In case anyone isn't already familiar with indoor bouldering, here's a great competition video: https://youtu.be/uHlV_nLLXLc?t=49
Cannot recommend bouldering enough. Problem-solving minds tend to love it.
Cannot recommend bouldering enough. Problem-solving minds tend to love it.
I loved rock climbing, but overdid it by doing it 2 times per week in combination with squash and badminton. Too much for the tendons of my arms, and it never really went away.
One of my favorite childhood memories was going to Fontainebleau, just south or Paris. They have fantastic outdoor bouldering there.
25 years later I went back there for my honeymoon and it was just a great as I remembered.
There is a kind of glamorization of these really intense training sessions in the workout community, but the real work and struggle is rehabilitating injuries, and having the patience for the best practices that allow you to train hard safely at the next level.
Get some easy climbing mileage!
Most gyms are catering heavily to beginners nowadays and offer tons of beginner problems. If you've never been bouldering before and curiosity strikes on a Saturday morning, you can literally drive to a gym, sign a waiver, rent shoes, and start climbing the walls, usually for about $25 or less depending on your location.
Of course, this isn't without risk. If anyone reading this decides to do it, take at least a few minutes to learn the gym etiquette and start slow!
It may be also where I train, as the gym isn't one specifically geared towards beginners, the grades may not be as inflated as other places, and the route setters read like a who's-who of American sport climbers (Matty Hong, Jon Cardwell, etc).
But again, I'm in a climbing epicenter (Boulder), so I can go outside and find V1's that are nigh impossible for me to do. Problems that have been put up by people like Pat Ament, John Gill - there's still boulder problems put up 40+ years ago that still haven't had a second ascent.
I guess maybe my sentiment is also almost: bouldering should be hard. It's a problem! I would love to see footage of your 3's or 4's - I'm almost in disbelief.
I do believe my gym has a V15 set at the moment. I was watching Dave Graham unsuccessfully work a tricky V12. Pros winter over and live in the parking lot of this place.
What gym do you go to?
It's as hard as you want it to be.
Here in Fontainebleau, there are bouldering circuits in the forest set for the level of our three year old. (Seriously. Painted with little pink hearts next to the arrows).
They get used, too. Even for me, climbing pretty hard these days, I'll often run off and do an easy Blue or even easier Orange circuit just for the joy of movement over 40-80 nice problems, few of which would even get a V0 if you translated the grade across.
The difficulty scale goes as far as you want in either direction.
* children are smaller, so holds in general are proportionally larger
* children may have a different lower and upper body ratio (they've got shorter legs than adults), making them better suited for climbing.
* Better flexibility/mobility
* don't have to be (re)taught how to play
* perchance better strength/weight ratio
* relatively fearless
* usually can find a enthusiastic peer group that isn't so centered around competition/jealousy (similar to, "knows how to play")
* A lot of kids I see at the gym have parents that have been climbing half their own lives, so they've got incredible coaching from a trusted source, and an amazing cheerleading section. They'll be climbing most of their lives, if they decided to keep it up.
The only real detriment may be that problems in a gym setting aren't always made for their sized bodies, so some of the moves may be a bit reachy. A children's general creativity could allow them to solve such issues though.
Finding a climbing buddy is one way that climbing can be social (there's also gyms set up w/auto belays).
The worst climbing injury I've ever succumbed to was bouldering. Chronic pain in my ankle from a fall. It's a safe enough hobby, but it's not impossible to be injury yourself (being as klutzy as me, helps!)
Getting that mileage, though, on a rope while going over easy terrain is a great way to build up confidence and allow those slow-developing tendons to get stronger, so that you can pull harder bouldering, and not kill yourself (spoken from experience!)
After that, we go bouldering. There are plenty of intro and V1 problems they can do even on a first try, now that they've got a general introduction to the concepts. And I get to show off a few mid-grade problems to aspire to. (I'm only a V3-V4 climber myself.)
I prefer to boulder myself, because I can do it without any coordination. But you need somebody there to help you on your first day, and top-roping has a lot of advantages for new climbers.