Speaker 1: I think so much of it is just taking up
Speaker 1: space collectively in the gym gyms in particular pinning in
Speaker 1: particular can be very male can be very white. We're
Speaker 1: just trying to be like, you're here, this is yours
Speaker 1: too
Speaker 1: made it to the top. Yeah. You go girl
Speaker 2: from Elliot Studios. This is how to L. A. Where
Speaker 2: we learn a little bit more about the communities we
Speaker 2: live in. I'm your host brian, Los santos. Today's story
Speaker 2: comes from Erica Washington. Hi brian, she writes her newsletter
Speaker 2: over on Elliot's dot com.
Speaker 1: Okay, so brown girls climb BgC. I'm black. I've only
Speaker 1: climbed once before when I lived in Indianapolis. I don't
Speaker 1: know that many black folks that do that, but,
Speaker 1: but it seems like a very fun way to work out.
Speaker 1: So I'm like, why not check it out on the company.
Speaker 2: That's the way to do it. If you're going to
Speaker 2: do it. Yes. Right. Okay. Wait, wait. You climbed with
Speaker 2: your nails.
Speaker 1: Yes, I did. And I'm so surprised none of them
Speaker 1: broke off,
Speaker 2: shout out to your manicurist. Hey,
Speaker 1: hi, I'm Erica. Hi, I'm Jaia, I'm a Los Angeles
Speaker 1: local leader for brown bears climb and these are my
Speaker 1: co leaders. I'm Indra Kaleka. Have you ever climbed before?
Speaker 1: Only once? Only once. So there's maybe 15 or so
Speaker 1: women here for the meet up. We're kind of standing
Speaker 1: around near the front of the gym. I'm looking around
Speaker 1: and honestly at this point, I'm feeling pretty confident.
Speaker 2: You're not scared of heights.
Speaker 1: So what you don't know about me brian.
Speaker 1: I've jumped out of a plane before. so no, I
Speaker 1: wasn't afraid.
Speaker 2: Okay, don't sign me up for that. I'm not doing
Speaker 2: that podcast.
Speaker 1: We're about to get started and so at the beginning
Speaker 1: of every meet up, we like to do intros, talk
Speaker 1: a little bit about what BGC is standing for and
Speaker 1: meet each other. We also like to do a land
Speaker 1: acknowledgement and then after a quick intro, we do a
Speaker 1: warm up and then we go climb. We sat in
Speaker 1: a circle, we went around and introduced ourselves and we
Speaker 1: have some bonding moments, you know, I just moved
Speaker 1: out here and honestly it's been really hard to make
Speaker 1: friends and find community. So I'm honestly really excited to
Speaker 1: be able to share this intimate moment with other women
Speaker 1: who look like me anyway, you know me when we
Speaker 1: get up, I am ready to start asking questions. I
Speaker 1: turned to the girl next to me, her name is
Speaker 1: Maddie Busby. Why is this group so important to girls
Speaker 1: like you
Speaker 1: be really intimidating to climb? Especially if you're new and
Speaker 1: be able to just immediately have someone to talk to
Speaker 1: or ask for help is super important as we're talking.
Speaker 1: I'm looking around the gym, it finally hits me. This
Speaker 1: looks super hard. Okay, let's go climb over here with
Speaker 1: the other group of girls. I'll show you the ropes
Speaker 1: without the ropes. Okay, I'm nervous.
Speaker 2: Wait hold up, hold up. There's no ropes on you
Speaker 2: or anything
Speaker 1: like that? We've got real thick landing pads under our feet.
Speaker 1: But no, no,
Speaker 1: how tall is the wall? It's about 15 ft. You
Speaker 1: follow the colors on the wall. You start on the
Speaker 1: ones that have like a little number on it. A
Speaker 1: lot of the time your arms are very straight, it
Speaker 1: uses less energy. 50 over there. She's reaching up, she's
Speaker 1: moving her feet. Why is she getting back down? She
Speaker 1: didn't make it up there yet. She's warming up for her.
Speaker 1: She's really good. So you do like levels, you start
Speaker 1: at zero and it goes to an indoor gyms probably
Speaker 1: 12 or 13.
Speaker 1: She can do like eight level eight. Hold it, hold it,
Speaker 1: hold it. Yeah, she made it to the top. You
Speaker 1: go girl, don't do that one. I want to get
Speaker 1: on top. All right, here we go. Okay,
Speaker 2: this on your first try. Yeah. Damn. Look at you,
Speaker 2: you strong girl.
Speaker 1: I didn't know where to put my foot, but this
Speaker 1: is harder than I thought it was. I might have
Speaker 1: to do the purple one. I just want to
Speaker 1: I didn't want to give up. I'm like, oh my God,
Speaker 1: like this is hard, can I do the purple one?
Speaker 1: It said I'm so scared to fall.
