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So even though I have a lot to write about since the last time, I decided to split the content in different journals these days. I've been boosting my training, buying new equipment and testing new paths in the boulder, but in this journal I'm going to speak about learning to take care of yourself, mentally and physically, in the climbing boulder. Before starting, this guide is very very introductory, based on empirical testing. I failed on this a few times, and started learning about it progressively through a couple of years. There are people who have been practicing for years, even a lifetime, who has books about this topic. In my case I want to share some "newbie to newbie" wisdom. In case you want to learn more about this topic I suggest going through videos of trainers, but... I mean of course trust competitors, they know the best, but they tend to be very aggressive with their limits, works for them but understand your own limitations and priorities.
In Spanish my fav books until now are:
https://www.todostuslibros.com/libros/como-escalar-y-entrenar-en-rocodromo_978-84-9829-550-4
https://www.todostuslibros.com/libros/mastermind-entrenamiento-mental-para-escalar_978-84-9829-589-4
https://www.todostuslibros.com/libros/entrenamiento-de-escalada-basado-en-la-evidencia-cientifica_978-84-9829-507-8
The first question is about choosing a correct pair of shoes. I will address an awesome video by Jenn Sends (my fav content creator from the climbing scenario yet) but before I want to share my own experience. Believe or not I spent a year or so using painful shoes, just for the sake of trust. A really toxic person told me that I should be using a feet number under my street shoes regardless if itś painful or not, and even though I already distrusted this person, I trusted the professional climber behind, not to mention is something regularly said "by people". I have high tolerance of pain like that because I've practiced aggressive martial arts and used to dance in almost-pro level as a teen, so I thought pain was normal, but it started to become a nuisance when I wasn't able to improve or even think about the wall due to the pain. At some point I though (I know it sounds silly) that it was due to the quality of the shoes and not the number, so I just bought a pair slightly bigger (I was even embarrassed! imagine) a bit less painful, but still impossible to wear, either. These were very good quality so I thought "hey, WHAT IF... this stupid rule is stupid or somehow not necessary?" my main concern was that if a shoe felt good it meant at some point it would fall or slip away, but I just decided I would trust my guts and try a bunch of shoes until one felt comfortable and well fit, and if someone had a problem ẃith that I was happy to ignore it. While trying a trainer from my climbing place approached to me in order to offer help if needed and I was ready to respond "yeah yeah I don't care, I want to be comfortable" but, out of surprise, I discovered he came to advise me that. "Don't you worry about the number, that's silly and toxic. Make sure it feels good." It came as a surprise but I felt very happy, and I finally told him about what happened to me. He was visibly angry "a lot of trainers keep going with that stupid thing" he said. Apparently, shoes used to be made of leather, and therefore they stretched and actually used to felt good after a while when they were a bit smaller than your original street shoe size. But currently, shoes are made differently, with other materials, and that stupid rule makes no sense anymore. Some people does feel better like this, some doesn't, some even need a pair even bigger than the regular size. I recently discovered that even the shape of the shoe requires different fits. So yeah, basically try to be comfortable. Of course it needs to be tight, because the whole sport is about sticking yourself to a wall so you have to make sure the shoe stays in your feet and not in the wall. But apart from that, suffering is not a requirement. My current shoes are amazing, so comfortable. Feet pain used to be my main concern while training, and now my main concern is trying to polish my technique while climbing up. Pain is no longer an issue.
Here's the video I told you about before:
https://inv.riverside.rocks/watch?v=zTqHD8LecXE
When my feet started to feel good, a new problem came into scene: my hands. My first day with the trainer, I had a couple of bleeding bruises in my hands and when training, a new one appeared. I actually stooped training because I was bleeding. I of course thought this would be a problem, because if I couldn't train, I will hurt myself again soon. I let the bruises heal for a couple of days (four, actually, I was so looking forward to go back) but tried a new approach. First of all I made sure to use climbing tape. Is a special tape you put in your hands in order to protect the skin in certain places. I used it were I hurt myself before and also calmly touched each finger looking for hardness spots that could become a callosity and eventually a bruise and also taped it. I used to forgot that I had magnesium chalk in my hands (this is used to help your hands climb and hold in places even if you are sweating), and this also was a poor way of caring for my skin. So I started religiously cleaning and washing my hands right after each training in the climbing toilets and, after throwing away the tapes, also applying a hands cream, specially designed for climbers. Although I'm using this and I absolutely love the cream, my trainer told me any hands cream would help.
Taking care of my skin, my bruises and my feet allowed me to improve a lot! (of course, the trainer is the main reason I'm improving my technique quality) but I'm able to focus on improving when I'm perfectly safe and well treated. This seems like common sense, but coming from martial art environments, itś common to learn about bearing pain, bruises and punches, and when transitioning to climbing, self care was new. So I approached it slowly. I'm also learning to wait and study the wall from one attempt to another. I'm very impatient by nature, so every time I look like I'm chill or relaxed is completely forced and learned, from myself to myself. I used to climb until I was unable to reach a single rock, But now I'm learning to peacefully look at the wall from one attempt to another, and let my hands feel better before trying once again. On the inside there's a little me jumping saying GO GO GO GO GO but she isn't usually right.
