What is authentic spirituality?

What is authentic spirituality? I don’t even know what these words mean. My spiritual life in has been a cycle of building up and tearing down of my own personal edifices as I sought to determine if “spirit” is actually a thing. On the one side I had all of religious history (personal, and communal) telling me what it means to be spiritual and how you get there, and following these paths over the years has left me burned out and with nothing to show but self-deprecation and guilt for my personal inability to ‘get it’. On the other side is the fact that there is nothing empirically knowable about anything spiritual. Its kinda become a post modern buzz word that describes both crystals, essential oils and yoga while at time being used by people who talk at length about angles, demons and healing. The fact that anything could be described as spiritual only adds to the fact that being “spiritual” seems to be a pretty privileged position for me. By that I mean anyone who has the time to be high minded introspective enough to do this stuff obviously is not suffering under the burdens most of the world does. Wouldn’t out time be better spent pursing things like justice and solving climate change then meditating? After many years of driving myself in circles while pursuing the “spiritual” I just quit and have begun to really rely on empiricism to help ground me. Why even try to connect to something which is probably not even a real thing?

With this background I began reading Dark Night of the Soul by St. John of the Cross. If you are unfamiliar, St. John of the Cross was a 16th century Spanish Monk who wrote about his thoughts on what spirituality is, Dark night of the Soul is actually a short poem and the larger work by the same name is his commentary on that poem. According to JotC, the dark night is a phase of life we go through (sometime over and over again) where we lose sight of God as we come to terms with the fact that God is essentially unknowable (hence the darkness) and what that tells us about our spiritual journey.

I tried reading it several years ago and did not understand any of it, but this time around I was able to take in some very distinct perspectives and wisdom. I think I am more open now, and have a better acceptance of my own experience which has allowed elements of this book to resonate with me which had not before. While reading it I realized that I had been in some sort of ‘Dark Night’ for the past several years. So much of my belief systems are built on crumbling foundations, God has felt distant (when I even believe in God) and this has brought me to finally look into the depths of my own personal emptiness. The God with whom I used to feel close was simply my ego’s projection and I was simply worshiping myself. Most of the religious and worship practices I grew up with are now a bit repulsive to me since they either seem to support my own ego or are actually oppressive in nature because they reinforce a belief that I am never enough. The Dark Night was very refreshing to me since it essentially helped me to realize that I cannot do anything or make anything happen to save my spiritual life. All we are able to do is be present to each moment we have. Recognition of this is all a part of the process and for me to continue on the path towards unification with The Christ I simply had to let go wade into the process.

One of the big takeaways for me came when John describes what we go through when divine light begins to shine inside us. If I understood this correctly, he says that as we are going through the purgation’s of our sense and spirit we begin to have a strong repulsion not only to the spiritual structures we have had in the past, but we begin to feel a strong repulsion to ourselves as well. This is because as we get closer to the divine light the darkness inside us becomes more illuminated and visible. I used to have what I would describe as a ‘healthy self-confidence’ and it was even a joke among a lot of our friends that my wife and I always thought ‘we were awesome’. Now that I have become more genuinely reflective of my own religious and spiritual experience I have been more and more upset by what I see in myself. I see a desire for self-glorification which makes me look for opportunities to push myself into the light. As distasteful as this is on its own, it seems to be encouraged by many people as the ‘natural’ thing to. This is made worse by the recognition of my own role in white supremacy and male patriarchy. Everything I have done in ministry and for personal growth seems to be built upon the backs of everyone less fortunate than I am. Even the spirituality I embrace has such an privileged feel to it since I can be carried away in theoretical and mystical thoughts sitting in my comfy life while others are suffering and thirsty for just a drop of water.

This has troubled me for a long time and has only gotten worse. But while reading Dark Night I realized that this was part of the process. I have been struggling trying to fix this problem to make the pain of self reflection go away but the message I took from this reading is that it still may be too early for me to address these issues. I am in a place of discovery, like in the early morning high up in the mountains on a multi-day climb. I need to be patient and take in all the light and see the whole scope of the mountain before I make any moves forward. This is painful to sit through since I am do not like what I am seeing in myself and I worry that if I sit with this for too long I will get complacent. But my past spiritual life has always been predicated on action and that has not gotten me very far so it’s time for a change. To sit in silent observance of this is I think what James Finley describes as prayer.

