EP79 – The Inside Story of "The Blök Climbing" a family run climbing gym

In this enthralling edition of the Sends and Suffers podcast, delight in a deep dive into the adventurous and exciting world of rock climbing. Our host, Mario Stanley, brings to life the spectrum of experiences and passions that constitute the climbing culture.

In this episode, Mario brings our attention to the heart and soul of a unique indoor climbing gym, The Blök, in Fort Worth, Texas. He ventures into the lives of this gym's visionary owners, Skylar and Vanessa, who uprooted their life in California to pursue their passion in Texas.

 

Episode Transcript

(00:00):
Music.

(00:31):
Organic Climbing is the official sponsor of Sends and Suffers podcast.
And if you didn't know, now you know.
I have been using this company's products since before my podcast,
since I basically started rock climbing.
They're cool. They're rad. They're customizable.
You can get bouldering pads, chalk buckets, backpacks. They've got shoes.

(00:54):
They've got almost anything you can conceive to make you look fly,
to make you functional at the crag. Check out Organic Climbing.
Put in Sends and Suffers at your purchase. It helps this podcast out.
And really support someone who has been supporting the conception of climbing
communities since the beginning.
Josh and everyone at Organic is all about making sure communities grow.

(01:20):
And that is a huge thing coming from a small company that moves massive, massive mountains.
So check out Organic Climbing. tell them I sent you. Let's get into this episode.
Friends and enemies, lovers and haters, welcome to Sends and Suffers podcast.
I am your host, Mario Stanley.

(01:41):
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(02:03):
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All right, friends and enemies and lovers and haters.

(02:26):
This episode is about the new kids on the block that run the block.
I know, I know. This is so catchy.
But the gym, the block is in DFW and it's honestly one of my favorite gyms.
I know it's new and shiny and beautiful, but it's gorgeous.
It's got a legendary route setter, Josh Haynes there. And the community there is a vibe.

(02:50):
I hope you enjoy this episode with the climbing gym, the block.
And if you haven't already made your way down to Fort Worth,
it's definitely worth a session because you'll get worked and you will climb
on some absolutely gorgeous, expensive boulders.

(03:13):
How are you guys this morning?
Doing well. Good. Yeah, tired. Yeah, it's early. It's early.
Well, thank you for letting me come into your absolutely stunningly gorgeous
gym and meet with you guys because you guys are the new kids on the block.
I'm not going to assume everyone knows who you are. So if you guys don't mind
me telling me who are you, where you're from, and what is your connection to

(03:38):
rock climbing? Because we're in a rock climbing gym.
Sure. Yeah. My name's Skylar Brooks. Brooks.
I was born and raised in California, went to school in Arizona,
moved back to California after that.
And that's when I really fell in love with rock climbing.
I mean, I had climbed on and off like in my childhood, kind of,
I wasn't in the Boy Scouts, but you know, kind of Boy Scouts type of engagement with rock climbing.

(04:03):
And then in college, it was, you know, going out to a little crag with some of my friends.
We didn't really know what like outdoor climbing was a a thing.
I wasn't like, you know, keyed into it as a sport or an outdoor hobby.
We just were outside climbing rocks. Turns out it was like a decent little crag
that we were going to, but we had no idea what we were doing.
Didn't have gear, no shoes, no pads.

(04:26):
It was just like going out and having fun with friends. And then a couple of
times a semester, we would go down to the closest climbing gym at that point
in Arizona, which was in Phoenix.
We would go down there a couple of times and climb inside and then
kind of realized that it was more of a thing but because it
was such a long drive we didn't make it down there very often so it wasn't until

(04:48):
after i graduated college and i moved back to california that i really fell
in love with climbing specifically like in like climbing indoors at my old home
wall in redlands california flowstone.
It was really getting to know the owners of Flowstone, Jason,
Joel, and Noel, and seeing what they had done with that space. It was their first gym.

(05:11):
Obviously, they'd been in the climbing industry for a lot longer,
but seeing what they had done and how quickly I fell in love with that is what
really drove me to want to, you know, pursue it as a goal or as a dream to open one,
you know, give people that same feeling that they gave me in a space that,
you know, didn't have something like, excuse me, something something like that.

(05:32):
So yeah, I mean, that's the long and short of why we're sitting here in this gym.
My name is Vanessa. I also grew up in Southern California, born and raised.
I didn't leave California for school. I stayed there. So Texas is my first experience
being outside of California. That's a big jump. Yeah.

(05:52):
And I guess, I mean, you kind of explained a lot of it. I didn't super into
rock climbing until recently.
The first time I'd ever tried it, I actually found out I was pregnant the next day.
So I didn't get to go again for a very long time.
So yeah, it took me a while to get into it because by that point,
he was already mounds better than me and it just wasn't as fun to climb with

(06:17):
someone who was really, really good when I'm over here barely able able to climb the ladder.
But yeah, we're really excited about, you know, opening it up.
And it's been a passion of his.
And I kind of got to live my passion before this being a teacher and took a
break from teaching to do this.
And it's been kind of cool to see him be able to follow his passion now.

(06:39):
Did you do any sports or anything prior to climbing or have you been an athletic
person your your whole life? Skylar would say no.
No, I did softball, but very little. Like I didn't play in high school or anything.
I just kind of, you know, played rec and yeah, that was. Skylar, you?
Yeah, I was a four sport athlete in high school, but I was also young.

(07:03):
I skipped a couple of grades when I was younger. So I was playing,
you know, mostly like little league and, you know, rec ball outside of school when I was really young.
And then when I got to high school, because I was I was so much younger,
I was quite a bit smaller, so I had to continue playing rec sports in high school.
It was football, baseball, cross country, and track.

(07:25):
Yeah, I mean, Vanessa, she's always like,
had like a pursuit of fitness you know
she's always in the gym you know a traditional fitness
facility or or running or hiking you
know so she's she's always had you know been fitness
aware yeah i just find it interesting because most people who own gyms or who

(07:48):
are really into climbing almost everybody has some kind of like sports background
of some sort it's like it's either or like I was a three-season athlete.
I ran track and field. I played football.
I was terrible at lacrosse, but I wanted to play all the time.
But those are like the two sports that I really did.
So I make sense, but I was just curious because most people,

(08:10):
as I said, who open gyms are in this industry, I find that they have some kind
of connection to using their body.
And then they want to continue to share that because you've seen how that affects
you as you grow and as you just get older in life. Yeah.
And you guys have a wonderful baby girl. Very nice. What's her name?
Eloise. Eloise. How old is she? Three and a half. Is she rock climbing? Oh, yeah.