Nevertheless whatever I do I always put my safety up front, so if something hurt I'm just used to stop practicing before the time I planned, or if I was hit I kept training avoiding that hurt area. So it's not like I've always been crazy and I'm starting to settle down now. But I do think that (specially in sports for competition or martial arts) it's usually encouraged to bear pain instead of taking a break and rethink your technique. You see I used to swim at the age of 13 to 16, and it's been the sport that I performed the best, with difference. I was moved to the class where my trainer was a student (she recommended me), and I was offered to do serious professional competition (also to my parents). Thankfully, my parents always relied on my opinion and heart, and just let me handle this issue myself without pressure. I remember bearing the pain way better than in any other sports, and seriously thinking about becoming a professional swimmer. But I also remembered at that time that, when doing intensive training I feared a couple of times that I would black out and drown until the safety guard or my classmates took me out. It never happened but I used to fear that when my heart was pounding very hard finishing the intensive sessions. I just decided to avoid that fear by rejecting a professional competition career before even starting. All I have left is the ability of wining every swimming race on summer with friends! Was that a right decision? who knows, I'm happy now, and that's what matters to me atm.
It's like, pain (mental and physical) is usually expected and it's just a matter of learning about it. This seems innocent, but it can also affects the way you handle daily tasks, work, relationships... and that's a problem. Toughness is good as long as it goes with self care and general care for others.
I feel really bad about have advised others the "wrong number shoe" out of trust for toxic people, too. So now I make sure to tell anyone who asks to take care of feet and hands carefully. I told the other day a guy in my climbing boulder, while he was asking another guy practicing there. I fear becoming a crazy stranger giving advice, mostly because I'm absolutely no expert (not even senior!) in the practice. But I'm sure about self care! and I want to make sure people starting out learns about it without bearing pain and bruises for a year.
Last but not least, I wanted to talk about mental self care while climbing. Apparently this is a hot topic, because there are a few books about it. My safety obsession wouldn't let me climb carelessly with the rope. When you use a rope it -usually- means you are about to climb up-up. some meters high, the height you would normally use stairs or an elevator to reach. I've tried a couple of times before but I used to feel fear. It's funny because I totally have two warning "setups" in my mind at the very same heights. It's like my mind is programmed to throw a halt in the very same spots. So I usually listen to that warning (shaped as a hard-pounding heart, tense muscles rejecting to keep working if I go up and sweat) and go down. To be clear, climbing bouldering places are very very safe. They use a special rope that resembles a safe belt and gradually lifts you down, and the floor is usually a big crash pad. So even if I failed and slipped the rope would softly lift me down in the soft pad. But my safety programmed halt don't care about it, and it keeps saying ABORT ABORT when a meter up the "no-rope" security area. To be clear: in the climbing boulder there's a line indicating the area that is safe to climb without rope (which is my confident area!). So when I go up exactly a meter from that line, the first halt flag goes up and asks "are you sure, girl?"
When I started working with my trainer I decided to trust him as much as I could. And at some point, after testing my no-rope ability he said "okay let's get you a harness!" and I froze. I kind of confessed, slightly, that I'm usually afraid of climbing "up-up". I'm not afraid of heights, I've grown in the highest peak of Spain (I'm very proud of Sierra Nevada, I'm sorry, I hate to death nationalism but this is my only weak spot: Sierra Nevada), of course I didn't say this to him, but I wanted to make sure that we were on the same page. He acknowledged but prepared my harness anyway and simply said "climbing is about going up-up" and he was kind of right? I mean I want to say "climbing is about climbing! no matter the height!" But he had a point so I tried. My first halt flag appeared and I looked down "It's happening!" I said from above. He cheered me a bit and insisted that it wasn't a big deal, it was safe, which I already knew. So I tried to go up a bit more, until my second flag went up. This is the one I hate the most because it appears when I'm only 50cm away from the top. It's like, I realize that if I'm only 50cm away from the top I'm very up-up, so my body refuses to go up unless I convince it. I looked down and I should have shown a puppy face because he said "no worries climbing is about having fun!" and I felt I could let myself down already. I know this is an issue that I don't like, because I want to have fun. So I've been trying to climb up on my own. First, I bought an harness, a good one I trust. And I also decided to be kind with myself. If my safety flag is very insistent I just go down even if it's the first flag. But I slowly tell my self "why not trying again later just to see how it feels" and I slowly went up a bit more, even if the flags whispers "yeah yeah fun, but remember...". After a few days I climb up better, having fun. When I'm not having fun, I go down. Since I feel like the worse part for me is relying on the rope, I started going up and down manually. This means I also climb down instead of rappel myself down (which is the common practice, but I don't care about that already). Of course climbing up and down requires tons of energy and strength: no problem I do it first thing in the session and train strength everyday. I've been doing this until the other day I completely climbed up to the top and down again back to the floor without doing rappel or jumping.This took a lot of effort and patience with myself and I don't believe the trainers will be able to appreciate (since it's "silly"), but I do and I had tons of fun because I made amends with myself in order to feel safe. This "allowed" me to have fun. There's a lot of people who don't feel this pressure at all, they just trust the trustworthy equipment and that's okay. We all trust something strongly. I only trust to death my father steps, and that's why I climb without doubt on Sierra Nevada above the snow and eat a sandwich on the Veleta peak looking down without loosing a single heart beat. But the boulder is a strange place to me and I don't see my dad going up through the wall, so I don't trust it completely. And that's fine!
My hot take here is: what mentally works for everyone around doesn't need to work for you, and that's fine. Look for you "fun" limit. I need some -safe- challenge to have fun and looked for it, even if I looked weird. Probably no one cared anyway. If you are facing actual fear, it's not going well. I have a general rule for this, which doesn't need to work for you, but maybe try to look for your own? Mine (learned the hard way in other contexts) is "If I imagine myself out of here, walking away from here, breathing happily out of here, something's not going okay and it's urgent, run away!". I encourage spending some time looking for your safety golden rule. When you are in danger you don't usually have time to think thoroughly, so simple rules are very important, in my opinion. A simple voice from yourself that you can remember, listen and trust. And this also works in sports!