The Second Ladder

Yesterday I went for the Skytrex Adventure in Shah Alam with a  bunch of people from my company as one of our many 'Smoke Signal's. There were about 20 of us, and we all signed up for the hardest obstacle course, the Extreme Challenge.

What's a Skytrex Adventure?

If you don't know what a Skytrex Adventure is, it's basically a circuit of obstacle courses that you do high up in the air. These circuits range from 'Little Adventure', which is a mini circuit for kids, to 'Big Thrill' (17 metres high), and to the 'Extreme Challenge' that's 22 metres high. And of course, us being the adventurous people we are, and despite the fact that most of us had never tried Skytrex ever, we chose the Extreme Challenge. Personally, when given the choice between Big Thrill and Extreme Challenge, I thought why not just go for the most advanced. Why set yourself up for the "easy" ones when you can achieve so much more? Right?

"Don't set a minimal goal knowing you'll over deliver. Set a high goal, THEN freakin' surprise yourself when you over deliver"

THAT is what's upp.

Alright, so back to the main point I was getting to. For a good solid month, I was freaking out knowing I chose the Extreme Challenge, and that when they day would come, I will have to climb up a 22 metre ladder just to kick-start the whole circuit. You can not imagine the uncountable scenarios that played in my head just thinking about getting up that ladder.

Mostly because I know I'm overweight, there's always that fear of 

1. Being discriminated by the instructors/staff at the circuit. Believe me, it has happened before in other places, and it is the worst feeling ever. Especially when people you work with or your friends are seeing it.
2. Blacking out and just falling off, then everyone would be like, "Expected".
3. Not being able to do the course at all because of the weight limit, and having to wait by the sidelines while everyone else completed it.

So yeah, I guess I did a bit too much thinking on that particular worry of mine :P
Just can't help it some times.

So in the end, everything seemed to have went well!

• No discrimination, yet a ton of support from the instructors & my colleagues, which I appreciate so much. 
• Got a special harness to support my weight, and all was good. 
• It was a teeny bit tiring climbing up that ladder, but because it was the very first obstacle so I had a whole lot of energy to conquer it. Thanks to the instructor waiting on top of that tree, I learnt that in order to save your energy while climbing, you've got to use your legs to push yourself up instead of your arms.

Reaching the top was an achievement, rewarded with a cooling ride on the flying fox above the trees, I strolled on to the next obstacle. The next bunch of obstacles were pretty much the most energy draining of the whole 2 hour course. But as draining as it was, I was surprised I went through them pretty well.

Just when I thought I was a champion, and nothing could stop me.

The Second ladder entered the scene.

I took quite a long rest before I attempted that second ladder because my arms were all wobbly from the balancing obstacles. Once I THOUGHT I felt better, I made my way up. Half way up, I could feel my arms dying on me, because I had to pull my weight, every step of the way, and I just got weaker and weaker. I couldn't stand it, the gloves I was wear were slipping off of my hands, and I felt like I was going to fall off backwards. The only thing I could think of was to hug on the ladder as hard as I could.

As I was hugging on to the ladder, I could feel my arms getting scratched on several places by the cords that were lifting me,  as I slid them through the ladder holes. I could hear the annoying instructor screaming at me from below, like some army sergeant asking me to just push myself up. Somehow, all my other colleagues were suddenly also shouting at me giving me support.

You know how in movies

When someone's about to fall off a building and die, then suddenly hears support from their loved ones, suddenly he gets like extra powers to pull himself up? That didn't happen to me. NOPE. I just kept feeling my arms slipping off the ladder, the pain was so excruciating that if I even tried moving up another step, I would've just fallen off like an idiot.

I would be lying if I said I wasn't hoping to be rescued. Because all I did was wait. But noooooooo, no one did anything but scream & shout telling me "You can do it, Aqila!".  I was literally in tears, and thought to myself, "WTF, I have no other choice". I just kicked the ladder to push myself, and felt myself go up one step after another as I witnessed my arms dying and screaming at me from the inside. 

At that moment, I just knew my arms and I were never going to be friends after

Somehow, just SOMEHOW I made it up there. The minute I settled myself up on that platform, I just burst in tears like a little baby. Just had to cry out all that stupidity of self-doubt, and giving up too fast, and mainly because my arms felt like they weren't there anymore!

So yeah.

Wow, typical me. Wanting to document a thought, and it ends up being a friggin' long essay. I guess I just felt the need to jot this experience down, because all my life I've heard stories from people sharing their experiences of going though something that made them feel so low that they would never in a million years be able to do or survive, and somehow have this paradigm shift, and viola! they're there. They made it. I've always wondered how that felt. 

It's like, once you've gone through it, you keep thinking back trying to figure out, "How in the world did that just happen? I could actually do that? Will I be able to do that again if I tried?". Maybe I'm just over thinking it, but it's an interesting thought in my mind.

After all that, now I just feel like pushing myself to do even more crazy physical stuff just to see what else I can do.