about ourselves and those who adventure with us.

Spending 17 years traveling through Bahamas (Abacos and Exumas mostly) on my family’s 40’ Trawler gave me the hunger to travel independently and gave me the confidence to do so. Now with a platform to work from, I have been spending my time working to create new travel experiences that will put our participants in situations that will encourage growth in both character and in mind.

Like most travelers, I’m hungry for more. More meeting interesting people, more life changing experiences, more stamps on my passport. But recently I’ve been focusing on a new aspect of travel. Planning has always been important, but the romantic idea of finding your way once you’ve landed has always been my M.O. Not so much anymore.

Planning a seamless trip from beginning to end is a time-consuming and daunting task, but is one filled with opportunity to learn. And when I write “seamless” that’s what I mean. Having the foresight and experience to think of most every detail and obstacle that may arise, filling even our downtime with something productive, and connecting the dots to create an as-close-to-perfect trip as possible is a challenge with great rewards. Reflecting at the end of a journey and realizing that all involved have changed, in some aspect, for the better (including myself) is a hard-to-top feeling and fuels my passion for Endgame Adventures. This has changed the way I view education of the mind and soul. It is what truly sticks with us.

In all of our travels we spend time working on academics and service with local, underprivileged students. And in all of our journeys we have discovered that learning occurs so frequently outside of the classroom. At the time (I must have been 10 years old), sitting in the backseat of the family truck watching Indiana on a 12'' TV wedged between the two fronts seats, cords running into the 12v outlet, his line about getting out and learning globally seemed profound. Now, it's the only thing that makes sense. 

The things we are doing today will be our habits in the future, so make a habit of getting out and seeing this world...cause it’s outta this world.

I’m Rob the Chief Visionary Officer of Endgame Adventures. I also work as the Dean of Students at St. Thomas Aquinas High School in Ft. Lauderdale, FL.

Endgame Adventures is a project I came up with as a way to explore both of my passions: Travel and Fitness. I have always pushed myself to the limits to stay fit. My passion took off when I started training the St. Thomas Aquinas Raider football team as the Head Strength and Conditioning Coach. From there, I began personal training to push others to reach their goals.

I decided to take my training to the next level by exploring the toughest terrains the world has to offer, and then Endgame Adventures was born. Since starting this company, I have been lucky enough to train clients in awesome locations from Havasau Falls to Costa Rica.

Make sure to check back in to read the stories from my travels and for the chance to see the videos and photos I take on my adventures.~ by rob biasotti