Buddy Check Freddie Kolwey

In the first episode of season 1 of Buddy Check, Freddie tells her story of how she first learned to climb. Then, we dive into the preliminary findings from Céline Hequet’s PhD research on the climbing community. Céline is a sociology PhD student at McGill University in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. She is observing and interviewing rock climbers who identify as men about their experience with mentorship and mentoring others, their romantic relationships within climbing, and about how they perceive and understand their own masculinity. Her research will help to explain a pattern we’re seeing in climbing today, where many more women are participating in the sport and many attribute at least part of their mentorship to a heterosexual, romantic relationship.

Episode 2 looks at two ways of thinking differently about navigating our climbing partnerships that overlap with our romantic ones. First, what can we learn from queer partnerships, where traditional gender norms are already subverted to some extent?

And then, a conversation with a couples counselor about better communication strategies to increase equity in heterosexual romantic climbing partnerships in order to acknowledge and address the tendency to limit ourselves within traditional gender roles.

This episode explores the relationship between mental health and climbing. In trying to navigate the relationship between anxiety and climbing in my own life, I was looking around at other women in climbing who I perceived to have a handle on it. You’ll hear from two of them in this episode. You’ll also hear from Becca Wallingford about the research she conducted for her Master’s in Social Work. She interviewed nine women to understand if and how climbing could be used as a type of therapy for people navigating mental illness.

In episode four, we dive deep into mental training techniques for climbing with Hazel Findlay. Hazel is a professional climber, known for her first ascents of big walls around the world as well as her strength in single pitch sport and trad lines. She is the third person to send Magic Line in Yosemite, a 5.14c single-pitch trad route that was originally put up by Ron Kauk in 1996.

We talk about her early days as a climber, understanding fear, and effectively using exposure therapy to overcome fear in climbing through developing strong self awareness and accurately assessing the correct challenge level for you to make progress, rather than staying in avoidance or creeping toward panic.

Resources:

Arno Ilger: The “Godfather” of Mental Training in Climbing on the Curious Climber Podcast: https://open.spotify.com/episode/2XWVJy1Od5uPTQ1K0y4AWL?si=uYUPxqmmSLevyjlDw3XynA
Strong Mind: https://www.strongmindclimbing.com/
Performance Hacks training videos: https://go.strongmindclimbing.com/webinar
Climb Smarter by Rebecca Williams: https://www.sequoia-books.com/catalog/climb/

In this episode, we look more at the idea Hazel brought up of taking responsibility for your own climbing journey, through my own experience and a story from Gillian, who you also heard from in episode three. You'll also hear from four of the other women I interviewed about why climbing remains incorporated into their lives.

This week’s episode is all about guides as a type of climbing mentor. First, we hear from Kevin, a friend of mine and an AMGA certified rock guide about some of the general benefits of hiring a guide, what to look for, and what an AMGA certification actually means in the world of climbing guides. And then from Cecil, an instructor and guide for the Seattle-based non-profit Climbers of Color. Cecil talks about the benefits of learning from a guide who not only empathizes with your life experiences but one who is intentionally teaching climbing skills for a new generation of climbers to get outside and feel empowered to do so.