Friday glee is not too cool for school

[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: Grit Kids, Hot Aches's 20-minutes film on teenage siblings Katie and Pete Whittaker (back before he was a Wide Boy), climbing hard trad after school. Includes Pete's first ascent of Dynamics of Change (E9 7a), his direct start to Braille Trail, featuring one of the most holy shit moves on grit.

*waves*

[mongrelheart]

Hi all! I've been meaning to make an intro post for about the last 2 weeks, but time got away from me. Anyhow, I recently completed a beginner rock climbing class at a local gym here in Chicago. (It was 3 sessions of about 2 hours each.) They have an outdoor wall & I had been passing by on the street for years, thinking how fun it looked. Can't believe how long it took me to finally check it out, but I'm glad I did.

 

One of the instructors told us when we finished the class, that if we want to continue with climbing, the important thing is to not let a bunch of time go by before we get back in there. Otherwise we'll forget stuff & it'll feel weird. So last weekend I went back & climbed again. I also ended up buying a pass for 10 visits and have been encouraging the others from my class to join me.

 

Realistically I don't think I'll be doing this more than once a week, since I'm currently training 5 days a week (strength and conditioning, Crossfit-style stuff). But I definitely want to keep on climbing & get better at it. I'm stoked to have found a new fun thing, and also excited to learn from you more experienced folks! Any words of wisdom and/or advice for the n00b would be much appreciated :)