Hot Tip Tuesday: How to Start the School Year Off Strong
| By Drew Lefkowith
In honor of TCA’s recent arrival to Rodellar, Spain, we’d like to post 5 tips for starting the year off with a bang: These five suggestions are easy ways to start the year off with your best foot forward. Can you think of anything else that helps you feel successful?
Hot Tip Tuesday: Formative Moments in Climbing
| By Drew Lefkowith
This week’s post may be a little less true “tip” and a little more “reflection” on each person’s climbing journey. Climbing Magazine recently re-released a 2022 article about the 6 formative moments in everyone’s climbing career. The author listed these: While it’s probably safe to say that not everyone has experienced all of these moments, …
Hot Tip Tuesday: When to Give Beta
| By Drew Lefkowith
Ever have someone tell you about a key hold or sequence right before you’re trying to onsight a climb? Ever have someone tell you where to put your hand or foot when you’re trying to figure out a sequence yourself? Ever do those things to someone else? I think that all of us as climbers …
How to Workout like TCA
| By Drew Lefkowith
While rock climbing is a big part of what we do, our off-the-rock workouts are also important. They give our bodies a break – and our fingers – while also strengthening us for the next redpoint attempt, the next project, the next climb. Below is a core workout from this past year with TCA. Try …
Hot Tip Tuesday: How to Poop at the Crag
| By Drew Lefkowith
As we head outdoors this summer, it’s important we remember our impact on the areas we visit. A lot of climbers head out to the same crags, and we have a big influence on the environment. One way to lessen that impact is to follow LNT or Leave No Trace principles, especially when it comes …
Hot Tip Tuesday: How to be a Supportive Belayer
| By Drew Lefkowith
In some ways, belaying – and the belayer – is almost as important as the climbing. Yes, the climber actually does the hard moves, takes the falls, and clips the chains. But without the belayer, the fall wouldn’t be pillowy soft. The climber may not remember a key foothold. They might not remember to take …
Hot Tip Tuesday: Sending the Water Project
| By Drew Lefkowith
Water is such a fundamental part of athletics, performance, and being outside. And it is also such an easy piece to forget. You get psyched on your project and forget to drink water because you want to remember the beta or talk about the climb with someone else at the crag. Or you go belay …
Hot Tip Tuesday: How to be a Mentally Strong Climber
| By Drew Lefkowith
This Tuesday’s hot tip relates to the mental aspect of climbing, a piece that is arguably just as important as the physical side of the sport. Being a mentally strong climber has many sides, some of which include: It’s so easy to fall into the trap of “should,” getting down on yourself if you feel …
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Hot Tip Tuesday: How to Give a Soft Catch
| By Drew Lefkowith
Time for a hot tip this Tuesday, fresh from TCA! There are a lot of things that go into climbing – picking the right shoes for a route, finding the best harness, how to be efficient through hard sequences. And there are a lot of important parts of belaying – how to feed slack so …
A Walk Through Ulldemolins
| By Drew Lefkowith
As TCA wraps up Q3 in Spain, specifically in TCA’s home-away-from-home, Ulldemolins, I wanted to revisit a blog post from first semester, written by sophomore Addy Kreidel. She captures the vibes of The Climbing Academy as well as this quiet, small Spanish town. The Climbing Academy, despite its name, isn’t solely about climbing. We learn …