(08:34):
She's had a little wall in her room ever since she was like a year old.
I mean, you built it, I think, when I was pregnant still.
Oh, that's awesome. Yeah. So she's been climbing since she could crawl.
That's awesome. Awesome. And where was,
so when did the gumption, the goal to open a climbing gym really like,

(08:55):
you're like, I'm going to do this because I feel like it takes a lot of,
it takes a lot of guts to do this industry, especially in this industry.
I think it's like, I mean, Dallas, DFW, Fort Worth, let's say Fort Worth of all places.
Like, I think you're far enough away from Dallas us that people you're far enough
away from like all the mega gyms and things like that but still there's like

(09:17):
what six gyms in the area already and so why fort worth texas.
Yeah. So it was, this has been a pipe dream for about three and a half years. It's real now.
I know. So I've always kind of operated under the presumption that it probably

(09:38):
wasn't ever going to happen.
So when we were looking to move out of California, specifically just because
we were living on a teaching salary and I was doing real estate,
so I wasn't, I didn't have a steady income.
So we were relying on mostly on her income as a teacher, which is not, you know,
a whole lot of money especially in california so when

(10:01):
we started looking around the country to figure out where we were going to go
as a family you know we knew we were bringing a child in to the family and we
where we were living we didn't feel like it was lended itself to,
you know give her the childhood we wanted
to be able to give her or to be able to do the things that

(10:23):
we wanted to do and that was a combination of a lot of things part of it was
like i was having like issues with anxiety back then just because like i went
to school for engineering didn't make that career path happen now i was in like
a struggling real estate career so i had a lot of anxiety and because we lived
far enough away from a lot of things it was like harder for me to.

(10:44):
Build up the like willingness or courage i guess to like okay we just want to go to,
you know the zoo or a museum it's gonna
take us two and a half hours to drive to it you know
and then we're gonna we're gonna be there now I was feeling like stuck to
where like I just wanted to stay home because it was easy and
that's obviously not what we wanted for you know our child so

(11:06):
we started looking at other places or more affordable and just
had things that you know you know
if that situation for me would persist or it was a lot easier if things
were only like ten minutes away cuz I was not like oh I didn't you know something's wrong
you know i can always get a situation pretty quickly
and calm myself down so we just kind of were looking around and you know the

(11:28):
dfw area was one of the areas that we had considered we came out here on a trip
had no we didn't know the fw of dfw like most people.
And we stayed in arlington right right by
the stadiums we thought we were gonna maybe we
were were just looking at neighborhoods in arlington maybe some of the suburbs

(11:49):
of dallas yeah we were here for like a week we spent the first like three days
touring arlington the next like day and a half like looking at dallas and then
suburbs and we just so happened to hear of these stockyards,
that people were talking about they're like well we have we have an extra half
a day we finished up a little bit early one day so let's go over and check it

(12:11):
out and yeah i mean lucky for us We came over here to Fort Worth that day and
almost immediately fell in love with the city and.
It's it's the 12th biggest city in the country but nobody
really knows about it and yeah it really
lends itself to you know what people always
say here it's like big city amenities but it's a small town feel it feels like

(12:33):
a place that everyone that's here pretty much lives here so they treat it like
home and that's what we fell in love with and i mean you know there's 2.2 million
people in tarrant county which is a county that fort worth is in and there's
only one climbing gym and it's It's about the same size as us.
So the two things just kind of lined up, but it was always like end up in a
city where it would make sense or it could make sense to do a climbing gym.

(12:56):
But the main goal was to end up in a city that we knew we could like start,
you know, raise our family in a place that was somewhere that we wanted to be.
Yeah. I was about to, I think funky town is probably one of the best hidden secrets of the DFW area.
I mean, I personally live in Dallas. I lived in Fort Worth for about a year
and a half, and I liked it over here far more because you're all correct.

(13:20):
It is this like it's a big city, but it feels like a small town.
And I think it's honestly a better point of access to really kind of like explore
Texas, which I don't know if you guys have had a chance to explore the climbing
or explore the things that are that are around here.
I mean, mind you, I think you're probably already used to this. Like it's nice.
Fort Worth is beautiful, but if you want to do climbing or anything exploration

(13:42):
wise in Texas, you do have to submit back to your two to three,
four hour drive anywhere. Yeah.
Yeah. We haven't had the chance yet, but I've heard a lot of great things and
you know, we're looking forward to like being able to get out more.
Do a lot more outdoor stuff.
It was tough for us in California to do it. I, we went outside a few times there
when she was pregnant and during the pandemic,

(14:04):
pandemic but we were pretty skittish during
the pandemic because she was pregnant makes sense
and we just didn't know so but and the
gyms closed down i was so in love with climbing it was like well
let's just go outside and try and figure it out yeah so
we went to a few spots only had one crash pad though and
her obviously being pregnant like the approaches were pretty tough so

(14:26):
i'm her her spotting and yeah it was uh
that was much help yeah and then her
brother my brother-in-law tagged along with us a couple times yeah it was really
enjoyable and then it quickly shifted from there to moving to here and really
hitting the ground running on this thing so i can't wait for this to kind of
mellow out and be able to get outside you know a couple times how long is it

(14:51):
How long has this gym been open now?
What is it? Are we at three weeks, two weeks?
Oh, today's three weeks. So you are brand spanking new.
I was thinking in my mind, I was like, oh, you've been like this sleeping giant
for like the last two, three, four months and like people just haven't really known.
But this is brand spanking new. Yeah.

(15:12):
So what was, I want to shift gears and talk a little bit about the gym.
And I'd like to know like,
What was kind of your vision for this? Because I think you do something very unique.
This side of the canyon that we're on is T-nutted to standard, everything like that.
Beautiful vertical solution walls. These are absolutely great, gorgeous.

