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sophia_sol) wrote2019-11-27 09:59 pm
sophia_sol) wrote2019-11-27 09:59 pm
Entry tags:
Rock climbing
I keep trying to write a post about rock climbing but I can't make it flow smoothly. Too many different things to say, I guess. But this is my blog so I can write things that aren't perfectly framed if I want to! (I don't want to. I want to write the perfect post about my current feelings about rock climbing. But perfection is apparently out of my reach right now.)
I picked up rock climbing as a hobby a few months ago, and I've been really enjoying it. I've never exactly been a sporty type or a gym-goer or even, like, physically coordinated. But this turns out to be a type of sport that I'm capable of really enjoying doing on a regular basis. It's like you're solving a puzzle with your body, and the only competition is against your own self, your knowledge of your abilities and your goals. It's fun to do by yourself and it's also fun to go with a climbing partner, so it's very flexible.
And it's exciting seeing myself get noticeably stronger and more capable! When I started climbing I was so noodle-armed that just going down a regular vertical, runged ladder was genuinely hard work.* Now I can climb routes rated 5.9, which is GREAT for someone who only really started climbing in September.** And I have palpable biceps for the first time in my life! First step to maybe even having visible biceps someday!
Because climbing has become my latest obsession but I can't actually go to the gym THAT much, I've been doing a lot of reading about rock climbing too. Mostly things that are irrelevant to my personal experience as a beginner doing gym climbing, but it's all still interesting to me. Why yes, DO please tell me about the controversies surrounding whether a bunch of outdoor routes in this one region were altered by the developer beyond what's considered good style!
And recently I watched that documentary Free Solo, about a guy (Alex Honnold) who climbed El Capitan (a ~3,000 ft rock face) with no gear, no protection, no rope.
And can I say: WHAT THE FUCK. I get enough alarmed enough by the thought of lead climbing, since any kind of safety system other than toproping can still involve significant falls in potentially dangerous conditions.*** But free soloing is a whole other ball game. If you make any mistakes while free soloing, you die. Even if you don't make any mistakes at all you can still die!
The movie was a fascinating look into the mindset of the kind of person who approaches these ideas of risk totally differently from me. I'm reminded of when I read Ernest Shackleton's memoir South, about the kind of person who willingly subjects themselves to the dangers of an Antarctic expedition. But free soloing seems even more wild to me than Antarctic expeditions, because there's a difference between deciding to do something dangerous, and deciding to do something dangerous deliberately without the available protective measures. Shackleton and crew geared up as much as possible for the Antarctic!
After watching Free Solo I spent a possibly-unreasonable amount of time googling for and reading articles related to climbing deaths and....oh boy. What a hobby I have found for myself. Gym climbing is extremely safe (safer, in fact, than a lot of sports!) and depending how you do it outdoor climbing can be safe too. But different people make different safety-related choices based on what they value in life, and as a highly risk-averse person I really do not understand the choices some people make.
Anyway, my other take-away from Free Solo is that--well, this was my first time seeing video footage of climbing outside on real rocks instead of plastic gym handholds. And okay, fine, I GUESS outdoor climbing seems pretty appealing! Like. I do not have any desire to replicate any of Alex Honnold's life choices. I would only want to do routes that can be toproped, for safety's sake. (Or, I suppose, really short bouldering problems with good flat space for lots of crashpads beneath would also be okay). But I have spent pretty much my entire life loving to clamber about on rocks and all of a sudden I am making what should have been an obvious connection to rock climbing. I don't know how or when or if I can/should/will make this happen, but... I'm dreaming now, just a bit.
But outdoor climbing is for some uncertain possibly-future time, right now is about gym climbing! And honestly I started this at a rather unfortunate time in my life, because in 42 days I am having top surgery (NOT THAT I'M COUNTING), and it's going to be a bare minimum of 3 months and possibly lots more before I can climb again after that. So I'm going to lose, like, all of the wee bits of strength I've managed to develop. I'm less than thrilled about this. I'm putting in all this work to, like, have any extant arm strength at all, and to develop the finger muscles to be able to use more awkward/smaller/slopier holds, and so forth, and it's all for basically nothing? It's all going to wither away, and then come next spring/summer when I can climb again I'm going to be back to struggling up the boring beginner routes again. URGH. My goal: to send a 5.10a wall before it's top surgery time and I have to start from scratch again.
___
* When you surmount the bouldering wall at my gym, to get back to the floor you go down a ladder at one end. It still amazes me every time I go down that ladder now how EASY it is to descend, when I genuinely dreaded each time I had to go down it when I first started.
** I read an article talking about how making the transition from 5.9 to 5.10 is something many climbers do in their first five years, and I already have hopes of maaaybe sending a 5.10a sometime soonish! Although also grades are kind of meaningless because there's no objective measure of what's a 5.10a, so I gather there can be regional variation on what difficulty a particular grade really is, and I don't know how my gym's scales compare to other places.
*** Rock & Ice magazine has a whole regular segment where it posts videos of people's falls! One recent one has someone faceplanting the rock after a drop of many feet! Many of them in the description talk about how major injury was barely avoided! In one description of a fall I read, the BELAYER got a concussion because the climber fell on them! THIS IS DANGEROUS!
