Indoor Rock Climbing

One of my favorite activities is indoor rock climbing. I love to rock climb! It is a sport that takes a lot of strength, focus, and problem solving. Do you like solving complex puzzles? Do you like figuring out how to get through a level of a video game, or how to solve a Rubik's Cube? If you do, you will love rock climbing, because it is also a form of complex problem solving.

There are three ways to indoor rock climb: bouldering, top-rope, and lead climb. Each way is very different and complicated to explain in depth. My favorite way to climb is top-rope, so I will be focusing on that within this blog post.

To top-rope you will need to have specific gear. You will need climbing shoes, a harness, rope, a grigri, clip, belay partner, and you may also like to use a chalk bag. At the top of each rock climb wall is a beam. The rope is swung around the beam leaving two ends at the bottom of the wall. One end is for the climber, and the other end has a grigri attached to it for your belay partner to use. Your belay partner and you each wear a harness. When you want to climb you tie a figure eight knot into the rope. You then loop the remaining rope through your harness and tie a double figure eight. With the remaining rope, you tie a fisherman's backup knot. Now you are all ready to climb! Just make sure you have on climbing shoes, and you may want a chalk bag. The chalk in the bag keeps your hands from getting too sweaty and slipping on the holds.

                   

Next, you need to know what your belay partner does. The belay partner's job is to make sure you do not have too much rope hanging. Hanging rope is called slack, and if you leave too much slack then you could fall. Keeping the slack tight keeps you from falling down the wall. Your belay partner attaches the grigri to his/her harness using the clip. He/She then holds the rope to the side, pulling it tight as you climb up. When it is time to repel down, there is a switch on the grigri your partner pulls back to loosen the rope. He/She will loosen her grip on the rope also, without removing it, so you can descend down without falling too fast.

When you are climbing there are holds of different colors. These holds are made to be like rocks, in all types of shapes and sizes. They are placed on the wall creating routes. These routes are like complex puzzles. You need to follow the same route or color all the way up. It is up to you to figure out the best way to go without giving up or falling! The routes have difficulty levels. The easiest at my gym is a 5.4 and the hardest is a 5.13. The holds are more spread out, smaller, and harder to grasp as the difficulty level goes up.

Vocabulary-
Rock Climbing- when people climb up rocks.
Rubik's Cube- a complex puzzle which is in the shape of a box, formed by miniature boxes of various colors. One must twist the boxes to get each side of the cube filled with a matching color.
Bouldering- a form of rock climbing which is performed on a low wall using no rope.
Top-rope- a form of rock climbing using a rope and a belay partner.
Lead climb- a form of rock climbing where the climber attaches the rope to clips as he/she climbs up the wall instead of using a beam at the top.
Climbing Shoes- shoes that are made specifically for rock climbing. They run tight, and have rubber soles.
Harness- something a person wears around his/her waist and legs then attaches to a rope so he/she can go to higher elevations without falling.
Grigri- a tool used in rock climbing which rope is fed into so that the rope can be secured tightly.
Balay Partner- someone who keeps the rope tight and a rock climber from falling.
Repel- to make something go down or back the way it came.
Descend- to go down.
Holds- rock-like structures created for indoor rock climbing. They can be held or stepped on.
Routes- a way to a destination.

Vocabulary Practice

Indoor Rock Climbing

S L I O N J R H G Q U L P E R P I R I G L A Z K R V P P C Y 
G R U D S E O H S G N I B M I L C E C R J E P K G D S W V V 
P O Z Z K R J U I C S U E M B R A N Y A G D A W W Z L T D V 
D C B F T H L G C C C W Y N N A P T O W S I I D X E U I O R 
I V A R G P G P B S T G I V Q J X R M Y T B R J C J T R X A 
C T S U U G U B K Q U C P X T H Y A B Q T P D G N L W B X E 
K H Q T O P H I A K R G D T R D B P T P T I G F A U I H C Q 
E L R T L A B E J M F F J L T S T Y S W I P K A G W Y M W T 
M X W M R U K Z E Z G V G C N R O A B O U L D E R I N G B L 
N G J N R U D M Y A G N D B I J P L W W C T S X M L K K E E 
A C E N D Q D Y K C B Q I H Y F R E H C Q J E P H W I R D I 
J S W G K E Q P M R A T G B W B O B F L S M T H P R V L V F 
S C T R H H I Y U H B S Q L M U P D U X X N U R K Z E T W K 
L C W L P D I O Z X K I U K M I E U R G X W O R S P G X S V 
S K U X Q I B F O F Q Y F X Y K L A E E M R R D E E H Z E J 
G E V X C C N M P B P W A M R Y E C F F B O X R H O L D S M 
M B P J E F Q X V P U W C T R K D T K J J K X I K P Q O T X 
U V W S A P S D K R V D S K D T E E S C T G W U E H Z C O J 
N P B M P A Y G Y H Q I W N H L I V L T O K D J A W B T P E 
L Y D L X Y B Z P F T X G E I Z Q J U U C R S X C G Z Y P H 
Q E R B S Z N X E Y T F M I T U G W V X I P C B B B D U R Y 
K Q J M H Q X S D R G M S O W Y U A M I D X H T N Y A Q F K 
D N E C S E D M X M I M X T T P H M K S D P I I N H D J C T 
J G F J V C Z D R K T F K M W Y D U P W G C H G C Y W N H K 
P K W E W X X X N R J L K U D X U O L N O P I Y J K O S A U 
P D F X C F P K I X S Q A S N P I A J H V B Y W T T W J R U 
I H C K A T H I D G Q X U K E R S Z G Z G J S Z D Z B V K F 
X C M L W N O K N Y K V R N X C W C Q L F D W I G H O V K C 
U R J X N G X A G U W K M G M Z U U W Z O D S V C U L W K O 
I W V M D B R W T H Y N K P R P Q R E D E E U F I M R M I Q 

BELAY PARTNER
BOULDERING
CLIMBING SHOES
DESCEND
GRIGRI
HARNESS
HOLDS
LEAD CLIMB
REPEL
ROCK CLIMBING
ROUTES
RUBIKS CUBE
TOP ROPE

Grammar Point: Action Verbs

An action verb is a kind of word that does something. For example: skip, run, jump, sing, lick, write, wish, sleep, dance, drive, think, race, ext.

Grammar Practice
Directions- Find all of the action verbs in the paragraph.

Yesterday my sister Sophia and I were walking through the woods. As we walked, Sophia started to jump for joy, screaming "a rabbit, a rabbit". All of Sophia's screaming startled the rabbit, and it ran away. We started to chase it. The rabbit stopped by a tree. It started digging a burrow under the tree, then crawled out of sight. Sophia started crying. To cheer her up I started to sing her a song. This made her smile again, and soon we were on our way back home.