Lessons, Learned and Taught

Lessons. That's what this Blog is about so it's only fitting that eventually I had to post about it. These posts are lessons that I learn while teaching and just going through the day to day. At times I think I learn more from my crew in a training session than I teach. It usually starts with a drill in the beanery and grows from there. Like our 10 at 10 for example. Now its supposed to be 10 minuets at 10 am but ends up being at least an hour if not 90 min. Now that can be good or bad at different times. Most of the time the whole crew participates, other days not so much. Whats important is reading the crew to know when to call it a drill. Really, if I find myself watching the clock, it's already over. On other days we just get a great string of videos and it's all of a sudden 11:30. It's hit or miss in a way but if you quit all together because of a few dud days we would miss out on the days we get a really good video and the discussion goes and goes. Those are the days we learn a lot about what we do and how we do it. The ideas and the tactical plans and the language of what we do. These drills and subsequent discussions set a tone for how we attack fire and work together as a team while attacking a fire.  It also starts slow when you first try it out.  Everyone seems to think they are on the spot. That if someone disagrees with their plan it's curtains for them.  Not true.  Everyone is either new and in the same nervous boat or on the next level not caring about egos.  The good and bad thing about the videos is that you don't really know if your right or wrong.  So the default on the inevitable disagreement is that we don't really know if your tactic is right or someone elses would have worked.