Community Spotlight - ClimbMuz
Our community spotlight series highlights the incredible work that groups are already doing to make climbing inclusive. In this spotlight we talk to Siddrah from ClimbMuz who shares more about their journey into climbing and why they started their community. As well as hearing from community members about why spaces like this are so important.
Hi Siddrah! To start with can you share a little more about who you are and how you first started climbing?
Picture is of Siddrah taken @womenstradfestival in 2019
Hi, My name is Siddrah, I am a British Pakistanti Muslim.
My friend introduced me to climbing in my early 20’s. I carried on climbing on and off by myself, working on my fear of heights/falling. I have redefined what climbing means to me over the years. I am not the strongest by any means, I don’t work towards a specific grade, I don’t measure my climbing achievements by the number of routes I send anymore but by the small things such as putting my foot on a volume and feeling secure, by going that tiny step further up a route. I still get scared, come down a route and repeat the cycle all over again but I climb because it clears my head. I climb because as soon as I make contact with the wall everything else disappears.
During the day I work as an Early Years Educator and currently training to be a play therapist supporting children to express themselves through play. I climb 3 times a week, before I start work and a longer session on the weekends. I’ve met some amazing people during my climbing journey, I have some awesome climbing friends which has given me the opportunity to have some amazing experiences such as climbing in El-Chorro and I am currently aiming to work towards my CWI qualification.
It sounds like climbing is a huge part of your life, can you tell us more about why you started ClimbMuz?
I started ClimbMuz (Muz stands for Muslim) to address the lack of diversity in climbing walls and to encourage more of the Muslim community to climb. I started to grow tired of not seeing a lot of people from my background climbing, at times being the only South Asian women in a climbing wall.
Photo Credit: ClimbMuz
The first event was advertised for five people and to my surprise four amazing women showed up to the first event. A lot of the women who come to the events have never climbed before and would have never stepped foot into a climbing wall if it wasn’t a space specifically created for Muslim women.
During the sessions we start off with a warm up, practice falling and I climb up a route so that everyone has an idea of what going up a particular route will look like and then everyone goes off and has a climb supporting each other along the way. During the sessions we try everything from slabs to overhangs so that everyone is able to experience different aspects of climbing.
Now it’s time to pass the mic to some of your community members. Here are some quotes they’ve shared about joining the sessions….
Image credit: ClimbMuz
“It was really fun, I didn’t like have any problems like everyone was doing their own thing. I had space for myself, I really enjoyed it. I haven’t done anything like this before and I love activities like this, to have this space with sisters, it’s really enjoyable and really nice. Thank you Siddrah.” - Tullah
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“I’ve had a really good evening climbing, a nice little space with lots of girls to get to know each other. It’s a lot harder than it looks initially and I find that first it was the fear that got to me, learning where the limits of your physical and mental strengths are probably the biggest takeaway from the sessions. You find that you learn how to move, how to get over the mental block in your head, even like how to fall safely and finding that it’s okay to fall and get back up. There are quite a lot of lessons and teaches you a lot of resilience. I will definitely be coming again and encouraging my friends and family. I’ll give this a 10 out of 10” - Hafsah
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“I noticed that I would first had not come in had it not been for a Muslim women’s group. I’m not jumping into climbing into a completely new arena because it was a Muslim women’s group I had to try it out. It gave me the opportunity to try out something I would try out or even thought of trying” - Sarah
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You can find out more about ClimbMuz on their Instagram page where they share information about upcoming meet-ups and how to get involved. And you can see more about United We Climb’s partner communities here.
