I am more than a climber, sort of.

Judith Sim
Aug 28, 2017 · 4 min read

I chanced upon this article talking about Post-Olympic Depression which talked about the transition from competition and the athlete life, back into our normal lives.

While I’m not exactly a Olympic medalist or a World Cup professional, somehow some of the sentiments experienced by this athletes seem to resound in me. Perhaps it is also fortunate that I dont fall too heavily in this category, otherwise I would be in deeper shit.

I’ve thrown myself into climbing for a good couple of years, working my way up to compete in Japan’s The North Face Cup and nearby World Cups, ensuring that I am always reaching podium positions in local competitions. These achievements may be small compared to the Olympics, but the mental and physical effort was still put in.

I always had this struggle to let go and to think about the future, or realistic goals outside of climbing. I climbed every weekend, my free time was dedicated to training for climbing. I looked for competitions I could join and trained for it. My holidays were about training trips, etc. I think I wanted to maintain this winning streak, to be constantly at the top. I didnt want to come down either.

But somehow I felt myself slipping away from the top after a few years. I no longer had that same rigor and strength in me to continue training as I did. Recovery was slow, body movements were tightening up. Challenges felt the same but my mental couldnt take the pressures. I kept trying and pushing myself, and it was taking a toll on my physical body the others round me. Nope, it wasnt depression, but it didnt feel good either. I was not who I used to be, and that worried me, that made me put more pressure on myself, I expected more and more but I couldnt meet my expectations.

I did all those and when questioned why I continued, I couldnt really give an answer. Letting go somehow meant that I would lose everything I had — my skills, physical strength, abilities, medals, success, etc.

when athletes over-identify with their sport they can lose a sense of who they are — and find the separation difficult, or in some cases, impossible. In other words, it’s easier to say, “I am a swimmer” than “I was a swimmer.”

To me, it felt like to let go was to not climb forever (although this wasnt true, but somehow it felt that way to me). Perhaps you might get a glimpse of this when injury strikes — you get a pulley, sprain an ankle, momentary instances when you are out and unable to climb/train. You feel like your nothing when you’re not at the gym crushing routes and working on the fingerboards. I still feel it now (nursing a A4 pulley currently, urgh) and staying at home just feels sooooo boring.

The key is in an athlete’s readiness to build an identity off the playing field.

But reality is as it is, and I realise that somehow I need to let climbing take a back seat now. I’m a full time teacher, I have athletes to coach as well. And people I love you needs my time, love and care. All these I have forsaken when my head was so deep into climbing. I used to tell myself all these, but didnt feel it in my heart. Its been a couple of years battling this inner-demon in me. Reading this article today really opened my eyes and heart into moving away from this negativity.

“I need to remind athletes that the skills and personality traits that they possess, that pushed them and propelled them to such excellence in the domain of sport, are transferable,” Goldman says. “If they find something else that they love, then they can transfer all of that passion and work ethic, grit, and resilience and creativity and adaptability into their next phase of interest.”

Keim has a similar view. “If you’re transitioning out of something, you should always have something you’re transitioning into. You should always have future goals. Even if it’s just setting up trips to go travel. Because stopping cold turkey, that’s a slippery slope.”

What the above quote said about “transitioning” into something else really works. I think you really need to find something to put yourself into. I tried to listen and follow what others did. I took yoga, some dance lessons to try to bring myself away from climbing, but it doesnt give me that same satisfaction. But I discovered for myself that going outdoors to climb and travel, that gives almost the same satisfaction and drive that I have for competitions, so I guess i’ll stick to that! Mind you, it is not that I am giving up on climbing altogether now, I still enjoy climbing, seek out and get psyched on new routes in the gym, etc. It does feel amazing when I finally release my reigns on competition and the need to succeed. I no longer beat myself up over not being able to climb hard and well in the gyms, or if I fall on a route I would have otherwise cruised back when I was climbing strong.

I am more than a climber, well.. sort of. I still climb, but not in that same identity as I was previously. I hope this help those out there who are experiencing emotional drops as an athlete, or maybe just as someone trying to move away from podiums and success.

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Judith Sim

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🇸🇬 Climb. Teach. Travel. Follow me on instagram @judithtiduj

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