Category Archives: Camping

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Outdoor Guide For Kids by Gerry Martin – Bangalore Camping

India’s first adventurer on National Geographic channel (remember Croc Chronicles or Snake Wranglers?), wildlife expert and herpetologist Gerald ‘Gerry’ Martin has been wild at heart since the time he was a kid. He grew up in a farmhouse, surrounded by animals and nature and at 17 started assisting the legendary Romulus Whitaker at the Madras Crocodile Bank. In fact, he was the bank’s youngest curator. From watching 31 baby cobras hatch in his room during a project to looking for crocodiles on camera, Martin has done it all.

Today he shares his love for adventure with children and educates them about nature and animals through camps and workshops. He tells MetroMela how parents can get city kids away from the TV and closer to nature and even shares some of his favorite outdoor destinations. Read on…Parents can organize all kinds of outdoor trips, instead of just visits to a mall or movie theatre. Even a walk in Cubbon Park, a trip to Bannerghatta National Park, sitting by any of the new lakes, doing stuff in the garden, making bird boxes, bird feeders, etc., could make a huge difference to children. The outdoors need not be compartmentalized into something you see when you’re out on a trip.

When you do go on a trip, Bangalore is surrounded by beautiful and magnificent wilderness, forests and hills. Explore! Kids are intrinsically allured by pets. All we need to do is to nurture that. If you have a pet at home, teach the kids to be responsible for it by example. If the pet brings joy to the parents, they need to share that with their children.

If you are taking the kids out on a trek, remember that kids need small stretches in their activities. There’s a fine line between adventure and misadventure. Ensuring that the end emotion is a positive one is imperative to the process of developing a strong interest and passion in children about the outdoors. Some areas around Bangalore could be great adventure trips for families with kids. I personally have a few favorites like Jungle Retreat in Masinagudi, Hunkal Woods in Chikmagalur and Geedee Farms right here in Bannerghatta!

Gerry Martin – BangaloreKids are often scared of insects, reptiles and even lizards. In my experience, most fear is conditioned and comes from others around them – parents, friends and others. All we need is to keep our fears to ourselves and not transfer them on to our kids. For those who are already afraid, it helps to do things slowly – short and gentle exposures to the animals that they fear. Building knowledge about the animals also helps a lot.

Gardening is a great idea to help kids connect with nature. It builds a strong connect, gives children a feeling of accomplishment, develops a commitment to something alive and helps them stay away from the malls, bowling alleys and other decadent hang outs.

Gerry Martin works with kids from the age of 9 to 16. His camps involve a structured introduction to nature and the wilderness, where city kids learn about survival, the dos and don’ts in the outdoors and get “hands-on experiences in nature and leave with a certain connect with the environment.” Activities involve tree climbing, trekking, camping, direction finding, birdwatching, among a host of others. For more information, call 09845437337.

Camping

Preparing Yourself for Boot Camp Workout

Boot camps generally refer to the military training given to those who have applied for recruitment in the armed forces. It’s necessary that the persons, who are going to take up the boot camp, are prepared both physically and mentally, to fit into the shoes of a military man. To be fit, to take up the boot camps, practices of calisthenics are recommended.

Fitness industries are emerging as one of the major businesses in the market today and there seems to be no dearth of fitness camps, most of which offer programs like adult fat camps and boot camp workouts. Enrolling yourself into one of them would be the best foot you can put on to lose weight or stay fit. It’s also necessary that similar to getting prepared for military boot camps, one must get prepared for boot camp fitness program too.

“Early bird catches the worm”, so get up early in the morning to exercise. Most boot camp workouts would involve running, pull ups, push ups, squats and so on. Prepare both your mind and body for the routines. Running is the best warm up one can do, most people pace up at the start and get tired halfway through, start at a slow, but steady pace and gain speed at intervals. The best way to get prepared for your running workouts would be to mix your speeds- Jog a mile initially to get yourself warmed up, then take 3 sets of sprint for 1/4th of the distance, jog again for 1/4th of the distance, take 5 sets of sprint for 1/8th of the distance. Do not take rest in the middle of workout, try to take rest while you do your jogging routine by having a slow relaxed run, have a timer and try improving your speed everyday by at least a few seconds.

Push-ups are one more routine which would find their place in a majority of these workouts, the position where you place your hands, while taking push-ups are vital as they may affect the number you do. The apt position to place your hand would be just outside your shoulder width. Initially it might be tough to get even 10 pushups done in a set for some, don’t lose heart, just tell your mind that you will double the count for tomorrow what you do today, and follow it.

Sit ups are mostly part of adult fat camps and they may very well earn their place in here. People seem excited and burn out their energy in the initial sit-ups in quick time and can’t even seem to repeat half of what they did in double the time. So rushing through won’t help, going through at a steady pace and steady rate would be more essential.

Pull ups are one of the most tiresome routines, highly essential that one practice pull ups before the camp. Following the pyramid workout would help, just doing 1 pull up in the first set, 2 in the second and keep on adding till ten, and doing it in reverse.

Doing these basic workouts 3 weeks prior to the boot camps would be an ideal preparation, to get both physically and mentally fit.