(15:33):
And I love that you have a kilter board here.
But the other side of the gym is much more set up like a comp wall. There's no T-nuts.
It could be a giant spray wall. It could be anything that, what was the vision
behind this kind of setup?
Because that's very unique. a route set for many years, been coaching longer.
And from a coaching perspective, I'm in love with that.

(15:57):
Like I, I love this setup because I'm like, okay, I can, I can make the generalized
stuff and then, you know, we can put the cream over there.
And so what was the vision for that? Like why?
Yeah, it was, it was not part of the original plan.
So when we designed the wall with Vertical Solutions, I knew I wanted to set

(16:18):
that side up as a competition style wall.
So we basically had them break it into four.
Segments, slab, steep, less steep, and then vertical.
And yeah, I was like, it lends itself really well to hosting four problem problem,

(16:42):
you know, men's, women's finals for competition, the size of the wall with eight problems on it.
So in our opening set, we set eight problems on it. Looks amazing.
There's like plenty of room.
The no T-nuts thing was not a planned decision.
That was a game time decision we made about a month and a half ago when Vertical
Solutions was here building it. Originally, it was supposed to be T-nutted.

(17:04):
We were sitting there staring at the walls for so long with no no T-notes in
them, we were like, man, I don't want them to drill holes in this wall.
And knowing that most modern competition style holds don't even have a bolt hole anymore.
Mm, true. We were like, we're not even really gonna use many of them over there.
So I talked with Josh, our director of root setting, and got his opinion on

(17:27):
it, and he was like, I'm game for it.
And yeah, it's been, I really like the aesthetic of it. I think it looks really cool.
It's just it like photographs so cleanly oh it's
gorgeous yeah yeah it's awesome and then
josh has even said that it gives him
some extra level of like creative freedom while he's

(17:48):
setting because he's not like from this bolt hole to this bolt hole he just
puts the hold exactly where he wants it so it kind of gets him outside of the
normal box of like moving holds six inches away from one another yeah i mean
it was should have no t-note at the whole gym i think but but that's,
that's rough. Yeah.

(18:08):
That's rough on your drills and that's rough on the body. Yeah. I mean, I don't know.
I love it. Like from a coaching perspective, I was just like drooling when I
saw it. I was like, okay, this is great. This is a great use of space.
We can, we can really kind of make this work really, really well.
So yeah, that makes sense. Okay, cool. I was curious about that.
And then I love your fitness room that you guys have.

(18:31):
You have a good cold plunge area, which I think is really unique.
And like I've honestly never seen one in a climbing gym.
I've always been like almost wanting to like makeshift build a whirlpool in
my apartment just so I could cold plunge at the end of it.
And as far as the utilization of space, I love it.
Like you, it seems like you are really set up to host community events and you're

(18:52):
really set up to host things to engage with your community.
Do you guys have anything coming up in the next, I mean, we're on the cusp of 2024.
So is there anything that you
have planned or you have coming up that you'd like to see come to pass?
Yeah, I mean, we do smaller things almost every night of the week now that our program has started.

(19:13):
But in terms of big events, I think we're trying to do probably maybe one a
month, just having people come out.
We just had our grand opening party, not this past weekend, but the weekend before.
We had food trucks out and we tried to partner up with local businesses to bring
out, you know, we had ice cream and coffee and tea and tattoo artists.

(19:34):
That's cool. Yeah. And so we want to do maybe not that grandiose of an event,
but something that we can plan for a weekend day and get people out here because
we really want to bring that community together.
That was a big part of the gym too. who is, I personally just love,
even before I got into climbing, I love the community of it.

(19:55):
I love that even when, you know, he would go climb, I could sit there and work
on schoolwork while he's climbing.
And, you know, it's just a place where people can go to hang out and they don't
have to always be climbing, which I think is really cool.
But you can probably speak more on like competitions and stuff like that.
Well, I guess one thing I'd like you to kind of circle back with here is like,

(20:16):
what are the current services or things that you're offering like throughout
the week? So just people know.
So when they, when they look your gym up and they look this up,
like what can they expect already to something that they can just jump into right away?
Yeah. So right now we're doing like a girls night and college night.
Every Tuesday we kind of swap back and forth between college and girls night.

(20:36):
We started doing circuit meetups. So each week We'll have a different circuit
that meets up on Thursdays, Thursdays.
And then Friday we do bumping at the block.
Our last one was, our first one was this last weekend and we just play like
really loud music and cool vibes. Yeah. It was so much fun.
It's funny because some people I don't think knew, like they just came in on

(21:00):
a Friday night and they're like, wow, this is really fun.
So we'll do that every Friday. And then Sundays we're going to do set sendoffs.
So right before Josh plans on taking a piece of that or a piece of the wall
down, then we'll kind of play like Elim games and stuff with that section before
it's gone. I like that, that's cool.
A set sendoff. I think that's unique. I've never heard that before because you

(21:23):
see on Instagram and social media all the time, which, by the way,
when you guys' grand opening happened, that's actually the most of when I knew
you were coming into town.
But it was like with I don't know if you follow like the hashtags like DFW climbing
or climbing communities, Fort Worth climbing, Dallas that. But you guys were all over everywhere.
And I was just like, wow, this is exploding very, very fast.

(21:45):
So whatever you did that weekend, it was just a huge dump. Like if you were
in DFW and you were on social media and you were looking up anything climbing,
you were all over the place. So it was really good.
But I love this idea of set send off because you hear people like the one thing
people make the most memes about is they walk into the gym and the route that

(22:06):
they want is gone. Yeah. And their soul is crushed.
It's so funny because we hear I hear two different things where it's people
are saying, you know, how long do you guys keep routes up for?
Because I hate when I come back to a gym and that, you know, the thing is gone.
And then I also hear the other side of it of how long or how often do you change
them out? Because I want new stuff.
Yeah. So it's like you have, you know, you got to find the balance between the

(22:28):
two. Yeah. I think it's hard because people, I...
I personally think people don't like to project routes anymore and like just commit to working them.
Like there's a few I was working on here when I was climbing in your gym and
I'm like, okay, I'm just, if they're still here, I'm commit.
I'm literally warming up to commit to these like six routes.
And I do the same thing at Oso. I do the same thing at movement.
And I think people don't project anymore. So that's why people either want them

(22:52):
up, want the routes up for like nine months or they're like,
I want something new. Yeah. Yeah.
Yeah. Yeah. Make everyone happy. Learn that pretty quickly. But yeah.
Yeah. I just tell people to climb more and suck it up. Yeah. Yeah.
Exactly. Yeah. More days on.
Let's see. Monday we do, we're going to start doing a board meeting.

