Advertise on podcast: The Curious Climber Podcast: Chatting with Hazel and Mina

Andrew is a successful writer and social commentator in the world of climbing. He is the founder of evening sends a website that hosts in-depth writing and articles from himself and other writers. He’s also co-founder of the runout podcast with Chris Kalous. He’s maybe best known for unapologetically saying what he thinks. Something of a rarity online in 2022. We talk about his experiences as a writer in a polarised political climate and how the culture wars and the way we tend to converse on social media have affected discourse, writing and activism in climbing.  You can support what we're doing here by donating at hazel-findlay.com/podcast or becoming a Patron of the Nugget Climbing Podcast 

Recently, we have entered into a collaboration with Steven Dimmitt of The Nugget Climbing Podcast who is helping us with the editing, sound and production of our podcast. Steven's podcast is great, with loads of fantastic episodes to choose from. He is also a whizz at all the technical things. As part of this collaboration we are producing some mini-episodes together in pairs called "Reflections". These 10-15 min episodes are discussions around various different topics with the focus on learning, reflection and insights we may have had. They will be available to those who support The Nugget Podcast via Patreon, but we have included one here as a taster - enjoy!

This episode is a conversation between Mina and British climber Hamish McArthur. Hamish is 20 years old and current World Youth Champion in both Bouldering and Lead climbing....a pretty impressive feat. But he isn't planning to stop there, Hamish has big goals and isn't afraid to name them. This conversation is both interesting and empowering. Hamish has a depth of perspective on performance and mindset that is both interesting and useful to hear. As an athlete who is still emerging and finding his rhythm, it'll be exciting to see where his journey takes him. 

Steven Dimmitt chats to Mina on his podcast 'The Nugget Climbing Podcast' about her early life and living in India, learning about impermanence from her dad, chasing flow state, memorable high ball boulders, learning to try hard, becoming a mama and much more... We highly recommend his podcast! You can find it here Enjoy!

Hazel chats to Alex H-bomb Honnold about his current life as a father to be, his environmental foundation the Honnold Foundation, affective altruism and also a bit about climbing!  This podcast was edited by Steven Dimmit of the Nugget Climbing podcast. If you would like to help us keep the podcast going you can donate here or if you also enjoy his podcast the best way to support both podcasts is to become a Patreon of The Climbing Nugget podcast.  As always, thanks for listening and happy climbing! 

This episode is an eye opening chat with Andy Cave. Andy is a rock climber and a mountaineer who has a lifetime of stories to tell about his adventures. Climbing aside, he grew up in a mining community in the north of England and his first job was down the pits. Andy has a special way of being able to describe and paint a picture of his experiences with words - he has authored two books about his life so far - and he does just this in our conversation. From the coal mines to the Himalayan mountains we are taken on a fascinating tour of Andy’s unique life story. You can follow Andy at: @andycavemountaineer www.andycave.co.uk

In this episode Hazel talks with Mina and Steven Dimmitt of the The Nugget Climbing Podcast about their respective recoveries from under-eating/over-training. Although their stories look a little different they both managed to get into a position of poor health in the bid to get stronger and lighter for climbing. Both have since made a full recovery and are in great shape mentally and physically. In this conversation they talk about each of their uniquely difficult journeys back to full health. The emergence of stories like theirs are part of a growing trend in climbing that reprioritises strength gains over weight loss and uses practices that better reflect latest research. Thanks to Mina and Steven for being open to talk about this because conversations like this do a lot to improve the health of our community! Go here for the previous episode on Mina's diagnosis of RED-S. Go here to hear about Steven's story.  

Steven Dimmitt chats to Hazel on his podcast 'The Nugget Climbing Podcast' about mental training, the ego, fear of falling, fear of failure, her experiences with Magic Line and much more...  We highly recommend his podcast! You can find it here  Enjoy! 

This episode is a conversation with Katy Whittaker aka The Grit Kid. Katy is a life long climber. She started young in a family of climbers and outdoor enthusiasts living in the picturesque village of Edale in the Peak District, UK. Katy became known on the UK scene for a number of things; her stand out achievements on hard, scary gritstone trad routes make an impressive CV alone but she has also bouldered hard outside, competed for the British team and excelled in sport climbing. But what makes this conversation interesting isn’t her list of achievements. It’s Katy’s honesty, reflection and her insights into her climbing that are the gold. We talk about risk, motivation to try dangerous routes, her relationship with “hard climbing” and her identity as someone who since so young has been entrenched in climbing culture.

John Kettle is a movement coach based in the UK. He's been the teaching climbing for 20 years. We talk about: his story with his own climbing and what led him to be a coach and interested in movement, why don’t we focus more of movement and technique, what are the many climbers missing, elite climbers versus beginners, what drills can people do, the role of mind and attention in movement efficiency, the role of stress, the ego, breathing exercises and much more. Enjoy! *The first upload of this podcast was cut short. If you listened to that - listen to the other half here. 

This episode is with Mina and Sports Dietitian and climber Marisa Michael and we actually recorded it back in November (sorry for the delay Marisa!!). We cover a bunch of different areas in this podcast, from her academic and clinical background to her work and research in climbing as well as busting some common nutrient based myths that commonly circulate. We then move on to a more detailed discussion around the framework of Intuitive Eating which is a particular interest of mine. I actually recently finished my certification as an IE counsellor and it’s great to have had this chat with Marisa on the subject given her clinical and sports background. Context is key and I hope this conversation helps to expand and explain what can be a misconstrued framework. We have been a bit slower on producing episodes lately - Hazel has been studying more with her masters and I’ve (Mina) been making and now caring for a new baby (2 weeks old as I post this)! Suffice to say, life has gotten a bit busier but we are still very psyched on producing podcasts, albeit at a slower rate!

Maddy and Hazel talk about topics that interest them including women's training, body weight and body image, diet and nutrition, hormonal contraceptives, optimising performance in the menstruation cycle, menstruation and psychology/stress tolerance.