After finishing Dark Night I began reading “Merton’s Palace of Nowhere”. Thomas Merton was a hugely influential catholic monk who rediscovered what contemplative Christianity is and made it understandable to us modern westerners. James Finley was one of his students and this book is a fantastic introduction to both of these incredible modern contemplatives. Once I started reading this book I was brought to the realization of how hard I have tried to “experience” God. I have spent so much time trying to force some kind of connection. So much energy has been expended by me hoping to become what I saw in others. There is way too much to go into here but I have spent a lot of time meditating on the idea of prayer in this book. Finely describes Merton’s idea of prayer as the place where we go to expose our false self. It is the way that we let in the divine light to expose our ego’s lies and allow our true self to be known. I have not prayed in the “evangelical” way, or long form petitions and adoration of God, for a long time. The word and concept of prayer, like many things in my spiritual life, is flavored by ideas that I find distasteful. But this form of prayer is opening up a welcomed feeling to me.

Prayer as “meditation” has been my go to spiritual practice for several years. It was weird mixture of Buddhist like ideas and mantras of Christian like phrases but even this has become an idol of my false self. I was building another structure to be proud of, patting myself on the back for how Zended out I thought I was or working sooooo hard to be dis-attached from my body. None of this was helpful and again left me feeling empty and unable to achieve some ideal I had set. So that even left me for some time.

I have begun spending time praying in a way that is more of a meditation of exposure and acceptance, trying to simply observe myself without judgement. Am I happy or angery, full or hunger, are my fingers sore from climbing, why is this relationship on my mind, what is my desire for the day, these are the kinds of questions I may ask myself. There is no real goal other than knowing my own personal experience since this is the only true doorway into the spiritual. I still get anxious about that I will not get anything or have any kind of experience, but I think this is the point. I hope to let my soul be exposed and in this process maybe I will find Christ’s imprint there which will be the doorway to contentment free from any experience. In this book Merton is quoted as saying something along the lines of the “eyes with which we see God, are the same eyes with which God sees us” and I think that is the ultimate goal of prayer. To accept our own eyes instead of praying for God to replace them.

This post has been very hard for me to write. I have written a good deal but I don’t think I have said anything, which is a good metaphor for what spirituality has been to me. I have pretended my whole life to be spiritual in the way I assumed was correct, hoping that by force of will I could make it happen. This has left God feeling very distant, even on the days that I believe God is actually a thing. This distance has been in place for so long that it feels normative. But I am learning from these authors that the distance is not between me and Christ but between my head and my soul. Taking their advice I have been leaning into what is a new path of growth for me. I hope that my experience will be what John of the Cross describes when he says that our eyes can only perceive darkness all around us when we are actually staring into divine light.

What does it mean to listen?

Over the past several years listening has been at the center of how I wanted to grow. This became important to me once I started to comprehend how much of my experience as a white male in America has taught me that value is found in the person who others listen to. This can be seen in our political figures who are quick to speak their mind and are praised for not letting the “others” have a voice, or the male icons who were glorified for not needing anyone. Being a person of action was the ideal, and decisive people don’t take the time to listen.

The church did not do much to change challenge these perspectives. The perception of the “successful” person in ministry is someone who has followers that listen to him, and it is always a “him”. The most religious people are always the ones who have the right things to say, they have a vast amount of acquired knowledge and always have the answers. We can see this throughout Christian history. The central figures in our traditions are the men who wrote the most stuff down. I can’t really think of any glorified listeners in Christian history that people outside the contemplative tradition know about. All of this brought me to the assumption that as a white male who wanted to be “a servant of God” I needed to speak, have great thoughts and perspectives, and I have people listen to me.

After several years of church work I realized that there was something very fundamentally ego driven about this approach, because of this, I really struggled with whether it was a healthy place for me to be in or not. My solution was to try and purge my ego from ministry, and the easiest way to do that was simply to try and speak less. This is not easy for me, but I think this was the movement which put me on the path I am on now. The first year of this journey I did not genuinely listen much at all, I simply did not speak. But in this I learned that even though I was not actively listening I saw that my silence was more effective at loving others than my voice ever was. Since then I have been trying to learn to listen better.

