Specific Adaptations to Imposed Demands

I find climbing in 2006 after spending 4 years in a bubble of artistic expression and co-creative exchanges. 26 years old and married with rent to pay, squeezed into a double speak world of 9-5 fluorescent lights, wrapped up in business casual women’s wear. Moving up a wall becomes a visceral channel for energy that's reached a fever pitch, an outlet I'd been hungry for without even knowing it. 


I can introspect, express athleticism, physical strength, mental fortitude, fluidity in thought and movement. I’m a static, vert climber until I decide I want to be more. I can break myself down and build myself back up over and over again, in as many ways as I can imagine and the energy renews.

I can be outside with the sky, part of the landscape, hike through quiet forests and try really hard or just flow, nice and easy. I read books, watch videos, listen to podcasts, get psyched and now and then hear faint echoes of what climbing means to me in others. There’s nothing flashy or exciting about what I feel for this “sport”, if anything it’s corny, childish and easily ridiculed.

 

There’s a grown woman with self-confidence, self-respect and a clear delineation of where she ends and the other begins, of what’s her responsibility and what’s not, who lives inside me, too. I keep training and feel things shifting; walk up to a steep route and the lump in my throat and pit in my stomach slowly give way to curiosity and excitement and that woman starts straightening her spine. She reaches forward by working to put her own draws up, try this “hard” route, write an article here, share her climbing there, speak up. With every reach forward she fills in a little more. 

 

I can climb alone and pay attention to my session while noticing this tension in myself to curl up and fall back. Keep putting in the reps of noticing without getting involved in it, build that muscle. Get to know who I’m climbing with when when I’m psyched and strong and when I'm tired and feel like I’m just going through the motions. How to cheer for myself, pick myself back up, try hard with no one around or in front of people. Back off problems, go for it, take awkward falls, send easily, barely or not at all and be with all the things that come up - criticism, praise, indifference, whatever - from inside and out. Take what's useful, keep learning, keep reaching forward.



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