I’m coming up on a year since the time I tried bouldering for the first time and fell in love with it, and I’ve been thinking about what that means to me and how I look back on my time with it and measure progress. The way I think about it has changed a lot since I started, and my thoughts on progress have become increasingly varied. I’ve gone from the grades I climb being the only indication of progress to now, a nebulous mix of multiple factors — the pleasure of practising the sport, the other ways in which it adds to my life, and of course, the difficulty of the grades I climb, amongst many others. This metric of progress seems nebulous and I need to write out what I’m thinking to make sense of it all.
Climbing: One year in, progress and everything in-between
Day before yesterday was a really hard day at climbing.
I’ve come to really enjoy my Sunday mornings. It’s the same routine every Sunday — having a great time on Saturday and waking up late, preparing some breakfast (it’s always the same protein pancakes on the menu, that I always make on Sundays). There’s a short recurring checklist before I leave for the bouldering gym — nails cut, hand cream and wrist-widgets for support, making sure my watch is charged and my shoes don’t smell too bad, a quick shower, and I’m off.
Bouldering has become a convenient and familiar part of my routine. It’s nearby, easy to get to, and fits well into my schedule. While the logistics help, they aren’t the only reason I keep going back. It’s the way my phone goes onto one of the cushions and stays there for hours while I just climb. I’ve always struggled with being in the moment, and I can do that with ease near the wall. It allows for a level of engagement that doesn’t leave room for much else. It’s the incredibly helpful community — people pushing you and guiding you, helping you send routes, just a fist bump away. It’s where I go when I’m feeling off. It’s also where I go when I feel strong and want to see how I do. It helps clear my head and wears me out in a good way.
But it hasn’t all been perfect. I used to go with friends — late morning sessions, catching up with people I hadn’t met since college, climbing hard, then eating and drinking harder at Toit to more than make up for the calories we had just burnt. That stopped. My friends stopped showing up, and for a while so did I. But slowly, I began going alone, and it became something I did especially on days I felt low. Yet that doesn’t mean it’s been colored by sadness. It’s still familiar, grounding, and motivating.
There was a period where I wasn’t enjoying climbing, I was plateauing. But I eventually realized it wasn’t strength or skill — I was just stuck on numbers. I hadn’t reached the grades I wanted to. Even now, I feel I haven’t progressed as much as I could have. And I don’t dole out pride easily. But it has given me moments I’m glad for. I broke through a plateau. I asked questions. I worked on things. I executed. I improved.
While I don’t feel pride in the traditional sense, I feel grateful. Even by the metric of climbing grades, I broke through. I can flash most V4s now. I did my first V6 recently. We all love watching YouTube’s posterboy for climbing, Magnus Midtbø. Love Magnus but my favorite climbing YouTuber is Hannah Morris and sometimes even Louis Parkinson from Catalyst Climbing. They bring a sense of relatability. Of course there’s awe in watching the elite, but real motivation comes from people closer to where you are. That’s what keeps you going.
Coming back to Sunday. I felt unusually weak. Even warming up felt like a struggle. I was sweating, my watch told me my HR was unusually high, and for once, climbing didn’t feel like a release. But I stuck through and stayed for four hours. I helped others. I climbed easier routes. I mentioned to a few people that it wasn’t my best day, and they helped out.
I seem to be getting better at asking for help. Wasn’t exactly pride, but I felt something similar, because I tried. It got me thinking about progress. My earlier self would have defined progress as climbing harder routes each time. But now I know it’s not just that. That Sunday was among my worst sessions performance-wise, but I felt more accomplished than I had in a long time. Progress has become multivariate. Sure, grades still matter and difficulty grade is a metric that still holds the largest weight in progress. But so is helping newer climbers with things I used to struggle with. So is getting stronger in a way that helps me outside the gym. So is pushing through on hard days. So is love for the sport. So is execution of intent, even when that intent has always been there. Sometimes it’s small things, my attempts at drawing routes in a notebook, taking videos just for myself, asking stronger climbers to climb with me. I used to be scared to do that. Climbing is an individual sport, but somehow the sense of shared growth I’ve felt here is stronger than in any team sport I’ve played. Maybe it’s because we’re all climbing in the same space, together, no matter what grade we’re on. I saw a video by Emil that summed it up well, “when you’re pushing hard on the wall at the limit of your ability on a v4 and someone else is doing the same on a v8, it still inspires the same level of relatability.”
Not everything needs to be measured or written down. Some things are just for my head. But it helps to know what the metrics are, even if I choose to ignore them oftentimes.
I’ve been accused of being a hobby-hopper, a serial dabbler. I try new things all the time, but climbing has stayed. For now, it feels like it will continue to stay — and that’s a choice. I’ll stick to it. Maybe I’ll write another post a year from now.
As for the future, I want to climb two grades higher, that’s the overarching direction of my longer-term goal. In the short term, I want to be more consistent with my current top grade and start working on the next one. I want to execute better, make better notes, invest in new shoes. I want to work regularly on off-the-wall training, mainly — finger strength, campusing, weighted pull-ups, and calisthenics movements. I’ve realised (finally?) that I need to spend most of my time on my weaknesses (overhangs) and not on my strengths (slab) Maybe that part won’t make the edit, but here we are.
I’ve spent long stretches of time feeling like I basically suck. The other day, after one such stretch, I had a strong session, an experience of great success where I sent a bunch of my projects, enjoyed myself from start to finish, and even matched some of my stronger peers at campusing, my personal bane. I saw my dislike for campusing melt away. One strong session was enough to affect such a big shift. As I got home afterwards, I knew that this one session was enough to sustain me through the next long stretch of sucky sessions. I connected the dots and realised that that’s the nature of climbing. You’re always trying things just past your limit, so everyday you fail. Climbing is mostly just failing, interspersed with inspired moments of success. Knowing that, I feel like a switch has been flipped in my head and I’m more okay than before, at waiting out for those moments where it feels like it’s worth it. As someone who recognises their lack of discipline in most things, this is a non-trivial achievement.
Maybe writing this post means I’m getting better at overcoming my underconfident self. Maybe I’ll push to climb harder routes and learn from stronger climbers. I’m excited to see how efficient my growth is.
Climbing has been there for me. I hope it continues to be. I spend time on Wednesdays and Sundays climbing and spend the other days looking forward to when I do. It isn’t always parted clouds and sunny skies, but even if it doesn’t always give me everything I want, I’ll keep choosing it.
Allez, hope you’re sending your projects too.