(23:13):
So like kilter board, come climb kilter board with your friends kind of thing.
I know we've got some other stuff in the works, but that's kind of the plans
right now. Well, the other big one is first Saturday of every month we're doing kids climb.
Nice. So we're going to try and we'll set things that are a lot more kid friendly.
It's ages 12 and under we're doing

(23:33):
ten dollar day passes we're opening an
hour early to not interrupt like our normal member hours
people that don't you know want to make sense climb around kids throw
homes an hour early it's a three-hour thing we're planning on doing like
crafts every time and then just letting kids
have the run of the place making it really accessible for
you know kids especially in the area to get into

(23:56):
it and have a time you know kind of for or specifically for
kids i mean we don't have the space the luxury of space to have a dedicated
kids area in here not yet yeah so that's the other big one and then yeah just
big event every every month ish next one's new year's eve new year's eve we're
doing a party staying open till 1 a.m,

(24:17):
and then we're hoping to do our first competition in march nice and then is
this going to be just Just like a citizens comp, just like an open comp anybody
can sign up for? Are you doing any grand prizes?
Or is it mainly just, you know, like how's the comp going to run?
Yeah, so it's not going to be like a sanctioned one or any sort of like USEC involvement.

(24:39):
So yeah, it'll be an open comp.
We're hoping to do a prize pool.
So we're going to start pursuing sponsorships for that and make it.
Make it enough. I don't really know a number yet, but we're hoping that it's
a decent enough prize pool to bring in people and make it worth their time.

(25:00):
Give people a chance, you know, to earn some money.
I've spoken with some of the local competitive climbers that have aged out of
like the team team or the kids teams.
And now they're like kind of left to bridge this gap between can I pursue this
thing, you know, on my own and pay for it.
And it can be quite expensive. So, I mean, if you're flying around the country

(25:21):
to go compete and don't have sponsors or anything like that.
So, trying to make it to where if, you know, people think they have a good shot
at winning it, it'll be worth their time to come up here.
That's cool. I think as a coach, that's something I struggle with a lot because
a lot of these athletes that age out, they don't go off to college,
somewhere where there's a ton of climbing.
But if they stay home locally, it's kind of, there is this limbo and it's like,

(25:44):
do I just climb for myself?
Do I get into a career? A lot of them kind of fall off the lip,
the kind of fall off the wagon a little bit, for lack of a better term,
or those ones that are like, they're amazing athletes, but like,
you know, let's just be honest about it.
Like there is, we are literally splitting a fraction of hairs of hairs of hairs

(26:05):
once you start getting into the World Cup circuit.
And it's like, you're great. You are millions times better.
But within the half of the 1%, it's just like, it's not quite there or you need time to get there.
And I think creating an opportunity for them to train, creating for an opportunity
for them to showcase themselves.
And I also think your facility, you know, I think is uniquely set up for them

(26:29):
to be able to climb here and, you know, with Josh Hanks, legendary climber,
legendary route setter, Texas legend,
you know, I think having the ability to come here and train and work on routes
that he's setting and be able to really kind of showcase their work.
On a great and beautiful facility. Kind of segueing into that,

(26:50):
how did you meet Josh? How did you get him roped into this?
I just posted on CBGA's website for the opening, and he was one of the applicants.
That was it. But it was very immediate during the interview that I knew that
he was going to be the best fit for us.
We had a lot of qualified applicants for the position, But yeah,

(27:13):
there was just something all immediately clicked with Josh,
both for us and for him, him coming back here where he grew up and gets to come
back now and be closer to his family.
Yeah. And then also the fact that, you know, he's an amazing setter and has
a great deal of additional experience in the industry outside of setting.

(27:35):
Amazing oh it's a wealth of yeah so it's a wealth of knowledge like the man
has been around for a very long time and has a lot of routes in this area that
people are still chasing after to try to.
To put to notch off of their bucket list yeah
it's funny because we didn't i mean josh haynes
wasn't like a name to us before and he just happened

(27:56):
to interview and i remember you saying like i i found
the guy and you know we were going to bed
the other night and i was like man do you ever just think about like we're so
lucky we have josh like he has so much
knowledge just besides like him being a great setter he
has so much knowledge and knows so many people and just has so much that he's

(28:16):
able to bring to the gym that i'm like we could affect anybody and you know
it just like i don't know it just worked out really perfectly i think you guys
definitely did luck out the namesakes alone yeah goes a lot of weight and i
think the biggest thing that you you know,
someone who personally has chased after his roots and really kind of like taken
a similar path to him, but different.

(28:39):
I think the biggest thing that you're getting is that wealth of knowledge,
that wealth of insider knowledge.
And Josh is just so low key, like his low key.
I mean, low key is his high key. And I like, as I like to say,
and I think you're really blessed because the amount of information he's going
to help you be able to grow and kind of give you a lot of cheat codes along the way. So yeah.

(29:01):
Yeah. And he already has, it's already paid dividends. I mean,
he has so many connections that I don't have to be able to make things happen
for us, you know, pretty quickly.
Yeah, it's been awesome. So are you guys, so we're barely three weeks in, three, a month in.
And what is the next mile marker for you that you're hoping to hit to see?

(29:27):
Do you want to grow? Do you want to open more locations?
Is this really kind of the one and done for you? or
like have you thought about that or is that too far out
yet i don't know yeah we do have
we have a phase two planned already we don't know
exactly we're hoping to break ground on it probably summer of
next year but that's just an expansion to the current facility

(29:48):
in our back lot we have a grass like an empty little grass area that we're able
to expand off the back of the building we've already discussed it with the landlord
and he's he's totally on board with it so it'll It'll probably be like a 2,000
square foot expansion to the existing facility,
which is almost 10,000 square feet. That's huge.

