2022: Inspiration
A few years ago I was doing some early morning bouldering at the local climbing wall and wasn’t feeling particularly adventurous, so I did some stamina work instead of trying out new harder routes. I was trying to do as many routes in a row as possible without stopping or getting off the wall until I couldn’t climb any more and had to stop to rest, then going again and doing different ones as soon as I was ready. During the breaks I watched others climb and appreciated the strength and grace of their movements.
There was one guy who certainly made the act of climbing a wall an art. It was beautiful to watch the precision and control of his movement combined with his total focus on where each limb went, at a slow, relaxed yet continuous pace. It is very easy to be inspired by people like this, real artists.
As I looked around I spotted a young girl, about 8 years old, finish one of the routes I’d been doing and then go on to start a new one. The first main hold was a large rounded lump with no nice crevices to hook your fingers into and about 8 feet (13.699 bananas) off the floor – something that certainly looked too high for her. Although by jumping she could get her fingers onto the top of the hold, she was unable to get a good enough purchase to prevent her hand sliding off. After several tries she then explored several other ways of getting to it, including wedging herself backwards into a corner and climbing up that way just using pressure into the walls and bracing against herself. In the end nothing could get her close enough, so she went back to jumping at a point where if it was me I’d have gone and tried some other routes and come back to this one another day. After three more tries she finally made it with both hands on top and her feet scrabbling for purchase up the bare wall – only the flats of her palms pressing down supporting her.
Her perseverance and success was something I considered truly Kung Fu. For those not familiar with the term, I grabbed a nice description from Wikipedia:
‘Originally, to practise kung fu did not just mean to practise Chinese martial arts.
Instead, it referred to the process of one’s training – the strengthening of the body and the mind, the learning and the perfection of one’s skills – rather than to what was being trained. It refers to excellence achieved through long practice in any endeavour.’
I spoke to her dad when he paused after his own climb and said how great it was to see his daughter’s focus and resilience, and her independence too. Although he was climbing in the same hall, quite often he was on a different wall to her – doing his own thing while she did hers. They came together and chatted while resting, but then focussed on their own training. There are so many activities where parents have to leave their kids there or just sit and watch, either because they are not interested in taking part or because they are not able/allowed/it is not appropriate to. In a room of about 8 grown men climbing what for me were quite often virtually impossible at my current ability, it was great that the person who inspired me the most was one of the least experienced and on a similar level to me, yet around 20 years younger.
In our kids classes we work really hard to actively teach awareness, focus and resilience, and explain how these skills can be integrated into other parts of life. In our youth and adults classes we’re a bit more subtle about it, but they’re still all there in every class. It is not the case that what you learn in one activity stays locked to just that activity, but everything we do adds to our knowledge and ability to do everything else. The focus needed for the continuous mental and physical problem solving found in bouldering and climbing will transfer over into the games, drills, and exercises we do in class, and be built upon as we add the wider awareness of group focus or solo disciplined form practice. The awareness gained through training against multiple assailants crosses over into awareness of other climbers on the wall, or people walking oblivious beneath you just as before you fall off. And more obviously training to go to the ground safely is essential for when it all goes wrong and you have the choice of learning to fly very quickly or hoping the ground is soft when you get there.
In our kids classes we work really hard to actively teach awareness, focus and resilience, and explain how these skills can be integrated into other parts of life. In our youth and adults classes we’re a bit more subtle about it, but they’re still all there in every class. It is not the case that what you learn in one activity stays locked to just that activity, but everything we do adds to our knowledge and ability to do everything else. The focus needed for the continuous mental and physical problem solving found in bouldering and climbing will transfer over into the games, drills, and exercises we do in class, and be built upon as we add the wider awareness of group focus or solo disciplined form practice. The awareness gained through training against multiple assailants crosses over into awareness of other climbers on the wall, or people walking oblivious beneath you just as before you fall off. And more obviously training to go to the ground safely is essential for when it all goes wrong and you have the choice of learning to fly very quickly or hoping the ground is soft when you get there.
2022 has been a year of inspiration and growth for me, both in training and in other areas. There are several people I’d never met before who freely offered their time and expertise in sharing their skills for me to learn and integrate into CKF. I have travelled abroad to train with other clubs, and then been invited to teach there too. I have been able to witness some of my training partners level up, inspiring me to train more, learn more, develop more. And this has all facilitated me making new friends and being inspired to do more.
And that’s my plan for 2023: to spend time with people who inspire me to do more. What’s yours?
Happy New Year,
Col