Pro-Sports

This is where I will be migrating my original blog: Figur8 - A Woman’s Passion for Sports.  Since there is no import function that facilitates the process, it is going to be one arduous task that I am not looking forward to.  I will be shifting the articles over one by one and they will be dated as per the date they were originally written.

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I wrote this journal entry back sometime after our first trip to Krabi. I recall HB reminding me about a certain newbie who nearly decked him in a joking kind of way but I knew he meant it lightly. I wanted to remember it because I want to be as patient as HB was with me whenever I go climbing with a newbie.

My first rock climbing experience was sometime in 1994, or thereabouts. Even though I enjoyed the experience, I never went rock climbing again until some eight years later.

Of all the places I should kindle the spark of interest I had for rock climbing, it was in Malaysia. Since coming back to Malaysia to work, I had joined an audacious bunch of people from a local outdoor group called FYC (an open forum for the group exists on yahoogroups as “fycs”). We had been on numerous adventures together, some various hiking trips, running races, caving and the like.

Being an aspiring writer from an early age, many of my interests in these activities were inspired by my desire to write a book at some stage of my life. I have always believed that I should experience everything at least once so I would have the knowledge to write about it. This had been my primary motivation for joining the group from the first day.

As with any group of trailblazers, an adventure can only hold their interest so long as the experience continues to remain exciting. By this time, a few individuals were already impatient to move into a new sport. The topics of rock climbing and scuba diving cropped up a number of times. About that time, HB had returned from Perth and joined the group. He had a long history in both of these sports and was offering to share his experiences with us.

Recalling my first rock climbing encounter, I was quite eager to give it another go, so I hooked up with HB and arranged to meet up with him at the Summit Rock Climbing Gym. At that time, Summit was the only gym available within a convenient traveling distance.

HB was a burly man with a gruff disposition to match. I found him to be a little intimidating, though I’m sure in his own comportment, he felt he was friendly enough towards me. He took me through a quick refresher course on belaying and tying in my figure eight knot.

I don’t recall much of the evening except for a rather precarious moment when HB was climbing. He made a fifty-fifty move but could not secure the hold and I was caught surprise when the rope jerked through my hands and through the ATC belay device I was using. The rope had burned my hands so I could not secure the belayer’s end. Luckily a worker in the gym was in the vicinity and he grabbed the rope to slow HB’s fall.

Scarred by the experience, I’m not sure if I would have gone rock climbing again if I had really decked him. HB took the fall extremely well and even checked my injuries when he reached the ground. He never once went off at me, for which I was intensely grateful.

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I wrote this diary entry sometime after I climbed climbed my first roof:

At some stage, when the guy behind the counter finally convinced us to rent the shoes, my first instinct was to wear a pair of socks. How bizarre that I should now look at climbers who wear socks with climbing shoes with a knowing smile and the thought, “newbies,” running through my head.

We went through a basic course on safety, learning how to belay and tie a double figure eight knot. Then we took turns practicing our belaying skills on each other before we were allowed to graduate to the rest of the gym.

Con, being the most experienced by a few times, explained to us about the grading system. At any section of the wall, we would see a number of coloured odd shapes fastened into the wall. These odd shapes were called holds. Con explained that to follow the grades, you had to climb only using holds of a single colour. Using all the different colours was the easiest grade.

My first rock climbing experience was probably not the most ideal because my crazy cousin was belaying me. On the first route that I climbed, I was so absorbed with the movements, that I barely noticed that I was going off-route (meaning that I was climbing a section of the wall that was too far away from the line I should have been following). Being new to the sport, my cousin didn’t realize she was supposed to alert me that I was off-route. I continued to climb until I reached a point some distance to the left of the anchor.

Since I didn’t know how to traverse back to the anchor, I called down to my cousin and asked for advice on what I ought to do. It was not one of my brighter actions because my cousin told me to let go. Stupidity outweighing my reasoning capabilities, I obeyed. I found myself performing a “Tarzan” as I swung the arch of a pendulum and screamed my lungs out.

As if that experience wasn’t enough, my cousin decided to subject me to further psychological trauma by lowering me off like a sack of hot potatoes. I think I was almost in tears by the time I hit the ground. Might you, I was particularly afraid of heights at that point of my life.

I guess recklessness must have been the order of the day, for I went on to climb a particularly tall section of the wall. I climbed ala “rainbow warrior” style, using all the coloured holds on the wall. It particularly easy, almost as if I were climbing a ladder, although the higher I went, the more my arms and legs started to shake. It was a common climber’s syndrome that was frequently referred to as the “Elvis leg” or the “sewing machine”. Perhaps I was tired, perhaps I was afraid, whatever it was I only managed to keep going because Audrey was shouting words of encouragement up to me.

I have a rather vivid image of Con climbing a route with an over hang (an inclined wall that leans towards the climber) and a mini roof (a horizontal section of a route). Even though he was struggling at the overhang, the rest of us watched on like fans gaping at a sports star. I also remember the thought running through my head at that point in time, “How on earth does anyone climb something like that? It’s impossible! You’d have to be so strong. There’s no way a girl like me could ever get that strong.”

Interesting thoughts from a girl who has finally learned to climb a roof and discovered that it is indeed very possible.

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