Buddy Check – Details, episodes & analysis

In today's episode, we take the niche theme of this season one step further, diving into the incredibly specific topic of how people with adhd experience and relate to fear in climbing. Even though fear is an important element behind the enjoyment many people with adhd find in climbing, their hyperfocus can become a double-edged sword, leading some climbers with adhd to fixate on thoughts of fear and spiral into all the things that might go wrong.

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Resources:

• Strong Mind  mental training course

Today’s episode explores the narrative that ADHD is a superpower in rock climbing. For some people, the chance to flip the script on their disorder is something they jump at, but for others, it feels like an entirely incomplete way to think about their experience. Seven climbers weigh in on how they think about their brain chemistry in relation to their climbing.

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Resources:

• Ekman, Elizabeth, Arto Hiltunen, and Henrik Gustafsson. 2021. “Do Athletes Have More of a Cognitive Profile with ADHD Criteria than Non-Athletes?” Sports 9 (5): 61. https://doi.org/10.3390/sports9050061.
• Order Zofia Reych’s book Born to Climb
• Receive Zofia's newsletter through Patreon
• Find Jenny on Instagram @jenny.lemonpie

Today, a round up of guides and coaches discussing if it’s their job to encourage their clients and students to find their stretch zone or if their role as a mentor is simply to meet people where they’re at, whatever that means for the day. 

We close out the episode with a story from Kevin about the importance of finding joy in wherever you are with your climbing, a little meditation on presence if you will, because the hamster wheel of always seeking harder harder harder doesn’t promise to give your life greater meaning.

Learn with Kevin!  

This week’s episode is all about guides as a type of climbing mentor. First, we hear from Kevin, a friend of mine and an AMGA certified rock guide about some of the general benefits of hiring a guide, what to look for, and what an AMGA certification actually means in the world of climbing guides. And then from Cecil, an instructor and guide for the Seattle-based non-profit Climbers of Color. Cecil talks about the benefits of learning from a guide who not only empathizes with your life experiences but one who is intentionally teaching climbing skills for a new generation of climbers to get outside and feel empowered to do so.

Resources:

• Climbers of Color
• Kevin's website
• and his IG: @kevhamrich
• AMGA website
• City Rock climbing gym
• Cirque climbing gym

In this episode, we look more at the idea Hazel brought up of taking responsibility for your own climbing journey, through my own experience and a story from Gillian, who you also heard from in episode three. You'll also hear from four of the other women I interviewed about why climbing remains incorporated into their lives. 

In episode four, we walk through the basics of understanding mental training techniques for climbing with Hazel Findlay. Hazel is a professional climber and mental training coach, known for her first ascents of big walls around the world as well as her strength in single pitch sport and trad climbing. She is the third person to send Magic Line in Yosemite, a 5.14c single-pitch trad route that was originally put up by Ron Kauk in 1996.
 

We talk about her early days in climbing, understanding fear, and effectively using exposure therapy to overcome fear in climbing through developing strong self awareness and accurately assessing the correct challenge level for you to make progress, rather than staying in avoidance or creeping toward panic. Hazel also shares some insight specific to navigating fear and developing a healthy mindset when climbing with your romantic partner.

Resources:

• Arno Ilger: The “Godfather” of Mental Training in Climbing on the Curious Climber Podcast 
• Strong Mind
• Performance Hacks training videos
• Climb Smarter by Rebecca Williams

BONUS EP! The bet stands. 

This episode explores the relationship between mental health and climbing. In trying to navigate the relationship between anxiety and climbing in my own  life, I was looking around at other women in climbing who I perceived to have a handle on it. You’ll hear from two of them in this episode. You’ll also hear from Becca Wallingford about the research she conducted for her Master’s in Social Work. She interviewed nine women to understand if and how climbing could be used as a type of therapy for people navigating mental illness.

Resources:

• Wallingford, Becca, “Reclaiming Control in the Vertical Realm: A Qualitative Study on Female Rock Climbers with Mental Illness” (2020). Available at: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/342277704_Reclaiming_Control_in_the_Vertical_Realm_A_Qualitative_Study_on_Female_Rock_Climbers_with_Mental_Illness.

Episode 2 of Buddy Check looks at two ways of thinking differently about navigating our climbing partnerships that overlap with our romantic ones. First, what can we learn from queer partnerships, where traditional gender norms are already subverted to some extent?

And then, a conversation with a couples counselor about better communication strategies to increase equity in heterosexual romantic climbing partnerships in order to acknowledge and address the tendency to limit ourselves within traditional gender roles.

Resources:

• @frontrangequeerclimbers on Instagram
• Dorian Evers, therapist based in Boulder, CO: http://www.cultivategrowththerapy.com/ 

In the first episode of season 1 of Buddy Check, Freddie tells her story of how she first learned to climb. Then, we dive into the preliminary findings from Céline Hequet’s PhD research on the climbing community. Céline is a sociology PhD student at McGill University in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. She is observing and interviewing rock climbers who identify as men about their experience with mentorship and mentoring others, their romantic relationships within climbing, and about how they perceive and understand their own masculinity. Her research will help to explain a pattern we’re seeing in climbing today, where many more women are participating in the sport and many attribute at least part of their mentorship to a heterosexual, romantic relationship.

Resources:

• Donnelly, Peter Alexander, "The Subculture and Public Image of Climbers” (1980). Doctoral Dissertations Available from Proquest. AAI8019455. https://scholarworks.umass.edu/dissertations/AAI8019455
• Robinson, Victoria. Everyday Masculinities and Extreme Sport. Berg, 15 Oct. 2008.
• Reych, Zofia, “Climbing Women and Nice Media: Beyond Alternative Femininities” (2013). Dissertation in Anthropology and Sociology 15PANC999, Programme: MA Anthropology of Media from University of London. https://www.academia.edu/5651891/Climbing_Women_and_Niche_Media_Beyond_Alternative_Femininities
• Lauren Delaunay Miller. Valley of Giants: Stories from Women at the Heart of Yosemite Climbing. Seattle, Wa, Mountaineers Books, 2022. https://www.laurendmiller.com/valleyofgiants