Yesterday was the last day of my bouldering membership at the Denver Bouldering Club. It's been an amazing time, much more so than I anticipated. I initially joined to train for climbing in Kalymnos over the holidays due to the 24/7 gym access, low cost, and close proximity to my apartment. I discovered a nice community, and a place that honestly started to feel like home towards the end.
I lay on a mat last night, blasting M83--my climbing music of choice--and reflecting on the feelings of happiness and bliss that come with seeing something in life progress, even if it is something so small as the ability to climb up a few holds on a wall. The first time I ever bouldered was in college when I went with my friend Yuki and could literally do nothing. The wall was in this tiny room of an MIT building and had maybe 30 routes on it, many of them from sit-starts.
I've never been too thrilled about bouldering since then, but I wanted to get better for Kalymnos. It's the first time I'd ever thought about "training" as anything other than just "climbing a bunch and getting into good shape." As it turns out, an hour at the bouldering session is equivalent to at least 3 hours at the gym top roping, just because of all that tying in and belaying and walking around you end up doing. By climbing and downclimbing every single route doubles the effort, and it's easy to attempt 15-20 routes in an hour.
And so, I got better. Kenneth taught me some training techniques like "hovering" above a hold with your hands or feet for 3 seconds, which trains you to find a more optimal balance. He also encouraged me to think about precise foot placement on holds, even holds that were way way bigger than they need to be. He gave key pointers about climbing on inverted routes, namely to be stable before reaching for a hold.
And so, while I was a V1/V2 climber when I started at DBC, I finished up as a sometimes-V4-and-that-one-V5 climber. (I did a total of 4 V4s and 1 V5.) Pretty awesome. I'm tempted to continue my membership and get up to the multiple-V5 level, but I need to save that $$ for other the thousand other things I need to buy right now (telemark bindings/mounting, aspen trip, orizaba, liz's wedding, burning man). I'm very fortunate that I'm in graduate school and not something paying me a lot of money... if my funds weren't limited, I would probably get myself into deepdeep trouble.
In any case, it's been a good run with DBC. I'll hopefully be back next winter to hone my skills even further.
I lay on a mat last night, blasting M83--my climbing music of choice--and reflecting on the feelings of happiness and bliss that come with seeing something in life progress, even if it is something so small as the ability to climb up a few holds on a wall. The first time I ever bouldered was in college when I went with my friend Yuki and could literally do nothing. The wall was in this tiny room of an MIT building and had maybe 30 routes on it, many of them from sit-starts.
I've never been too thrilled about bouldering since then, but I wanted to get better for Kalymnos. It's the first time I'd ever thought about "training" as anything other than just "climbing a bunch and getting into good shape." As it turns out, an hour at the bouldering session is equivalent to at least 3 hours at the gym top roping, just because of all that tying in and belaying and walking around you end up doing. By climbing and downclimbing every single route doubles the effort, and it's easy to attempt 15-20 routes in an hour.
And so, I got better. Kenneth taught me some training techniques like "hovering" above a hold with your hands or feet for 3 seconds, which trains you to find a more optimal balance. He also encouraged me to think about precise foot placement on holds, even holds that were way way bigger than they need to be. He gave key pointers about climbing on inverted routes, namely to be stable before reaching for a hold.
And so, while I was a V1/V2 climber when I started at DBC, I finished up as a sometimes-V4-and-that-one-V5 climber. (I did a total of 4 V4s and 1 V5.) Pretty awesome. I'm tempted to continue my membership and get up to the multiple-V5 level, but I need to save that $$ for other the thousand other things I need to buy right now (telemark bindings/mounting, aspen trip, orizaba, liz's wedding, burning man). I'm very fortunate that I'm in graduate school and not something paying me a lot of money... if my funds weren't limited, I would probably get myself into deepdeep trouble.
In any case, it's been a good run with DBC. I'll hopefully be back next winter to hone my skills even further.
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