A number of activities have helped me stave off insanity during my expatriatastic experience here: snowboarding, ultimate, learning japanese, drinking, and so on. One thing I've failed to mention thus far is rock climbing. We The Denizens of Shiroishi-ku are lucky enough to have an outdoors store complete with a large bouldering wall in our neck of the woods. Tim and Laura - who are essentially my surrogate parents here, having also introduced me to the unspeakable joy of snowboarding - convinced me to come check it out last fall and I've been hooked ever since.

For the uninitiated, bouldering is basically climbing rocks but not going very high. Sound boring? Then you are dumb, because it's fantastic. First of all, because the wall is perhaps twenty feet at its highest and there is a nice cushy mat to fall on, ropes are entirely unnecessary. Thus, all the madness with the ropes and the tying of knots and the belaying and the trusting and the "omigod my best friend's femur is jutting out of his leg because rather than paying attention i was trying to loosen the overly tight harness which was completely restricting bloodflow to my crotch" are things of the past. Also, it's weight-lifting - in disguise! Despite Chuck and Colin's best efforts, I hated weight-lifting at the gym. When it comes to fitness (and most things, really), I require an almost-immediately attainable goal. While certainly noble, "benching an extra ten pounds" and "becoming attractive to members of the opposite sex" are goals that simply cannot be achieved in an evening. On the other hand, "climb to that rock fifteen feet above you" can, perhaps several times in a matter of minutes! And when you get there, at that moment, struggling for breath, looking over the vast landscape of quality tents and camping furniture for sale at a reasonable price, thinking of all the other men and women who have struggled to reach this point but ended up falling to the squishy mat and walking away unscathed, you become the Sir Edmund Hillary of the local bouldering gym, and let me assure you, the last thing on your mind is the physical exertion it took to get you there. But climbing is actually a pretty intense workout. At this point, I'm pretty sure I can bench an extra ten pounds (a tenfold improvement). As for the other one, well, there's always _____________.

Based on your desired feeling, please fill in the blank by choosing one of the following:

DEEPLY OFFENDED: "blind chicks"
TAKEN ABACK: "whores"
RUFFLED: "the latest issue of Barely Legal"
DEEPLY PROUD OF YOUR SON: "my mother, who will love me in a strictly platonic way even if I become one of those fat shut-ins you see on Springer"

By now it should be clear that I enjoy climbing. So this weekend, Tim, Laura, and I entered the "fun class" of a local bouldering competition! It was, indeed, big heaps of fun. There were fourteen climbs in total, any of which you could attempt on any of your fourteen chances. A climb is a marked sequence of holds/rocks whose use you are restricted to on your way to the climb's "goal" hold. A chance ends in either a successful ascent (getting both hands to the goal) or a fall. I managed to finish a whopping four. Tim and Laura, both more athletically gifted than I could ever hope to be, finished ten each! (Only a few guys finished all fourteen.) The best climb was definitely what we dubbed "Mission: Impossible" (Tom Cruise movie, not the TV series), in which you had to start with an awkward step-up move facing away from the wall. To add to the cinematic effect, a spotlight was aimed at you! Pretty funny stuff. I couldn't finish this climb, but I did manage to get the start on my first try, which felt nice. Throughout the competition the other climbers were really encouraging, constantly shouting "ganba" (short for ganbare, which is the imperative form of the verb ganbaru, meaning "to do one's best". It is used to incredible excess in Japan (it has been used at least once in literally every single sports interview I've seen here)) when you were having trouble and cheering when you got a hold.

Today we watched some of the open class (highest-level climbers) preliminaries and all of the finals. Sweet Jesus. Those guys flung themselves around like flying squirrels in a nature film.

As usual, I failed to photograph this extremely cool event. But I'll be back next year, and hopefully I'll fare a little better than tied-for-second-to-last!

Hey Mr. Bouldering Man!
What's up with all your cool new hobbies? Snowboarding, rock climbing, being all down with Japan... I think with this newly-acquired hip-ness, you could quickly change your "becoming attractive to the other sex" level, despite your lack of bench press ability. I'm extremely impressed, but unfortunately, also married.
I chose "DEEPLY OFFENDED" and was actually not offended at all- my response would be more correctly categorized as "LAUGHING SO HARD YOU ARE CRYING", and because of this miscategorization, I am deeply offended.