Pro-Sports

There is something significant about being able to maintain your workout program for the first month.  It’s like quitting a bad habit and until you hit that specific target, your chances of failure are still very high.  In this case, the likelihood of dropping the program decreases the longer you are able to stick with the program.  After a while, you won’t feel “right” unless you get your regular boost of adrenaline.

Well, I’m officially in week four and we’re off to a good start.  Today I did a 50 minute workout following the Total Yoga: Flow Series - Fire.

Actually the total workout is really 60 minutes, but I didn’t know that.  I thought it would be about 45 minutes like the other two discs.  If I had known it was going to run for 60 minutes, I would have chosen another workout because my son skipped his afternoon nap and was awake for the entire workout.  I tried for the longest time to get him to sleep without success and gave up in the end when I was started to get frustrated with him.  I figured a nice yoga workout would help relax me - and it did, somewhat.

Gavin was really good about letting me workout and kept himself occupied for a large part of the workout.  Towards the end, as he started to get restless (and who could blame him with such a long workout), he started climbing all over me.  That really didn’t help since I barely had enough strength to perform a controlled chaturanga let alone do one with a 12.5kg toddler on my back. 

Aside from the fact that Fire was 60 minutes long, it was also a lot harder compared to the first two discs Earth and Water.  Although I could manage the moves, doing them all in sequence was extremely tiring.  My arms were like jell’O and trembling and I’m sure my form was rather poor towards the end purely because I was too tired to hold my postures correctly.  I had to do the easier modifications for some moves - like the headstand and the bridge (though I’m sure I could have done the latter if my arms had felt stronger).  I was worried about crashing down on my head so I went with the easier option instead.

I would definitely have to agree that this disc is designed for much more advanced students.  Note to self: let’s not try this again in the near future.  Nevertheless, it felt really good to push the limits of my arms.  Most of the other Yoga workout DVDs I have mainly focus on core and lower body.  Then again, most of the other Yoga workout DVDs I have aren’t taught by proper yogis.  They are done by popular workout instructors who’ve jumped on the yoga bandwagon and decided to add a yoga workout to the list of their existing titles.

Ironically it was reading yesterday’s article in the papers that sparked this deeper interest in yoga.  And to think that if they had not brought it to my attention I would have been content to simply follow the basic yoga routines taught by the normal fitness instructors instead of looking further for a purer yoga workout. 

Although I haven’t found the perfect yoga workout DVD yet, I did stumble across this yoga site that teaches you the different asanas complete with explanation of benefits and photos for correct positioning.  They also offer free workout videos sent to your inbox every month - which is great except that I don’t have a laptop to workout in front of.  I’ll still require a DVD or VCD that I can play in the DVD player.

Strangely, the sensation I felt after todays workout when I watched Ganga White and Tracy Rich in some very challenging poses was somewhat similar to the sensation I felt when I watched Mutant Man climbing a 6A route in Damai back when I was a newbie climber.  Back then, I had thought to myself, “Wow!  I’ll never be able to climb something like that!”  Now I find myself thinking, “How will I ever get good enough to do those poses?”  And when I think of how far beyond 6A I went in my rock climbing, I try to use that inspiration to quell the negative feelings of inadequacy in yoga.

I might not be able to rock climb these days, but perhaps yoga can be a temporary fill-in until I can climb again?

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When I got married, I slowed down the pace of my rock climbing.  Then when I found out I was pregnant with my son, I stopped altogether.  I decided that if the hubby could give up his penchant for fast cars and take up the responsibility that goes with being a family man, then I could give up my love for rock climbing, too (although I still maintain that rock climbing is a much safer hobby compared to racing). 

After a two and a half year absence from rock climbing, I find my hands itching to climb.  Ah heck!  Who am I kidding?  My hands were itching to climb a lot earlier than this. 

Sometimes, late at night, when I’m trawling the net and looking enviously at the climbing photos of friends, I wonder if I could go back to rock climbing and be satisfied if I can’t climb like I used to.  Would I be able to stand the inevitable disappointment that my body cannot climb as well as my mind remembers?  Would I be able to accept the fact that I won’t have the time to dedicate to climbing like I used to so that I could bring myself back to that level?