This is what I used to think being an effect leader in religious work looked like

I have now spent a great deal of time trying to understand what it means for me to listen. Both listening with my ears but also listening with my body, my eyes, and the way these things impact my heart. Within the last few months in particular I have discovered too much to talk about now, but the first thing that really became apparent while noticing my listening behavior was the way I listen ‘for others’ instead of myself. I read a lot of interesting stuff, and because of the upbringing I described I am always looking for ideas and topics for lessons, discussion ideas or sermons that I could use in my work. So about a year ago I started a habit that I hoped would lead to a journaling practice. Instead of losing all these cool ideas that I could share with others (and usually take the credit for how insightful ‘I’ am) I started a habit of writing down the ideas in my mind with enough info that later when I needed a lesson idea to use in ministry I had a great resource already at hand.

On the outside it seemed like I was good at listening. The amount of data that I was able to log and understand was pretty staggering when looking at it from far away. My wife encouraged this by always complementing how easy it is for me to remember things I read or listened to. I had so deeply trained the reductionist part of my mind that it seemed like a huge growth from my previous ADD issues I had grown up with. I did not listen to everyone with this perspective, only those who I had predetermined would have “useful” thoughts. Then one day in church I was about to get out my phone because our pastor said something that sparked another idea I wanted to make a note of and I realized that the cognitive part of my brain was shielding me from ever actually letting the words I was hearing wash over and impact me. I was hearing them but I never actually “heard” anything.

It is likely my own pride and arrogance that keeps me from hearing. I have so many weird tensions in my life. I love learning and have very little issue with being wrong. Yet I am quick to dismiss certain perspectives because I have analyzed them and determined they are not of value to me. Even now I am having a hard time not analyzing this experience from a distant and academic perspective. I utilize what I hear to make whatever “growth” in my life I can then I discard what’s left. I have deemed myself a successful listener based on how efficient I am at this process. As I have let this realization sink deep into soul I can see that I have very little connection to my own inner experience. I have only allowed small bits of my heart to be known to myself and this has made it difficult for me to listen to others in a way that does not position myself and my ego for greater fulfillment. If there is a process of hearing – reflecting – acting I seem to think that I can skip the ‘reflecting’ part of the equation and simply be a conduit for knowledge. I am realizing that even when I’m at my best, the way I listen is very ‘masculine’ in nature.

I now think the most effective ministry will not look any more grand than this

Reading Margaret’s  book “Holy Listening” was hugely insightful for me in many ways. I have known for a while that my religious experience and the language I use to understand it was distinctively masculine. But in the last few months this has become extremely apparent how pervasive this truly is. The way in which Margaret described maternal listening was brilliant and I want to listen as a mother does, but I listen with a sense of “soft” aggression. I am always outside and usually ‘above’ the person who I am listening to. I am always prepared to either provide the solution, share my experience, defend myself or others. Even when I am trying to listen gently I seem to have a very hard time not positioning myself to provide support, answers, or some sense that I have authority and am above this person in some way. This is quite different from what could be described as maternal listening.

The alternative “maternal listening” is more of an embodied understanding of the experience being shared. Instead of trying to intellectually understand what your are listening to, so that you can react appropriately, you instead allow yourself to feel and deeply know the gift of the vulnerability being shared with you. While trying to embrace this idea I have found that often the biggest stumbling block I have is my own unwillingness to feel someone else pain. This all has lead me to an interesting question, is it possible to embrace someone else’s perspective without appropriating their experience? Can you truly listen to the joy’s, pains, hopes, and tragedies of someone else without yourself experiencing their emotions? Most importantly, what would the Christian faith look like if those who were its leaders were pursing listening as their primary goal as opposed to gain huge audiences of followers who are waiting to listen to them?

Who am I?

My name is Eric Krumland and for better or worse I feel that I am bound to the movement of Christ. There is so much to unpack in that statement but let me start by saying ever since I was young something within me has drawn me towards this thing we call God. The core truth deep within me is a still small voice calling me whole and loved. This voice is ‘heard’ in many different ways and learning to hear this voice better is in some sense what authentic spirituality is. I don’t see God as an anthropomorphic  ‘being’ with will and agency, in a lot of ways I don’t even know what I am talking about when I say the word “God” or “Source” or “Ultimate Reality” but I believe that within this thing we call God is a movement towards human redemption, & human flushing. This quality of God leads us on a path away from tribalism, segregation, violence, fear and dualism. This is what the Christian church has called “The Christ” and I think the purpose of religion is to help us struggle with what it means to know and follow  The Christ.

