A Dyno-Mite bouldering competition ahead

As I was looking through some of the local upcoming events to write about, one caught my eye. It’s called Dyno-Mite. Now, that could be something about any number of things. A dyno is a thing you use to test car and motorcycle engine, there’s a BMX bicycle named a Dyno, it could be something to do with dinosaurs or even a Jimmy Walker impersonation contest. Remember the T.V. show Good Times? I had no idea what this was all about, so I checked it out.

Now, there are a lot of things I am pretty good at doing and a lot of activities I’ve participated in over the years, but one thing I know for sure that I have never done, and never been capable of doing, is climbing up a cli wall using just my hands and feet. Yes, I’ve done my share of mountaineering, but technical climbing was never on my agenda. But that doesn’t mean I haven’t admired and marveled at the people who are able to do that. ere are loads of videos out there of people capable of hanging 1,000 feet o the ground by their ngertips and then swinging themselves up and over some kind of rock outcropping just to do it a dozen more times to get to the top of a mountain. It’s scarry and crazy and totally captivating all at the same time. People who can do that are totally amazing to me. I get nervous just walking around on my roof, OK?

When I was growing up, part of the mystery surrounding the whole thing was how someone can possibly learn to do that. I mean, learning to climb with ropes and gear is one thing, but how do you go from that to having the con dence to dangle from those

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CORINNE WESTEMAN Community Editor cwesteman@coloradocommunitymedia.com heights and do the kind of maneuvers these people pull o ? As I got older, I learned that they started out on smaller rock formations and worked their way up to the big stu . ey also devote a great deal of time to strength exercises and tness workouts. Oh, and they tend to watch what they eat too. Weighing in at 250 lbs. is the kind of thing that drastically tips the scales in gravity’s favor, if you know what I mean. 50 years ago there weren’t that many people around who did that kind of thing, but the sport of rock climbing has gained a tremendous amount of popularity over the last 20 years. Part of that is due to the accessibility of training and the development of indoor climbing walls and gyms. Now, instead of a few fearless people attempting to gure it out by trial and error (it’s the error part that always stopped me dead in my tracks), it’s become an Olympic sport.

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So, what does all that have to do with Dyno-Mite? I have to confess, it took me a bit of research to gure that one out because here’s the description of the event: “Warm up those legs and get ready to jump. Dyno-Mite features some of our most creative dynos of the year. ink paddle dynos, double dynos, pogos, the ol’ hippity skippity, and more. If you don’t know what any of that means, just come jump! is will be a modi ed redpoint competition featuring routes for all ages and abilities. Come try our showcase dyno problems to test your jumping, swinging, and coordination skills.” Yeah, that didn’t help me gure it out either. As it turns out, Dyno is short for Dynamic Movement, and that’s what they call all those skills it takes to get up various routes on a climbing wall or rock face. DynoMite is a competition happening

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