And as the days move into months and the months to years, I wonder if I have passed the time for such activities.  And then I see an article about Running America talking about Marshall Ulrich (age 57) and Charlie Engle (age 43) who ran 3045 miles (up to 70 miles a day) and I feel inspired.  If they can still be running at those ages, then surely I can still be rock climbing at that age, too.

One of the things about climbing that I liked which was unlike a lot of power sports where being five years older can seriously affect your performance, you can still climb just as well and better if you set yourself to it. 

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Although Gavin is too young to climb at Camp 5, I’ve discovered another climbing wall that he can try out at Kizsports in 1Utama.  Kizsports is located in the old wing near Jusco Department store.  It’s on Level two above Toys ‘R’ Us and Marks and Spencer.

I took Gavin to Kizsports on Tuesday initially intending to wear him out with vigorous play activities and was pleasantly surprised to find the mini rock climbing wall.  Actually, it’s more like a small boulder wall but big enough for a child to get a taste for bouldering.  I tried to get Gavin to climb but he wasn’t feeling particularly adventurous that day.  I even climbed on the wall to show him how it was done but he didn’t want to copy Mummy like he normally does.  Perhaps a few more visits will help warm him up to the sport, or perhaps being able to watch other kids climb might help.

I didn’t climb much - just up the wall and to the right which was probably about four moves in total - but it was enough to kill my hands.  It’s amazing how two years without climbing has really softened my hands. Gone are the callouses that used to offer me some measure of protection against the harshness of an artificial handhold. 

I have a feeling getting back into climbing this time is going to be a lot more painful than I had anticipated.  I saw my old climbing shoes some time back when I was searching through the shoe cupboard for a pair of shoes and I’m not even sure I can cram my feet back into them if they were two sizes bigger.  The callouses on my toes have gone, too, and the black toenail has returned to a normal colour.  It is only when I reflect back to my climbing days that I realise the trauma I put my body through.  Then again, the euphoria of the sport tended to dim the senses somewhat so I guess that’s why I never really noticed until now.

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Above: Monsoon is the route that runs to the right of the cave with the big boulder inside it.

There’s a route in Damai called “Monsoon”.  It is a multi-pitch with three pitches, graded 6A, 6B, 5C. It should be noted that Damai routes are graded a little higher than Nyamuk so you might find they aren’t as difficult to climb (although when I first climbed at Damai, I was a newbie climber who found even a Damai 5C to be challenging).

Monsoon got its name because it rained when they were bolting this route (or something to that effect).  Monsoon held true to its name because whenever someone was projecting this route, it would always rain.  So, too, was it for me when I was projecting this route - it seemed that every time I wanted to climb this route, it would start to rain.  One time, it started to drizzle the moment I put my hands on the rock face.

The crux of Monsoon is just before the anchor.  Looks can be deceiving because, from the ground, it looks like the easiest part of the route. From the ground, the crux looks like a sloping ledge that you can just walk up to the anchor on.  When you get up there, it’s a whole different story.  Most of the climbers I’ve seen attempting this route for the first time were pretty gripped on this ledge, granted that they weren’t very experienced climbers.

Monsoon is one of those routes which was very near and dear to my heart because it was the first route I took on as a project route back in my early outdoor rock climbing days.  I can still recall the day I first top-roped this route.  I had gotten to the ledge and something got caught in my eye. Feeling pretty gripped up there, I brushed my eye as quickly as I could with one hand while I held on for dear life with the other.  At about the same time, the wind blew and my contact lens dropped off my eyeball.  To add insult to injury, it started to drizzle as well!

In retrospect, perhaps not being able to see so well (since I only had one good eye - I’m pretty blind without contacts or glasses) was a good thing.  Since I couldn’t see, I don’t think I was as scared as I would have been if I could see properly.

I don’t remember who was on belay, but I think it was Thin Man.  When it started to rain, he asked if I wanted to bail.  I would be lying if I said I wasn’t sorely tempted to quit and try again another day.  But, recalling that it had started to rain so many times before when I wanted to climb Monsoon, and the fact that I was so close to the anchor, I thought, “I’ll be damned if I bail now.”

I also don’t remember when I red-pointed Monsoon, but I do remember that when I finally did, I had out-grown the title of newbie rock climber.  It was as if red-pointing Monsoon was the initiation test to get into the inner circle of the local rock climbers’ club.

If I was proud of my achievement of red-pointing Monsoon, the feeling paled in comparison to how I felt when I red-pointed the second pitch of Monsoon.

