Terra Ludis: Play Ground | Meet Aaron Parlier

Aaron Parlier is a veteran, a climber, and conservationist. He is co-owner and general manager of Center 45 Climbing & Fitness in Boone, NC. He has taught countless people how to climb and spends much of his free time discovering boulder fields and conserving land to allow climbers to safely and legally gain access. We had a really great conversation into the techniques and history of climbing, but the most interesting thing was when he described a climber's head space when they are trying their hardest on a climb.

"You can be motivated by the people around you and a lot of times when I’m trying my hardest or I’ve figured something out – it’s a shared experience amongst all climbers – once you’ve unlocked something or figured out at its base level exactly what to do on a climb and there’s one part that you try really, really hard on, you can block everything out. Your body and your mind intuitively know what needs to be done to get to that point where you can just pour all of your effort in just to hang. In those situations I can have a group of five or six people on the ground spotting me and I won’t hear a word they’re saying, I’ll be very in tune, but also not really thinking about specifically what I’m doing, just so mentally in that moment. That, I think, is such a huge stress reliever and it’s a huge benefit mentally to be able to do that. That is the idea of yoga, that’s the idea of meditation – not to have all of the other constraints of your daily life going through your mind – you’re just accomplishing one singular task and doing it in a Zen-like way. That’s something that about everyone in the outdoors in a way finds that way of that moment of that flow state and focusing on doing exactly what you’re supposed to do, just being very present in that same thing through climbing is a really powerful part of it."

Photo by Collin Jewell.

#bouldering #climbing #highcountry #center45 #optoutside