Going Round in Circles

No, not a navigation problem. The sudden demise of the exceptional winter conditions in Wales and the Lakes rather scuppered my plans for the last few weeks. The fact that the snow was replaced by rather damp conditions didn’t offer any decent alternatives either. When we do get a sunny day (today for instance) I’m stuck in the office.

Still, the indoor scene is keeping me active in unexpected ways. Last week I kicked off a four week introductory course at Awesome. We take novices and build their skills from an introduction to climbing through, hopefully, to their first leads.

The week before, I had a call from Andy Say to see if I would be willing to take part in a BMC training film about the CWLA award. So, the day after kicking off the four week introductory course, I was back at Awesome filming with the BMC. The gist of the filming was showing how the CWLA award is aimed at giving you the skills to introduce climbers to leading in a safe and structured way. Thursday I am back at the same wall carrying on that very process.

Life’s little circles…….

Long Day, Big Grin

Yesterday found me at Redpoint climbing centre in Birmingham. Bit off the beaten track for me but that was where my CWLA assessment was booked, so there I was. Unfortunately, the day's other candidate had been forced to drop out. So that left me one on one with my assessor, Joby, for about 6 hours.

Nail biting is how I would describe the experience. Kind of like doing three or four driving tests in a row but having to wait right till the bitter end to see if you had failed the first one!

Anyway, it all went well. So thanks to Joby, Martin the Redpoint leaper and Beth, Tash and Holly, my three willing students for the day.

Right, who wants to learn to lead then?

Day of the Long Drops

After many months of waiting, my CWLA training session finally arrived. I was pleasantly surprised to find that Andy, an MLTA friend, was also on the course. We were also joined by John from Harrogate way and the whole show took place at the Foundry under Danny Brown.

It was all good fun and various things were covered such as games to improve belaying and clipping skills. A top rope 'baby bouncer' for the faint of heart was also tried but the real fun was of course the 'rippers'. Take a dose of slack, a bit of altitude and Geronimo.

Hopefully, the assessment in a couple of months will be equally stimulating then I can get down to the serious business of looking for clients. Watch this space.