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Watersports students take a leap of faith in the name of education
Anxiety levels were tested to the max last week when the Marine Sports Science degree students went coasteering on the Lizard.
The first year students spent two hours of extreme climbing and swimming, traversing a coasteering course, before finally jumping off a 10 metre high cliff, all in the name of education.
The activity was linked to the students’ understanding of Sport Psychology and was led by Falmouth Marine School lecturer and Chair of the National Coasteering Charter, J-P Eatock and Sports Psychology lecturer Emily Woollard.
The students were required to support each other in testing situations. Student Jack O’Byrne said: “I really enjoyed this session. I learnt so much about my personality, anxiety and coping strategies that I didn’t know before. It took me 20 minutes to do the final jump as I don’t like heights, it was such an achievement and surprisingly good fun and I would definitely do it again.”
Sport Psychology Lecturer Emily Woollard said: “It was so good to get the group out doing an activity which few of them had experienced before. They were out of their comfort zones and high anxiety levels were regularly shown. The students all showed great strengths of personality and behaviours, which they had not identified in themselves through lessons. Putting theory into practice really works.”
J-P Eatock commented: “Coasteering is one of the fastest growing and exciting activities in the UK. In partnership with the National Trust, which provides unique settings for us to use, we were able to give the students a challenging and fun sports psychology exercise.”
