Climbing

Climbing Trip

Recently we planned a climbing trip and visited a climbing hall in london. This trip was designed to give us a taste of an activity we could undertake. So we visited the climbing hall and had a little lesson in climbing. We then climbed a variety of walls to give us a taste of what we could do in the future. This activity was a action activity due to its physical strength needed to fulfill, however also it takes real skill to fulfill.

Objectives

Here my objectives were to try every course which was set up for me and try and fulfill it, in addition try some of the trickier routes. I also wanted analyse my climbing ability to access where my strengths and where my weaknesses lay.

Reflection

To conclude I must say that I think that I fulfilled my objectives I set out for myself. When we were climbing I attemtped and normally managed to fulfill the climbing routes given to me. However when we got to the bouldering it was a different matter. Sometimes the routes were so advanced that the starting possisions for myself were near impossible to start in. This caused me later to stop trying these routes because one needed such advanced grip strength to manage these routes that I did not even try them later. For my second objective I neded to access my strengths and weaknesses. So I noticed that while climbing I had quite good body strength to keep up with the climbing, however what I was lacking was the intense grip needed to hold onto certain grips that were in such awkward positions. All in all I think I managed my objectives and look forward to climbing more often at this climbing hall.

Continuation

Description

After our first climbing trip organised by our CAS coordinater, I decided to continue to pursue the activity and continue to climb at white spider. This again as described before is part of my action activities as it takes a lot of strength, agility and skill to achieve certain routes. However I wanted to further my climbing abilities, as before we were guided by instructed and they did our safety, however I wanted to set out and learn the safety myself and climb independently. I was going to visit the hall once a week, at most due to me having to pay £11 for each visit, which was a lot for me. So I set out to plan my objectives for the activity.

Objectives

My first objective was to be able to climb independantly this involved learning how to safety myself to the climbing end, learning how to belay someone and amking safety checks and assessments while climbing. My next objective was to start climbing the routes as before I just took any hold on the wall, however I wanted to start just climbing routes which really would increase the difficulty. These were my plans for the next few weeks and I was certain that I would fulfill them.

Reflection

I set out quite optimistically onto my quest of climbing. Firstly I set out to learn the safety skills that were involved. I had two options, to either pay for a course or to learn it off youtube, looking at my limited money resources I chose the latter. I looked at the knots involved, took a piece of rope at home and started practicing them, they all seemed simple enough and I picked up the safety skills quite quickly. The next part was starting to climb and actually sign up to the climbing hall. This I did with a good friend of mine, we set out on our epic quest finally, driving there I felt sort of nervous for the test they gave one for the safety checks as I had never really done them with real equipment, however I had only seen it before and knew the theory, now it was time for me to prove myself in practice. We went in and paid for the session, then they took me through the safety test and I passed without any errors, was easier than I expected, the theory seemed easy enough to play out in practice. So we had passed my first objectives which excited me, now we had to move on to the actual climbing, we gather our harnesses and our other equipement and started at one wall with a more easier route. We got set up and started the route, the route itself was easy enough and I felt competent, this gave me confidence, so we started to move on to other routes, all the routes on that day were pretty straight forward and I managed them, after that we did some boldering for some fun and we did not take it that serious as we had climbed for two hours before that. This first session gave me confidence however I was about to see that not all was that easy. The next time I visited, was with another friend, however he was a more experienced climber, so I was excited to see how I would cope. Again we started with a more simple route and my compitence seemed to keep up. However we then moved on to a more experienced route. He started it out and it looked simple, I started preparing myself mentall for the climb, however I did not think much of it, it looked straight forward. I then started the route, I got half way up and I thought, this is not that bad, but then I looked up and I saw this massive reach, I just looked down and saw my friend laugh. By this time my arms were aching already, my legs were squeezing for hold and my fingers were giving way, I was sweating and it obstructed partially my view, it was a big reach, almost a jump, however I had to try it, I asked my partner to loosen the rope a little to give me more room to move. I felt the rope loosen and then I pressed down with my right foot and started an epic leap of faith for this puny little hold I had to land on. I saw it, through my hand onto it, I thought i had it in the bag but I felt my hand lose grip, I looked to the left to get my other hand somewhere, or my foot, I scrambled for something, but it was too late, I lost grip and just fell a good 2 metres before the rope caught me. This was my first fall in climbing and it was exhilarating. I tried this route again for the next few weeks however until now have not been able to make that leap, however I am not going to give up, I will manage. This is what I learnt in clmbing, no matter how tired you are, you have to reach for that last bit of strength to grab anything possible and hold on, it really takes courage and its amazing what one can achieve with the amount of fatigue one feels. This is was I loved about the activity, I feel it was a success due to me realizing that and appreciating smaller things, every single advance was to be appreciated and it was nice.