Friday glee is finger-jamming down the side of the fridge

[rydra_wong]

The Friday post of glee is where you get to tell us about your climbing-related happiness this week.

It can be a new achievement or adventure, or just that you climbed and had fun; it can be that your favourite climbing wall is expanding or that you bought new rock shoes or that you found a cool ice-climbing vid on YouTube. No glee is too small -- or too big. Members are encouraged to cheer each other on and share the squee.

N.B. Please feel free to post your glee on any day of the week; the Friday glee is just to get the ball rolling.

To enhance this week's glee: Tom Randall lures innocent comp climber Hannes Puman into his crack-climbing ways on La Fuerza de la Gravedad, 8b+ roof crack.

Comments

[seasonoftowers]

Started writing, but it got long and rambly and very gleeful so I turned it into its own post

https://seasonoftowers.dreamwidth.org/19946.html

[wpadmirer]

I went climbing Tuesday right after seeing the surgeon and finding out I'm having my appendix out this morning. Wasn't my best day of climbing - but MAN, it was fun!

[rydra_wong]

Hope everything goes smoothly with the appendix and you can climb again a.s.a.p.!

[wpadmirer]

Thanks! It went very smoothly. I was home by noon, and I can climb again in two weeks! Short of not having to have the surgery at all, I think that's damn good. (grin)

[juliet]

L (aged 7) went climbing properly* for the first time and really enjoyed himself! He got to the top of 3 routes (the 'ladder' sub-V0 ones) and halfway up another couple. Which is pretty good for 7! Especially pleased for him as the first one he tried, he climbed several times, going a bit further every time, before he finally made it all the way up, and it was just really cool to see him stretching himself kind of moment-by-moment. His friend (similar age, quite a bit smaller) did really well too. Plans to return fortnightly...

Also I did a bit of climbing but it was L who I am more gleeful about :)

* I took him a couple of years ago, and they had small-enough shoes for him, but he only got about a metre off the floor and then had to be lifted down because he got stuck.

[rydra_wong]

Go L! \o/ \o/ \o/

Especially pleased for him as the first one he tried, he climbed several times, going a bit further every time, before he finally made it all the way up, and it was just really cool to see him stretching himself kind of moment-by-moment.

And what awesome self-awareness on his part to be able to go "THIS is as high as I am willing to go right now" but also to keep expanding his own comfort zone like that.

[juliet]

Exactly! I was really proud of him. And equally proud for the couple of times he got halfway up and said "no this is too scary!" and came back down again. It is good to know your limits! (Most notably that was one where you have to kind of go sideways around a lumpy bit which is probably easier with adult-length arms and legs. He thinks he will try that again next time.)

[rydra_wong]

And equally proud for the couple of times he got halfway up and said "no this is too scary!" and came back down again. It is good to know your limits!

Yes! And I firmly believe that being comfortable backing off when it's too scary and knowing that you're "allowed" to do that (whether the permission you need is internal or external) is a key ingredient in finding the internal motivation to expand your comfort zone.

If I feel pressured or that it's not okay for me to back off something, that's when I reflexively dig in my toes and fight to NOT DO the thing at all, because it doesn't feel safe. If I know I can back off when it's too scary, without any stress or pressure about it, I'm much more willing to go right up to the boundary of wherever "too scary" is right now.