Turning forty this year was a big milestone.Taking on a daring endeavor to commemorate,
seemed appropriate. After researching some indoor rock climbing places, I
decided to simply throw caution to the wind and go for it! I wanted to do something I hadn’t done
before and something that scared me a little bit.The lesson was to begin with some basic
ground rules about rock climbing and some basic foundational understanding
about the equipment we were using.
This whole circumstance began to feel somewhat life-or-death for me. I’ve never been one to necessarily be afraid of heights (giver the the fact that at twenty I went bungee jumping and a few years after that, I went sky diving…), but when push comes to shove, no pun intended, I don’t think I particularly care for being 30 feet, or magnitudes more than that at 13,000 feet, respectively, above terra firma.
My teacher/partner begins to inhabit a calm I cannot help but glean. She assures me that she is there for me, that she will not let me fall. She is my belay partner.She is there to catch me if I falter on my ascent. For this we use a flexible, as opposed to a static line.A static line is great for hauling up gear with you. However, if you use a static line for yourself, while you lose your footing, the line breaks and your rock climbing career, among other things, ends tragically early.If you don’t have some give, some stretch in the line, you (not the line) absorb all the shock of the fall, and it doesn’t end well. To say the least.
So as I neared the 18 foot mark, I had to check my breathing. I nearly panicked with the height and weight of the situation! Fraught with decisions to make about which foothold to choose and how to manage my increasingly sweaty hands, it became too much for me. I began to feel overwhelmed.Just then my belay partner explained that women make great climbers. In fact, because don’t share the same upper body strength as our male counterparts, we have to choose more wisely each progressive hold and step and are, thus, more efficient. We become more skilled sooner, because we have to be.That empowered me and helped me to breathe and feel like I could tackle this. I could cross this Rubicon!
Alas...in life, and with Autism, we cannot survive successfully without some give or flexibility.The static lines don’t help us through all of those tricky aspects, twists and turns of life.RDI gives us those necessary tools, like developing an ability to be resilient and to problem solve, for example, to help us survive, nay, to thrive.RDI encourages that dynamic collaboration, that relationship of student to their guide, that belay partner in life, who will be there for us on our ascent, and who will catch us if we should fall.
Melissa Reiner has been an RDI Certified Consutant since 2009 and lives in Santa Monica California. Click here to email Melissa.