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Splater
climber
Grey Matter
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Topic Author's Original Post - Aug 18, 2015 - 07:09pm PT
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http://www.nytimes.com/2015/07/26/opinion/sunday/the-rise-of-climbing.html?smid=fb-nytimes&smtyp=cur&_r=2
I guess this was news to the author,
but more obvious to most of us who never left the sport.
Well written except for this:
"The industry has abandoned the pretense that pre-existing climbing communities like those in Berkeley and Boulder are critical to success. The mostly flat Midwest, in fact, has emerged as the area of fastest growth, with new gyms in Oklahoma, Nebraska and Ohio."
That "pretense" was fairly true when climbing gyms were starting out 25 years ago. They were lower budget, having to count on limited numbers of dirtbags. The people that gyms now market to did not exist at that time. It took many years for early gyms to pay back their initial capital. In fact it was those very gyms who helped create that market over 25 years, along with the internet.
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donini
Trad climber
Ouray, Colorado
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Aug 18, 2015 - 07:11pm PT
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Yes, gyms have helped evolve climbing into a sport....to me it has always been a way of life,
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healyje
Trad climber
Portland, Oregon
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Aug 18, 2015 - 07:16pm PT
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More like gyms serving as the missing engine necessary to bring a new level of commercial viability to the business via a vast increase in the demographic.
But 'maturing' or 'evolving'? Highly debatable.
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MikeMc
Social climber
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Aug 18, 2015 - 07:30pm PT
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Climbing became hip, and cool, and "safe" in a controlled environment. I'd say it has devolved if anything.
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jgill
Boulder climber
The high prairie of southern Colorado
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Aug 18, 2015 - 07:31pm PT
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Climbing has been a sport going back at least to the last quarter of the 19th century. All sorts of societal influences made this possible. What gyms have added is a more formal and controlled competitive aspect.
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donini
Trad climber
Ouray, Colorado
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Aug 18, 2015 - 07:34pm PT
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In a persons life sports are transient, lifestyles are forever.
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healyje
Trad climber
Portland, Oregon
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Aug 18, 2015 - 08:17pm PT
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True and I know a guy who's lifestyle includes working up through the grades in a bouldering gym for five years to climb V6 but who, after one go, said climbing outside doesn't interest him in the slightest.
I guess that's an evolved lifestyle sport.
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elcap-pics
Big Wall climber
Crestline CA
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Aug 18, 2015 - 09:12pm PT
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"They" used to say that climbing was the best exercise for climbing... climbing gyms seem to have filled the bill... a form of exercise that is not so boring as regular gym workouts... not a bad thing.
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Vitaliy M.
Mountain climber
San Francisco
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Aug 18, 2015 - 10:16pm PT
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Climbing could have a different meaning to different people, and that's ok. I personally lean towards a way of life, but I have not done it for most of my life like Jim, so who knows what am I gonna be excited about in 4 years...
I am happy that gyms exist. Met a high school friend in Planet Granite today. Can't wait to take her along on a cragging trip sometime this fall. Would be super fun to show her walls of Yosemite or something like that.
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BLUEBLOCR
Social climber
joshua tree
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Aug 18, 2015 - 10:38pm PT
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Climbing Gyms(scientifically contrived),are certainly science's way of measuring climbing.
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Reilly
Mountain climber
The Other Monrovia- CA
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Aug 19, 2015 - 08:24am PT
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I bristle when I hear climbing denoted as a sport. But then I think of my friend Sergei Efimov,
speed-climbing champeen of the USSR. Dude had the soul of Vysotsky and Pushkin. All he
wanted to do, when he wasn't climbing, was read poetry, sing, and play his guitar. I suppose
there could be folks like him in a gym in Omaha, except he also enjoyed the odd romp up the
Cassin Ridge on Denali.
Y'all do recall that the IOC was inches from making it an Olympic sport, right?
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cat t.
Sport climber
CA
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Aug 19, 2015 - 08:41am PT
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I think an increase in female participation has all but tamed the wild beast that climbing was 50 years ago when I started climbing mountains. HAHAHA WTF
As Vitaliy has said, "Women make better climbing partners. They're more adventurous."
The point of this article is about the state of pure athletic performance in climbing--they weren't claiming it's matured as a discipline, but rather that it's matured as a sport. I think that's an interesting discussion on its own. It's a valid point: people who learn a skill as adults and train only haphazardly are NOT going to accomplish the same physical abilities as those who begin regimented training at an early age. (Which has nothing to do with leading runout slab, bolting ethics, an understanding of the wilderness, or whatever your favorite "sport climbers don't know ___" topic is.) With more gyms, regimented training, and a preponderance of child-crushers, the physical limit of what is possible to climb is going to go up, and it certainly becomes more and more "sport like."
(I'm just as uncomfortable with that as any old dude on ST, but I also recognize that a large part of my discomfort comes from the fact that I'm a bit jealous that those climbers are undeniably better at the pure movement aspect of climbing than the average--or above average--trad climber.)
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cat t.
climber
california
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Aug 19, 2015 - 09:17am PT
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If women are more adventurous in climbing, why do men do 99% of first ascents? Oh man, what a TOUGH one to answer. Maybe because so many women get their introduction to climbing from arrogant dudes who belittle them? No, that couldn't be it. It must be because all women are weak-willed and soft-bodied.