Speaker 1: Okay, so now I gotta get down.
Speaker 1: Nice climb. Thank you girl. How did it feel? It
Speaker 1: felt harder than it looked. It was yelling at you.
Speaker 1: I don't know if that works for you know they
Speaker 1: did they had my heart beating and I was like
Speaker 1: oh my God like I got a supportive team behind
Speaker 1: me of dope women, I love this, this made my day,
Speaker 1: made my week, you could do another one,
Speaker 1: you can have another week so brian when I finally
Speaker 1: did catch my breath I just wanted to know how
Speaker 1: did she get started when I was living in India
Speaker 1: I was a part of an organization called climb like
Speaker 1: a woman I saw myself in climbing when I was
Speaker 1: starting out like I could see myself in the people
Speaker 1: that were teaching me that's what we're trying to build
Speaker 1: in meet up space.
Speaker 1: How many people are part of brown girls crime people
Speaker 1: who come to the 2020 30 so now I want
Speaker 1: to find something hard like really really hard, how you
Speaker 1: doing good, what is something that looks intimidating to you?
Speaker 1: So one of these two, what is the orange one?
Speaker 1: I think it's a V. Five like this
Speaker 1: What the heck
Speaker 1: yeah I give up and I don't give up okay
Speaker 1: I give up
Speaker 1: look at wow she makes it look so easy all
Speaker 1: the way to the top. She makes me feel like
Speaker 1: I could do it too but I know I can
Speaker 1: it was so cool to watch her do something I
Speaker 1: was thinking was damn near impossible. No surprise it was
Speaker 1: Indira one of the leaders I have been climbing for
Speaker 1: about six years now, and can you tell me, how
Speaker 1: did you find out about this organization? I started out
Speaker 1: climbing in Chicago and I actually co founded Chicago Brown
Speaker 1: girls climb.
Speaker 1: It's super empowering, right? I think that's why so many
Speaker 1: people are drawn to it. There's always something harder for
Speaker 1: you to work towards, right? Like you will never be
Speaker 1: able to climb everything because you can find something harder.
Speaker 1: My heart is like so lit up right now because
Speaker 1: I had a group of women who look like me
Speaker 1: who would cheer me on. There was a moment that
Speaker 1: I didn't think I would and you said you climbed
Speaker 1: months before. How does this experience compare to that harder?
Speaker 1: I think this was a little bit harder.
Speaker 2: What did you gain about the experience? Like how do
Speaker 2: you feel overall? Would you go again or what's
Speaker 1: up? Yeah, I would definitely go again. They were really
Speaker 1: welcoming and it was cool to see girls like me
Speaker 1: at a climbing gym, it's very intimidating. You see a
Speaker 1: lot of guys and sometimes, okay, so I have an
Speaker 1: example
Speaker 1: while we were in our circle, there was a guy
Speaker 1: who decided to climb right above us
Speaker 2: just because he could
Speaker 1: Yeah, just because he could, because he thought that he
Speaker 1: had ownership of that space, so he could have really
Speaker 1: hurt himself and hurt us if he would have fell down?
Speaker 2: I didn't think about it that way, but you're right,
Speaker 2: You're
Speaker 2: making space for yourselves and you have to sometimes right.
Speaker 2: It is intimidating. I'm intimidated not only because I don't
Speaker 2: like heights, but also it's like I'm not a bro,
Speaker 2: you
Speaker 1: know, like it was definitely a lot of rosie. Yeah,
Speaker 1: but it's so cool when you have a group of
Speaker 1: people who are watching over you,
Speaker 1: by the way, there's another group that they told me about.
Speaker 1: There's a group called for generally people of the global majority,
Speaker 1: like any gender. That means you're next brian,
Speaker 2: you're gonna have to come with me because I do
Speaker 2: not go anywhere near heights. Okay. We set at the
Speaker 2: beginning of the episode. We've seen it again. I'm scared
Speaker 2: of heights.
Speaker 2: Shout out to Brown girls climb. You can find upcoming
Speaker 2: events on their instagram at Brown girls climb. Erica's got
Speaker 2: a link in the newsletter too along with some really
Speaker 2: cute pics of the meet up. So definitely check that
Speaker 2: out too. But that's it for today. Catch all soon.
Speaker 2: See you
Speaker 1: in the newsletter
Speaker 2: from Elliot Studios. This is hard to L. A. I'm
Speaker 2: your host brian de los santos. Catch us Tuesdays through
Speaker 2: Thursdays wherever you get your podcasts.
Speaker 2: Our producers are even Jacoby meg hotel and Kyle chang
Speaker 2: Erica Washington writes a newsletter. Chris varias handles our social media,
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Speaker 2: Megan. Larson is our executive producer, Shana Naomi Crock Mall
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Speaker 2: see you next week.