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Sport was never my forte when I was in school. In fact, it was one of my greatest weaknesses. I was always the last one to be picked for the team during physical education class, it would take me half an hour to run a miserable 2.7 kilometers, and I was nearly always late for my next class because I was the slowest to finish everything. I was known as "butterfingers" because I often missed the ball. Because of that, I always prayed it would never come to me. To say that I hated sport while I was in school would have been an understatement.

Since I hated sport so much, what on earth was I doing at a rock climbing gym you might ask? Honestly, up until this day, I still could not tell you. Perhaps I was just following the crowd or perhaps my friends were ultra-persuasive. Who knows? All I remember is that the first day I ever went climbing outdoors was the day everything changed.

Climbing outdoors was a vastly different experience to climbing on a gym wall with coloured holds. It was much more exposed, much more frightening and so much more exciting. Without the brightly coloured holds to tell me where I had to go next, outdoors offered an interesting problem that had a unique solution for each individual climber. There were a multitude of ways you could climb a single route and the creativity of moves that is required of a climber is so much greater.

Although I was and still am afraid of heights, there is something intensely absorbing about the act of climbing that makes you forget where you are. Just for that moment while you are climbing, you stop thinking about everything else and focus only on where you are at that moment and where you intend to go next. You can forget about your boss who yelled at you yesterday, the pile of dirty laundry that is waiting for you at home or your parents nagging you about when you are going to settle down and get married. None of it matters when you are on the wall.

Through rock climbing, I discovered that my greatest weakness in sport was not due to my physical ability, but the limitations of my mind. In school, I was too bothered by what others thought and how poorly I performed to allow myself to excel. I was too caught up with performance pressure to enjoy sports. And when I did not enjoy it, I did not do well.

I spent a total of two years climbing intensively and four years climbing on and off. During that time, I discovered within me an affinity and ability for sports that I never thought I possessed. I went from a French grade 5C and climbed up to a French grade 7A - something I considered to be an impossibility when I first started climbing. I remember during my early days of rock climbing when I witnessed a climber on a French grade 6A route and thought to myself, "Wow! I'd never be able to climb that!" And now I still marvel over the fact that I can climb that very route I had deemed impossible as a warm-up. Rock climbing opened my mind up to the endless possibilities of what one could achieve with a little passion, determination and perseverance.

What I love most about rock climbing is the way it forces you to challenge yourself - your fears about heights, about not being able to make it past the crux, or about whether you are strong enough. In rock climbing, the challenge is both physical and mental. It is an all consuming activity that has the ability to take you away from the hustle and bustle of city life - if only for those few hours. When you leave the crag, you walk away not only a stronger person physically, but mentally.

Learn more about this author, Shen-Li Lee.
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