Arthur He

This week’s post is a little different. I’d like to introduce Arthur He, the man who got me into rock climbing! I met Arthur at work back in 2019. He had invited a group of coworkers to a local outdoor climbing spot and I decided to tag along. I was absolutely terrible. I couldn’t even make it up the “easiest” route. However, I remember feeling like everything was almost doable. The next day I bought all the gear and a year-long membership to our local climbing gym. From then on, I followed Arthur around the gym while he taught me all the climbing lingo and techniques.

Arthur took me on my first multi-day climbing trip to the New River Gorge (NRG) and taught me to lead belay while he climbed. Since then, Arthur and I have been on many fun excursions. We camped in sub-zero temps on the side of the road, did a multi-pitch climb where I couldn’t feel my fingers because it was cold, and we drove across the country from Colorado stopping to climb at the The Red River Gorge, in Kentucky and we camped at Miguel's Campground & Pizza!

Getting to know Arthur:

1. What got you into climbing?
   I had a couple of friends at UVA. A lifting partner actually that would bail to go climb, so eventually I caved and went. A first it was just a hangout but then when I went to my first internship I met Greg and Randy and they took me outdoor climbing for the first time. That’s when I was really hooked - it’s an eye opening experience when you go outside.

2. What’s something you wish you’d known sooner with climbing?

   I wish i knew i could repel on GriGri sooner - a lot of ppl don’t know how to do that.

3. Do you / have you ever followed any training regime?

   Yes but loosely, it’s hard to notice if it helped because it’s so incremental. As a beginner it’s not that important and you can just climb and get better

4. Has climbing helped you with aspects of your life outside of the climbing gym?
   Its helped me a-lot in terms of perspective - what is important and what isn’t - managing stress - when ur climbing outside - ur 20ft above ur last piece and might take a huge a fall that’s peak stress once you’ve experienced that everything else is below that - now when I work none of the work stresses compares to that - nothing in normal life is life or death but it feels like your instinct tells you that it is - you don’t want to fall - always a more chance of injury

5. What’s been your longest project? / What was it?

   Compression matters v7 (4 sessions) boulder in Guanella Pass or

   Narcissist (5x12) at NRG (5 sessions) - 5 trip → Felt like it was doable - was trying to break into the 12s and Psycho wrangler felt too far away. With narcissist I could pull every single move so it felt more possible.

6.  Do you have anything you regularly say to yourself when ur setting a route?
   “Don’t f*ckin fall….Don’t f*ckin fall!” and “Can I rest here?”

🔥🔥🔥🔥 Hot Take 🔥🔥🔥🔥

Sometimes the best beta and best technique, is just being stronger.

PS: These are not my personal opinions - this is meant to spark discussion