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| A bouldering route at my gym. Pick the yellow or the blue climb. |
I'm really enjoying it, I'm getting a lot out of it and I think it's doing wonders for both my physical and mental health.
I am still on the bottom rung of the ladder, and I have no real intention of trying to go much higher than that.
The gym I go to indicates the difficulty of the climb with colour. The basic, beginner level is yellow, then blue, purple, green... and a range of other colours I don't care about because I'm probably never going to climb them. To be honest, I'm probably never going to climb the green ones. The purples are a distant maybe.
As I may have mentioned in the past, I'm not the most physically adept person in the world. My fine motor skills aren't particularly fine. My gross motor skills are kind of gross. The more I try to hone and refine my technique on... well, anything, the worse I get. It's like the worst thing I can do is actually put thought and effort into what I'm doing.
I went to get evaluated for dyspraxia a little while ago. The results were inconclusive. They said I may have mild dyspraxia, or I may just be rubbish at everything. It was suggested that I go in for more tests, but I haven't done it. There's a limit to how much time and money I want to spend on having people say "there's nothing actually wrong with you, you're just crap."
So, while my basic strength levels are all improving and I'm developing muscles (which is nice), my coordination and balance remain unimpressive.
Now, when I say "my coordination and balance are unimpressive", I'm fully aware of the fact that some people would disagree with me. Those people are comparing me with someone who does nothing. If you don't climb or juggle or do yoga, the fact that I do makes me instantly more "impressive" by comparison. However, if you compared me to someone who has been doing any of those things for the same length of time that I have, you would realise I fall neatly into the category of "could be better".
I'll often try a route that requires more coordination than I have, and my hands and feet will simply refuse to move. "Come on, Sharon, you just have to move this foot up here..." Nope. Not happening. "Okay, fingers, you just have to keep holding on to this thing while I move my other hand to--" No. This sequence of movements will not happen.
I may or may not be able to see what I have to do next, puzzle-wise, but I only have two options: stay where I am, or fall off.
It even changes from day-to-day on the same climb. Monday I could send that climb; Thursday I couldn't.
The yellow routes are mostly within my capabilities, though. It may take me a couple of goes to nut out how to do one that requires a movement I'm not au fait with, but that's a nice challenge that I'm actually capable to solving, and then I get to enjoy doing it again a few times before they reset the wall and take that climb away.
So I do the yellows (and the blues I can do) several times in a session. I take what I can do, and make it harder, rather than getting hung up on things that are too hard.
I know the "done thing" is to try to progress to the next level. Well, that's fine, if you can do it. If you can't, but you keep assuming you should, you'll just get completely frustrated and give up, disheartened. Again.
BUT! And this is really important – you don't have to progress. There's no law that says you have to move on from the beginner levels, if you are still getting something valuable out of those levels.
I have a regular workout at my climbing gym where I pick at least five routes that are within my abilities, and I do them five times each. This converts those climbs into sets of reps, and my goodness it's a workout. By the time I've done five reps of my third climb, I'm dripping with sweat and feeling the burn in my muscles. It's like running up several flights of stairs, only it's a full-body workout.
On the days where I'm just trying routes, I'll see if I can manage a few blues, and sometimes I can and sometimes I can't. When I can, I'll do it a couple of times before moving on to trying another route. If I can't, I'll try it a few times, and then go do a couple of climbs that I can do before trying another new one. It's exactly right for me.
So maybe you are trying an activity where you feel pressured to progress, but you are still at a spot that's working for you and you don't want to move past it yet. Remember, just because you can't do something "well" doesn't mean you shouldn't do it at all. And you don't have to progress, you can just enjoy life in the shallow end of the pool. Anyone who says otherwise is a source of negative energy, and you don't need that kind of negativity in your life.