(30:09):
Yeah. So it'll be, it's going to be up to the community, like what we put in
there. We know for sure the kilter board is going to go live in there.
And then we'll have Vertical Solutions come back and extend our third wall down
to the end just to get a little bit more bouldering area in here.
But yeah, the space is just going to be molded by the community.
So if people are wanting dedicated yoga studios, since we don't have yoga right

(30:32):
now, that's what it'll be.
If they would just want more systems boards, you know, we could get Tension
2.0, we could get Moonboard in here.
Even like an adjustable spray wall type of thing. I know Lemur is doing those,
or Kilter and Lemur are doing those frames.
Grasshopper is as well, if you've heard of them too. Grasshopper has,
I believe they have an adjustable board that also adjusts with you as you climb.

(30:55):
And so it can change angles. Yeah, I mean, Ben, not, sorry, correction.
Grasshopper, Boonspeed. Boonspeed's boards, and if you're familiar,
are you familiar with that name? No, I haven't heard that one.
Grasshopper, yeah, but. it boone speed look it up
just like josh but boone is a legend
like all the original chris sharma videos from

(31:16):
the day he's the one who shot them all king lions like the
man is probably the most
forward-thinking person in the industry that i've
ever met in my life used to be the director of marketing for
black diamond i mean he has been around forever
but every major climbing film you can
think of that you like shot in the 90s it

(31:39):
was him wow so yeah yeah like it's i would definitely check out their products
i mean don't be wrong i'm a big fan of kilter big fan of tension board their
new board out and i think boone's board the grasshopper board is just kind of
on another level and if you want
to try one out the grapevine location of movement has a small one upstairs,

(31:59):
they don't have a full-size one and if you want to try the board that is adjustable
that moves moves and shifts with you.
I think the only climbing gym that has one within the tri-state area is Threshold within OKC.
And they have one, and I think they're the only people who have one.
And it's, I mean, it's futuristic, it's wild. I've climbed on it.

(32:22):
And I was like, okay, this is, I almost didn't know what to make of it,
but it was, it's definitely beautiful.
And I like their boards, cause I definitely think it's probably one of the easiest
ones to warm up on. And I think that's a big thing too, that I like about it.
Yeah. Yeah. I'll definitely have to look into that. I'd say it sounds really
cool. Yeah. I'm always looking for, you know, the new cool things, but.

(32:42):
Yeah, same with our hold selections. Like, I'm always trying to find new shapes.
Had so many comments already about people coming in here and saying,
like, there's so many of these holds that I've never even felt before.
Yeah, you guys have. I think that's the nice thing about, like,
a new gym coming into town.
With a lot of these older gyms, there's just, like, an historic bucket of old holds.

(33:05):
I mean, I think Movement right now is even selling off their old hold inventories
to the general public so people can buy them for their home walls.
But there is just this, it's wild that DFW is like this, but there is an historic
history of climbing in this area.
And so when I walked in, that was something that I noticed. I was like,
everything is completely fresh.

(33:26):
Speaking of holds, did you guys manufacture all your own volumes?
Yeah. Yeah, we did. it was a um so
i have a background in woodworking too after i finished college and was you
know trying to find a career because my engineering career didn't pan out i
was looking for all sorts of things to fill my time and woodworking was one

(33:49):
of the things that i you know kind of picked up,
i'd done it again throughout my life because my dad like was a carpenter so
but i kind of like like, lean more into, like, you know, like,
fine woodworking, like, furniture making,
things like that, because it kind of translated a little bit with my engineering

(34:09):
and, like, you know, the measurement and the precision.
And, yeah, I was having a great time doing that. I was building furniture for,
you know, our house and, you know, other, like, my parents and her parents.
I made them, like, a couple tables and things like that.
And then, yeah, when we were doing this thing and, you know,
figuring out the budget with how much money we had and how much

(34:31):
we could do knowing that we wanted like good
climbing and you know a decent selection of
volumes and i saw the volume prices and i
was like oh boy we're gonna
run out of money but yeah so
we we build our own volumes in-house it's still a learning process for us we're
still like drilling down the texture method it's been nice to like get to know

(34:58):
know more people in the industry and hear firsthand what sorts of things they've
been doing rather than just trying to rely on the internet.
So that's been helpful and they've definitely been improving.
And then we do want to purchase volumes from companies as well,
like moving forward, they can make some more complex shapes that we can't make
because we're doing it with the track saw instead of a CNC.

(35:20):
Oh yeah. We had a CNC, sure, but with the track saw,
yeah, some of these shapes that these companies are making now it would be impossible
for us to make yeah no I definitely understand that I remember motivation volumes
came in and I'm seeing I've watched the evolution of volumes and really how they add.
Like, I remember people used to talk about building a gym that was just nothing

(35:42):
but volumes in the future. And I was just like, I don't think that's going to
fly, but I would go there and climb.
But I was so impressed definitely with your build, especially like this guy
over here with this beautiful dual text on the edge.
And I was looking at this thing and I was like, I don't recognize this logo.
And it took me a minute to realize I was like, oh, this is the logo of the gym.
And I was like, and then I just went around and started like,

(36:03):
you know, classically like being a creeper and feeling up on all your volumes.
And I was like, this is extremely good work and I was very impressed.
So I'm excited. I definitely think you should keep doing it.
And I honestly think as much as my personal opinion of this is,
especially for people opening gyms,
I honestly think the introductory shapes and things like that,

(36:26):
all that information should just be open sourced because I think it will cut
a barrier to entry for more people to build gyms and more people to build gyms
in areas where it might not be as high traffic where if you want to do gyms
like nonprofit gyms and low-income communities or things like that.
And I think if you can open this skill up to allow other people and maybe even

(36:48):
young people to start making them for a gym that's coming along.
But I think I do agree with you. I think the more complex shapes are going to
be the way of the future. I think more of the simpler things.
I'm almost hoping that brands or, I mean,
maybe you yourself people will start either like one
open sourcing all the information or just selling it