The second pitch of Monsoon was officially my first red-point on a 6B (albeit a Damai 6B). The first time we went up there, Akmal Noor took us up (us being Thin Man and me). Akmal was so kind to mark the handholds at the crux with chalk, but unfortunately, only Thin Man made it through the crux. I had to cheat and climb off-route (I climbed straight up instead of through the crux which was a diagonal move to the right).

I have to thank Akmal when I finally got my red-point on this route because thoughts of bailing were flashing through my head as I sat in a little cave just before the crux sequence. Akmal had been descending from a route not far from me and he called out to see how I was doing, so I told him I was scared. I can’t remember what he said to me, but I did climb on and red-point the route that day.

The thing about projecting a route on the second pitch is that you’re so high up, you can’t really talk to anyone on the ground. Sometimes you can’t even see your belayer, so it feels like you’re all alone up there. There’s a good and bad part to this. The good part is that no one from the ground can call up and offer you unnecessary beta. The bad news is that you don’t have any encouraging “allez” from the ground to keep you going.

After red-pointing the second pitch, I practiced climbing from the ground to the anchor of the second pitch without stopping. Thin Man and I would do this to train our endurance - it was part of the program for our plan to conquer Humanality in Krabi (which, sadly, I never did in spite of the fact that I went to Krabi three times).

Climbing up to the second pitch is fun because you can get a nice rhythm going with about 50 meters of straight climbing. Most of the single pitches in Damai were less than 25 meters, so sometimes you can’t really get the flow of movement on the rocks going. The only thing about leading up to the second pitch anchor is that the rope drag is so bad, I don’t even think you need a belayer to keep you up there (please don’t take this literally, though, because you should always have a belayer when you’re climbing - unless you plan to solo which then becomes your own liability).

The first time I lead all the way to the second pitch, I felt so pumped, I was even planning to cheat and hold on to a root growing out of the rock somewhere before the anchor of the second pitch. Not only was I pumped from climbing all the way up to from the ground, but the rope drag was like climbing with weights. When I finally reached the root, I was devastated to discover that it had been ripped off the rock face!

That day, I learned something new - in the face of adversity, you can find the strength within to push past the limits of your mind. Since there was no longer a root hold to cheat with, I had to keep climbing without it.

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I posted up some old climbing photos on Facebook recently and it got some memories stirring for the Rockrats which made me think back to some of the old craziness we used to get up to.  While digging into the archives of the Rockrats history books, I found these priceless gems:

Thin Man: Sim, give Derek some beta!
Simian Boy: USE THE JUGS!!!

Thin Man: Just pull the runner.

Lelek Le Grunt: Okay, here’s the plan. When I move up, you tighten the rope.

Fearless Leader, while struggling up a really pumpy route at Dairy Farm Singapore, drops a
classic on the belayer: OI PULL ME UP, MAN, YOU ARE NOT DOING ANYTHING DOWN THERE!!!

5C Master, on the crux of Parang Buta, Comic: TIGHT! TIGHT! TIGHT! TIGHT! Phew, thanks!

Simian Boy: It helps when you tell chicks that you do rock climbing, until they realize that it’s the only thing you ever do…

Climber: Hey, did you hear about the guy who dropped his rope while threading the anchor and then had to have someone climb up to rescue him?
Fearless Leader: Oi! That was me!

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Thin Man sent me a link to a rock climber’s tale about her initiation into rock climbing.  As I read the pertinent sections related to her climbing experience, I find my palms beginning to sweat and a knot of envy forming somewhere behind my sternum.  Here was a lady who did what I had always dreamt of doing, if only I had the courage to let go off the solid security of a paying job that offered the certainty of a roof over my head and food on my table.  To add to my envy, not only does she travel around the world and climb, but she is also an excellent writer crafting her words with wit to paint vivid pictures of her adventures. 

The second of January was the day of my initiation to the sport of rock climbing. I remember specifically because I was scheduled for the morning climb on the first but when I showed up fifteen minutes early (somewhat heroically, I thought, as I had celebrated the dawning of the new year downing buckets of vodka and Red Bull and dancing on the beach) the Thai guys from the climbing school were all too grimly hungover to do anything but laze red-eyed in the hammocks drooping from the wooden beams on the porch and told me to come back the next day. As I recall, in my last clear memory of Wee from the previous evening (I had met some of the boys from the climbing school the day before) he had an enormous spliff dangling from his lip and a bottle of Jack Daniels in each hand from which he was alternating swigs, so if that was indicative of the level of revelry perhaps I would be better off not being 25 meters above the ground with a still-wasted climbing guide shouting whiskey-muddled instructions from below.

