National Selection 2020 - Bouldering

After that horrible performance in lead. I was down as far as down goes, cried like I had never cried before, even considered bailing the bouldering final tomorrow and stop climbing all together. Thinking that I’m not good at it and I was never going to be good at anything in life. I’m just a grain of dust in a vast dessert. 

But then I woke up in the middle of the night, I prayed and I thank God for all the experience and I wholeheartedly accept what that has been decreed by God to me. Saya redha, ini rezeki saya. 

So the next morning I plucked up my courage to wake up and go for the bouldering finals, though thinking it would be hopeless considering I’m up against better and experienced boulderers. 

Me and Shin Yee has this plan, where we can expect how hard the final boulders will be, so we will only aim for the zone.

That was my mindset prior to the finals. Aim for the zone. 

I had zero expectation, no burden, no hope, just happy chatting up other girls in isolation room and hope to get this over with.

So the first boulder problem, when I got the zone, I was pinching in as hard as I could as long as I could to make sure I truly got it down pat. And expectedly didn’t get any more zones for the next 2 problems.

Unexpectedly, when I went down to met other girls after its all over, all of them told me that nobody else got the zone except for Amoi and my jaw just dropped.

I ended up 2nd place next to Amoi. 

Took me a while to believe it actually happened.

Me getting podium in a bouldering comp when I only started bouldering once a week in May. 

What I can think of is that, that doesn’t mean I’m strong still, I know 90% of the girls ( if not all ) are stronger, way stronger than me, I’ve seen them in action, I KNOW that fact. 

Now what the competition thought me this time around is that competition doesn’t always come down to strength. 

The style of the problems, mind/mental game and probably there’s a little bit of luck comes in play. 

When I boulder with some of the girls, I can see some of them really have the brute power, crushing all the power problems, some are exceptional at slabs problem and some are good at crimps or slopers or coordination styles. There are some problems that they can do that I can’t do and some problems that I can do that they can’t do. So the competitions are down to whether that problems suites/play to your strength or other girls strength. 

I honestly don’t know what my style is yet, but the problem that I managed to zone was a slab and it doesn’t require much power where I know I’m lacking.

Of course if you are really good, you can do all kinds of style.  you NEED to be able to do all kinds of style to be the BEST. But as of know, that’s how I see where my level is. The problem just happened to suit me best. 

And of course I’m going to boulder more now that I know that you don’t have to lead 2-3 times a week for 2 years to get where I am at at lead now, you just have to boulder. (Still hard to say it though) But yes that is the general direction I’m going.