I just got to see Monster Jame for the first time.
What a show.
I've never been a Car Guy. I love motorcycles, two wheels kickstart my heart. Four wheels I could give or take. In fact, the only time my head has really been turned by a car was on a trip to a camp for future teachers in Indianapolis between my sophomore and junior years of high school. We were taken to the Brickyard where the Indy 500 would take place and driven into the infield. Everyone on the bus was like, "Yeah yeah, Indy cars, whatever." Until the first one went screaming by doing a practice lap. Every head turned. What a demonstration of power and speed and noise. It's impossible to not be impressed.
For Christmas my boys were gifted tickets to Monster Jam Portland. They love trucks and cars, so we figured they would dig it. I figured it would be cool.
From the second it started I had the BIGGEST smile on my face. You know what it immediately reminded me of? WWE. I was a huge pro wrestling fan in college (I'm so cool, friends), and got to see a few live shows. Monster Jam feels very much the same. Larger than life performers doing big, ridiculous tricks in silly/awesome costumes.
To continue to WWE metaphor, I never cared about monster trucks but I think everyone who grew up around when I did can name at least two- Bigfoot and Grave Digger. For some reason in my head I associate these with two of the the biggest names in wrestling. Bigfoot was the Good Guy, the babyface, so Bigfoot is Hulk Hogan (this was before, you know, everything was out). And Grave Digger is the Dead Man himself, The Undertaker. I'm a 'Taker guy, so of course Grave Digger is where I'm at. And there was a truck dressed up like a giant shark. I've got three, yes three, shark tattoos, and I still popped harder for Digger soo...that says something.
ANYWAY, to connect this to teaching, which I know you're all here for. All the trucks do basically the same moves. Which makes sense, I don't know how wide the range of possible tricks is on a basic course. You've got Big Jump, Big Jump Into Wheelie, Stoppie Into NoseStand, and Make Truck Make Loud Noise To Make Simple Thing Look Cooler. Anyone else feel like I just described their teaching bag o' tricks some days? "I'm not really doing anything fancy, but it sure looks cool because it's loud and big."
Then I noticed it seems like 70% or more of the tricks depend on luck. The driver would drive towards a certain part of the ramp, downshift (or whatever, I don't speak gearhead very well), throw the truck into a move, and hope it worked. The coolest things happened when something didn't go quite right. Or maybe when everything lined up exactly right.
Watch.
Video taken by Weirdling One
Here's what I think happened there- The jump went well and the truck got a lucky bounce coming down, which the driver was able to turn into a nose stand, and then the momentum of the truck carried it over, so the driver was able to react by turning it into a cartwheel round-off thing. The driver, Elvis McDonald, managed to balance that massive thing on one wheel and get it to land just how he wanted it. So it's a series of lucky accidents that the driver is able to link together through skill.
THAT'S TEACHING SOMETIMES.
Sometimes teaching is turning accidents into positives over and over, stringing them together into one coherent whole. We've all got lesson plans, and we all know that plans survive intact until put into contact with students, and from then on it's about tap dancing and adjusting. So I'm in no way taking away from the skill of the driver of El Toro Loco. He's good enough to have an elaborate If/Then flowchart in his head, and then execute as things happen.
The best at this was Grave Digger's driver, Tyler Menninga. I don't know if he's actually one of the better drivers on the circuit, but he was that night. Head and shoulders. He turned more tricks into other tricks than anyone else, and he was also the only one to try something different. Rather than wait for the truck to end up on two wheels like that, he would drive it at the ramp at an angle, forcing it onto the two right wheels. Then he'd jam on the brakes and the power transfer would carry the back of the truck up and over the nose where he'd balance it on the front two wheels before letting it fall back. It never once looked out of control or accidental. But at the same time these are giant trucks on dirt tracks, so no reaction is guaranteed. Tyler had to be good enough to make luck happen and to capitalize on that luck over and over.
Because I'm a giant nerd I went to Monster Jam and came away with a teaching lesson- Teach like Grave Digger: Be good enough to turn circumstances in your favor and make your own luck.
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