The next day I went out for a half day top-roping course with a (presumably sober) instructor named Sol and a few other climbing hopefuls. Inwardly I was bitterly cursing my flip flop that had disloyally broken the day before as we hiked over the RAZOR sharp rocks that low tide reveals on the way to Eagle Wall, the crag where we would be climbing that day. We arrived at a tiny jewel of a beach which we crossed into the dense jungle forming its lush backdrop. The crag itself was easily accessible from here from a thickly rooted dirt pathway aided with a rope thoughtfully placed though of dubious reliability.

We had two climbs, one graded a 5 and to its right a long and beautiful 6A called “Spiderman”. The exact details of the rest of the day after my hands and toes (clad in my borrowed, unfamiliar, and uncomfortably restrictive footwear) made that first contact with that mesmerizing limestone are irrelevant. After that first injection of the adrenaline-releasing exquisite high where you are clinging with precarious balance to a rock face high above the ground, and there is no map laid out to trace your tentative steps, and you are trusting your body weight on a foothold the size of a non-genetically modified peanut, and you are willing the moisture forming on your palms to evaporate because you are not yet fully aware of the presence of a little drawstring bag of chalk hanging at your waist for the express purpose of combating said symptom, and your muscles are strained to capacity, and a little rivulet of blood is making its way down your left shin, and there is no other place to go but UP…in the words of the Flaming Lips “suddenly everything has changed”…

…In that same spirit of enchantment, in the giddy heights of discovery, I climbed my very first rock in Tonsai. Again I had many choices laid out in the crevices and intricate indentations of the limestone I gripped, only this time the destination was a set point, a tangible ring-shaped goal that begged to be tapped in triumph. Here was a turning point, a solid threshold to reach demanding not only my attention but the utmost physical and psychological determination. Every sport-related cliché gained relevance: wanting something so desperately “you could taste it”, “adrenaline junky”, the word “addiction” assuming new and oddly positive associations. I would find my mind wandering at breakfast during the interminable wait for a bowl of porridge (my God, what were they DOING back there, sowing the oats?) contemplating whether there might be a handhold further to the right I had overlooked in the crux of a particular route and I would wake in the middle of the night to find my fists sweatily clenched and my feet pressing soft craters in the sheets, struggling, even in my dream state, to reach that elusive pinnacle.

Those six weeks in Tonsai were a special time in my life. I did some more climbing in Chiang Mai in the north of Thailand and in Vang Vieng, Laos and spent some time in Cambodia before returning to Mykonos, and the climbing was lovely and peaceful, absent of the throngs of climbers in cue for popular routes, classes of beginners, and the odd chubby German tourist clicking voyeuristic shots in the Ibiza-reminiscent resort of Railey Beach adjacent to Tonsai, but nothing could compare to the splendour of the Krabi limestone…

…Five days later I had a stuffed backpack once again, the climbing shoes and chalk bag were still clipped to the outside of the rucksack, the carabiner grown sticky with with moisture and the gathering sad dust of disuse, and I was on a plane to England. Since arriving here three weeks ago I have formulated and discarded several plans, and even now as I sit in the Botanical Gardens in Sheffield in the Peak District of England I find myself pulled in several different directions still, all seemingly equidistant. I have not only donned my climbing shoes again with a resurgence of my initiatory enthusiasm to learn the delicate art of trad climbing here in the pretty rolling hillsides of the English Midlands, with the same sense of renewal and a startling ripple of inspiration like a pebble dropped in a still lake I have finally picked up my long discarded notebook and pen, perhaps metaphorically recovered from that same corner of my bedroom in Mykonos where my climbing gear was gathering dust. Both activities open a valve for me to allow release, both challenge the very aspects of my being I strive most to improve, and both occasionally cause my hands to cramp in exhaustion. Even as I continue my gypsy-tinged vagrancy, I have grasped something even more solid than the intriguing English gritstone, and that something is self, and it is what serves to keep us grounded however high we may ascend.

