Authors note: Mere hours after writing this, I watched another few hours of bouldering (this time not muted) and realized that most of what I wrote was entirely hogwash. I’ve stated this before, but my ethos with these blogs is that I write what is on my mind and I try to do as minimal research or prep as possible. If I spent every week agonizing over these things, then I wouldn’t get anything else done. Sometimes that works out. Sometimes it leads to well-intentioned, yet ill-informed musings on an activity that I know nothing about. I know I also put some disclaimers within the blog, but I realized how inadequate they were once I realized how off-track I was… I make no apologies, except to all of the professional climbers that I’ve offended.
The Olympics are still in full swing. As I wrote about before, I’ve been loving the games. I mentioned my enjoyment of some of the games that I’ve not had the chance (or rather, I’ve had the chance, but didn’t realize I wanted it) to watch before.
New among that list is “Sport Climbing.” I don’t understand all of the rules, so don’t ask me to explain them. I’m going to share my observations given that I’ve barely watched enough of it, and even that was on mute. Don’t use this as a primer on sport climbing. I have no idea. I’m going to spend the rest of this blog writing as if I did have an idea, because it’s easier than a disclaimer every other sentence.
There are two different types of sport climbing, speed and bouldering. The speed format is pretty self-explanatory. There’s a wall, there’s a bottom, there’s a top. The fastest person to bridge those things wins. They climb up the wall as if they were a monkey and POW they hit the button. I found a video of a speed climber climbing speedily. She’s good at what she does, obviously.
That’s speed. The other, bouldering, is a bit more complicated to explain. In this, there remains a wall, top, and bottom. But it’s a shorter wall that moves sideways and up. Also, there are four of them. Also, the things are harder to grab. People walk up to their wall and then try to climb it. But unlike in speed climbing, you don’t get kicked out for falling. In fact, as far as I can tell, bouldering is just a series of people falling off a wall. They approach the wall. They grab a rock. They jump to the ground. Sometimes they grab another rock after that first one. If they’re lucky they can grab all of the rocks. They get points for getting all of the rocks, I guess?
But mostly it’s people falling down. As the event continues, they start to get more points for the best rock grabbing, but at the beginning? Yowza. The first five minutes of the event was watching one person not be able to grab the first rock on the first wall.
Four minutes to climb a wall. Speed climbers can do it in seven seconds, and they don’t even fall down. It’s like if there was an Olympic swimming competition, and one of the events was “halfway drowning but somehow still not drowning.” Watching bouldering after watching speed climbing is watching bumper cars after watching Nascar.
But they’re both Olympic sports, and these people are the best at what they do. That means some people are really good at launching themselves into the air, and others are really good at falling down less frequently. It’s amazing to see these two things side by side and to realize the skill level is pretty equivalent. One of them just looks cooler.
I feel like this is a parable of sorts. It’s easy to watch people fall and say they’re not good at their sport. It’s easy to watch people soar and say they’re great. Just because what you do doesn’t look impressive doesn’t mean that you aren’t impressive. Some people are great public speakers, and some people are great writers. Some people are great musicians, and some are great painters. Some people are natural leaders, and some people are peerless support. Some people are incredibly structured, and some people excel in chaos. Neither is better than the other. Only different. You are incredible at what you do, even if no one realizes it.
Rev. Jeff Fox-Kline
Twelve Corners Presbyterian Church
Have you been watching the Olympics? We'd love to hear about your favorite games! If you're looking to visit or join a vibrant Presbyterian church and congregation in Rochester, NY, we invite you to stop by! Our worship service starts at 10:00 a.m. each Sunday and all are welcome! Twelve Corners Presbyterian Church is located at 1200 S. Winton Road in the town of Brighton, NY. If you have any questions, call our office at 585-244-8585 or email us using our secure contact form.
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