Climbing enthusiast and dad Jacob recently posted a video on Instagram about why kids are so good at indoor rock climbing, and it has nearly 2 million views so far. Clearly, the video resonated with a lot of people, including me. I recently went bouldering at a gym for the first time in a long time and was stunned to see little kids killing it everywhere I looked. Then, I brought my own kids, and they also killed it on their first go. But how do they make it look so easy?
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“Don’t be sad when a kid flashes your project. Climbing is easy when every hold is a jug,” wrote Jacob in his viral video.
Jacob’s footage shows the size of his hand compared to his young son’s hand, and then he shows close-ups of both him and his son grabbing the same holds on a bouldering wall inside a climbing gym. The difference is clear. For Jacob’s young son, just about every hold is “jug”—meaning it has room to grab and hold.
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Of course, their relatively tiny hands aren’t the only reason many kids are naturally good at climbing, in my experience. It’s also because they’re flexible and tend to think about consequences less than grown-ups do.
“Kids are amazing . . . little ones they just head up and use their feet like they are on the ground. They are fun to watch!” wrote one person in the comments section.
“They also are fearless or don’t have to think about what the hospital bill will cost,” wrote another.
Watch Jacob’s video about why kids are so good at indoor rock climbing here:
Header stock image by sandsun/Getty Images
