Journal — Day 1 of a female climber
Lots of snow in Saulgrub, Germany, It was a cold day in 2018, and right beside our xmas holiday cabin, there was a climbing gym.
For someone coming from Brazil, seeing that place filled with colorful little holds on the wall was so beautiful. We don’t have those gyms back there… at least I hadn’t seen any until then. To me, that wasn’t even a gym; it was a space to play… I had already been to two gyms in Milan, Zero Gravity and Urban Wall, which I also thought were just for fun. It hadn’t crossed my mind that they were places for training.
Felipe, my husband, fell in love for this sport. I felt nothing, unfortunately. He then started training, bought books, and binge watched climbing videos on youtube.
Not even the pandemic stopped him from practicing.
Felipe was a gym climber because he had no one to help him. How would he climb real crags without a belayer? Here's a picture of La Carolina bridge climbing in Spain in Feb 2022, and Felipe and Lasagna, our dog, sadly walking without anyone to belay him.
In December 2022, 4 years later, Felipe asked if I wold be willing to take a course to become his belayer. We were in Cagliari and the chosen gym was S'avanzada https://g.co/kgs/GKmViF a tiny little gym in Sardinia island.
3 days later I officially became a belayer!
Since then our weekends are filled with amazing new crags, hiking, and breathtaking landscapes.
The question I always get from friends and other climbers is: "when are you going to start climbing, Tais?"
Well, 25th Dec 2023 I decided it was time to become a climber. Why? Because some days earlier Felipe said "For sure that that climber's girlfriend is a climber, Tais… nobody who climbs 8A would have a non-climber girlfriend. Belaying is an annoying task and she would be bored if she didn't climb." And indeed, belaying is super boring… you are there for 2 or 4 hours just handling the rope, bearing with the wind, cold, sun, sweating without spending any energy, just waiting for the time to finally pack and go home.
Yesterday I climbed my first crag! And I loved it! 5 years it took me to make a decision. Is it too late? Well, I'm not really worried… I just want it to last. I will start practicing, training, and wish to become stronger through the time to reach higher levels!
