Spidermen And Spiderwomen

No, not that Spiderman 4 is coming out…

I went for a beginner’s class for indoor rock climbing last Sunday. Gave up a yoga class for that… but it was worth it. I am oldest in the group and yet I came out of the course practically muscle ache free ( except for two bruises on my knee and arm – which I am not even sure when I go them from ). Hey, I even conquered a wall that the rest of the gals in my group did not conquer ( I went with a group of 4 other girls… all at least 5 years younger than me… ) Hee hee…

We learnt about the equipment like the ATC ( air traffic controller? ), carabiners , top rope, gri gri, dynamic ropes, static ropes, the harness and so on. I can feel the energy of the class, all wanting to rush out and start climbing. Next we were taught how to wear the harness, how to tie the knot which is the figure of eight and finally the safety checking required before the actual climb.

The next important technique was the belaying. I found that it was pretty hard to follow what he was showing. But once you have the actual climber on the rope, it felt quite “instinctive” to use the 5 steps method he showed us to belay the climber.

There was one point when I literally flew up half way while belaying my friend. What happened was my friend is heavier than me and she dropped from the wall as her fingers slipped. The pulley system went into action and I was swung up. but lucky for me, the instructor was nearby and he pulled at the end of rope. I ended up hanging from the air. Hahaha… Then I managed to slowly lower my friend down from up there while hanging…

But this was a good experience and I was very calm and composed after that with belaying people much heavier than me as I knew what to do. At the end of the day, all of us got our own Level 1 rock climbing licenses. So now we are all certified belayers… hehe…

Most of my friends ended up with aching in the muscles of shoulders and arms. How do you train those up? DO more handstands!!

I can’t wait to go for another session!

OM~

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