When I ARC I feel bad for other climbers.

[rce123]

I'm fairly new to ARCing and have been doing so on 5.5. Anyways, when I climb, there's an auto-belay for this 10ft x 50ft or so wall that is usually meant for beginners or children. I'm on the wall for 20-30 mins continuously going up and down and up and down making me feel awkward and uncomfortable because people are waiting, but I'm trying to not cut up my time or become inconsistent. There's no other way around this problem because the only time I have for training is when the gym is busy. I guess my question is if I'm unable to perform lets say 2x25 min of ARCing with a 10 min break in between without having to end for any particular reason, is there any way I can instead maybe do like 5x10 min to still get a total of 50 min of climbing? Of course it isn't like this all the time, but I would like to know in order to plan around any sudden inconveniences.

[heelhook]

Hi rce123, welcome to the forum! Aren't there walls you can just traverse on? No need to climb up and down on established routes, you could easily do your ARC ad-hoc on vertical or slightly overhanging walls; I know for me the stress of making people wait for me to finish ARCing would defeat the purpose of being able to focus on a particular technique or drill, ARCing is "boring" enough that is hard to concentrate on practicing a new technique, add in the stress and the value of the workout would probably go way down.

[rce123]

I've tried that before and sometimes it's extremely hard or extremely easy. I understand that traversing is a very easy thing to do and offers loads of different/unique moves that will help further on, but for right now it seems that I can't rely on traversing due to the fact that it may be too hard or easy for me. Like I mentioned before, could I possibly do more shorter sets in order to get the same total amount of climbing time? I'll try traversing maybe higher up or something or look more closely for a path that suits my needs.

[MarkAnderson]

Congratulations, you might be the least self-centered climber I've ever heard of

Look at it this way. You will be on the wall for 30 minutes. Whether that is 5 minutes each on 6 routes, or 30 minutes on one route, you are taking up the same amount of space. The only difference is which space you are taking up. Whose to say whether the general public is better off with you on one route or 6? Additionally, when you're ARCing you're maximizing your time on the wall, thus freeing up valuable floor space. If you take a good look you will notice that most climbers spend most of their gym time on the ground, which is clearly the prime real estate.

Finally, by training efficiently in general, you're in the gym for less time than the average customer, so you're breathing less air, adding less methane, spilling less chalk, and minimizing your consumption of parking space, etc.

Don't feel bad, you're part of the solution!

[rce123]

Wow, not going to lie, but that was very inspirational. xD Thank you for helping me realize that I'm not a nuisance to other climbers.

[Chris W]

Aug 4, 2015 17:21:21 GMT -7 MarkAnderson said:

adding less methane

Haha! Glad I'm not the only one! ARC on!