ICA Teaneck Scholastic Summer Camp 2022 Week 6 report: Have You Ever Sawed A Boat In Half & wondered what a dancing version of Elvis/John Travolta would look like? 

Hi, Slava Koza here. Have you ever wondered what would happen if we show campers clips of legendary TV show pitchmen Billy Mays, Ron Popeil, and the incomparable Phil Swift (who sawed the aforementioned boat in half), and then task them to come up with a random product they can pitch to the entire camp on Thursday afternoon? Well wonder no more because that was exactly what we did last week among other things.

The winner was Teaneck native Geula. I can’t say I understood exactly what she pitched (there was aluminum foil, paper towels, and tape) but her passion, and enthusiasm won over the crowd.

But…That’s not all! If you keep reading now you will also find that…

On Wednesday we also held a dance contest over three rounds (Macarena, Lambada, and as a tie-break Rick Astley’s “Never Gonna Give You Up”). Things were tight after two rounds between Geula and her Ballet moves and “Walk Like An Egyptian” style maneuvering in the Macarena event, vs “Big” Mac’s break style rhythm and dancing over the same two categories. The event was finally decided in round three when Mac pulled out all the stops and threw down an inspirational version of Elvis style movement mixed in with Disco like John Travolta hand gestures.

In our traditional events it was Yujeong’s week once again (although this was his last for the Summer as he enjoys some fun in the sun in South Korea so we will see some new winners next week).

Yujeong won his tournament group (the highest section), was the best student in Dennis’s group, won the Simul, Problem Solving (in the higher group), and Dodgeball. In fact given his performance in the aforementioned “Sport of Kings” (i.e. dodgeball) the Cresskill native may well have punched a ticket into the ICA’s International Dodgeball Hall of Fame alongside such notable former campers like “Who Killed” Kenny Geiler, and Idan “The Cerebral Assassin” Glickman. 

Yujeong also won the blitz/bughouse prize in the higher section alongside his partner Lucas (who won the lower group prize for Problem Solving), while Vivianne and Elisha won the same team event in the lower section.

If that wasn’t enough Yujeong was also part of, and the captain of the relay race winning team, “How Much Wood Could A Woodchuck Chuck If A Woodchuck Could Chuck Wood” with teammates, Michael, Jacob, Octavia, and Hyun. The only real trouble the team faced was in event number three (The team dance contest) given that their main rivals had both Geula, and Mac as members and scored a perfect 10/10 from the judges. Still the Woodchuckers finished a solid second and essentially dominated the run, jump, and snake events.

With all of the Yujeong related prizes out of the way there were plenty of other awards to go around.

Eli dominated section two in the tournament (and must now make his way to the big leagues in section one). Tenafly’s Stanley took second place, while Jacob and Lucas (the “M & M” twins) took third. Newcomer Henry took home first place in section three just beating out Vivienne who got second, and Fillipe, and Will who tied for third.

The best students were Eli in Slava’s group, Will in Ivette’s group, and Hyun in Daniel’s group.

In the Sports Groups Fillipe won the youngest group, Will the second youngest, Elisha the third youngest, and Geula the oldest. Geula put on a gutsy effort in the fence climbing event coming from behind to defeat Stanley on the final climb, and then finished a surprise second in the dodgeball duels portion (Yujeong won of course but he finished fourth in fence climbing so was out of contention) to clinch it.

The Art prize was awarded to little George who to his credit participated in just about every event we had so we were happy Aparna acknowledged him for this event.

Finally, Octavia was Zhanna’s choice for music, and so much so that the choice was made after one day on Tuesday as Zhanna had seen enough and didn’t need to wait until the Thursday final.

See you all next week!