(37:08):
as a kit where they can just like you can buy a pallet and
then you can just build it yourself because i think that's
going to be a future and i think that cuts a barrier
to entry to establishing more climbing gyms
in the future yeah yeah definitely i found
a few resources i can't remember the website right now i can
get it to you later but yeah please there's one that guy does he

(37:29):
designs them and then they're pretty simple shapes
he does have some more complex ones and he
just sells the plans i think it's like if
you buy it's like you get 10 plans
that are really nicely done for 50 so you get 10 different shapes for 50 bucks
or five dollars a piece and then after i did that with that one i just i wanted

(37:53):
i was designing them in sketchup and then i was like like figuring out the angles and making some of them.
And then I was like, oh, I can save some time if I just buy some of these shapes from this guy.
And yeah, like his plans are really well done.
It's after I purchased the pack of 10 or whatever, I got an email the next day

(38:13):
that was like, Oh, thanks for the purchase here.
And if you leave us review, I'll give you, you know, two more for free.
So obviously like a really new startup that the person's pursuing,
I said guy, but I have no idea who's is running it.
We'll put it in the show notes. That's we'll worry about that later, but that's cool.
I like that. I think once again, like I think, I don't know.

(38:36):
I just, in my opinion, in a lot of, I think it's the nature of climbing.
If you've climbed outside, you know, when people talk about areas or things
like that, there's a lot of gatekeeping of information.
And I think that just needs to go away because the less you gatekeep information,
the more new innovation you make room for. I think that's kind of like the key.
So after you built them, did you just, were you able to kind of,

(39:00):
are you at this point now where you just kind of like, feel like you can kind
of run on your own a little bit more?
Yeah. The texture process. So out of
all the volumes that are on our walls right now there's probably
like six different texture methods between them
so I've noticed that some of them are
not holding up as well as I would like them to and I'm
like always been very protective about like my work

(39:22):
or what I'm putting out there so when I see people like complaining about glassy
volumes I'm like it really gets to me but the ones that have our more current
texture method are the ones that are hanging up a lot better and then we We
even have a more recent one where we're using a slightly different product on the top,
which is just a two-part epoxy that I'm hoping that one's going to be the one

(39:44):
that we've really dialed it in.
And that was one of the ones where I got information from other people in the
industry of like what was the standard.
Before I was using polyurethane, like a single part polyurethane,
I was like, well, polyurethane is stronger than like a latex or acrylic paint
and the holds are poured out of polyurethane.

(40:04):
So polyurethane is probably a decent top coating for the
volumes turns out it's not quite as like shell
hard as too hard epoxy so those
are some of the ones that are like shedding pretty quick and then also just
the actual texture was so hard to figure out especially doing the clear the
clear one like the raw wood or the natural wood ones because the black we're

(40:28):
using aluminum oxide which which is like a dark, a pretty dark brown.
So obviously when you're putting it over like a black or onto a black volume,
it doesn't really matter because it's hidden.
But if you put that onto the wood one, it's not gonna look like wood anymore.
So yeah, we were using glass bead.
Turns out that's not great either, but it's really hard to source bleached aluminum oxide.

(40:52):
So, yeah, I'm supposed to be getting some stuff from someone in the industry soon.
I guess I won't mention the names in case they're, you know, sharing secrets.
Make people work for it. Once again, I don't want to gatekeep information,
but I do think you need to do a little work to get there.
Yeah. And also, if people say your volumes are glassy, just say like,

(41:12):
are you sure it's that or it's your footwork? Yeah.
That's what I would. We wanted it to be that way. Yeah. And then Josh,
you know, recommended the idea of messing around with dual text volumes,
too. So when they're glassy, we just don't know that part still.
Oh, I think, I think that's the future.
So how do you guys manage, you know, having a kid, having a brand new,

(41:32):
I mean, no, granted it's just gyms three weeks, barely a month.
You have a child, you're raising a family, making time for each other and running a gym together.
Cause I'm imagining you don't have a staff of like 35 people.
Is it just you two or is it currently right now? Josh.
Yeah like how do you how do you make time for

(41:52):
each other i think that's like a huge i think
that's like a big thing of like going into business at
all like i know in my past dating relates the relationships i've like i've had
people like i want to help you do this i want to help you guide i want to help
you do this and it's kind of like i'm always like afraid i'm like well i don't
know how we can make time for each other and i think that's like a big thing

(42:13):
because Because I've met couples who want to, you know, open a gym,
buy property, build a climbing ranch.
They want to do something together as a team.
But I think getting into it is just, it's just, this is a different animal.
So like, I guess the first question is, is how do you guys manage and find time for each other?
I think it's something that we, I mean, we've been together for a really long

(42:36):
time. We met in high school and we've been together since we literally met.
So we've, you know, I think it's something that we kind of prepared ourselves
for knowing that the first six months or so were going to be hard.
And we were going to have to sacrifice a lot to be able to do this because hiring

(42:57):
a full staff just isn't, you know, feasible right now. And it's also something
that we didn't really even want to do.
We wanted to be at the front desk and, you know, meet the people who are going
to be climbing in our gym, get to know faces, get to know names.
And so I think that we're both okay with that right now.
And knowing that that's kind of where we're putting our focus,
not that we're not putting our focus on our relationship too,

(43:18):
but we spend obviously time here and, you know, making sure that we're both
spending time with each other when we get home too.
Even though it's late and we're not normally like late out or night owls but
in the past it's like we're like eight o'clock bedtime kind of people and now
it's like we're like midnight kind of bedtime people so I think we just you

(43:39):
know try to make it work the way the best that we can,
as well as you know trying to take time for our daughter too making sure that
she's getting the attention that she needs but yeah I think it's just we just
really prepared ourselves for it and knew that it was going to be a hard thing
and that we just, it was going to be a season that wouldn't be like that forever.

