dr4b | Looking up the wall

Today I made Benoit leave the apartment and come downtown with me. He wandered around coffeehouses and such doing work while I was at work. We had lunch at Soup Daddy though, which made me VERY happy because I love that place so much. I guess I had a good time at work too, though I feel pretty dumb for trying to track down a bug or two all day which came down to "deanna forgot to uppercase her filenames" and "Tandem's file storage is retarded".

After work we rode the bus home and then went over to the Vertical World climbing place, where we met up with

mh75, Josh,

meerkat299,

eub,

katybeth, and

sethml. Everyone else climbed a whole lot and I sat around watching and talking and going "I don't understand how on earth you can stand on those things!"

Yar, but my problems with rock climbing are:

1) afraid of heights
2) no balance
3) bad arches and feet
4) no arm strength

Oh, and umm... 5) not exceptionally skinny. I swear that every woman I saw there was in great shape, and I felt huuuuge. Though I mean, I am working on the weight and the arm strength. It's just going to take a while to get there...

Oh! This morning on my way to the bus, my Harry Potter book showed up and the building manager gave it to me. To my credit, I didn't open it on the bus or at work; I opened it on the way home and then decided "I don't have time to read this while entertaining a houseguest". I rule. Unfortunately, this means I still can't read any of your posts about it, heh.

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I've been climbing at the Kirkland one for almsot 2 months. after a month of going 2-3 times a week your arm strength builds up! you just gotta get over taht fear of heights thing :)

I have a gigantic fear of heights. So much so that I would do just about anything to not fall from the wall. Later on, this became a hinderance because I would be afraid to "go for it" at the top. Eventually I just learned to concentrate on what I was doing as opposed to where I was. :)

The bad arches thing is no excuse- the shoes fix that!

I have no arm strength- it's all about the foot work!

speaking of which, matt, did you wanna go climbing? michelle isnt renewing her membership, and chris isnt that reliable in terms of a climbing partner (sorry chris, it's the truth!)

Voldemort is behind the evildoings that are going on, which put Hogwarts in a state of disarray for much of the book. Harry finds the Golden Boxers of Incontinence and uses them to scare away the giant evil leopard that is scared of liquids.
Oh, by the way, spoiler.

I've been going to Stone Gardens again now that I'm back. You get balance and arm strength over time, and my fear of heights only kicks in after 25+ feet. Really though once you fall a couple of times and realize it's okay, that starts to get better too.

Wow, now that is willpower. (I purposely didn't start the book until my plane ride away from my family reunion. In the battle of Book vs. family I don't see often, family won. However, it helped that I only had to wait 13 hours from the time I bought the book.)

Rock climbing: I had very little arm strength when I began climbing. The easier climbs can be done mostly with leg strength, and clinging to the wall for balance. The arm strength builds up over time. Finger strength is important for harder climbs, but again, the easier climbs give you the opportunity to enjoy the sport while building up your abilities.

Heights take time to get used to, but having a belay partner you trust can be a huge help.

The thing with rock climbing is that if you stick with it and do it at all regularly, it gives you that body.

My gym is a rock climbing gym, and the one thing I've learned is that it's all mental. Yes, there are lots of intimidating and skinny and muscly and beautiful people all around, but unlike scary heman-gyms, I've never had anyone be anything but kind and friendly to me about climbing. I think confidence has a lot to do with it-- I tend to get all scaredy-pants and then I "can't" do it any more, but if I get all gritty and believe that I can do it, then I can do routes that I might have talked myself out of otherwise.

This person is right-- the people that you see rock climbing all the time have that body because they rock climb all the time! I wish I did :-(

thanks to reading this entry, I've just e-mailed my rock climbing friend to see if we can get back into it. haha

Actually, Dee, and i hope you don't hate me for being so blunt, your biggest problem is that you don't ever just take a chance.

You are capable of incredible things. You are capable of being a great programmer (and i'm glad you took a chance on this job!), you are capable of being in better shape, and you're funny and nice and good to be around. BUT, you spend a lot more time telling yourself why you can't do something than actually trying to do that thing.

And if you never give something a shot I know for sure that you'll never be able to do it.

I don't know if you'd like climbing. What i do know is that if you set your mind to it you could do it -- at least one some level. (Look, i suck. I suck in part because my knee is weak, and in part because i'm too scared to take many risks, and in part because, i dunno, maybe i'm not entirely built for it. On the other hand, i can do a lot more than i would have imagined I could if i never tried. If i can conquer my fears i can continue to challenge myself and do things that i think are beyond my reach. I think this holds true for climbing, running, work, knitting, game playing, pretty much everything.)

Anyway, with respect to things like feet, balance, strength, even weight, it may give you challenges that someone else doesn't have. But you're likely to have strengths that those people don't have. AND, you'll get stronger, get better balance, and maybe even improve your feet, depending on what the real issues with them are.

With respect to body image - i wasn't paying attention last night. A lot of the people there are pretty buff. But some nights there are also a lot of people there that aren't buff. Just like at the gym - there are plenty of people in better shape than us. There are also plenty of people in worse shape than us.

All of that said, Dee, i'm really proud of you. You've accomplished amazing feats this spring and summer. I hope that you are feeling the rewards for doing those things. =)

This person has a good point :)

Looking up the wall

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