I remember at a young age my friends and I took nothing in life seriously as young boys do. This was the case whether we were at school, home, or anywhere else. At church my peers would be joking around and making fun of everything that was happening, but contrary to everywhere else in my life, something inside me believed that there was some sense of truth that could be found here, even if I did not understand what was going on or enjoy being there. So from my youth I began to pursue the wisdom which I believed could be found in scripture and our perennial Tradition. From early on the core of my life has been a search for meaning and purpose through the lens of Christianity. Despite what we see on the surface, within the depth of the Hebrew and Christian tradition is the idea that to discover truth our search must be broad and our questioning must not be held back. With this background my inner landscape became very diverse and continued growing. Philosophy, science, art, food, etc. are continually rolling around in my mind as ways to see things through a lens of Christ centered love.

As I have spent the better part of my life now pursuing God. I have really come to identify with the teaching of Saint Bonaventure who said that there are three books which teach of wisdom, the book of creation, the book of Jesus and scripture, and the book of experience. My interaction with the “book of creation” has been essential for my understanding of God and my place within this world. As an avid climbing and guide I have felt a deep sense of truth being communicated through my experience of movement within the mountains. I often see Christians misusing “creation” as a means of proving God’s existence. This approach turns the beauty of what is present into a tool to fit a personal agenda which can then be discarded when it no longer serves us. We have seen how this has lead us to such a destructive approach towards the world around us. My experience is something much deeper and cannot be know from an observational perspective.

In my life I have seen creation as a form of “scripture” which speaks as authoritatively about what it means to be in the image of God as the written scripture does. Just like the written word, the living earth is difficult to translate. It contradicts itself, is filled with conflict and violence, and approaching it from the framework of understanding will simply divide us. But when I let this go, and lay down in a meadow of wildflowers, or feel the first rays of morning sunlight hit my face while climbing and icy peak, I am brought up into connection and union with creation and the divine. I lose my sense of self but this loss actually feels like gain. I realize that there is more to even myself than I can ever understand, let alone the world around me, and I think this is the first step in coming toward the union with Christ. I hesitate to describe this because in trying to be brief I feel that I am doing a disservice to this pathway towards understanding of God which touches so many people at their core. I rarely have seen this articulated in a way that connects to both my experience and that of all the other mountain people I know who cannot find a place of home within the church.

When I reflect on my interaction with the second book, that of Jesus and scripture, I see a troubled past with a bright future. The roots of tradition within historical Christianity as well as Judaism are contained within this book. Despite the differences in all the Christian and Jewish traditions the scriptures are at the core of who we are. They are the living experiences of our forefathers and mothers. Something we can take hope in and that we can push back against. I have seen scripture used to break chains as well as it being used as a weapon against many. This weaponized version of scripture has been the cause of the suffering & murder of many and has nearly caused me to leave the faith completely, but Christ has held me close.

I have gone through many different “hermeneutics” or interpretative models. Stating as a literalistic reader, moving into a scholastic critical lens, followed by a “tradition” informed view. All of these had something to offer but never seemed to fully treat the word with the sense of life that it holds. I now have arrived at a place where I am no longer burdened by scripture needing to be “anything” to me. My reading of scripture is like me beating a drum. I hear its sounds and words and I simply let it resonate with my soul. I take note of what makes me angry or joyful, saddened or confused and listen for the message I need within it. I look to scripture and see how the men and women within it have interacted with the movement of God in their lives and I try and let that be a place for me to understand the depth of the human experience and our search for meaning. If I do have a “hermeneutic” that I follow then it would of Jesus. I am always trying to look at scripture through the lens of Christ as the redemptive movement of God. That “lens” has been developed through a reading of the gospels in tandem with my own experience of the risen Christ.

The final book that frames my world is the book of Experience. Several years back while serving as a missionary I was speaking with a spiritual director about the many difficulties I was having. My life had been a dark place for several months due to many things but a large part was the deconstruction of my entire faith world view. I did not want to admit it but I had essentially “lost” my faith and was desperately trying to find it again. I fell back on old habits of intellectual research and philosophically problem solving but all these things were leaving me empty. Through speaking with a spiritual director I had a sudden and momentary experience of deep penetrating love. In that moment I was shown my essential value and kinship with God. Thinking of it can bring me to tears because I still have not accepted those “words” I feel that God was speaking to me. Upon reflecting on this experience I have realized that even if God does not “exist” it does not matter because that love that I felt does. This was the experience that really started my on the journey to the place where I am today.

