Slack lining in the suntrap – add an espresso for a slight hint of the Med.  Come on down and join the balancing act!

May 14th, resident physio Hannah will be doing 10 min drops in sessions for advice on injuries, core and strengthening exercises. Got a niggle you need seen to? Pop along!!

Lovely new holds for our lovely new problems – new zone open at 5 for you to pull down on!

Today: £5 all day climbing
Mon – Friday 6-7pm: After school climbing club.
Tuesday: 7-8pm Get Going sessions for new climbers
Wednesday: 7-8 Surgeries with ‘Iron Mike’ for advanced skills
Thursday: Womens coaching with Molly and Esther
Friday: 5pm new set in the speedboat zone opens
6-7pm Pilot climbing club for young people with Aspergers/Autism.

MAY 3RD: DOWNSTAIRS IS CLOSED BETWEEN 6-8PM AS WE ARE HOSTING A CHARITY EVENT. THANKS IN ADVANCE YOU FOR YOUR UNDERSTANDING.

On a Friday Night from 6-7 we are now offering a club for children with Autism and Aspergers, for more information please email us on [email protected] FAO Sam.

All ready for tomorrow’s reset – 5pm tomorrow, fresh problems ready to go….. It’s basically Christmas Day every week at The Hangar.  See you in the new zone tomorrow!

Shauna throwing some serious shapes!!!  One point off first, so best result yet.  Top spot in Austria on April 27th?  Here’s hoping. If you haven’t read Shauna’s blog, check the link below; honest and reflective, a really good insight into what being a working climber is like.  Inspired!

http://www.shaunacoxsey.co.uk/2013/04/millau-france-bouldering-world-cup/

Pleasure:

A climbing holiday, what a brilliant idea! Two weeks of endless sun-kissed limestone, 100 lifetimes of routes to do, every grade, length, type, style…. A genuine heaven. A lazy breakfast to slowly rouse aching muscles, lunch supplies carefully packed and the team bounces down the slope of our hilltop Spanish village towards the car park. Excitement is brimming to the point of bursting, giddy chatter about where we are going, who will try what, what conditions will be like and endless speculation about any variable which is simply a way of passing the time on the painfully slow drive down the switchbacks to the Eldorado of today’s crag.

At the base of the crag, harnesses are hastily pulled on, quickdraws snapped onto loops and knots tied as desire for the first taste of the days climbing threatens to overwhelm. Chalked hands fasten to holds in the fashion of an eager lover. Quickly chastened for being too rough! Slow down, focus, do it properly, enjoy. A sense of flow connects a perfectly placed sidepull with a gentle spring for a good hold. I wonder if the universe wanted us to be here, doing this, soaked in the brilliance of chaotically distributed rock features connected by human imagination and creativity.

The heat of pump warms the forearms bringing a delectable sense of urgency. The clock is ticking. Mistakes are costly. Successes feel masterful. A degree of struggle adds the desired drama to the final meters of my climb. Concentration and steel; the foot will not slip, stand on it like you believe it. Committed extension brings welcome crimps to hungry finger tips. The chains euphorically clipped, I cannot help but rave to everyone at the crag about the excellence of the moves supplemented with miming. I enthuse about how much they will love it and how it is basically hand crafted for them and their talents. The endorphins make me senseless but infectious. The rope is pulled and my partner is tying on.

Pain:

We, the working and family people of the world, have to condense our happiness and dreams into tiny bursts of concentrated fun. Every five days we are rewarded with a weekend off into which we are supposed to cram doing something cool, spending quality time with loved ones and friends and do the domestic chores we couldn’t be bothered with in the week. The pressure is immense. It’s like New Year’s Eve every weekend. I need to do something exciting so I know I’m not boring. To be like those friends of mine with the endless supply of energy who are always doing something amazing or random. Imagine sitting at home by the TV at the weekend, I wouldn’t want to be that sort of person would I?

I’ve trained for months, I’m climbing harder than ever at the wall. That route I couldn’t do last month, well I’m running laps on it now, and that guy, you know the really good one, well he fell off it, so it must be hard. I’m in the form of my life and the trip is coming. I’m not just ready, I’m hungry and by god am I going to have it!?

Suspended in my harness, staring at the rock, disbelief clouds your mind. How did I miss that hold? It was in front of my face. I was so close, so close to being proud of myself. Standing on the edge of a world where I might have dared to call myself a good climber. That would have defined me! The mixture of devastation and wonder, I was sooo close….Oh my god, I was that close!!! I did amazing, it was better than I could have expected, but the ‘nearly’ element is a splinter that refuses to be dug out.

The holiday has a lot to live up to, it’s like a weekend but supercharged. The high bar guarantees some sort of failure. There is simply no way that every day can be a shining example of climbing brilliance. It rains after my rest day. The route I wanted to try is wet. I’m tired, what’s wrong with me? Why can’t I climb hard every day for two weeks?

The dream holiday pressure makes everything important. The importance makes everything fragile and fragile are the desired holiday dreams. Desire is fear in another guise. Fear changes the way I climb to make the fall more likely. Desire it seems, can do much the same to dreams. The greater the desire, the easier it is for the dream to shatter.

Potential pleasure shifts into a self-fulfilling prophecy of pain through pressure. We the working people, the people of condensed annual dreams, must find a way to allow pleasure into these narrow windows by filtering out the headache of desire. Move by move I get to the top of a climb. And just like every other goal or ‘first’ I’ve ever had in my life, more will follow when I’m ready to let them happen without the interference of want.

It can be hard to enjoy climbing, but I don’t blame anyone but myself for that. Regardless of the outcome, the world will be the same, my life won’t change, everything will be as it was. Chalk up and get back on, I remember I could be at work.