Personal Narrative: My First Rock Climbing Class

With completing the first rock climbing class at Penn State, I was able to benefit from a variety of new things learned from the class, in addition to refreshing my memory on things that I already learned. This class has taught me several important life lessons that I will remember for as long as I live. The biggest hurdle in this class for was time management. I am and have always been a procrastinator, therefore completing the required five extra two hour visits to Reading Rocks and additional hour per week in the gym was challenging for me. It did not help that class this semester, required a lot of time outside of class. However, I quickly learned that after completing a few extra visits to Reading Rocks, I became a better climber and was able to climb more difficult walls. During the extra visits, I was able to practice and improve my footwork by bouldering, hand holds and climbing techniques taught in class. After the first class, I realized that I needed to use the flagging technique when I climbed in order to avoid “barn dooring” and needed to work on my hand holds and body position. I made it a priority to work on those areas whenever I

It has taught me lessons that I apply to my everyday life. If you don’t succeed at first, try a new approach is an important lesson that I learned from rock climbing. There is usually more than one way to make it to the top. What works for one person, might not work for another. For times like that, you need to get creative and think outside of the box. A little discomfort can be healthy is another lesson that I learned from climbing. The discomfort and pain caused from attempting a hard climb will make you stronger. In life, it is important to constantly push yourself outside of your comfort zone. For the reason that stepping outside of your comfort zone helps use perform at our peak and accomplish new