Tommy Caldwell, A Story on the Result of Active Parenting

Being active in your daily life can do much more good for others than it does for yourself. Being active and doing physical activities with your loved ones and children is not only a great way to build long-lasting bonds but can also help lay a foundation for who your child or loved one turns out to be. Being a parent, especially a father plays a crucial role in the development of their child and parents influence their children more than they would realise. Finding evidence of this theory is not very hard and one really does not need to look very far to see this very impact. Activities that parents do with their children right from a very young age are very likely to change the course of their life and in some cases might even become the passion that they live their life around. A stark example of this can be seen in the amazing and remarkable story of the legendary rock climber Tommy Caldwell who became the first person ever to climb the toughest side of the infamous El Capitan at Yosemite National Park, USA.

Tommys passion for rock climbing was established during his childhood itself when his Dad who was a professional bodybuilder, rock climber and mountain guide introduced him to rock climbing at a very young age. Their traditional yearly trips to Yosemite National park at that time itself was what ensured Tomy fell into love with rock climbing and as it turned out he was a natural at it, taking to rock climbing like a fish taking to water. Rock climbing slowly became a passion for him and his talent was discovered when at a young age he entered a national level contest as a lucky draw winner and ended up winning the whole contest by scaling pitches and levels that even the pros could not complete that to in record time.

His hobby or profession also helped him find his first long term girlfriend. They bonded over countless climbs and competitions and eventually got married. His life, however, wasn’t that breezy, while they were scaling one of the toughest mountains in Kyrgyzstan in Central Asia, Tommy his then-wife Beth and two other climbers were taken hostage by a couple of rebels and were held captive for weeks. Eventually, Tommy ended up pushing his lone captor, Ravshan Sharipov, off the edge of a cliff and they were later rescued by the state police. He even lost his finger in an accident involving a table saw where his index finger got cut in the blade and most of his finger was cut clean off.

Being a climber without an index finger is almost difficult since most of the holds and grips revolve around gripping the holds firmly with the index and middle finger. However, his passion combined with the young age he started climbing and scaling mountains at because of his regular trips to Yosemite with his Dad and the rest of his family, helped him overcome his handicap and even made him a better climber. He started scaling major high rise mountains including some of USA’s hardest sport routes including, Kryptonite and Flex Luthor at the fortress of solitude in Colorado. It was after conquering these climbs that he turned his attention to climbing all over the El Capitan, considered as a mecca for all rock climbers located in Yosemite. The El Capitan has multiple routes to get to the top each varying in difficulty the most difficult being the Dawn Wall which no one had ever scaled at that time. He started scaling the easier routes first such as the Deidrel Wall and the Nose with Beth Rodden. He then started challenging himself by free climbing these routes. After that, he started finding new routes on his own along the face of the wall. Just when he was starting to get his reputation of being the greatest climber, he accomplished his greatest achievement along with another climbing buddy Kevin Jorgensson.in January 2015 he and Kevin Jorgenson became the first people to scale the Dawn Wall of the El Capitan. It took them a total of 19 days to scale the almost completely vertical wall where they slept on portaledges and sometimes spent days trying to climb a certain part of the wall it was this climb that cemented his status as the greatest rock climber.

Tommy Caldwell is a world-class rock climber and to think that none of this would have happened had his father not been active enough to take the initiative and introduce him to the sport on their regular getaway trips to Yosemite. This story is one of the best illustrations of the impact parents and their active lifestyle can have on their child.

Being an active dad is a great way to teach your child the importance of going outside and teaches their children resilience, perseverance and most of all the attitude of not giving up no matter how grim the odds may seem. This fathers day get active and spend some quality time being active and becoming the #ActiveDad your child deserves.

Being active and doing strenuous physical activities may seem tough but good and intelligent nutrition can go a long way in assisting and helping you get started.