This is the experience that I use to understand the lengths which “The Christ” will go to bring us back to Christ’s self. When I read a “command” in scripture and I don’t feel that it will bring more people to that sense of love then I know that I cannot take it on face value. This experience has caused me to ask questions of the churches that I have served in that are not always well received. This experience has put deep burdens on my heart for issues of reconciliation and justice. This sense of love scares me and has started me on a long journey of understanding my own experience and the experiences of others as means to understand God in ways that scripture cannot always speak.

After this initial encounter my path of transformation began small and slow as God has graciously, peeled layers away from my life. With each peeling there has been pain and disorientation. I would lose my bearings and be unable to make sense of my life. But I would hold on to that sense of love as my anchor. Soon a new world would open that was more expansive than the one before. I continued to follow these leadings into strange places, “stop praying for a while” or “let go of scripture for some time” were the counter intuitive nudges that would take me to a place where I could have never been if I had not followed them. Each step of the way, a new and powerful sense of “I knew it” would emerge. I was never “learning” anything new, but it was more of a “remembrance” of what was always there.

Prayer has found new life and potency within this threefold life. I no longer see prayer as a means of “communication” with God but it is now the primary way that I interact with these three book. I see my climbing (which I do often) as the world of prayer which brings me into the fold of creation and there I can participate in the struggle, the grit, the pain that is life. This prayer brings me to the place of great beauty and it shows me that difficulty is often more of a path to God than beauty can be.

Lectio has become my primary form of praying with scripture. This practice helps me break out of my scholastic propensities and invites me to live into the world in a way that is non-judgmental and is not approached from the framework of learning things to teach to others. On the contrary, lectio takes me to the places I don’t always want to go and pierces my soul like the sword of Simeon.

Through centering prayer I am beginning to find a deeper sense of understanding through the act of letting go. The Buddhist tradition teach a great deal about the way “attachments” cause us suffering. I can see in my own practice of centering prayer how difficult it is for me to let go of my attachments. I hold on to so much pain and anger, longing and striving, all of which color my experience and keep me from seeing the movement of Christ present in the every day. Through centering prayer and the welcoming prayer I am trying to know and understand my own experience by learning to let go of what is hindering me in my life.

This is who I am, I imagine no body is reading this and I actually think it is better that way since I don’t presume that anybody needs to hear anything I have to say. My goal is to “publicly” make my thoughts known as a way of distilling whats going on in my life and making sure that I am not afraid to share with others the rule of life I am living by . I may periodically add more stuff to here so we will see what happens.

 

The Tension Board Review

The Full Tension Board puts a hold in every bolt hole and adds additional screw on holds between

This is going to be a long review as I hope to answer as many questions about this new and expensive product as possible. I am going to do this review in a few parts starting with what is it, why I decided to buy it, the construction, followed by discussing the holds, LED/app, and finally its actual use, I will finish with a conclusion. If you don’t want to read the whole thing feel free to skip down to the end for the main thoughts. This will NOT be a Tension Board vs. Moon Board shootout so feel free to make your own conclusion on that one.

What is the Tension Board

If you are not familiar, the Tension Board (I’ll call it the TB from now on) is an 8’ wide by 12’ tall system board with all wooden holds made by a company called Tension Climbing. Unlike traditional system boards, which are just used to simulate isolated movements symmetrically, the TB is designed to create boulder problems that can be mirrored on both sides. So if a problem starts at the bottom left and moves up and right, you can do the same problem but starting bottom right and move up and left. The goal of training this way is to create balanced movement patterns. Each TB starts with a set of foot holds and there are three hold sets, bolt on A/B and screw on. All tension boards have the same hold layout and there is a database of problems with an app and LED kit to go along with it. Currently there are over a 1340 problems (that number is climbing daily) on the database and each one has a mirror so you can double that number.

Why did I get it

When I built my first climbing wall a year and half ago Tension was just getting started. I was looking for holds and bought a small selection of Tension holds. They quickly became my favorite holds to use because their shape was fantastic and super skin friendly. After I moved to our new home and was getting ready to build a new wall it was a good time to reevaluate what I wanted. I had always been interested in getting a Moon Board but having already fallen in love with the Tension holds I started emailing with the tension guys about the soon to be released tension board. After lots of conversation with these guys I decided that the Tension Board and the mirrored design would be more beneficial to my technique development. Also the skin friendliness of the holds would be a real plus when bouldering season comes around since our local climbs/boulders are super abrasive and I don’t want to waste my skin training.