I remain uncertain of which direction my path will meander next, but when I look up at those gorgeous routes etched in multi-layered stone stretching up to the mercurial English sky, rarely following a straight-line sequence themselves, I am sure of one thing. Wherever I may be in this world, and whatever magnets of the north, south, east, or west poles exert the most powerful pull on me, there is one direction in which I will be perpetually drawn, and that direction is UP. 

I find myself reflecting upon her words as if they were the alternate reality of what I might have been had my life taken a slightly different path.  And then I recall myself to the present day and remember the reason why I stay firmly grounded and responsible:

Yes, I might envy her for the experiences she has had and for her writing prowess, but no, I don’t regret taking the path I choose.  One of the things I really like about climbing is that, unlike some other sports, age doesn’t necessarily affect your ability to excel in the sport.  For some sports, hitting thirty marks the beginning of the end, but for rock climbing, it isn’t so.  So while I might be out of the count at this present time, I suspect I’ll be back to the sport with a new climbing partner who is currently in training on the jungle gym.

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Something I wrote some time back about falling into the trap of chasing grades:

It’s amazing how the utterance of a number and a letter in association to climbing can have such an effect on climbers. Before the days of numbers and letters significance, any route goes as long as we think we can make it by looking up at the holds. As the awareness grows, we begin to fall into that encumbrance that afflicts many minds where decisions are made based on the meaning derived from a set of arbitrary numbers and letters.

A spectrum of divergent outcomes emerges. On one extreme the decision to climb a route is hinged upon a number and a letter – this limits the realization of our full potential. On the contrary, the resolution to project a route based on its grade, the importance of that level among the climbing community and the resultant puffery leads to an explosion of the id. Hopefully, most of us will fall within the middle band of moderation, but I suppose in the end, it depends on what tugs your cord in climbing.

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I was looking through my old files for the trip report of Gua Musang, when I came across another TR from Simian Boy that I thought was pretty interesting. It detailed a climbing session they had at Nyamuk one weekend - don’t know where I was, probably working or climbing somewhere else because it doesn’t sound like me to miss a climbing weekend.

One of the reasons I enjoyed climbing with the Rockrats was not only because of the fun we had in each other’s company but what we were able to learn through each other’s experiences. We often wrote trip reports after every rock climbing session and each member would contribute with jokes and personal thoughts about the session through mass group mailing.

Although we ragged each other a lot, there were also times of seriousness when we discussed climbing techniques and safety - for instance, learning how to detect core damage in rope. With each climbing session, we were not only improving our climbing abilities, but expanding our knowledge base on rock climbing in general. Of course, it also helped to have a gear-head like Lelek Le Grunt in the group who knew all the technical details of just about everything you might want to know. And if he didn’t, you could bet he would be able to tell you all about it the following weekend.

I digress, below is a copy of one of Simian Boy’s TRs, which, as always, was spiked with his tongue-in-cheek humour (with my annotations in purple italics). I thought this was a rather significant TR to include because it prompted some good take-home lessons which follow after the TR, when some of the other more experienced members of the Rockrats shared their knowledge on how to climb more safely in future.

Simian Boy:

Had an interesting day out with the FYC bikers, formerly climbers, at Nyamuk yesterday.

While we were getting gear out of the cars, I saw Ooi pull out his helmet and I immediately realised I had left mine sitting safely out of harms way at home, on top of my desk. I half-jokingly said that today was going to be the day I knocked my head on something and sure enough, I did on the first warm-up climb (Patrick’s 5b climb with the nasty layback - it’s called “Firestarter” in the area called “Fumakilla”). Since I figured Murphy’s law was already satisfied, I didn’t think too much about falling rocks and smashing heads for most of the remainder of the afternoon.

Ooi led the warm-up climb with no major problems, except for a short detour when he got distracted by some jugs on a neighboring climb. I went up 2nd on top-rope and hung like a horse, much to Mike (P) and Penn’s disappointment. For some reason, they had the idea that I had turned into something of a Spiderman during their short abstinence from climbing, able to scale single buildings in a single dyno. Mike went up the climb after me with no problems neither. Penn didn’t even try because Hong, Tung, Bird, etc were trying some 7As and they roped him in.

