On the Subject of Getting Stronger...

I've been trying my hardest to get more girls into bouldering at my gym. And you know, as I'm finding out, a lot of girls want to boulder. I think it's just hard to throw yourself into those first two or three months of feeling like a spaz on the bouldering wall in front of a lot of strong dudes, or to have any idea how to climb the unforgiving diabase boulders in the PA/NJ area as a beginner, as a woman without a lot of upper-body and/or hand strength.

At the same time, I dislike the "girl climber" mentality of "it's OK, you don't have to go for it" or "it's OK, that move will only go if you're way burly" and the like. A good friend of mine prefers to climb with men because she finds this quitter-attitude with the women in her immediate climbing community off-putting and uninspiring. I can understand her choice completely; I've been climbing (bouldering primarily, it's my climbing of choice) with mostly dudes too for similiar reasons.

However, I find it frustrating to only boulder with men. I guess because of testosterone, men get stronger more quickly than women. And, more often than not, they don't have a great understanding of their contact strength, arm strength, and pure power in general, and then the old "dude beta" vs "girl beta" discussion ensues, and I'm usually left feeling like I'm either making excuses as to why I can't pull a move or that I just need to get stronger because I'm the weakest climber in the bunch. Not to say that these feelings don't inspire me to get stronger--they totally do.

But it's freaking fun to boulder with girls that can work the same problems as you. It's an awesome feeling to be the only person in a group of climbers that can understand why this one girl can't start a problem the same way everyone else can and then give her the right beta. I'm a new climber myself, and I often wish there were other girl climbers around me that climbed the upper-single digits or double-digits so I could learn technique from watching them climb.

But hey, you play the hand you're dealt. So I started this Women's Bouldering Clinic at my gym. I'm going to post more about the series as more classes take place, but so far it's been fun. I mean, the point is ultimately for more women to boulder together; if I can teach beginner boulderers about lock-offs and problem-reading and all that other stuff and they can actually apply it, that's great too. It's been a great experience so far. I had a student send me a message on Facebook telling me she got further on a VO in our steep ass cave because of what we went over in class. I had another student, who also happens to be a friend of mine, tell me that she is stoked on bouldering again (she had the lucky opportunity to boulder with friends at Joshua Tree six years ago when she lived in CA) and overall, my girls seemed excited to come back to class this week to practice technique.

So, we'll see what happens...