Building it

The TB is designed to be used at angles of 20* 30* 40* 45* and 50* but 40* seems to be the baseline. On their website you can find the tension board install guide which will help you figure out how tall your ceiling needs to be for different angle sizes and it gives you a drill pattern for holds and the LED kit. The info it provides is very helpful for getting started but is in no way a going to help you build the wall if you don’t have much construction experience.

The space I was building in could not fit a full sized TB any less steep than 40* so that’s what I decided to build. The last wall I built was 30* and I used 2×6 studs and that was not really stiff enough. When I pulled it apart many of the studs had cracked which was very unsettling to see, so I build this one with 2x8s. I used 6 studs total and that’s plenty stiff. When you are arranging your studs you needs to be aware that a 16” OC pattern will not work with the grid layout for the holds. Also if you plan on installing an LED kit then make sure you place your studs accordingly. Since the screw on holds go in-between the bolt on holds you need to place your studs very carefully if you want to install the LED kit. Let me know if you have any questions about this process.

As you can see if you plan to add LEDs there is a very small margin for where the studs can go

The Holds

When you first look at and touch the holds of the TB you realize the care that has been put into designing them. Each hold feels wonderful under your fingers, not easy to hold, but not tweaky in any way. These holds are unapologetically designed with training in mind so don’t expect goofy shapes or unquie designs. Being wood the texture is not rough but also not very slippery either. There is a large variety of shapes and sizes of holds. Everything from sloppers, pinches, crimps, 30* edges, rounded crimps, flat edges, and jugs. For most holds there are large, medium and small sizes, which makes it very easy to find ways to progress moves. The only type of holds that are actually missing are pockets. A problem that could easily be solved by just limiting the number of fingers you let touch the holds.

You can see here the large brick pinch with the red tape under it which tension no longer uses and have replaced with a pinch of similar size but is tapered on either end so it becomes much more difficult to use as a foot hold

I love all the holds and have never felt any hesitation to grab any of them. If there were any holds I don’t like as much it would be the jugs. There is nothing particularly wrong with them but they aren’t really interesting to me. Also the largest of the slopper balls are quite difficult to use at the 40* angle I have. As an added bonus to using wood holds, conditions don’t really matter when training on the TB. It can be hot and humid or cold and crisp, wood holds always suck for friction.

I was a really early adopter of the TB. Since I installed my board a few holds we ‘re repositioned and one hold was changed. The brick pinch with the strip of red tape under it in the photo has been reshaped since I got them all. It now is rounded on each end and it would be very difficult to use them as feet. If you see the pics of it on their website it will make sense. Tension says they will replace all these holds for me since they changed them after I got them all but I have not received them yet but I hear they will arrive tomorrow. In the mean time using that current hold works fine and I don’t anticipate them changing any other holds or hold position on this set.

The App and LED kit

If you have an iphone I recommend just downloading the app to play around with it. The app currently only is available for ios but they are working on expanding it to android by this spring if not earlier. When you open up the app, you first program in the info about your wall, angle and which hold sets you have. Then the app will show you the problems you can use with your hold kits. Searching for problems is very easy and setting new ones has the added feature of setting “foot only” holds. This may be a bit contrived but it allows you to set way more varieties of movement than simply tracking feet would. Connecting to the LED kit and finding the mirror of each problem only takes a press of a button. The majority of the problems on the app are set by only a handful of people so they all have similar style but that is quickly changing.

Installing the LED kit started by drilling the holes for the lights. I waited to drill my LED holes until the holds were installed. This worked out very well and if you are not sure you’re going to add LEDs then I would recommend waiting to drill the holes for the LED kit until the wall is up. Running the wires and installing the lights was quite easy to do but be aware if you use 2x8s like me you will need to drill holes in your studs and move the light string through them. All the lights divided between two strings and that is a lot of lights to move through these holes so make sure you drill them big enough to make this an easier job.

