Climbing is all about movement. It’s about moving your body across vertical terrain, about moving over stone. It’s about staying in balance. It’s about finding equilibrium. It’s about using your hands and feet to make upward progress.
Climbing is Natural
Climbing, along with walking and running, is one of the natural activities that humans do. It’s a natural thing to do. We’re built to climb. We just climb. We climb trees, we climb hills, we climb mountains, we climb little rocks, we climb big rocks. Our ancestors climbed to get away from fierce predators and enemies, they climbed for safety.
Kids Know How to Climb
Little kids climb for the sake of climbing; of stretching their bodies and boundaries; of finding how high they can climb. They climb for the adventure and the view, to see what’s on the other side of the fence. Later the adults and parents tell the kids: “Don’t climb. It’s dangerous. You’re gonna fall and hurt yourself.” So we stop climbing and that natural innate sense of climbing begins to get lost as we keep our feet planted on sidewalks.
Climbing is Learning to Use Your Body
When we go climbing though, we re-find that ability to move across difficult and unfamiliar terrain and in the process we discover a new sense of adventure and joy in the human process of moving over stone and slope. Climbing then is about learning all about our body’s machinery and how it works and how we can use it in the vertical world. We learn its advantages and strengths. We learn its weaknesses. We learn how to compensate for weakness. We learn how to be strong and in control. We learn flow and grace and the joy of movement.
Climbing is Moving Over Stone
When a lot of people think about climbing, they tend to think about gear and safety systems and, of course, gravity and the consequences of falling. All the specialized climbing equipment, climbing systems, and judgments we make to stay safe climbing are very important, but climbing, when you get strip it down to its basics and its essence, is simply about movement over rock.
Our Ability to Climb
Our ability to climb is what gets us up a rock face. It’s that simple. It’s just a man or a woman using their hands and feet to climb a rock. The equipment is our back-up, what we rely on if we’re not skilled enough to progress upward with our human bodies or we’re too weak to climb higher.
The Art of Face and Crack Climbing
To become a climber, you have to learn the techniques of free climbing, you have to learn two different disciplines—face climbing and crack climbing. Each requires a different skill set that has been developed over the last 110 years by climbers around the world, who through trial and error developed lots of specific skills, techniques, and tricks to ascend faces and cracks. Learn them here then get out and practice on your local climbing gym walls or better yet, go outside and get vertical.
