I think so much of it is just taking up space collectively in the gym gyms in particular pinning in particular can be very male can be very white. We're just trying to be like, you're here, this is yours too made it to the top. Yeah. You go girl
from Elliot Studios. This is how to L. A. Where we learn a little bit more about the communities we live in. I'm your host brian, Los santos. Today's story comes from Erica Washington. Hi brian, she writes her newsletter over on Elliot's dot com.
Okay, so brown girls climb BgC. I'm black. I've only climbed once before when I lived in Indianapolis. I don't know that many black folks that do that, but, but it seems like a very fun way to work out. So I'm like, why not check it out on the company.
That's the way to do it. If you're going to do it. Yes. Right. Okay. Wait, wait. You climbed with your nails.
Yes, I did. And I'm so surprised none of them broke off,
shout out to your manicurist. Hey,
hi, I'm Erica. Hi, I'm Jaia, I'm a Los Angeles local leader for brown bears climb and these are my co leaders. I'm Indra Kaleka. Have you ever climbed before? Only once? Only once. So there's maybe 15 or so women here for the meet up. We're kind of standing around near the front of the gym. I'm looking around and honestly at this point, I'm feeling pretty confident.
You're not scared of heights.
So what you don't know about me brian. I've jumped out of a plane before. so no, I wasn't afraid.
Okay, don't sign me up for that. I'm not doing that podcast.
We're about to get started and so at the beginning of every meet up, we like to do intros, talk a little bit about what BGC is standing for and meet each other. We also like to do a land acknowledgement and then after a quick intro, we do a warm up and then we go climb. We sat in a circle, we went around and introduced ourselves and we have some bonding moments, you know, I just moved out here and honestly it's been really hard to make
friends and find community. So I'm honestly really excited to be able to share this intimate moment with other women who look like me anyway, you know me when we get up, I am ready to start asking questions. I turned to the girl next to me, her name is Maddie Busby. Why is this group so important to girls like you be really intimidating to climb? Especially if you're new and be able to just immediately have someone to talk to or ask for help is super important as we're talking.
I'm looking around the gym, it finally hits me. This looks super hard. Okay, let's go climb over here with the other group of girls. I'll show you the ropes without the ropes. Okay, I'm nervous.
Wait hold up, hold up. There's no ropes on you or anything
like that? We've got real thick landing pads under our feet. But no, no, how tall is the wall? It's about 15 ft. You follow the colors on the wall. You start on the ones that have like a little number on it. A lot of the time your arms are very straight, it uses less energy. 50 over there. She's reaching up, she's moving her feet. Why is she getting back down? She didn't make it up there yet. She's warming up for her.
She's really good. So you do like levels, you start at zero and it goes to an indoor gyms probably 12 or 13. She can do like eight level eight. Hold it, hold it, hold it. Yeah, she made it to the top. You go girl, don't do that one. I want to get on top. All right, here we go. Okay,
this on your first try. Yeah. Damn. Look at you, you strong girl.
I didn't know where to put my foot, but this is harder than I thought it was. I might have to do the purple one. I just want to I didn't want to give up. I'm like, oh my God, like this is hard, can I do the purple one? It said I'm so scared to fall. Okay, so now I gotta get down. Nice climb. Thank you girl. How did it feel? It felt harder than it looked. It was yelling at you.
I don't know if that works for you know they did they had my heart beating and I was like oh my God like I got a supportive team behind me of dope women, I love this, this made my day, made my week, you could do another one, you can have another week so brian when I finally did catch my breath I just wanted to know how did she get started when I was living in India I was a part of an organization called climb like a woman I saw myself in climbing when I was
starting out like I could see myself in the people that were teaching me that's what we're trying to build in meet up space. How many people are part of brown girls crime people who come to the 2020 30 so now I want to find something hard like really really hard, how you doing good, what is something that looks intimidating to you? So one of these two, what is the orange one?
I think it's a V. Five like this What the heck yeah I give up and I don't give up okay I give up look at wow she makes it look so easy all the way to the top. She makes me feel like I could do it too but I know I can it was so cool to watch her do something I was thinking was damn near impossible. No surprise it was Indira one of the leaders I have been climbing for about six years now, and can you tell me, how
did you find out about this organization? I started out climbing in Chicago and I actually co founded Chicago Brown girls climb. It's super empowering, right? I think that's why so many people are drawn to it. There's always something harder for you to work towards, right? Like you will never be able to climb everything because you can find something harder. My heart is like so lit up right now because I had a group of women who look like me
who would cheer me on. There was a moment that I didn't think I would and you said you climbed months before. How does this experience compare to that harder? I think this was a little bit harder.
What did you gain about the experience? Like how do you feel overall? Would you go again or what's
up? Yeah, I would definitely go again. They were really welcoming and it was cool to see girls like me at a climbing gym, it's very intimidating. You see a lot of guys and sometimes, okay, so I have an example while we were in our circle, there was a guy who decided to climb right above us
just because he could
Yeah, just because he could, because he thought that he had ownership of that space, so he could have really hurt himself and hurt us if he would have fell down?
I didn't think about it that way, but you're right, You're making space for yourselves and you have to sometimes right. It is intimidating. I'm intimidated not only because I don't like heights, but also it's like I'm not a bro, you
know, like it was definitely a lot of rosie. Yeah, but it's so cool when you have a group of people who are watching over you, by the way, there's another group that they told me about. There's a group called for generally people of the global majority, like any gender. That means you're next brian,
you're gonna have to come with me because I do not go anywhere near heights. Okay. We set at the beginning of the episode. We've seen it again. I'm scared of heights. Shout out to Brown girls climb. You can find upcoming events on their instagram at Brown girls climb. Erica's got a link in the newsletter too along with some really cute pics of the meet up. So definitely check that out too. But that's it for today. Catch all soon. See you
in the newsletter
from Elliot Studios. This is hard to L. A. I'm your host brian de los santos. Catch us Tuesdays through Thursdays wherever you get your podcasts. Our producers are even Jacoby meg hotel and Kyle chang Erica Washington writes a newsletter. Chris varias handles our social media, check us out on instagram at Elliott's picks and on Tiktok at Elliott's vids. Our intern is Olive Bne has meek pago Ocean Engineers. The show. Our music is composed by Donald Boss and Austin Cross
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