I picked up rock climbing as a hobby a few months ago, and I've been really enjoying it. I've never exactly been a sporty type or a gym-goer or even, like, physically coordinated. But this turns out to be a type of sport that I'm capable of really enjoying doing on a regular basis. It's like you're solving a puzzle with your body, and the only competition is against your own self, your knowledge of your abilities and your goals. It's fun to do by yourself and it's also fun to go with a climbing partner, so it's very flexible.
And it's exciting seeing myself get noticeably stronger and more capable! When I started climbing I was so noodle-armed that just going down a regular vertical, runged ladder was genuinely hard work.* Now I can climb routes rated 5.9, which is GREAT for someone who only really started climbing in September.** And I have palpable biceps for the first time in my life! First step to maybe even having visible biceps someday!
Because climbing has become my latest obsession but I can't actually go to the gym THAT much, I've been doing a lot of reading about rock climbing too. Mostly things that are irrelevant to my personal experience as a beginner doing gym climbing, but it's all still interesting to me. Why yes, DO please tell me about the controversies surrounding whether a bunch of outdoor routes in this one region were altered by the developer beyond what's considered good style!
And recently I watched that documentary Free Solo, about a guy (Alex Honnold) who climbed El Capitan (a ~3,000 ft rock face) with no gear, no protection, no rope.
And can I say: WHAT THE FUCK. I get enough alarmed enough by the thought of lead climbing, since any kind of safety system other than toproping can still involve significant falls in potentially dangerous conditions.*** But free soloing is a whole other ball game. If you make any mistakes while free soloing, you die. Even if you don't make any mistakes at all you can still die!
The movie was a fascinating look into the mindset of the kind of person who approaches these ideas of risk totally differently from me. I'm reminded of when I read Ernest Shackleton's memoir South, about the kind of person who willingly subjects themselves to the dangers of an Antarctic expedition. But free soloing seems even more wild to me than Antarctic expeditions, because there's a difference between deciding to do something dangerous, and deciding to do something dangerous deliberately without the available protective measures. Shackleton and crew geared up as much as possible for the Antarctic!
After watching Free Solo I spent a possibly-unreasonable amount of time googling for and reading articles related to climbing deaths and....oh boy. What a hobby I have found for myself. Gym climbing is extremely safe (safer, in fact, than a lot of sports!) and depending how you do it outdoor climbing can be safe too. But different people make different safety-related choices based on what they value in life, and as a highly risk-averse person I really do not understand the choices some people make.
Anyway, my other take-away from Free Solo is that--well, this was my first time seeing video footage of climbing outside on real rocks instead of plastic gym handholds. And okay, fine, I GUESS outdoor climbing seems pretty appealing! Like. I do not have any desire to replicate any of Alex Honnold's life choices. I would only want to do routes that can be toproped, for safety's sake. (Or, I suppose, really short bouldering problems with good flat space for lots of crashpads beneath would also be okay). But I have spent pretty much my entire life loving to clamber about on rocks and all of a sudden I am making what should have been an obvious connection to rock climbing. I don't know how or when or if I can/should/will make this happen, but... I'm dreaming now, just a bit.
But outdoor climbing is for some uncertain possibly-future time, right now is about gym climbing! And honestly I started this at a rather unfortunate time in my life, because in 42 days I am having top surgery (NOT THAT I'M COUNTING), and it's going to be a bare minimum of 3 months and possibly lots more before I can climb again after that. So I'm going to lose, like, all of the wee bits of strength I've managed to develop. I'm less than thrilled about this. I'm putting in all this work to, like, have any extant arm strength at all, and to develop the finger muscles to be able to use more awkward/smaller/slopier holds, and so forth, and it's all for basically nothing? It's all going to wither away, and then come next spring/summer when I can climb again I'm going to be back to struggling up the boring beginner routes again. URGH. My goal: to send a 5.10a wall before it's top surgery time and I have to start from scratch again.
___
* When you surmount the bouldering wall at my gym, to get back to the floor you go down a ladder at one end. It still amazes me every time I go down that ladder now how EASY it is to descend, when I genuinely dreaded each time I had to go down it when I first started.
** I read an article talking about how making the transition from 5.9 to 5.10 is something many climbers do in their first five years, and I already have hopes of maaaybe sending a 5.10a sometime soonish! Although also grades are kind of meaningless because there's no objective measure of what's a 5.10a, so I gather there can be regional variation on what difficulty a particular grade really is, and I don't know how my gym's scales compare to other places.
*** Rock & Ice magazine has a whole regular segment where it posts videos of people's falls! One recent one has someone faceplanting the rock after a drop of many feet! Many of them in the description talk about how major injury was barely avoided! In one description of a fall I read, the BELAYER got a concussion because the climber fell on them! THIS IS DANGEROUS!
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Anyway, this is so cool! I'm glad you've found a new fun thing! And omg only 42 days until surgery!! You'll be going into 2020 with your body all newly improved and awesome-ified, even if the muscle building will have to wait for a while. :)
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And thanks so much for your kind words! :D I'm so excited for top surgery!
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I will say, as a dancer with lots of injury-recovery and subsequent surgery-recovery experience, even when your strength goes, muscle memory is an incredible thing. Having those correct templates in your body means that when you have to start again, you're starting from a place that will let you build again safely. It's not just the academic knowledge of how to do something; it's the fine, unconscious knowledge of placement and judgement and balance, and you won't lose that!
Wishing you lots of luck!
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When I had more time, I used to boulder at a local gym. Then I moved, and I'm too far away to do it easily, so I stopped. I really miss it.
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