The B3 Rebelles are Born
This post is a little late, but after about a month of sitting with my thoughts, I wanted to take the time to reflect on the training I was so lucky to participate in with Rebelle U. It was such an amazing time and I’m beyond grateful to have been invited by Marie to embark on this journey with her. Though I love everything the Rebelle Rally is about, truthfully, I don’t think it’s something I would have ever sought out on my own or thought I was skilled enough to participate in. It’s something that’s way out of my comfort zone and though initially, I thought it was something that was also outside of my general areas of interest, upon further reflection, it actually kind of makes sense that I was really into it post-training and learning more about the rally. I love women and being around them, I love the outdoors, and recently, with my renewed focus on personal growth & discovery, I have welcomed new & unfamiliar challenges with very open arms (despite being very uncomfy with them at times!) The Rebelle checks all of these boxes and has entered my life at a serendipitous time.
The training itself was a 4-day intensive course that was split into 2 days focused on driving and 2 days focused on navigation. The driving portion of the training was spent outdoors from 7am-5pm learning how to actually drive off-road. The majority of it was hands-on, in the car, driving offroad and/or participating in drills to learn various driving techniques. In addition to the driving, we also learned how to “unstick” (which I learned is different than real recovery) a vehicle stuck in sand, how to read different terrain, as well as important questions to ask ourselves and skills to work on for the rest of our lives.
3 Important Questions: C.A.R.
Comfortable? — Is what you’re doing comfortable for you and your passenger?
Accurate? — Are you putting the car exactly where you want it?
Relaxed? — Are you in control?
3 Important Skills
Throttle & Brake Control — Controls your weight distribution; pedal control = car control
Line Choice — You want to keep the car as level as possible; the smoothest line = the safest line
Eye Placement — You have to look where you want to go; look “into the room, not only right in front of you”
The driving portion of the training was definitely the scariest and most challenging for me. I thought having a few track days under my belt would make make me a little more comfortable, but that wasn’t really the case. Though the same principles apply in terms of throttle/brake control, line choice, and eye placement, it felt very different. If you can imagine, driving the Supra on a smooth technical track feels really different than driving a Land Rover up the side of a rocky hill. So, it was pretty much like starting from scratch and I’m really not used to driving a car like the Rover, so just learning the car itself on regular roads was training in and of itself! It was a euphoric feeling every time I’d conquer something really scary like cresting a dune you literally can’t see over or climbing up a hill that looks too steep to be climbed. The first thought that would pop into my head was “HOLY SHIT HOLY SHIT I JUST DID THAT!!!!!!!”
We switched modes for the last couple days of our training which for me, was more in my comfort zone in a classroom. We focused on learning fundamental navigation skills including how to take a proper compass reading, plotting and reading coordinates, using various map scales, reading a map in general, using roadbooks aka the shared international language of rallys, and a lot more. It was a lot of information to take in, but it was all invaluable for the rally and also just amazing knowledge to be equipped with for general life skills. I’ll have to be disciplined in practicing these skills because I know if I don’t keep them sharp, it’ll be easy to lose… and I’ll obviously have to be on my A-game as the dedicated navigator for our Rebelle team.
On the last day of training, Rebelle U put together a “baby rally” for us to put alllll of the skills we learned into practice! They gave us a handful of checkpoints we had to plot and navigate to without using GPS or any internet. Marie and I stayed up the night before plotting all our coordinates, taking measurements, and planning our route. We were as prepared as we could be for our mock rally, but even then, it was still quite the challenge navigating to each check point. I know it’s just going to take a ton of practice to feel comfortable coordinating all the things you have to pay attention to as a navigator, but man was that challenging! One of the things I found most challenging was keeping track of the odometer when we’d get lost; I’d have to keep track of how many extra kilometers we drove, and then subtract this from where our last check point was and then make sure that everything was recalibrated moving forward or else there’s a negative compounding effect if your measurements are off. I know I’ll get better the more I do it! Overall, I’m so proud of us for completing the mock rally even though we got lost quite a few times along the way. I’m grateful to have a teammate like Marie who’s always willing to roll up her sleeves and get the task done and is willing to step in when assistance is needed (which was quite a few times for me during our mock rally hehe).
We’re one step closer to being prepared for the Rebelle Rally in October of 2023. This was such an amazing experience being surrounded by badass women who are all working towards the same goal. I loved learning in such a nurturing, accepting, and compassionate environment and I’m looking forward to doing more trainings as we get closer to the rally. As for now, I’ll be training and working on the things below to make me the best teammate I can be.