You can see the hole I had to pass the wired grid through. I don’t think the wires are long enough to go over the top of even 2×6 studs

The LED kit makes switching between problems so much easier. Since all the holds are the same color (wood) finding the one you need without the LEDs takes some work. The LEDs are in no way needed but they sure are nice to have. I find them most useful when doing volume workouts and warming up. It makes it quick and easy to climb through several different problems fast without cooling down at all between them. Without the LEDs it always took a minute or two to identify the holds needed and then I would inevitably forget a foot or something on my way up. While doing limit boulding this in not an issue since you become intimately familiar with the holds your using. So if you only ever plan on using your TB for that type of workout I don’t think the LEDs would be necessary.

Video of app/LED kit use

I have spoken with the folks at tension and there are things in the works for the app and LED kit which will make it much more awesome. Like problems on a timer so that you can set linked boulder circuits or 4x4s that will switch between problems on its own. I also suggested letting you put your favorite problems into folders so that you don’t have to search to find the problems your looking for. Before they start working on anything else they want to get the app working for android first. Even if they never add these extra features everything with the app and LEDs works completely as advertised.

Climbing on the Tension Board

Finally, the good part. If you are using the TB at 40* it is a training tool for the advanced user. The large variety of holds does allow for easy problems (the app currently has 70 V3 and easier problems) but there is no way around the fact that these are small holds with little friction on a steep wall. For reference, outside I send V7/8 within a single session pretty easily, and I project routes in the 5.13- range but there is no way in hell I could ever ARC on the TB.

When I started my last training cycle in September I had to get my base fitness in by doing volume bouldering instead of ARCing. For this the TB was awesome. Since the holds are wood they don’t allow you to be casual with the way you use your feet and latch onto holds with your hands. So doing easier problems over and over until perfection was actually enjoyable because it was so difficult to actually get “perfection” on the TB. A volume workout usually would involve 10 to 20 problems in the V2-4 range. Each problem would be climbed 2-4 times on each side. So those 10 problems would usually equal about 60 reps, this left me feeling pretty drained. Because the holds are wood I never suffered from the flappers or jug rash that are normally the main issues I need to deal with during this phase. I also had the opportunity to practice powerful dynamic movement deep into the workout which usually I don’t make happen while ARCing. There may be some of you out there who could ARC on the TB (climbers with a MSS of 12+ maybe) but for now I cannot.

For climbers maxing out around V3 I don’t know that doing volume workouts on the TB would really be feasible since just warming up properly would be pretty difficult. Beginner climbers will also find the problems in the V0-3 range very powerful which will turn most workouts into a limit workout even if V3 is normally not that hard for you. Im sure you would adapt quickly but don’t expect to start out at the same level of difficulty your used to. I again want to bring up the benefit of having problems with set “feet” since it allows the freedom to create problems that are foot movement specific. As more of TBs show up and more people are setting this tool will become more accommodating to the lower level of climber since foot only holds allow you to set fully static problems between jugs the whole way up.

Using the TB to warm up for hangs was also quite nice since it took no skin away from my fingers and I know I was getting them stressed just enough to be ready for some repeaters. I would simply do a short warm up boulder ladder, making sure I did mirrored movements focusing on weakness and after I would start hanging. This helped solve the problem I usually have of deteriorating skill during a month of dedicated hangboarding. It was very difficult not to jump into limit bouldering because thats really where this thing shines!

I was very excited once I was ready to move onto power training. The hardest part about limit bouldering in a commercial gym is finding problems that perfectly work both hands. It just is not possible most of the time. The TB solves this problem with the mirrored layout. It was very interesting to see what movements felt fine one way and really hard on the other side. For instance, underclings with my right arm while crossing over with my left are really hard for, but the same movement was not bad on the other side. Also when it comes time to make a committing dyno with the left hand there is a lot of hesitation but not much on the right. I was quickly able to find currently set “limit” problems that worked the grips I wanted for an up and coming trip and went to work.

If you look at the center knee in both photos you can see the slight variation between the way I set up for the next move

My limit workout would usually only involve two or three problems since I would try and put equal attempts on both sides. So 4 good reps per side on three problems and you’re at 24 goes and pretty smoked. I have not done much video analysis yet but I plan on finding some software to put on my computer to make it easier to see what I am doing and why some movements are easier than others depending on the side.

With the large variety of holds and current set I cant really imagine any movement patterns you cannot work. Again the wood holds make sure its your finger strength which is the reason you pull the plug, not your skin. Also, even the most aggressive moves I made never felt tweaky or worrying to me, a very nice feature!

