Climbing is increasingly surrounded by grades, data, analytics, training programmes and performance metrics.

These workshops offer a different way of approaching climbing.

Rather than beginning with performance and measurement, we begin with experience:

What does movement feel like?
What does the rock ask of the body?
What changes when attention shifts?
How does movement emerge between body and surface?

WHEN PERCEPTION CHANGES, MOVEMENT CHANGES.
AND WHEN MOVEMENT CHANGES, CLIMBING CHANGES.

Half-day workshops · Ariège · Indoor & outdoor

with Dr Andy Whall

What is Bouldering Phenomenology?

These workshops use bouldering as a starting point for exploring embodied perception — how we experience the world through movement, touch, balance, weight and attention.

Rather than beginning with grades, training plans or technical analysis, we explore what it feels like to move across rock and climbing walls: how the body responds to surface, gravity, texture, space and landscape.

The aim is to develop a more attentive relationship between body, movement and environment.

What will you experience?

• Move differently
• Explore balance, weight, rhythm and flow.
• Feel the rock
• Develop sensitivity to contact, texture and surface.
• Perceive movement differently
• Explore how attention changes the way the body moves.
• Explore landscape
• Experience bouldering as a relationship between body, rock and place.
• Think creatively
• Connect movement with ideas from art, phenomenology, materiality and landscape.
• Discover new possibilities
• Allow movement to become more fluid, responsive and intuitive.

 

photos by Cat Gibbard

Beyond performance

There is no single way to experience a climb.

Sometimes changing the way we pay attention can change the way we move.

These workshops create space to slow down, notice, experiment and respond — allowing movement to emerge through the relationship between body, rock and environment.

The emphasis is on experience rather than optimisation.

The workshops emerge from my practice as an artist and researcher interested in embodiment, landscape, materiality and perception. Bouldering provides a particularly direct way of investigating these questions because the body is simultaneously moving, sensing, negotiating and responding.

The workshops move between physical exploration and reflection, drawing on ideas from contemporary visual culture, phenomenology and embodied practice.

The intention is not to turn climbing into an art exercise, but to use movement as a way of becoming more attentive to our relationship with the world around us.

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The Landscape

The Ariège boulder fields offer a particularly rich environment for this exploration.

Rock, weather, vegetation, terrain, light and gravity all become part of the experience.

Moving through this landscape means responding not only to the shape of the boulder, but to the changing relationship between body, surface and place.

 

From climbing to contemporary practice

The workshops emerge from my practice as an artist and researcher interested in embodiment, landscape, materiality and perception.

Bouldering provides a particularly direct way of investigating these questions because the body is simultaneously moving, sensing, negotiating and responding.

The workshops can therefore move between physical exploration and reflection, drawing on ideas from contemporary visual culture, phenomenology and embodied practice.

Workshops

Half-day sessions — morning or afternoon

Location:
Weather permitting: Laramade
or Salle d’escalade Belcaire — Espace Daniel du Lac

Suitable for:
Climbers, artists, movers and curious bodies.

Levels:
All levels

Dates:
Contact me for upcoming dates and availability.

Booking:
andrewwhall@mac.com
andywhall.com

 

Reviews;

Verena Van Den Berg; In short I would say for me the idea of using the technique of bouldering, experiencing the stone against my body and also being in the landscape by Zennor is a rich inspiration for work – it has a lot of elements that interest me (interaction body landscape, natural surfaces). The workshop was instructed well – finding a balance between challenge and ease. The whole things felt comfortable – being out there in the beautiful scenery with a small group of people yet getting along together. 

Cat Davies; Inspirational, instructive, engaging, challenging and fun, a really great couple of days!