You Can Do Hard Things
But You Don't Have To
When I first started climbing in a gym in Boston, I was really into chasing grades. I was mostly a boulderer back then, and each time I sent a harder problem than I had before, I was ecstatic.
As a beginner, you typically improve quickly as you climb more, and it was fun to surprise myself with what I was capable of after putting in the effort.
But it’s easy to get caught up in always getting better and then feeling discouraged when you hit the inevitable plateau. Or feeling forced to try hard when you’d rather just chill.
So much of the climbing culture (and outdoor culture in general) seems to be about doing the next hard thing. Headlines about pro climbers pushing the limits on grades or first ascents. Emails about how to optimize your training. Books about how to climb 5.12.
But what if you never want to climb 5.12? Sometimes it seems like there’s no place for you in the climbing community.
Which is why I’ve created this space! For the top rope tough guys and girls, the 5.fun seekers, the people whose motivation is more about spending time outside with friends than sending hard.
This isn’t to say that trying hard, pushing your limits, and seeing what you’re capable of is bad—it’s just not the only way to climb.
The other day I was hanging out with a bunch of fellow climber girls, who all climb much harder than me. At one point, one of them said, “Some days I don’t want to try hard. Maybe I just want to toprope.”
And that’s okay! You can find a balance—some days for pushing your limits, and some days for staying well within them.
One of my favorite things about climbing is that there are so many ways to grow, and they aren’t all about doing something more physically challenging.
You can learn how to clean sport anchors. You can practice rappelling. You can follow your first multi-pitch. You can start to understand trad gear placements.
You can find what excites you about climbing…and realize it may change. (Trust me, back when I was a grade-chasing gym boulderer, I never thought I would someday be most stoked on easy trad multi-pitch!)
Whether you’ve been climbing 10 months or 10 years, you don’t have to climb 5.10 to be a climber. You don’t even have to lead to have climbing adventures.
You can make climbing whatever you want it to be.
Climb on!
Kate
I love this!!