Anyway, Ooi offered to lead the 2nd climb of the day as well, the short route on the far right with the mantle crux before the anchor (this one is called “Because I Got High“). He had never climbed it before and he had no beta so he tried for half an hour at the crux and finally gave up. I went up and finished the climb with a little help from memorised beta. Mike, that f***er (sorry, sensored, we’re a family-oriented blog here), was belaying me and talking to Ooi the whole time and I had to fight sweat, gravity as well as him after I committed to a big highstep on the ledge. My left foot was right beside my left hand and my knee was almost touching my face but I couldn’t step up. I wasn’t tired and so I yelled for slack. No slack. Can’t move. Maybe it’s time to head back down and try again. “SLAAAAAAAACK!!!!” Ah, some slack this time. With his weight off the rope, I realise again how light I am, so I step up, set up the anchor, smile and get lowered down. Mike went up next and wanted whatever beta I could offer. I told him to just do what I did. I know he wasn’t watching. Nyah.

Mike got stuck at the crux for half an hour or so as well and Ooi was getting stiff-necked from belaying him and was standing near the edge of the ledge. I anchored myself to Ooi and sat with my back against the wall underneath Mike and braced my feet against a big rock on the ground. It was a comfy spot with a nice view of the town below and the rolling hills beyond it. Finally Mike gave up. Richard came along by then and had a go at it, conquered it and declared it a 5C climb, much to Mike’s chagrin.

Ooi went up again, and this time around, noticed some big holds about a meter to the right of the route. As always, he took the artistic license to chart his own course before rejoining the route a little higher up. I think somewhere in the middle of this side-adventure, he yanked out a small slab of rock about the size of a dinner plate, yelled “Rock” and threw it safely behind us. It landed with such a loud clunk before shattering into tiny bits, that his belayer (Richard) jumped a little further out of the way from the bouncing bits, which as it turns out, was a fortunate thing because immediately afterwards, a big slab of rock about the size of a 48-inch flat screen tv loosened itself just to the right of Ooi. What happened next, as far as I can remember was this - it came down the wall, smashed itself to small bits of various sizes its as it rolled and rubbed against the wall, like an ice block being chipped apart. Then the bigger pieces just sort of rolled and bounced around where me and Richard had been sitting and standing a few minutes earlier. Fortunately, that was one of the few minutes of that afternoon when nobody was standing at that spot. Mike, Ooi, Richard, me, Penn, 2 Singaporeans and 1 German were pretty much standing around there up until minutes before then watching the climber. Most of the rock that fell ended up landing onto the rope that Ooi was being belayed from.

(Please don’t follow the advice in this next section about detecting compromised ropes - you’ll read later in Lelek Le Grunt’s - our walking rock climbing manual - reply the proper way to detect core damage to a rope) Ah Loong came over and inspected the rope and pretty much gave us a crash course in rope-inspection and we found many weak spots on that new FYC rope. Basically, the weak sections go limp when we curl them into a loop. The more we looked, the more weak sections we found until we came to the conclusion that the rock probably couldn’t have done that much to that many different sections at once. We suspect it might be manufacturing defects or damage sustained during storage at All-Sports. Another thing about safety that I never knew about and just always took for granted. I wonder how many more there are.

Anyway, we lowered Ooi and retired the rope. It is the Beal Top-Gun pink 60m that was bought from All-Sports. It’s the same colour and possibly cut from the same original 200m as Adrian’s. Might be an idea to check that rope too, dude.

Anyway, I’m still a bit of a wreck. Weak ropes and breaking rocks.

Happy Climbing.

I don’t have any photos from that trip since I wasn’t there, but this is a shot of the belay area of Fumakilla.  This is a top-down view of the route “Firestarter”, while “Because I Got High” is off to the top left of the photo.

Rock Climbing Safety Lessons from our walking tech manual (edited by me because of Le Grunt’s excessive usage of colourful language which wasn’t really appropriate for this blog):

Lesson 1: Detecting weak spots and core damage in the rope

What Loong is talking about - where you fold a bight of rope and look for “roundness” – that’s (rubbish) dude.

What you should be looking for are flat spots, which means the core has ruptured a few strands. To do this, press the rope with your fingers and feel along the length of it. If it feels uniform along the entire length, the core is fine. If you feel a sudden flattening of the rope, let the rope owner know. It doesn’t have to be completely flat, as in sheath touching sheath, but anything that feels irregular or like a slight depression is suggestive of core damage.

