Gymnastics vs Bouldering
The beginning
I got into gymnastics through a student club that my classmate Viktor invited me to. The first years were hard but I was motivated. My main aim then was to do cool tricks and win competitions. Soon after I started with my PhD, I was introduced to bouldering. It didnt take long before this became my primary pursuit. I started out struggling at the beginner grades. Though I could compensate for my lack of technique with strength, I didn’t see a progression in my skills until I got a membership and started training three days or more every week.
Someone told me about bouldering six years ago and I wondered what was so exciting about hanging on plastic in a warehouse?
D.S.T Pegasus
Outside training inside Pegasus
I feel I was in the right place at the right time. Pegasus (my gymnastics club) is a Dutch student sports club primarily full of students from the TU and a number of ex members who still lived in Delft. It was easy to relate to the other students and everything I did then was affordable as a student. It was a close knit community akin to a fraternity.
In addition to training 3 times a week, there were opportunities to do other things like competitions at different universities and volunteer work for the national competition at AHOY Rotterdam. The student competitions were a hoot. There are 4 difficulty levels for men and I competed at the lowest one. It took me a year to figure out how the scoring works. The key principle to win is “keep it simple stupid”. The student competitions usually end with a themed party. Who can really say no to that?
As a volunteer, the most exciting assignment was doping control. I simply had to hang around with an athlete the whole day while enjoying the show. I got to see the top gymnastics up close in their element, including the legendary “Epke Zonderland”.
The start of the batavierenrace (175km relay race).
Bouldering is a social sport
Lead climbing at MonteCervino
The biggest fear at every stage of my life is that things may not be as exciting as before. Luckily that was really not the case with bouldering. A big part of that, I owe to my friend Guillermo who shared my dream of living in a bouldering hall (joke). It did not take long for me to realize that I needed to train far more often to start doing the cool stuff.
If I was exact to the minute, most of the time in the bouldering gym is spent on rest and recovery before the next attempt. That’s plenty of time to catch up with everyone else. I was a regular in no time and I cannot emphasize how much I enjoy seeing familiar faces on a regular basis. Analogous to visiting universities for competitions, it was now about checking out new bouldering halls, top-roping, lead climbing and exploring the European wilderness.
Leveraging your strengths
Switching from gymnastics to bouldering was surprisingly a breeze for me. Technical skill and upper body strength are prerequisites to success in both sports. The requirements are more demanding for gymnastics where certain tricks are simply impossible without sufficient strength. Both sports are hard on your palms. Blisters are common in the beginning and calluses follow shortly after.
Why does bouldering work for me?
A number of reasons. The most important was the nagging question of what I want from sport. The answer is that I want to see myself get better. I knew I had strayed far from the path of becoming a professional athlete and sport would always have to take second place. However, I still want to train hard. Push myself to my limit. I see this as much a mental challenge as a physical one.
Bouldering gave me unlimited freedom in training. The bouldering hall is open about 45 hours a week and I have the luxury of building my own training plans. Seeing myself get better and advance through the grades is all the motivation I need. I also enjoy the sense of community and solidarity with my fellow boulderers. It is no longer about who is better, but rather more about motivating each other to be the best we can be.