(44:00):
So now if it's like that in two years from now, I might say,
might be a different story. Yeah.
Yeah, I mean, we've been together for 15 years, so it's, you know,
Not that we're tired of each other, but, you know, we've spent a lot of time
together and we're still very much in the honeymoon phase of this right now.
So this has been something that we've been pursuing for the last three and a

(44:21):
half years and always thought it was just a pipe dream. It wasn't going to happen.
So the fact that we're actually sitting in here and talking to you and,
you know, in a gym we built, it's still very like fresh and new to us.
So this is like, this is like us enjoying ourselves together right now.
Sitting on a podcast talking to you is pretty out of
the out of the norm for us for the last 10

(44:42):
years you know so yeah most of our together time
is is here at the gym like our shifts overlap
one of us comes in in the morning the other the other does the night
shift but we overlap by like five hours when we hang out together and
climb together and chit chat so and
so basically you're just like footballing the baby between each
other right now yeah right now your parent or

(45:03):
one of you guys sets of parents here do as well yeah my
parents live a couple blocks away from us oh
that's nice and then my sisters are all
here my brother's in law and then her brother
lives here as well so did the whole family just move here or were they already
established here prior to that my sister and her husband her husband's from

(45:24):
san antonio so she moved out here about a year before us and then we got out
here and then my parents followed behind us.
My parents are also part owners of the gym
and they've been involved for the last
yeah like year and getting the space ready so once it
got closer to like go time

(45:46):
with the gym is when they they like
made their way out here but yeah and then we
moved out here in like collaboration essentially with her with her brother because
i'm i'm pretty close with him and she's close with him it's her her only brother
yeah and he was thinking of austin and then yeah we ended up fighting fort worth

(46:07):
and we all kind of moved down here at the same time i think that's probably.
Correct me if I'm wrong. I'm not a part of this process. To me,
that sounds like the sauce that makes this thing work.
Family is what makes this thing work. And it makes sense why you talk about
how you want to build a community and you want to see a community in there because you have a community.
You have your family here and figuring out how to replicate that as an extended family in the gym.

(46:32):
And I could see it when you were talking about the services,
the things that you want to provide, how like I can kind of see like your heart
just leaps when you think about like building this community and building this place up.
And now just hearing that you have that kind of infrastructure around you, it makes perfect sense.
Like, and I think, and me personally, I talk about this a lot on my podcast.
It's like the coolest thing about rock climbing has is absolutely not rock climbing at all.

(46:56):
Like the best part of the rock climbing community, it has nothing to do with rock climbing.
And I think it's also in my opinion
not underrated but overlooked a lot and
I when I say overlooked I mean overlooked with like intent with
detail with care and love I think a
lot of people just kind of take for advantage that rock climbers are nice this

(47:16):
is this blah blah blah but I think especially you two and myself and anyone
in a position where like we are facilitating the sport for us we kind of tend
to look at it a much different lens and maybe or maybe hold it in a and much
more gentle and careful,
care loving and caring kind of a way.
And so, but it oozes out of you. Cause like, if the moment you guys started

(47:39):
talking about your family, I could like literally feel the connection of the
gym and I'm like, okay, this makes sense now.
If it all kind of like the dust is settling with that. So.
How can I, the DFW community, what can we do for you?
Because I think that is the question, and that's the question I'm going to pose

(48:04):
for the rest of the community who are listening to this.
And I want to preface this with saying you have put your money,
finances, emotional health, mental health on the line of building a facility.
That's a big deal. and I thank
you for that because Fort Worth needs this and Fort Worth needs another
gym and it needs to keep growing and so what are things that people like I mean

(48:30):
outside is there anything I mean I know you need members I know you need people
to show up into the gym is there anything that we can do to help you guys grow
and is there an ask at all I know it's kind of an odd question.
Yeah I mean come climb is the biggest one I mean we're going to be completely
driven on on feedback back.
So, I mean, just coming over to climb and sharing your experience with us is,

(48:52):
is what we're most after right now.
And so we can really, you know, tailor this experience to the community.
Cause I mean, what I, what I came from at Flowstone and what people here might
want, you know, are two different things.
So I kind of had a foundation that's here now, but yeah, I don't want to run a gym. That's my gym.

(49:13):
I want to run a gym that the community wants. so if you know they want faster
turnover of you know problems or setting we'll do that if they want you know
a coffee station in the back when they're hanging out in the lounge we'll do
that if they want you know anything anything that's feedback you know even feedback on the furniture.

(49:34):
Everything i think you have the most bougie furniture out of
all the gyms i'm gonna say this now like everyone
who's like watching this video right now none of this furniture
was provided it by me it's all
customarily built or purchased by block
yeah i'm surprised did you build
any of the furniture in here or you buy it all yeah yeah we
bought it okay i was curious because if you were like yeah i built every

(49:56):
piece i'm like that's it mic drop yeah i
think like piggybacking on that too is because we are independently
owned and you know we're
the ones here doing it like we have so so much power to just change something
so getting that feedback you know we are able to change things if people want
things differently we're able to take that into consideration and do something

(50:18):
about it because it's just us you know we don't have to go through other people
to try and make changes and which kind of you know makes it nice too,
Where can people put that feedback? I mean, I'm sure they can tell you,
but do you have like a message board on your website?
Just leave it on social media just so they can provide this feedback and you

(50:39):
can track it over time to make the best decisions. How can they get this to you?
Yeah, we are trying to get our working with approach for our gym software and they have forms.
We're working with them. I'm supposed to have a meeting with them,
I think, tomorrow. tomorrow
so we'll have like emails going out that are generic feedback emails we also
post on our instagram stories like i'll ask questions all the time like there's

(51:03):
a green problem over here on the comptown side that josh and i were like well
we're trying to fill here and we can't,
fill around this because you know fall fall hazard type of thing because it's
pretty like you know large holds so i just posted i was like what should we
do with this once we strip it and and put four new ones up in its place?

