Climbing Club #3

We've been climbing twice a week now, once for ExE lessons and another for our club meetings on Saturday. I realize that I changed physically since I've begun climbing more regularly, my forearms are stronger and my sense of balance has improved. My arms have gotten stronger and I can hold onto the wall for a longer time.

But at this current point I think that there is a limit to how much 'brute strength' I can put into climbing before real technique comes in. I find that I have easier climbs when I make use of my leg muscles more and switch my weight around, instead of focusing on my arms to pull me up. I've learnt that it's about efficient climbing and not about the hard strength of pulling yourself up the entire way. I've learnt how to make use of the wall features to climb. Using the rock-shoes, I can 'smear' the wall and use that as a foothold instead of just relying on the tiles. I've learnt to make the most out of the opportunities being presented to me and even make them if they aren't there. I can parallel this a lot to instances of real life, when opportunities aren't as apparent, but you have to make them happen for you if you want to move forward.

Also, thinking about what Mrs Wong said the other day about rock-climbing being a solitary sport, but this is contrasted against the fact that we are working as a team to support one another made me think about how I could relate this a lot to the IB and SOTA life in general. We are all on our individual paths, each path has its own problems or techniques to clear them. No one can climb the wall for you, or solve the problem you have before you. They can offer support and maybe guidance to how you might clear the wall, but how you get there is up to you. But it is very comforting to be in a group together and know that for each struggle you have, someone too is going through something similar and their support of your efforts is really endearing.I think that the whole team aspect of this CAS group makes me more motivated to climb, because I know that there are people there to support me when I climb and people to bounce ideas off of when I encounter problems. The team has helped to keep me more motivated to climb and with their support I've learnt to overcome a lot more walls, even those I thought I wouldn't be able to overcome before.

Additionally, I was also thinking about what Mrs Wong posed to us about doing an easy wall well or a hard one with difficulties. I think that if you asked me this a few months ago, I would say to do the easy wall well. I think it is because we, as people, have a tendency to want to do things for recognition or for other people's praise. We do seemingly hard things well, when in actual fact they are easier than imagined. But through my growth in my CAS activities and projects. I find that this aspect of me is changing, I find that I would rather do a hard wall that has a lot of difficulties and challenge myself, than do something that might be easy and do it well.

Because I think that we will become stagnant if we don't continuously challenge ourselves and push ourselves to work out of our comfort zones. I've learnt that if we keep staying within our comfort zones, we get stuck in being comfortable we don't look towards pushing ourselves to improve. I think that as an IB student, we as IB learners should push ourselves and challenge ourselves, because in doing so is the only way that we will grow.

Climbing CAS

I joined the Rock-Climbing CAS group because after the climbing session we had during ExE, I was really interested to join. At first I think I tired myself out very easily, I would stay stuck on the wall, on a tile, for a while before I moved on to another tile. As I attended more sessions and climbed more walls, I learn that I was not angling my body in the right way when I was climbing. After talking to a few of my more experienced climbing friends and teachers, I learnt that I was letting gravity work against me as I climbed up, by sticking my body out towards the ground instead of keeping my body close to the wall. Also, I personally learnt that once I got the momentum of climbing it became a lot easier to climb the wall instead of crawling up a bit and then pausing for a minute before going up again.

I also noticed that the more experienced climbers mapped out their routes first before they went up, I can also learn from that aspect of rock-climbing and learn to take things slowly and plan them out before just jumping into them. I learnt that I also tended to climb better when I roughly planned my route before hand instead of climbing instinctively.

After attending a few sessions of the rock-climbing CAS, I think I can climb up the walls a lot easier now. Especially after we've done a very intense strength training and body conditioning session. That session in particular really tested my endurance and strength. I find that I have quite weak forearms but my core is still reasonably strong so I need to train more to keep those muscles fit for climbing.

Honestly I was a little surprised when Grace sent the email and said I was in the CAS group. Because to me I don't think I'm a very good climber and I think there are a lot of areas that I need to improve on. But Grace said that the people who tried out were assessed according to attitude, commitment and potential. I hope that I can work on those aspects of my life, commitment and attitude slowly through this CAS group. Because of the strict training regime, I think I would be pushing myself to be more disciplined in this group. I'm very heartened to be a part of this CAS to not only learn a new skill of climbing, but also to work on my areas of discipline and strength that I feel are lacking in my life.