Climbing

Although I did a bit of bouldering as a student, I didn’t take up climbing again until 2010, and I wish I’d come back to it sooner – it has turned out to be so good for me and my inner aspie in so many ways:

Coordination
I can sew (apparently unusual for an aspie), and I can parallel park in the tiniest space, but I’m incapable of negotiating a doorway without sustaining injury; I have bruises on every limb, and no idea where they came from. When I climb, I’m forever scuffing my knuckles and elbows on the wall – which, by its nature, is abrasive – and it’s rare for me to get home without having drawn blood; but the desire to improve my balance and technical skill is the perfect motivator for accurate movement, and I find it incredibly rewarding to climb well.

Obsessiveness
There are few situations where being obsessive is a useful and socially acceptable asset, but belaying (basically: holding the other end of the rope) is one of them. Safe belaying requires you to do the same things, the same way, over and over again (from taking in the rope, to locking the carabina). Ultimately, your climbing partner’s life depends on you getting these details right. Knowing that my autistic traits are, for once, working to everyone’s advantage is rewarding too.

Concentration
There’s a lot of noise in my world: about 40% of it comes from outside, and can be drowned out with iPod + earphones; the remaining 60% comprises mostly random (sometimes obsessive) and frenetic thinking – inside my head, all the time – and is almost impossible to still (even when I’m asleep). At the club where I climb there is usually music to cover external noise, and the internal noise can be tamed by the need to pay close attention to what I am doing: it might sound trivial, but you need to know not just where all your hands and feet are at any given moment (sometimes to within millimeters), but where they need to be in two seconds’ time, and five seconds’ time… and so on – otherwise you’re off! I find it impossible to think about anything else when I’m climbing, and so the noise stops; regardless of how hard my muscles have to work, I can rest.

Exercise
Hauling your body off the ground can take a lot of energy and, when you’re hanging by your fingers, a lot of strength too; so climbing provides a good workout for both the cardiovascular system, and almost every muscle in your body! And, unlike some other sports, it’s not boring.

Socialisation
I can be around people without needing to be sociable. Apart from sorting out practicalities with my belaying mate, I don’t have to interact with others if I don’t want to; I can just do my own thing (climb the wall), and no one else has to care. (Yeah, it hurts when everyone – except me – is invited back somewhere at the end, but I’m used to that.)

Team Work
I did a 24h climbathon last weekend (a great excuse to drink lots of coffee), and between us we scaled 43,320m (that’s 150,000′ or 27 vertical miles) – the equivalent of seven of the world’s biggest mountains (the highest from each continent) stacked on top of one another. For once, not being a team player did not get in the way of contributing to a team effort. I liked that.

Anyone Can Climb
My youngest (who could climb out of her cot before she could walk) started wall climbing at the age of three, and is still loving it two years later. There are easy climbs and hard climbs. There are clubs and courses, and one-off tasters. Find your nearest UK climbing wall here!