So You’ve Decided To Join a Bouldering Cult

Do you have a personality? No? I didn’t either, but that’s what bouldering is for.

I never had a true sense of character, not until I stepped foot into my first climbing gym. The pheromones of cheap chalk and stale sweat, bodies falling around you, thudding flatly like fat flies in the heat. I zero in on what looks like an easy route, and as my fingers grasp onto the first hold I swear I hear it whisper to me. 

Gravity fears you.

Foot here, toe locked there, release —

Splay a palm on this grippy part, lunge to the next hold.

Catch it with my heel.

Take a hand off and shake the fatigue

— reach across the body and search for a hold.

Outstretched arm, extended leg, reaching with a taut pelvis.

You look good.

Back down on the ground, it hits me. Not like a train — something more philosophical than a train. Like a TED Talk about trains. Like something clicks in me, and I’m nodding with my head to show that the clicking actually did happen. A sense of belonging is one way to put it, but it felt more powerful than that. You’d feel it too. The heat bubbling just beneath your eyes, that tingling sensation driving the small of your back?

No, it’s not scoliosis. It’s love.

On the floor of that gym, a vision takes hold. “This could be so much more,” I murmur.

“Right on, man,” says one dude in a chalk-smeared Carhartt tee. But he doesn’t get it. Not yet.

I must spread the gospel.

***

A month later, I bring a friend. His name is Brian and he has come unwillingly. 

My new disciple is weak — but like Jesus, I share. Chalk, tape, and knowledge. Foot placement, grip techniques, how to start a climb, how to fall. Still, it’s been a month, and I have yet to reach the top of a black climb. Brian believes I’ve done it, and I can’t afford to have him believe otherwise. Not right now, when he lacks conviction still. Faith is built on trust, and although I’ve already betrayed his, I still need three more ClassPass referrals to get $20 off my next session.

After thirty minutes, I see he’s already struggling to keep on going. His hands are chafed from the rock, looking like tofu scraped on asphalt. He complains, but I tell him his torn calluses are the mark of a climber, that the pieces of loose skin hanging from his palms are an essential rite.

We end the session, and I watch Brian wolf down a thirty dollar pizza on his own. While he’s chewing, I ask him which climb we should try next week.

He pauses. Wipes his mouth. Gives me a look.

“Next week?” he repeats. I nod.

He sighs, eyes the last slice of pizza like it holds the answer, leans back in his chair and gives me a shrug.

“You’re the leader.”

Why yes, Brian. I am.

***

6 months in, and I’m in full swing. We have good numbers, strong numbers. Ever since Brian brought in two more guys from engineering, we’ve snowballed into a steady fifteen now. He’s come a long way since that first day. I tell him if he keeps it up for another year or two, he might even make WhatsApp group admin. 

Before each session, I hold out my chalk bag as they gather round, grabbing at the powder hungrily and in handfuls. They smear it on their palms, rub it against the three unnecessary drawstrings that flutter from their loose fit cargos. But I pay no heed to their greed, for Heaven delights in good deeds. No, no, do not fret, little one. There is enough to go around — its supply never seems to diminish.

Then, we climb. 

Hush now — they’re starting. Sometimes, they fear the wall, waver before it. But the wall waits for no one, and we’ve only paid for a two hour session. I tell them to listen to the rock, as I did. But to talk is to utter the other’s failure. Only those that have completed the climb may speak, for they alone know the way. They keep a steady vigil, offering words of wisdom when they feel so inclined: “Foot there…no not there, there– over– no, no put your foot back. Yea– alright, whatever.”

Each triumph is not our own, but a shared success. I stay with the group, attempting the lower-grade climbs, because there’s nothing quite like the adoration of fourteen teenagers. Each time I ‘top out,’ they scream my name from below, the way churchgoers scream. And perhaps they’re right — I’ve always felt the Second Coming took far too long to arrive.

We fall together, too. Baptising ourselves in failure, relishing in our grazed skin. We take pride in the blood we leave behind on these consecrated mattresses, for they are a testament to our piety.

But, to fall alone is to fall in vain. There’s an audible sigh as the room exhales — not quite disappointment, but pity: because there is no shame greater than collapsing like a ragdoll, thrown in mid-tantrum. But a hand on the back reassures that yes, you are still among us.

“It’s alright, Brian,” we say, “let’s try again later.”

“Yes, we’ve deleted the video.”

“We promise.”

***

Alas, I was undone by my own doing. Brian, the dumbass. He’d told everyone I’d done the black climb, and they all wanted to see me do it again. To witness a master at his craft. I wasn’t ready; yet, with my fellowship behind me, I was spurred by the spirit of delusion.

Fingers through this crimp, hanging on with just a fingernail —

Swing a leg, miss, swing again…press a fat thigh against the sheer surface —

I collapse into a holy shitpile.

Fourteen faces cringe in disbelief. 

Two weeks later, nobody’s answering the WhatsApp polls anymore, so I remove them all. It’s just me and Brian left in the group chat — though, he leaves me on delivered the week after. Good riddance. I send them an email on how terrible their form had been, and receipts to reimburse me for the chalk they’ve used. I give them each 48 hours to respond, but nobody replies.

It’s numbing, losing all that power so quickly. But like a phoenix from the ashes, I’ll rise again. I hear pickleball is gaining traction.