This was my first climbing competition and it was certainly an eye-opener. Learnt many things about myself and my climbing. But more importantly I want to thank all those who kept cheering for me and giving me helpful hints. Among those hints are look around which sadly I did not heed, thus missing out a foothold and not completing the 1st route. Another being “COMMIT!”. I believe it came from Jensen and I really did that and I did a humungous throw and completed the last route (Sweet…..) In the midst of looking at my 2nd route, a shout from Jups saying “Come on! it’s easy!” really helped me. Not sure whether it was psychological or not, but I flashed the route =)))) Sound and logical advice from Ningfeng lik “It’s ur last route, do your best” made sense. And all the screams and shouts and cheers certainly helped.
This made me realized how all these shows the team spirit that the team has. Even the Dj mentioned that Nus was always cheering very loudly for their own climbers. Even though during the competition it is just you against the wall but I realized that there are actually a whole bunch of people behind u supporting and encouraging you to push on and to keep going. When u missed a tile and crash on the mat there will b a collective groan and when u top a route there will be a resounding cheer of “YEAAAAA”. What a great community it is.
Actually I wanted to leave after my cat was over but thought maybe I could just give back what others have so graciously given to me. Thought it would be nice if I could cheer my other team-mates on. So the novice guys stayed back and screamed our lungs out for the following people who climbed. Hope it did help u as it did to me. Kinda have a sore throat now. But not too sure why we were kind of muted during the open men’s competition. What a great experience to soak in the feeling of a climbing competition. And I am definitely proud to be part of this climbing team and I wish to continue climbing with you all.
Just some thoughts,
Charles