(51:23):
Should we leave it here? Does everyone have a phone on it? Or should we just
tweak it a little bit to make it, you know, so we can fill around it and devote
one to tweak it and make us fill around it? So that's what we did.
So yeah, social media, telling us in person when those forms come out, you know, we'll do that.
We'll probably even just do the old school, put a comment box on the wall over

(51:43):
here, leave us a comment so people can leave something anonymously.
But yeah, everything. I mean, we love all the feedback and people have been
giving it to us. we've got sauna's not hot enough that's a big one so we're
already working on sourcing a new sauna that's a little bit better than the one we got.
What else? What's the other big one? More down climb. Oh yeah,

(52:03):
more down climb jugs. No, I could see that.
Yeah. No, people get, people get sketched out. Yeah. Yeah.
Yeah. Our initial holds inventory, I was so annoyed by, I was so annoyed by
how much of our initial holds inventory we had to spend on down climb jugs and
we still don't have anywhere near enough. We need like double.
I was curious if this was a lot more of Skylar's vision than it was yours,

(52:28):
but I'm very happy to know that like this is
really a joint project between you because the climbing industry is very
male dominated industry it's like it's just
like my podcast most podcasts are men just blah
blah blah on a microphone so i'm focusing on this moving in 2024 i'm focusing
on like predominantly trying to interview women i just finished interviewing
this woman kamei who is a climber and a doula and we talked about like the intersection

(52:54):
between birthing and climbing Timing and this,
and I like, I'll be honest with you, my brain was almost exploding because I
was like, I don't know anything about this and I don't know anything, anything about that.
But getting back to you, I think it's, I'm very happy to know that like,
this is a team effort and this is something, this is important because I feel sometimes,

(53:16):
and like, don't take this the wrong way when I say this, but I feel like sometimes
a lot of partners are just content with just going along for the ride.
Instead of like driving the bus because you know I don't care who you are man,
woman, whatever you identify as like sometimes you just need someone else to
drive the bus and I've met partners who are like.

(53:37):
Are extremely hesitant of it or they're just like, well, this is,
it's not what I want to do.
So, yeah, no, like I said before, you know, I, I've gotten to live my passion
and, and I didn't quit teaching because of this.
Like I, I was kind of in a place with teaching where I just wasn't,
it wasn't really feeling like my passion anymore.
And so it's been cool to, to let him to kind of sit in the passenger seat now

(54:00):
and let him sort of drive a little bit and And let him, you know,
live out his passion and something that, you know, wasn't necessarily my dream,
but has become a dream of mine, I guess.
You know, just doing it alongside with him. So, it was something that he dreamed
up, but now I get to, you know, live that dream with him.

(54:20):
And now I have all these ideas in my head of like, okay, now here's what I can do here.
Like being a, you know, being a former teacher, I'm like, oh,
the teacher in me comes out every time I'm here where people,
you know, ask for help. And I'm like, oh, I can help you because I love,
you know, being able to serve people and, you know, I'm big on community.
I started a walking group here in Fort Worth. Oh, that's cool.

(54:41):
Do you guys start from here? Years ago?
No, we actually, we walk along the river and we do it during the summer.
So we're off season right now, but it was just like something I started because
I wanted to make friends and I wanted to give a place for women to be able to
make friends and have a safe space to walk because, you know,
not every woman feels safe walking alone.
And so we, you know, go for a walk and then have happy hour after and we meet every week.

(55:06):
So now I'm like, okay, how can I turn that into something with climbing too?
Like having a, you know, taking that walking group and inviting them to all
come climb and we've done, you know, yoga and stuff like that.
So now I'm like stirring with all these ideas of things that I can do within
this space that can help.
You know, that I can be passionate about too, besides just the gym. Yeah. That makes sense.

(55:28):
Yeah. I think one of the things when you told me you were a teacher,
I think, you know, I mean, I don't know if this applies, but every one I've
ever met who's a teacher has gotten into that.
I think one of the biggest struggles in climbing, especially with youth programs
or any kind of like organization is the programming.
And I find that like a lot of people, and it sounds just listening to you,

(55:50):
it's you guys have this structured out, like it's obvious but
i feel like a lot of gyms when they open they're just like we're gonna do this
thing we're gonna do this thing and they're just like throwing spaghetti at the
wall and seeing what sticks and you know that to me and storm norm perform like
it will work but it just it's kind of chaos and especially coming from a coach

(56:15):
especially with children especially with,
you know young adults or things like that structure works really well and it
doesn't It doesn't have to be crazy.
And I could just hear that like, okay, you guys have this plan.
And so I think I'm excited to see what kind of programming you're gonna help
bring and you're gonna help like make through this whole thing.
So outside of being here in Fort Worth, where can people find you online?

(56:40):
Our website, theblockclimbing.com, B-L-O-K.
Already regretting the name choice because I thought the block's easy enough.
I just said no C in block and then they go, hmm? And then it, yeah.
But yeah, our Instagram, Facebook, theblockclimbing. TikTok.
TikTok, we have block beta files.
Okay. So we're posting like beta tips for the problems in here on that, but we're not.

(57:06):
Do have the TikTok, but we haven't posted on there. As long as you're there.
It's funny, when you said the block, I thought it was an ingenious name because
in Europe, that's what they call bouldering. Like, oh yeah, I'm going to go climb some blocks.
And I'm like, oh, that's fine. And I was waiting for you guys to have like a
Swiss accent when I got in here.
Yeah, someone yesterday was like, this started in Europe, right?

(57:27):
And I was like, right, right, forward.
No, I mean, that's like literally, I thought that same thing.
And I was like, oh, these guys must be from like Wales or somewhere like London
or like somewhere in the UK.
Hey because that's very euro of you yeah it's
my mind yeah we actually had
these this couple come in that was doing this low-cost travel
around the world and they're from austria and they were

(57:50):
stopping like every climbing gym they could so like
they were in japan and in south korea and thailand
and then they came to the states and they went to
like california and just doing the whole thing and they happened to choose us
and it was we weren't even open to the public yet
we were were still like members only it was like three days after we
opened they showed up and i think they showed

(58:10):
up because they were like looking at gyms in the area or whatever and being
austrian they used the uma over the o all the
time so they thought you know maybe they would find
you know some people that you know
yeah some fellow europeans that they might
be able to like chat with for a while and they were they were like
they were a great amazing couple yeah they were

(58:31):
are really cool yeah so the ew are
you uh are you from austria apparently it's an ew i did not know what the umlaut
over is yeah yeah so the block the block you should just say it that way from
now on i stole it from i stole it from motley crew and motorhead so i just put
a metal umlaut over the ew.

(58:52):
Music.