"Rock climbing 101" by Karina B.

 Most of you probably assume there's no more to rock climbing than heights, ropes, and falls. This is where you learn you’re wrong. The rock climbing community has rapidly grown over the past few years. With this growing community of rock climbers, you may not know that there are climbing teams to join and even competitions for ages 7 years and older. So let me teach all the basics.

 Rock Climbing 101
There are two different forms of rock climbing, which are typically referred to as “sport climbing” and “bouldering”. “Sport climbing” or routes involves the use of a rope, a harness, chalk, shoes and well a rock. There is more needed, but this is rock climbing 101 so we’ll keep it simple. “Bouldering” is when you use nothing but shoes, chalk, and a crash pad. The grade setup, or difficulty of a climb, for “routes” begins at 5.0, which is the easiest grade and is like climbing a ladder. The grades gradually increase and climbers advance quickly past 5.0. When using a rope, 5.5 is the most common grade. If you are a brand new climber going for the first time, you will probably stay within the 5.5 to 5.8 range. As you begin to get better, you work your way up. Once you reach 5.10, letters are added, such as 5.10a, 5.10b, 5.10c, and 5.10d, as the difficulty increases. This can continue forever. However, the hardest sport climb ever completed is a 5.15c, which is extremely hard. The grades for “bouldering” are anywhere from vB to v16. VB means for beginners then the scaling goes to numbers such as v0 and higher, the hardest bouldering grade ever done is v16, which again, is super hard.To put that in to perspective there has been more people on the moon then people who have climbed v16! When bouldering outdoors climbers commonly bring a crash pad, which is pretty much a portable mattress. A crash pad is a better option. Instead of hitting solid dirt or sharp rocks, you fall on a cushioned pad!

Youth Teams
Kids will usually meet twice a week to practice at an indoor rock climbing gym. At team, which is a climber’s way of saying practice, we learn the fundamentals of rock climbing. We usually start off practice with traversing, which means, instead of going up and down, we go left to right or vice versa. We also warm up on the easiest of rock climbs known as v0 or v1. If a climber begins to climb without warming up it can seriously injure them. For example, you can’t just expect to do a marathon without at least stretching beforehand. After warming up for 1530 minutes we work on technique such as exact foot placement. This helps us in the long run to not burn energy while working harder climbs. About half way through practice the team has core, which is a climber’s personal work out. The team is put through 30 minutes of intense exercises from lunges and situps to pullups and pushups. After core we usually will project, which means we pick a climb we can’t do and work out the beta, or moves to get to the top of the climb. Depending on the youth team, you will be assigned homework. Homework is usually learning more about a famous rock climber or a popular rock climb in the outdoors. This is to expand the knowledge of the youth team members.

 Competitions
When competing you are placed into a category. The category you are placed in depends on your age. For example if you are 11 or younger you are placed in division D. If you are 12 or 13 you are in division C, and so on. There are two different types of climbing competition formats which can be used with boulder or rope (route) competitions. One of the two is a “redpoint” where you can choose which climbs to try and take however many falls you would like. You will record the number of falls and the climbs you complete on a score card. After you finish a climb you must get it signed off by another parent, coach, competitor, etc. who actually saw your entire climb. Your goal is to get the highest point climbs, so the harder the climb the more points you get. After three hours you turn in your score card with your top five climbs added up. It’s usually an hour before you know where you placed at the comp. The other competition format is onsight, where you have 56 minutes to look at the climb for the first time, read the beta, start and finish it. Then 5'6 minutes of rest before moving onto the next problem. The gym who’s sponsoring the comp will set five specific problems according to the division you are in. If you do fall on the designated climb you may try again as long as there is still time remaining. By now you are probably either asking your self whats the point of climbing? (And i don't blame you considering it is the hardest way to get nowhere.) Or your telling yourself you would really like to try rock climbing out sometime! Either way i hope you learned something new and valuable. And will give rock climbing a chance!