Scaling the Rockwell wall

You won’t see an angry wall climber, they tell me – this group of thirtysomething climbers and entrepreneurs.

One of them adds, "You won’t see a climber snapping at people or raising his voice." He should know because he’s been teaching climbing for years. One of his students is 52 years old and he still has to see the guy angry.

I have my doubts, of course. Maybe because I’ve never tried the sport. Or maybe because I’ve seen too many angry people – people who do sports, in fact. An angry golfer swinging his club in a sand trap, a baseball player breaking his bat in two, a tennis player abusing his racquet.

A climber can’t very well untie his harness, fling his rope to the ground and jump, can he? So he probably just grits his teeth and tries to climb the damn boulder again. And because he’s high up there, people think he’s smiling! Is that why they call them "happy climbers"?

Seriously, though, if you look at the people at Play Underground in Rockwell Power Plant Mall, you will feel as though they were…well, happy. Happy that they now have a wall they could crawl, rappel and climb on like Spider-Man. Or that aside from climbing they could do bouldering or trampoline-ing.

Play Underground actually started when six climbing aficionados – frustrated that the gyms here offering indoor climbing were not as good as the ones abroad ("may kulang dito sa isang gym, sa kabila may kulang din") got together to change the way things are.

Three of the six partners are bankers by day, one is in publishing and married to a business partner, and another works for a pharmaceutical company. It didn’t take Ernie and Jeena Lopez, Nookie de los Reyes, Tony Castro, Clayton Lee and Jayco Rivera long to build a playground of alternative sports once they found the ideal space for it.

Located at the 3rd basement parking level of Power Plant Mall, Play Underground occupies the space where the Rockwell Hotel was supposed to be built. This is not to say that putting a sporting arena in the mall was an afterthought. Jeena Lopez reveals that in the original "futuristic" design of the mall, there was space for a wall inside the mall (the design, however, was abandoned).

Play Underground’s location today is perfect: It has the height and width to accommodate a 36-foot wall that can have 18 simultaneous "happy climbers," two sky’s-the-limit trampolines, and still has enough space for another company to set up a paintball course.

Nookie de los Reyes says, "Sport climbing is getting to be popular now. The climbing community is small and steadily growing."

This "community" cannot be categorized by age or by geography or by economic bracket. The only thing they have in common is that they all love the outdoors and that most of them are also divers. As they point out, climbers come from all parts of the Philippines – from urban centers to rural areas – and from all economic brackets. It’s a sport that’s cheaper to indulge in than, say, diving or golf or that stereotype sport of the rich, polo. You don’t need anything except a pair of rock shoes that are especially made with "sticky rubber" and fit very tight like ballet shoes, and a chalk bag, both of which you can rent at Play Underground. As for the attire, all you need is comfortable clothes. In fact, we saw girls climbing in mall clothes – jeans and cotton shirts.

Sessions for beginners is P170 (including gear) and P130 for experts (without gear). They also offer membership rates from monthly to yearly basis.

Jeena Lopez says, "We want to change the image of climbing from an extreme sport into a mainstream sport."

She adds that climbing is very good for team building and for family bonding. For one, this is a sport you cannot do alone because you need a belayer – somebody that manages the ropes from the ground. All climbers are taught to belay before they can climb. Second, you can have climbers tied together competing against other teams, yet it is also a sport where your only opponent is the wall. It’s just the wall and you up there. "It also teaches values, how to overcome this physical wall – and the mental walls in your mind – how to use your body, how to harness your strength and how to get through obstacles."

Jeena and Nookie know from personal experience how climbing gives one a sense of power to overcome obstacles. Jeena used to be afraid of heights while Nookie has a bad back.

"I have an adventurous spirit and I’m very athletic," she says. "You can never limit me to do indoor sports like running on a treadmill or aerobics. I’ve probably tried 70 percent of the sports that exist. I love the outdoors. I love mountain climbing and backpacking and these have opened doors to a lot of things because you meet people who are into these sports too."

"People tell me, you have to be thin and fit to do it," says Nookie. "No, it’s the other way around. You get fit while you’re doing it."

And then there is that feeling one gets from climbing: A great sense of accomplishment that even kids as young as four years old can get high on. Yup, moms even bring their toddlers to watch. A new concept they want to try is climbing parties – children’s birthday parties where the guests climb instead of do Trip to Jerusalem.

Apart from climbing, one can get to do "Rebound" or play on the huge trampoline and somersault one’s frustrations away. It’s safe because you’re harnessed to keep you from veering to the left or right and you land only on the bouncy area. Because you’re using bungee cords, you jump higher – as high as 30 feet up the air, says Nookie. A Rebound session lasts for five minutes. Why that short? Because, according to Nookie, even their fittest staff members do not last beyond that.

So we waited for the girl on the trampoline to start bouncing. She started slow, then picked up in the pace. Pretty soon, she was clearing 15, then 20, then 25 feet. She tried to do a somersault and failed. Then she tried again and did it. She slowed down and then went fast again.

We didn’t wait for her to finish but I would have wanted to ask her if she was happy as well.