Feeling a little sick. Didn't get a lot of sleep and started to feel off in the late morning and now I for sure have something.
I'm a little relieved because I thought I was in a bad mood for no reason and the track workout I planned yesterday never got off the ground and I wasn't totally sure why.
Here's a lingering thought I've been having: A long time ago I was with my uncle and his son and we were driving or something, I forget what. Or maybe we were at a hotel. I don't remember. The thing I remember is they were disagreeing about something and my uncle, to prove his point, said my cousin's age and then said his own age "you fourteen, me fifty-something". As if to say, how could you possibly know more than me about this. I remember at the time feeling uncomfortable about it and thinking it was a pretty off-putting thing to do. I'd love to go on and on about why that's such a unhelpful way to prove one's point but the meat of this story is that I basically did the same thing while coaching yesterday. I was asking this climber to shift their weight while using an undercling and I was demonstrating and another climber did the move really well and the first climber went, "Well you're both taller than me so that's why it's easier."
In hindsight, I could've reflected on the feeling they were trying to express which was something like "I am a small child and I am frustrated by a lot of these climbs which are very clearly not set with my height in mind" Even in this specific instance where height was not a limiting factor, I can see how that was on their mind. But in that moment I wanted to be right and I wanted to prove I was right. How long have you been climbing for? It was the kind of thing where I knew it was wrong as I was saying it :/
Anyway, I circled back later and was like, I will never ask you to do something that you can't do because of your height and if height is a limiting factor I will be the first person to admit it. But I had already botched the interaction at that point.
One thing that's challenging for me is when we get a group that's new to climbing and pretty unresponsive. If kids are excited about climbing, that's easy to work with. And usually if kids aren't that into climbing I can build a good rapport. On the day this happened I felt like I couldn't do either. The kids didn't really want to climb and they didn't want anything to do with me. I think in those cases it's hard to sit back and wait because you want to do something. I'm a coach so I better go do coaching. But if the climber isn't really looking for coaching then you're just kinda asserting your authority for your own ego. Yeah, I think making it clear that you are a useful resource and willing to help but then waiting for them to initiate is the way to go. On top of basic monitoring safety and behavior and stuff.
