Friday Feat: The Holds are Lava!
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Louis Parkinson, 28, is a comp climber and the co-founder of Catalyst Climbing, a London-based coaching platform.
At 13 years old, Parkinson had a rough start to his climbing career—“I got stuck at the top of the wall on my first attempt, and cried in front of all my little sister’s friends,” he says. But he kept at it and went on to compete for Great Britain’s national team in Bouldering World Cups.
Parkinson still competes, but his current focus is building his coaching business to help guide the next generation of climbers. Catalyst Climbing not only works with members of the British national team, but also offers training plans and private coaching to climbers of all ages and levels of experience.
On doing this “boulder,” Parkinson says:
“This nonsense is the sort of thing my friends and I do very regularly! During that session we were on a mission to climb as many “features” around the climbing centre as we could without using any holds… this was the only way that worked! I’d strongly recommend to everyone to get as creative as possible with their approach to climbing—as far as I can tell, there is absolutely no distinction between playing around with movement and having a brilliant time practicing genius-level techniques for later use in your climbing.”
Happy Friday everyone!
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