Women's Bouldering Clinic at Go Vertical, Philadelphia: A Summary

Kerry on our first problem, photo by Alex Linne

This past Spring I put together a bouldering clinic for women at my local climbing gym. I had the idea to do it for a lot of different reasons--expanding the climbing community, giving advice and climbing technique to those new to bouldering, creating an environment where women wouldn't feel as intimidated to try climbing boulder problems, giving beta to girls on boulder problems that they have probably never seen because so few women boulder at the gym...the list goes on.

But it's funny, I hadn't expected these clinics to inspire my climbing in the way that they have. During the first five minutes of the first clinic, I watched a 5', 105 lb woman figure her way through some boulder problem that I've only seen average-men climb in a very average-men kind of way really impressed me. I realize how infrequently I get to boulder with other women, and I just got really psyched to watch how every girl in class worked through the first problem we got on. The look of pure determination that swept over the faces of some of the women as they threw themselves at two or three moves of a problem over and over again was exciting; it's rare to get a chance to experience the climbing fire light in an individual. I actually walked away from those clinics with even more climbing spirit than I had anticipated.

Marielle flashes our cave project, photo by Katie Levy

The clinics worked like this:

Class One-- We introduced ourselves to each other and talked about our different climbing experiences. I went over the importance of warming up to boulder, and some good techniques for getting your fingers and muscles in climbing-mode before a bouldering session. We tried a few problems and it was really fun for all of us to see the differences in beta. Personally, I was excited to see who could flash the problems since at this point in the series, I was still sort of clueless to the bouldering ability of the women in the clinic. Some of the climbers really impressed us!

During a break, I gave my bouldering pep-talk in the gym's "Base Camp". I think it's important to emphasize to new boulderers that the amount of failure while bouldering greatly exceeds the amount of success, but this factor alone makes you much stronger and the experience more fulfilling. Another big part of my pep talk is about how bouldering is everything in climbing. But, spoiler alert, I don't want to ruin it for anyone taking my next series, it's a great pep talk. After the discussion, we went back out to try more problems. I had a student in class who had questions about specific sequences in problems that were up, so we had a good starting-off point as to what kind of moves were giving the students the most trouble. From there, we worked a variety of sequences within V0 and V1 problems and just climbed until we were tired.

Class Two-- I went over warming up again, and gave a brief talk about preventing injury in bouldering. I also reviewed spotting techniques inside vs. outside, and then we started climbing. The aim in this class was to see if anyone made progress on the problems we'd worked on last week as well as introducing new techniques. I had set up a few small half-problems on different wall features around the gym to work on sit starts and more compressed movements around these wall features. The difference of climbing ability among the women became more apparent to me in this clinic, so the class split off and I went back and forth between the two different groups and helped with beta.

At some point, I made the girls take a break to rest their muscles and discussed projecting boulder problems (I was noticing that most of them just kept attacking problems and were totally pumping themselves out, which was awesome). I discussed the benefits of isolating movements, working half of a problem at a time, and then linking up a problem. I also discussed the grading system in general and how to work problems that are slightly above your limit. We finished the class with more technique review and climbing.

Sharon goes for the send, photo by Alex Linne

Lovinda is not entirely sure she trusts my beta, photo by Alex Linne

Hanbing flashes our first problem, photo by Alex Linne

Class Three-- During this clinic, I encouraged everyone to really try to start bouldering at their limit. Some women in the class continued with their cave project that we'd been working on since Class One, some found new V1s to try, some others I encouraged to get on V2s and V3s to see how far they could get. We talked about different holds throughout the gym; I went over how to use slopers, how to layback on sidepulls, how to find an alternative to using one particular big pinch that some of the smaller women couldn't get their hands around. During this clinic, I tried to be there individually with each climber on whatever they were working on (I had a lot of fun, actually). I was happy to see that everyone, at this point in the series, was really into climbing with each other, and even when I couldn't be there, the women were discussing beta with each other and trying to get through their projects. We climbed through most of this clinic, and at the end, I started to go over ways to work on strength using particular exercises on the hangboard, on the wall as well as exercises to do on the mat after a climbing session.

After showing the clinic ways to build up contact strength and ability to use specific holds (i.e. crimps), I was happy to see the always-determined Tessa powering through a crimp traverse so she could get eventually get through a sequence on one of her projects.

The Women's Clinic is probably one of the more fulfilling climbing experiences I've had. I'm looking forward to setting new boulder problems for the next series; after giving this first clinic, I have a lot more insight as to what new boulderers need to be introduced to off the cuff.

I had a moment during one of the clinics where I was working individually with a girl named Kerry, who is very new to bouldering; we were working on a V0 that I set and as I was giving her beta and she was linking up all the moves, I realized that on almost every problem we worked on throughout the clinic, she climbed with the same beta I would have used. Our only real difference is that I boulder constantly so I have more strength than she does, and she has the same anxiety that I had for almost a year when I was climbing. But seeing that she has ability to pull technical moves as long as she has the right beta, as well as the focus to work one to two moves over and over again...well, I hate to sound corny, but it reminded me of what I loved about bouldering when I first started. The only real challenge was for me to try to remember my strength while giving her beta; it's more difficult to remember what I can do powerfully and how much I might rely on that versus the strength of a new climber.

The next series is scheduled for July/August. The dates are 7/22, 7/29 and 8/5. The clinics all start at 6:30 PM and we climb til 8; they are free for Go Vertical members and $6 for non-members, which is a DEAL. To register, please email me directly at avuocolo@gmail.com. It's totally worth your time, I promise.

Yours Truly doing her best at delivering the right beta, photo by Alex Linne