Sometime shortly after lockdown I decided it was time to get back into lead climbing. The terror was – as always – very real.
You know how it is. The longer you don’t lead, the scarier it gets. Every draw seems to get a little bit further apart, every clip a little bit further away, and your lizard brain becomes increasingly convinced that gravity has somehow become more powerful since the last time you tied in.
At the time I was climbing with a fantastic bunch of guys and girls, so naturally I took my problem to them. The guys’ solution was… well… wonderfully masculine.
“Oh, it’s easy,” they said. “Just climb up, pull out a whole lot of slack, take one ginormous lead fall and you’ll be fine.”
Right.
Maybe that works for guys. They take one enormous whipper, dust themselves off and spend the next hour wandering around the gym feeling incredibly brave and… well… manly.
I’ve never, ever wanted to feel manly.
If I had followed that advice my lizard brain would simply have hijacked the entire operation.
AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGHH HHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!
An hour later, while the guys were still feeling like Superman, I would probably still be making distressed dinosaur noises.
Nope.
That strategy was never going to work for me. So instead I went to my lady climbing friends.
We talked about it. Negotiated. Batted ideas backwards and forwards. We came up with a gentle, graded approach to getting comfortable with lead falls again. Tiny falls. Then slightly bigger ones. Lots of encouragement. Plenty of laughter. No pressure. No ego.
A little bit of time, a little bit of effort, a great deal of giggling… and before long I was happily leading again. With absolutely no AAAAAAAAAAAAAAARRRRRRGGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHHH!!
That experience really highlighted to me—again—just how differently many women and men approach climbing.
And more importantly, just how wonderful it is when women climb with other women. So Climb Like A Girl (CLAG) was born.
Nothing fancy.
No committee.
No membership applications. No secret handshake.
Just an informal group of women climbing together regularly at Johannesburg CityROCK. Supporting each other. Encouraging each other. Laughing together. Occasionally eating too much cake afterwards together.
Turns out we’re not the first people to think this was a good idea.
Back in 1921, over a hundred years ago, the Pinnacle Club was founded in Wales to encourage women to become independent climbers and support one another. Imagine that. More than a century ago women had already figured out that climbing with other women was something rather special.
These days AI will happily tell you all the scientifically supported benefits of women’s climbing communities. Apparently they provide:
- less judgement
- greater encouragement
- more patience
- enhanced learning
- better communication
- increased willingness to try difficult moves
- celebration of effort rather than achievement
- easier partner finding
- stronger friendships
- greater confidence that carries over into everyday life And you know what?
I think AI is absolutely right. But I also think AI misses the point. It isn’t special because it increases confidence. It isn’t special because it improves learning. It isn’t even special because it helps women become stronger climbers. Those things all happen.
The real reason is much simpler: it’s just more fun.
There is something wonderfully relaxing about spending time with a group of women who completely understand why you’re scared of that move, who celebrate when you finally commit to it, who laugh with you when you peel off anyway, and who somehow make you believe that maybe—just maybe—you can do the thing you thought you couldn’t.
There’s no pressure to impress anyone. No competition.
Just women cheering for women.
So if you’ve ever looked at a route and thought, “Absolutely not…” Come and climb like a girl.
It’s lekker.
Keen to join CLAG? Join the Whatsapp group closest to you.
