An intro to climbing class is less about learning how to climb than it is about learning how to fall. Or rather, how not to fall — and if you do (and you will), how to fall without bone-breaking repercussions. That’s a good thing because once you’re assured that it’s OK to fall, that you won’t break your skull should you part with the wall, your confidence — a key element of climbing — will carry you to new heights. Literally.
“I oughta be doing that with you,” the moderately overweight mom who was watching her son yelled.
“We’re starting a class in April,” Polly Eslinger yelled back. “You’re welcome to join us.”
Eslinger’s response seemed to surprise the woman: We were on Cary’s Middle Creek Park Playground at the time, six grown-ups mixed among kids cavorting on the equipment. A class in what, the woman probably wondered — playing on a playground?