Words + Photos by Leslie Kim.
The very first time I went rock climbing was at a small gym in Southern California in 2003. We were a small group of friends and none of us had any real climbing experience . I didn’t rent shoes because I was probably trying to save money or because I just didn’t know that shoes were important. I put on my sweatpants and Adidas sneakers and poured my heart into the summit.
Since then, climbing has always been on my mind. I couldn’t afford a gym membership when I was a broke college student, but I accepted offers from friends on their free passes every five years or so. Even though my visits to the climbing gym were so rare, the activity always captivated me. Something about it made me smile every time I thought about touching a socket.
In 2014, I finally made the commitment to climb regularly. At this time in my life, I was two years removed from an important but damaging relationship that had destroyed my happiness for five years. My social network was broken and the remaining friends I still had before this relationship were no longer ones I could relate to. My life was changing dramatically and I was absolutely alone. The only connection I had with other people or the real world was my job, which was stressful with long hours and creatively demanding.
For the first time in a long time, I had a smile on my face again. I couldn’t wait to do something new. I forgot the chore of my life and laughed while scaling a climbing wall.
I wasn’t exercising. I wasn’t eating well. I wasn’t sleeping well. I was tired, angry, depressed and anxious. Desperate, I contacted a very old friend who took me to a climbing gym. For the first time in a long time, I had a smile on my face again. I couldn’t wait to do something new. I forgot about the chore of my life and laughed while scaling a climbing wall.
When I learned that LA Boulders was opening not far from my home, I signed up straight away. The barriers that had stopped me from climbing earlier in life were no longer there; and I actually had a job this time around, so it was totally realistic to join a gym even though I didn’t have any furniture in my apartment. But hey, who needs furniture when you can go climbing?
…it was completely realistic to sign up for a gym membership even if I didn’t have any furniture in my apartment. But hey, who needs furniture when you can go climbing?
I was at LA Boulders all the time. If my body had allowed it, I would have gone there every day. I had no concept of rest days or warm-ups – I simply threw myself at whatever rock problem arose because it helped temper the negative emotions that plagued my every waking hour. The best part about climbing was that it made me so tired I could sleep at night. I woke up with some aches and pains, but getting a good night’s sleep was definitely worth it.
Eventually my lack of knowledge and discipline caught up with me and I suffered a series of injuries that forced me to learn how to rest, work on strength training, and be a reasonable human being.
Climbing gave me an arena in which to wrestle with myself. I climbed when I was sad and I climbed when I was angry. I climbed the days when I hated life and I climbed the days when things just fell into place and I felt like things couldn’t be more perfect. Through this personal struggle, I learned what it took to take small steps forward. I focused on one climb at a time, one move at a time.
Climbing gave me an arena in which to wrestle with myself… Through this personal struggle, I learned what it took to take small steps forward.
“What if I do this?” I told myself over and over again, imagining a movement in my mind and probably making a strange face and gesture with my body. “How about I try this?” I wondered. I wasn’t strong. So, I had to get creative. I tested my crazy ideas on block problems that worked or didn’t. When my ideas worked, sometimes I surprised myself. It was an incredible thing to see my ideas receive real-world feedback.
In my heart, I am an artist. I think I always have been, although I was heavily discouraged from pursuing a career in this field. When I was a kid, I did things because I was curious. Most of all, I just wanted to see what would happen if I did one thing or another. I was a strange girl, obsessed with creating things because that was how I made sense of the world. Decades later, I realized that no matter how far I strayed from creating art, I was still the same curious and creative person.
Climbing did the best thing for my artistic brain that any activity could have done: it made me curious again.
Climbing did the best thing for my artistic brain that any activity could have done: it made me curious again. This made me think about the possibilities and the plan in the future. When I was climbing, everything from planning my next move on a climb to planning a big climbing trip led me to think about what was going to happen next.
Through climbing and art, I was able to be curious and give myself the space to have crazy and wacky ideas. I tested these ideas in the field and in real life. I learned to adjust if necessary and try again. I have gained valuable knowledge about the world around me by going outdoors and experiencing nature in more remote places.
I started to value my time now that I had a good way to use it.
I started to value my time now that I had a good way to use it. After a while, I knew I wanted to climb and make art as often as possible. I started asking for more time off at work and gradually learned that I didn’t have a good work-life balance. I changed jobs, hoping the next workplace would be better; this was not the case. So I started freelancing in order to control my time and take ownership of my projects.
I started creating artwork about climbing and, at the request of my friends, I printed these artworks on t-shirts. This is how my climbing clothing brand, Dynamite Starfish, was born. I’ve taken Dynamite Starfish on the road and traveled to climbing gyms and climbing festivals all over the country. Through traveling, trying to make a living from my art, and subjecting myself to so many unknowns, I learned that I was capable of so much more than I could have previously imagined. I have gained a community of supportive friends who are now like family to me and I do my best to contribute to this community in a positive way.
Ultimately, I learned that the future is not something that happens to us. This is something we can influence, at least to some extent. If I could choose the type of climbing day I had by choosing my partners, maybe I could choose the types of people I spend my time with in other areas of my life. If I could learn skills that could make multipitch less frustrating, perhaps I could learn other life skills that would eliminate some of the frustrations in my life. Through the lessons I learned from climbing, I learned to care about my own safety and value my limited time and energy.
Obviously, climbing is not a necessary factor for personal growth. Many people learn the same lessons I did while doing other things. But climbing will always be special to me because without it, I don’t know how long it would have taken me to find a way to start enjoying life again.