Really hot shirtless men...

Or the rise of indoor bouldering centers. Well, I definitively shouldn't complain that much about the journalist using that line when portraying bouldering centers as "a place for the single girl" given that it's full of sweaty muscular men as I've used it myself everytime I try to convince a female friend to come with me(although most of them came during the winter and given that there were no shirtless guys around,none of them repeated :(; although I guess that the soreness in their arms the week after and the fact that none of them are really the sporty type, also counts). Anyway, I am glad bouldering made it yesterday to the cover of the Guardian.

Although it's not exactly like they portrait it either. Bouldering is not just an alternative to the gym, bouldering is a  wonderful sport on its own(or a training method for sport climbing). It has a mixture between gymnastics moves and a kind of vertical dance(or hanging from a roof if your arms and fingers can deal with it). But contrary to common opinion, it's not actually about strength(ok, other than for overhangs and roof sections), it's all about balance and good feet placement(like dancing, I guess, although I can't dance at all and I can boulder a bit :) ). I am sure I have already said it here but it's got the perfect mixture of accomplishment and frustration: there is always plenty of stuff you can do, some of it very easily and most often than not with plenty of sweat and some falls. But, there will be ALWAYS(unless your surname is Sharma, Ondra, Andrada or you are friends with them) something you can't. Some routes you'll fall over and over and that will take you two or three visits to the place to finish and when you do, you'll feel the thrill, the accomplishment, for a fraction of a second, and then will go onto another problem and start all over again :). It has a, I'm using a metaphore here!, soul cleansing effect that can only be compared with running at least 10 miles :) (and you can certainly do both regularly, although running is cheaper).

And yes, ladies, there are plenty of really symmetric men without a t-shirt around.