Eden Richman Week 11 - Climbing

     I started climbing at a climbing gym freshman year and joined their climbing team around halfway through that year. In the first half of my sophomore year, I worked really hard and improved my climbing skills a lot. The highest level of a plain belaying wall (Just what you normally think of when you picture indoor rock climbing) I could climb was a 5.11 (keep this number in mind for later in the blog) I won't even talk about bouldering or lead climbing here because I haven't tried to do those yet since I got back to climbing. Anyways, I left halfway through the year for Israel. I told myself that I would get back from Israel and start climbing right away. My semester in Israel got canceled, so that seemed even better for climbing because I could get back to it soon. It turns out that I could not get back to climbing soon because of coronavirus. I waited for the entire summer and all of the school that we have had so far just to be able to go back to climbing. Finally, this week it was time to go back to climbing and start progressing again. I got on my climbing shoes and decided to warm up on a 5.7 wall (5.7 is less than 5.11 in climbing wall levels) I climbed up and down the wall, three times, just like past me would have done. I was really surprised about how out of shape I was. I obviously didn't work out or try to keep my strength over the summer but I guess it just slipped my mind that I needed to do that to keep my skills. By the second time climbing down the wall I was already worn out, I did not understand. I kept on climbing that day, and the highest level wall I managed to clear was a 5.8 wall, but I expected way more from myself. 

    I guess the moral of the story here is don't forget about skills that you have and keep working on them; because one day they could all be gone. Have you ever lost strength in an area of your life?