I may not be strong enough to ARC on the TB but short bouldering circuits are just possible. Down climbing a 40* with slippery feet is really tough but like everything on the TB it makes sure you engage your core all the time. Once the app adds circuit timers this will be amazing. The biggest difficulty for now is that most of the set problems currently are not easy to down climb since they are so dynamic in nature. I’m not into down climbing dynos so I set my own “down” problems. If you climb 11+/12- or less I would think that doing power endurance on the TB would be nearly impossible, I was just strong enough for it myself.

I just got back from a 2 week sport climbing trip in the desert. More than any other trip I’ve been on, I showed up ready. In the past many onsight attempts have been spoiled by my un-willingness to be aggressive and powerful. I always try to beta my way through cruxes when often in need to just knuckle down try hard. The TB must be climbed with precision and aggression and I was able to take that more finely honed skill into this trip. I came away with best ever onsight performances and very fast redpoints of all the routes I sent, either second or third go! Initially I thought the TB had too many pinches and was kinda disappointed about that but the large pinches in particular were amazing for training the tufa crushing power needed for The Homestead in AZ. One other critquie I have heard people level against wooden holds is that they are too gentle on your skin and don’t condition your fingers enough for needs of climbing outdoors. This has not been my experience at all, I felt like my skin was in awesome shape whenever I went climbing outside during my training.

Conclusion

Does the TB work for base fitness and warming up for Hangboard workouts? Yes, if your already strong enough, otherwise its gonna be tough but possible. If you have the strength to flash V3/4 on the TB then volume workouts can be an incredible way to develop skills and hone in core tension on slippery feet. The inclusion of jugs and finger buckets make it possible for beginner climbers to use the TB for limit workouts which is where it really shines. If you are not already a powerful climber, like me, there will be a learning curve as you develop your dynamic aggression. During my limit workouts I often found movement skill was a major factor in failing instead of my fingers. As I learned this aggression on a steep wall I was able to push deeper into smaller holds. Power Endurance training on the TB is great, but again it will only work if you’re strong enough! Who is the TB best for, I think that any climber who can boulder in the V5 and up range is an ideal candidate for the TB. If you don’t currently climb at that difficulty you will still enjoy it but a lot of holds will unused. If you have the space and skills to build and adjustable angle TB that could go from 20* to 50* you would have probably the best training tool imaginable!

Is there anything I would change? Like I mentioned, I don’t really love the finger buckets (except the small one, it’s awesome) so maybe a reshape of those and adding some pocket holds if I’m really critical, but I don’t need them. Otherwise the TB functioned exactly as I wanted it to. I am very excited to use the TB this training season now that I am more familiar with it and know how best to utilize it. The mirrored pattern is the real deal and does an amazing job helping the self-coached climber find weaknesses. Overall I am completely happy with my purchase.

Now the cost, for the full board without LEDs you’re looking at $3000ish for 303 holds, is it worth it? I am the first to acknowledge that this is an absurd amount of money to throw down on a climbing wall. For that price you could take a LONG trip to Spain to  climb world class limestone, and watch wafer thin euros warm up on your project while smoking cigs and enjoying their properly functioning governments. You could also easily buy tons of holds form other companies for that price and that may be the better option for many people. If you wanted to make things a bit cheaper for yourself you could buy only the footholds and just add the hold sets you want. Or even skip the footholds and use some other types like teknik screw on chips, which I have on my 20*, they would make all problems a notch harder too. If I was really pressed to try and save money I would probably be happy skipping hold Set A and adding some other jugs, but I’m glad I have all the tension holds. If your wall is mostly just for play and keeping your fingers fresh the TB is probably too pricy and you might not get your moneys worth. If you are dedicated to training and climbing improvement you will find the TB a incredibly valuable resource. When you get a TB you are buying into the whole mirrored training system with a quickly growing problems database. For me the complete package is totally worth it as I see this as a long-term investment and I’m very happy with my purchase.

-Eric

For better or worse

For better or worse you have landed on this page. My name is Eric and I’m going to use this as a place to collect my thoughts on three biggest things related to my life, climbing, spirituality, and the intersection of those and everything else. I in no way think anyone needs to read any of this. In fact if no one looks at it I wont be disappointed when I quit adding stuff in a year. Just looking for a cathartic release of putting something out into the public domain. Some of my stuff will be simple but other times I hope to be more vulnerable. Again, I don’t think anyone has anything to learn from anything I say so please don’t take anything I say too seriously. I’ll make sure the first real post is a little more light and easy to read.