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looks easy from here
climber
Ben Lomond, CA
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Aug 19, 2015 - 09:32am PT
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Y'all do recall that the IOC was inches from making it an Olympic sport, right?
I believe it's still on the list of possible additions for 2020.
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healyje
Trad climber
Portland, Oregon
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Aug 19, 2015 - 09:36am PT
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'Athletic performance' and grades have risen (as they always have), but the bottom line is the skills and abilities have plummeted as a percentage of the total demographic. It's now more like gymnastics where millions are culled to produce a very small percentage of top performers. Pre-gyms and pre-sport, the overall performance spread across the entire demographic was far, far narrower.
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cat t.
climber
california
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Aug 19, 2015 - 10:10am PT
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healyje, I definitely agree with that assessment. It seems to be the inevitable progression as an activity moves from niche to mainstream. (I watched the same "widening distribution" thing happen with knitting, of all things...)
Not sure what value judgment to place on this change, though.
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healyje
Trad climber
Portland, Oregon
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Aug 19, 2015 - 10:29am PT
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It's not a value judgment so much as an observation that 'what climbing is' has been essentially redefined. For the overwhelming majority of the demographic, 'climbing' is now essentially defined by the red-point process, e.g. dogging up a route until you can do a clean ascent, or 'dog, dog, dog, send, next'.
So be it, but if that reduction is what constituted climbing for me I'd be bored out of my skull and find the entire exercise so numbingly dreary and pointless I wouldn't bother doing it anymore.
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Vitaliy M.
Mountain climber
San Francisco
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Aug 19, 2015 - 10:34am PT
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Sure that beast is alive and well where climbers endeavor to hunt it down, but the animal that the vast majority of today's climbers want to hang out with is more of a finicky pussy cat, or a tail wagging, leg humping pup.
Part of me wants to agree with that statement, even though I can’t really talk about the climbing culture in the 60s, 70s, 80s, 90s or even 2000s since I started in 2010. BUT from what they show in programs and from what I gather on this forum, the culture has changed a lot. The changes seem to be also affected by the resource - the rock. When there were no guidebooks and people were mostly getting out climbing as a way to scramble up, or climb a peak it was more of an adventure, and attracted a different type of a user. Now that pretty much 95% of good lines in popular destinations like Yosemite Valley have been climbed out and climbing has gone mainstream, most of the people look at it as consumers. Is it a 5 star climb? Is there a move by move topo? Is there a rapell route in case we take too long projecting the crux pitch? Why bother climbing something that requires an approach, has questionable quality or may make one feel uncomfortable for a second? Most people that started in the gym don’t even think there is anything to climb aside from the established routes. And the only new routes are on 7000M Himalayan peaks done by mutants like Ueli Steck. A long time sport climber once asked me “Well why the hell no one has climbed the line you claim a first ascent of if it is as good as you say?” Hmmmm how would one know something is good before someone can actually give a review? Blame the guidebooks for all the change!
I don’t think females play a big part in why the user has changed. Maybe in the gym it is easier to pick up a gf. But in the outdoor world females are still outnumbered. Which means lower chance of getting laid. I heard internet apps and sites like match.com are a much better way to get laid vs becoming a climber. Even though there are plenty of posers out there who treat gym climbing like an impressive activity to brag about. ANyway, I think it comes down to an individual and their drive. There were and are all sorts of people out there. Strong, weak, liars and courageous honest people. Guidebook climbers and adventure climbers. Boulderers and sp…...t cl…...rs. :) To each their own, I am happy to hang out with all sorts of people.
Times do change and there is no running away from that. Is it good or bad? I don’t know, I am not complaining personally. Have plenty of sh#t to do, for the next 20 years at least! Have been climbing so much that I don’t even have the time to post about it! So sad! (sarcasm)
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cat t.
climber
california
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Aug 19, 2015 - 10:56am PT
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When there were no guidebooks and people were mostly getting out climbing as a way to scramble up, or climb a peak it was more of an adventure, and attracted a different type of a user.
I think this is a phenomenon that extends way beyond climbing. The average American in 2015 is used to consuming highly curated information--information they probably perceive as being produced by some far-away expert to whom they cannot relate at all. I think this information-curation is great in many regards (the availability of so much knowledge is amazing!), but I think it can also lead to a sort of complacent helplessness.
At Shuteye a few months ago I heard someone going on and on about a climber they'd heard on a podcast. I automatically assumed it was their friend. "No--oh no. I've never met them! I'm just a fan," the stranger insisted, then continued hero-worshipping the climber in question. I was baffled--the "celebrities" of climbing are just normal people that anyone who climbs a lot is inevitably going to run into with some frequency.
It's not so much a value judgment so much as an observation that 'what climbing is' has been essentially redefined. Yeah. If it were all about athletic performance and redpointing that next harder grade...that sounds incredibly, incredibly boring. I actually rather dislike sports in general and find the idea of "climbing as sport" quite aversive. A lot of people seem to enjoy it that way, though, and I hesitate to crap on other people's joy. I don't think "climbing for the love of exploration" will ever die.
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