Rock Climbing

On Tuesday 10/12/2010 I went to Red River Gorge to learn some basic rock climbing. A friend of mine is a Mountain Guide with Fox Mountain Guides and asked if I would come be a student for a AMGA skills test course. Sounded like fun to me, well kind of. The “kind of” comes from the fact that I am afraid of heights, not just a little bit but a lot. But as the theme of the year I was going to go for it.

I left Louisville at  6:30am on Tuesday morning with a whole 2 hours to put my nerves aside and think about how great the day was going to be. I arrived at Miguel’s Pizza and about 8:45 and meet the people who were in the class as guides and the other students. In total there were 6 students and 5 guides. All the students had various experience in climbing, me with the least.

We hit the road to Muir Valley, our climbing destination for the day. A very generous couple Liz and Rick Weber own the land and let people climb on the property as long as they sign a waiver and respect the land. Thanks for being so awesome!

I surprised myself when we got to the climbing destination, I was not as nervous as I thought I would be. We learned some basics that included safety and terms to use while climbing and belaying. Then it was onto knots. I learned the double figure 8 and a clover hitch (or I should say relearned) and where/when to use them.

Now time to climb. As the time passed I thought that I would chicken out but nope my nerves were holding strong. I got to belay a climber first and then my turn. I tied in and was off to climb a 5.6. Rocks are on a grade system and I am still working on the system but it has to do with how hard they are to climb. I also climbed a 5.4 and tired a 5.7 but only made it about halfway up that one.

Over all it felt really good to climb. I did not think I would like it and was doing just to say I did and help out a friend but I surprised myself with how much fun it was and how good I did. Not sure if I have time to add one more thing into my life or not but I would like to try to make time for more learning and trying in this area.

Hot Hot Hot Yoga

And when I say hot I mean hot, 105F for 75 minutes. Now I like it hot, summer and I are best friends but this, this was more than I expected. I did however make it though the whole class only having to skip a few poses and getting dizzy once (perfectly natural according the instructor.) I did my research and tried to properly prepare for the class. I drank and drank and drank water throughout the day and did not eat anything 3 hours before. I took a full water bottle with me to class and it was gone by the time the 75 minutes was over. I also went home and had another 32 oz of water before bed.

I did Bikram Hot Yoga at Betsy’s Hot Yoga Louisville. I got a deal that allows me 10 classes to see if I like it and if it is helping me. I am primarily trying this out to see if it will help me with my back. I was told the only thing that will really help it is to strength it and in research yoga seems to help a lot of people with back issues. I am also doing it to try to improve my over all well-being. I am attracted to things that are non conventional in helping over all health so this is one of my first steps to stop turning to antibiotics and other over the counter medicines.

I enjoyed the experience of trying something new and working my body in a different ways. I think that over time this could help me be better at the other activities I am already involved in. I might have to find a few more deals to help support me in this adventure but for now I have 9 more class to sweat it out and learn.

What are your experiences with Yoga? Did you like it? Did it help? Where did you go?