A lot of ropes exhibit the characteristics that Loong described. Mine does, so does Shen’s. So does his own (sensored) rope! Did he retire it? Noooooooooooo…

What Loong described indicates slight sheath slippage. All ropes will experience that. Better ropes have less of it, not so good ropes will show more of it.

Lesson 2: Staying ON ROUTE

When you climb off route, you run the risk of venturing into areas that see virtually NO traffic and the consequences (as Ooi experienced with the rock fall on the rope – lucky no one was hurt!) - Rockfall, pendulum swings, etc.

Always stay on route and no cheating. Aside from the safety issues, it’s just bad form. It doesn’t help your technique or skill building at all, not to mention, can be downright dangerous.

Lesson 3: Belayers pay attention to your climber!

Please always be aware of your climber. I feel I shouldn’t have to say this again, but I will. When you are belaying someone, you hold that persons life in your hands. Your climber is bestowing a most sacred trust in you. NEVER belay someone because you feel pressured into it. Never do so because you feel you should. Do it because you WANT to. And when you do it, do it with free will and with full responsibility.

More tips from Holdbreaker (particularly apt from one who tends to break a lot of holds):

As to falling rocks - try to test the holds as much as you can before loading it. You will probably notice that whenever I move up and grab something, I tend give it a generous tug before loading it further..

Although, as Mutant Man later pointed out, some holds will still break because the force you exert on it when climbing is not quite the same as the force applied when giving it a tug.

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There was a time when I climbed like a monkey without feeling the fear and physical pain of old age.  That time, it seems, has long gone.  I’ve never really thought of myself as old - inside, I’m like a child living in an adult’s body.  However, after what happened tonight, I am forced to reassess my belief on my physical age.

We were over at hubby’s cousin’s house and there was a playground nearby.  When we took Gavin to play there, I noticed that the park also had a “fit circuit”.  Feeling somewhat reminiscent of the old climbing days when I used to live in Bandar Utama and worked out on a similar “fit circuit”, I decided to give it a go again today.

The first was the horizontal ladder where you have to walk your hands across from one end to the other.  I think the picture on this signboard depicts quite aptly what the aim is:

While I am pleased to say that I made it across all seven bars, I felt rather worse for wear by the time I made it to the other end.  To say the least, my hands were stinging, and my shoulders felt like they were ready to pop out of their sockets.

Next up was the chin-up bar:

Needless to say, I felt heavy just hanging on the bar.  I didn’t even attempt to try a chin-up, but I did try to swing my legs up so I could hang upside-down like I used to when I was a kid.  My legs got as far as waist height before gravity got the better of them.  I tried again using the side poles and managed to sit on top of the bar but my whole body felt clumsy and stiff, like I was trying to do something foreign. 

Although the hubby got a little worried seeing me up there, I think my son was inspired because he wanted to try it out for himself.  “Wait until you’re older,” I said.  “Then I’ll let you climb.”

I spent the whole of two minutes on the bars and the back of my left knee was throbbing after the single knee-bar I used to help me get up over the bar; my hands were stinging and threatening to pop blisters.  What happened to the days when I could do things to my body without having to suffer the consequences?  Boy, I feel old…

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Last Saturday, I attended B’s surprise birthday party and caught up with the rest of the Posers for the first time in too long. There were a lot of new faces in the group – some climbers, some not. It was nice to catch up with everyone again and to reminisce about the old days, but it was also kind of embarrassing.

When some of the A and W introduced me to K, they went on about my 7A achievements in climbing. As proud as I am with what I achieved through my climbing, I like to think I’m honest enough to feel embarrassed when I’m made out to be a better climber than I really am.

Listening to A and W, you would think I was a 7A climber. Well, the fact is, I have projected and red-pointed 3 7As, but that’s all I’ve done. By definition, a 7A climber is someone who can approach a 7A route and have a good chance of completing it. In other words, they generally climb at the level of 7A. Even at the best of my climbing, I was climbing at about a 6B on a good day and a 6A on a bad day.

Why the nit-picking about what I could and couldn’t climb? Because I find that I can only feel proud about what I can achieve when it’s the truth. I feel like a cheat and a liar to allow myself to be made out to be more than I am. At a time when it has become ever more important for me to remember the best of what I had been in order to believe that there has been at least some personal fulfilment in my life, it is important for me to have a clear grip on the facts and the fiction.

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