Don’t Knock It Till You Try It… At Least Three Times
Katelyn Kommer
Very few sports have come naturally to me. Every time I decide to try a new activity I inevitably end up cursing profusely, bruising my body, breaking down in tears, or some spectacularly horrendous mixture of the three. And then, I fall in love. Over the last couple years I’ve found so much passion and joy in a wide variety of hobbies, and not a single one had an inspiring start. So, to inspire you to get out, try something new, fail spectacularly, and then fall in love, I’m going to share my finest embarrassing beginner stories from all the sports I love the most.
My first outdoor climbing experience was in preparation for the Grand Teton. My best friend Alex and I had a one day summit planned with Exum Guides, which includes 7,000 vertical feet of hiking, scrambling, and multi-pitch trad climbing. We trained with our guide Jessica for two days before, and I’m pretty sure after day one she had little to no faith in me. I had previously climbed indoors once, and it took me about 45 minutes to learn how to tie a figure eight knot. On the rock, I was a total nightmare. Alex had a fine time following Jessica and getting up the routes, while I took about 3-4 times as long to complete the same simple climbs. There was one high step move that will forever be burned into my memory. I fell probably five times, and heard Jessica quietly ask Alex from above if I was going to be okay. I calmed myself down, and whispered out loud that if I can do this move, I can do the Grand Teton. I got up, and two days later climbed that mountain. Though I’m still by no means a great (or even semi-good) climber, I get my hands on outdoor rock at least once a week and enjoy it every time.
When I moved to Utah, skiing wasn’t an option. All of my new coworkers, friends, and roommates spent 80% of their time talking about the upcoming season and tracking winter snow storms. I looked forward to learning, but dreaded the embarrassment of spending days stuck on the easy runs. Even after a lesson, it took three days to get down a green run without falling. Though I felt myself getting slightly better, every time I tried to push myself I inevitably ended up double ejecting halfway through a ski run and either scooching myself down or precariously clipping back in while my friends watched from the bottom. None of this was fun, and I felt like I would never catch up. Thankfully, I finally pushed past a wall and the rhythm of skiing started to click. By the end of the season I could hang on pretty much anything and even skied some backcountry powder. If you were to see me at the end of the season and know that I had only learned that year, you would think that it must have come naturally. In reality, I spent many more hours falling down the slopes at the beginning than I did skiing harder runs by the end of winter.
After my relative success with learning to ski, I thought mountain biking would be a piece of cake. I ride my road bike all the time, and I learned to trust myself moving quickly downhill over the winter. But, if you hadn’t already guessed, when I went out for my first ride with a couple friends I watched them take off uphill as I tried to steer around single track turns. I finally caught up with them at the top, and thought the hard part was over. Again, wrong. My friend turned to me and said, “Alright. You’re going to want to drop your seat, keep your feet parallel, look ahead of the bike, keep your shoulders loose, don’t overgrip, and just relax.” I tried my best to absorb at least one piece of information, so as I did my best to keep my feet parallel my hands cramped from gripping the handlebars so hard. The next time I went mountain biking was on a slightly harder trail, and it went even worse than I expected. Alex and I were absolutely panting at the top of every climb, where our friends had been waiting for anywhere from 3 to 10 minutes. I got off my bike more times than I could count, and dropped probably twice as many f-bombs.
I’m still firmly in my beginner phase of mountain biking where I want to say it’s a stupid sport that I’ll never learn to love, but I know that’s very far from true. The struggle always lights a fire in me, especially when I can look back and see the beautiful collection of sports I’ve already learned to love.
