Chain Reaction Movement Closing Assemblies
[Written by Kristen Taylor]
Chain Reaction Movement has wrapped up their school year with a dynamic set of assemblies.
CedarBridge Academy, The Berkeley Institute, Sandys Secondary, Clearwater Middle School and Dellwood Middle School all welcomed one of their favourite performers, Poet Ali, and his friend Flip Rodriguez, one of the top competitors on “American Ninja Warrior”.
Poet has been coming down to perform for Chain Reaction Movement for the past 2 and half years, beginning with his “Music and Motivation” tour in which hip hop is the medium he uses to present ideas to his audience.
Chain Reaction Movement’s Vice President Mary Samuels said, concerning the assemblies, that there is “a great deal of discussion [that] goes into our calendar and character topics each month. As students were going into exams and many graduating from high school and entering the workforce or heading to college, we wanted to end our assemblies this year with a message on excellence…to challenge students to impact their world by doing everything with excellence. Poet was the perfect speaker to deliver this message. Every time he speaks or performs for our students he gives 200% whether he is speaking to 1 student or performing for an entire school.”
Poet also spoke about how he comes up with his material for the show, “For me, the important part has been consistently challenging myself to come with content that is new, that is different, that excites them, that is entertaining—but I always try to make the entertainment tied in to something that you pull from it. That’s the behind the scenes, the kids just think they’re getting the hip hop but really the only reason that’s there is to get their attention and reference that as it pertains to something bigger than just the ear candy.”
Last week’s final assemblies for this school year were titled “Excellence” and focused on motivating students to seek their own potential, believe in it, and never give up trying to accomplish their goals. Flip, a professional athlete, told his personal stories of victory and failure as he competed on American Ninja Warrior. He smiled as they played a clip about his success, and cringed as he was made to watch the clip about his failure. The clips showed him winning at an American Ninja Warrior event as well as a clip of his losing a recent event because he was too low and his backside touched the surface of the water.
He spoke really pointedly about how hard it was to pick himself up from his loss. He said he felt the “most anger I’ve felt in life” and he wanted to quit right then. Instead, he picked himself up and faced his failure and in the process learned that he needed to “calm down and run [his] own race”. He is only 25 years old and he is a top competitor representing Miami, Florida in the competitions.
He spoke about what motivates him and mentioned that every day he wakes up at 5:30am and makes himself run faster than he did the day before just to “defeat the little guy in my head” and prove that he can do anything, even run when it’s the thing he hates the most to do.
Flip’s story of working hard and pushing himself physically and mentally to obtain his own goals tied in perfectly with Poet Ali’s message about believing in yourself. Both Flip and Poet Ali told the students that hard work and commitment to your goals is the only way to accomplish them.
Poet Ali also encouraged the students to recognize their own potential and take ownership of it because “if you walk around with the mentality that you can’t do your very best, everyone else does too…Excellence is built on tiny, tiny moments…one at a time…don’t think about the end because if you think about the end you’ll stop”. He also spoke about motivation and where it comes from personally.
He said “motivation” meaning motivational speeches, are great, they pump you up and get you excited, but “if you want to do anything, you have to start from within” [the heart].
At the end of the assembly, both Flip and Poet Ali stayed around signing autographs and answering questions from students with a genuine interest in each person they spoke to.
To find out more about what Chain Reaction Movement is doing in Bermuda visit www.crmovement.org
