5.9

I take it back. Bouldering is not better than top-roping. Bouldering is just different. I've realized climbing a wall – where the fear of falling ads to the challenge and the thrill – is an equally valuable and often more fun kind of climbing. I spent much of this past weekend top-roping and I've fallen in love.

I can get up to 5.9 routes on the wall now, though I can't do them clean (or flash, I believe it's called, when you ascend the route without falling or resting in your harness).

Some things I've worked on and learned, both in the Saturday technique course and with friends who are awesome climbers:

1. There are three very useful moves to get you up the wall: drop-knee (in which you bring your inside knee in close to the wall and turn your body towards the hold in front of you), back step (in which you step one foot up onto a hold behind you to reach a hold behind you) and flagging (in which you counter-balance your weight by bringing one foot up to smear without using a foot hold). I can do all of them in practice, but using them on a climb... not so much. My technique goes to shit when I'm halfway up a wall and breathing hard and trying not to fall off a tiny crimp because my hands are all sweaty. I must look like a frog trying to hold onto a tiny branch that's way to small for me, rather than a butterfly gracefully floating up towards the top of a rose bush. Which is why practicing laps on a 5.6 route are ideal, and why I really need to do more laps.

2. Falling is not a bad thing once to get used to it. Falling is not nearly as scary as I'd imagined it would be. If you fall, the rope will catch you – quite smoothly in fact, because the rope stretches. This means, of course, that you swing away from the fall and drop a foot or two, but then the harness takes your weight in a seated position and your feet contact to the wall again, and there you go. You're able to take a rest, chalk your hands and re-assess your route.

3. Route reading is essential. As my instructor Daniel says, reading the route (imagining yourself climbing it, deciding where you'll place your hands and feat as you go) is a way to do it for free the first time, without expending any energy.

4. Climbing becomes a mild obsession not long after you get into it. This weekend I climbed from 1:30 to 6:30 p.m. on Saturday, and again on Sunday from noon to 3 p.m. and I wanted to go again tonight after work but figured I'd better take at least one rest day to avoid strains or injuries. The motivation to go to the climbing gym is the climbing itself, unlike a regular gym where you have to trick yourself into going to get a workout on the treadmill or the bench press or whatever.

I LOVE CLIMBING!!

Bouldering

Found this short film on YouTube that shows some great bouldering. 

Bouldering is definitely my favourite part of rock climbing. Ascending 37 feet off the ground is thrilling, but there's no way you'll challenge yourself – especially mentally – as much you will on a bouldering route. Take away the height and the need for ropes and a belayer and it's just you and your problem to work out. It forces you (at least, once you get past the easiest routes) to use proper technique, and it makes you use your whole body from the tips of your fingers to the tips of your toes to get to the final hold.

It's got to be one of the best workouts, both for your body and your brain.

Flappers

So it's been two weeks since I started climbing again and I've discovered what it means to have flappers – the little bits of skin that dangle from the spots where calluses should and hopefully will soon be.

My hands are obviously those of an office worker. They're soft and delicate and not used to hard labour. For now, I'll have to keep taping my fingers to prevent flappers and the bloody mess that comes from scraped knuckles and ripped blisters. Ew.

The climbing is going well. In fact, it's going so well I'm finding myself daydreaming about bouldering problems at work, and I realized tonight that ta-da! my fear of heights is gone. I'm not going to question it too deeply, but rather just be delighted that acrophobia is obviously something that can vanish as quickly as it appears.

Climbing again

Took the plunge tonight after work and bought a month-long membership to the climbing gym, plus a six-week intro to climbing course that starts next weekend. I may have made a foolish mistake, thinking I can jump back into this intense sport again, but what the hell, maybe the $300 investment will guilt me into not skipping a workout. I'm planning to boulder Tuesdays, Thursdays and top rope on the weekends. Also started tonight with some push-ups and sit-ups (like 20 each, which is just sad) and will do that nightly to build core strength. Right now my abs are about as strong as day-old kittens.

Mostly, I'm just hoping to have a lot of fun exercising, though, 'cause I just really can't bear the thought of having to force myself to go running or go to the gym and thinking the whole time just about getting in shape. Why not have a good time and have the fitness part be a side note?

Keen to see how much I can improve in the next six weeks...