About 5 weeks ago, I decided to do something I never thought I would do. In fact, it was something I decided upon without even thinking. I was asked to go rock climbing. The normal me would have gave it long thought and replied, "no". But at that point in time I decided I wanted to do something different and I decided to say, "Oh, what the hell. I am going to do it!"
I surprised myself that evening. Seriously, I really did surprise myself!
Effectively, yesterday was my fourth time doing rock climbing. I am really enjoying it. The physical challenge is one thing. But I learn other things too when I climb. On the very second time of climbing, I lost a lunch bet because I couldn't complete a route. At that point in time, in my mind I thought of rock climbing of a pure physical sport (i.e. no-brainer). I was really wrong. Dead wrong! Much technique is involved in it and it requires thinking in terms of where to place your feet and hands and to have the most efficient way up the rocks. Cool eh?
Above and beyond that, I learn about life too! Ascending the rocks really requires a lot of feeling of the rocks. Really touching the wall with my hands and toes to feel, really feel which part of the rocks I can grab on to and place my feet to push myself higher. It's like life - you have to feel your way around life. You can't just jump in head first. I mean you can but jumping in head first may just have you land your head on a hard piece of concrete. What I am trying to get at is that, even in life everything takes time and you can't really rush things be it buying a new car, new house, getting into a relationship, picking a career, getting well from an illness. Looking at all the common scenarios of life I just listed out and you'll notice one common denominator - all of it simply takes time.
What it also taught me was about determination. I think determination is something I lack or rather the fear of taking a step forward in times of uncertainty. Yesterday while I was climbing the rocks, there were many times I had to place my body in a very awkward position to scale the rock walls. It is just like being out of my comfort zone. Sometimes you have to be uncomfortable to achieve something. "If it's something you fear, that's exactly what you have to do. Face it!" is something a really close friend of mind would tell me and still does continue to remind from time to time.
Another thing I experienced was sometimes you might not make it to the top of the rock, what we call an anchor in rock climbing terms. But there's always next time. Yesterday, I completed a route I failed to scale the last time round. I was satisfied with myself and I knew I had some improvement, even if it's a tiny bit.
Most important point I learnt is trust. In rock climbing your life really rests in the hands of your belayer. Belayer is the person down on the ground tightening and loosening your harness as and when necessary. If the belayer slacks too much harness rope and you fall, you are as good as dead. Yesterday, I had a relative new belayer doing my ropes but I knew she would be fine with the ropes. Most importantly, I had to trust her otherwise my fear of scaling the rocks would overcome me. Besides watching my ropes as I scaled the rocks, we had to communicate verbally especially during the times when I knew I was going slip off the rocks I had to make sure I yelled, "tight!" so she would pull the ropes to stop me from falling too far down. That trust creates a strong team effort in making sure I get up to the top safely. And that team effort is built on trust. My belayer trusted me letting her know how slacked or how tight I need the rope to be and in turn I trusted to be able to give me the slack and tight I needed.
It was a really good experience from a physical, mental and philosophical perspective......... actually my backside still hurts from all the stretching and pushing to the top. =0)
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