BORN CLIMBER.

(Originally posted at chasesidney.blogspot.com.)


Summer Rock Camp 2007 - Everett VW

 Even though Chase was a butterball until he was 1 1/2, he did start walking at 10 1/2 months old. Sidney showed how competitive she was at an early age by walking when she was 8 1/2 months old. When Chase was 7 and Sidney was 5, they would climb on top of playgrounds as high as 8 or 9 feet and jump into my arms. That freaked out quite a few parents. It was Sidney climbing all over the playground with ease that got us to check out the Little Rockers program at the Redmond Vertical World. Chase initially did not show any interest in climbing, he just wanted to skateboard. So we enrolled Sidney in the program and after the first class the instructors, Josie and none other than B-Hops, said she was already good enough to climb for the team. That definitely gave Sidney an ego boost and she was hooked. She would climb in Little Rockers off and on for a while but we pretty much stuck to skateparking. When she was 8, Vertical World opened up in Everett and it became feasible for her to climb more often. We put her in a summer rock camp there and after the first day, Joe, the manager at the time, introduced himself and said he really wanted her to climb team. Of course, Sidney was excited and it was all she could talk about. I contacted the coach, Tyson, and he said he would love for her to come and try out. I brought her down, dropped her off and left until the end of practice. When I came back, I asked Tyson if she was good enough to climb with the team. He smiled and said she was good enough and that he would love to have her on the team. I think he was pleasantly surprised. At that time, there were only a couple of climbers her age on the team. It's not like it is now where it seems like half the team is 11 or younger. Sidney was ecstatic and a climber was born. Chase would take a little while longer to come around.





Summer Rock Camp 2007 - Everett VW



Summer Rock Camp 2007 - Exit 38















  









FIRST POST ON THE NEW BLOG!

Since Chase no longer climbs, I decided to create another blog just for Sidney and her climbing exploits.  The Extreme Kids blog will now mainly be about our skate park adventures.  Hopefully, someday, Sidney will take over this blog and write about herself so I won't have to.

Let's start with how Sidney came to be called Lil' Sid.  When Sidney first joined the VW team, her coach in Everett was Sydney McNair.  On the team was a Junior climber named Kayla Erickson, who also coached a team at the YMCA in Bellingham.  She had a girl on her team named Kayla who was the same age as Sidney and the two would hang out at comps together.  To put it bluntly, both Sy(i)dneys are Asian and are powerful climbers.  Both Kaylas are Caucasian and tall, long climbers.  After a while, everyone just started calling the older ladies the "Bigs" and the younger ladies the "Littles."  Now, "Little Sidney" has just been shortened to "Lil' Sid" and that's what people who knew her when she started climbing call her now. 


One of their first (of many) pictures together. (Photo courtesy of Big Kayla)

Of course both girls are in "C" now and are not little compared to all the younger girls running around at the comps but they will always be Lil' Sid and Little Kayla to a lot of people.  Heck, I still call the older ones Big Syd and Big Kayla to this day!

More to come soon!