Today I was standing with this kid I coach and he's a great kid who got into climbing a little over a year ago and now he's competing in his first season and today was his third competition and it was at a gym that tends to set notoriously hard climbs. So we're standing there in front of this climb watching other people do it and making a plan and this kid I'm coaching is a good climber and he works really hard and I know he's going to be great if he wants to stick with it but there are still some moves that he's not as comfortable with and this climb looks like it's going to be a challenge for him. But he's got a great attitude and he's open to failing at things because he knows it's going to make him better in the long run.
This other kid is right in front of his, about to get on the climb, and the kid looks back and receives some directions from his coach and then he walks up to the start and sends the climb with relative ease. He looked good. He drops down to the mats and gets his scorecard from the judges and calmly walks back to where we are and his face immediately turns red and he begins sobbing uncontrollably. He sits down right in front of us and pulls his shirt over his face and keeps bawling. His coach walks over to comfort him and me and the kid I coach both kind of tastefully look away and act like we don't notice and after about 10 to 15 seconds of us standing in dead silence the kid I coach says, dry as a bone,
"Well, that was encouraging."
I lost it. But then I had to quickly regain it because it looked like I was laughing at the crying kid which I wasn't.
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