Living on the fifth ring road in Beijing, the nearest climbing gym is an hour one way. Every day after work, taking the subway for two hours of climbing, then the subway back, showering, and it's almost midnight before bed. After half a year of this, I finally admitted a truth: my passion for climbing was being slowly worn down by commuting.
It wasn’t that I loved climbing less. It was that life was too exhausting.
During that time, I watched a lot of climbing videos online and noticed a fascinating pattern: in many top climbers' homes, a simple wooden board was mounted on a doorframe. Some even had a makeshift training rig made of two wooden slats in their rental apartment hallway. Not all of them lived in city centers, not all could go to the gym or crags every day, but they all found a way – bring the training home.
I tried it too. If I nailed a hangboard into my living room wall, would my landlord freak out? If I hung a portable one on the doorframe, would I warp the frame? After two weeks of indecision, I bought a modular hangboard that could be mounted on a pull-up bar stand. The stand sat on my balcony, and when not in use, I could disassemble it and stash it in the closet. The first time I set it up, I stood in front of it, like standing before a gateway to a new world.
Then I discovered a problem: training at home, the hardest part wasn’t the hangboard itself, but overcoming the "relaxation vibe of home." Coming back from work, collapsing on the sofa, the cat rubbing against my leg, drinks in the fridge, variety shows on TV – every cell in my body was telling me to relax, but I had to force myself to stand up, grab those cold slots, and lift my feet off the ground. The first week, I would hang for three seconds and want to come down. Not because my fingers couldn't take it, but because my brain wasn't cooperating. It was saying: you're at home, why are you working so hard at home?
But I persisted. The method was simple: schedule the hangboard training as the first action after getting home from work. Enter the door, put down my bag, don't pause, go straight to the balcony, and complete today's training. Five minutes, ten minutes, no matter how tired, do this first. Gradually, it became the most precious five minutes of my day – a strange ritual of transition: switching from "work mode" to "self mode." The moment I grab the hangboard and lift my feet, the day's meetings, emails, deadlines become distant and blurry. My world shrinks to just my fingers, the board, and gravity.
A deeper change happened on weekends. Before, if I wanted to go outdoor climbing on a weekend, I'd have to calculate: two hours driving, half an hour hiking, four hours climbing, then two hours driving back. I'd come home feeling completely drained. But now, because I'd been maintaining my finger condition with the hangboard during the week, weekend outdoor climbing became much more relaxed. I no longer needed to spend a lot of time at the gym just to get my feel back. I could go directly to enjoy the real rocks and scenery. The hangboard helped me remove "maintaining finger condition" from the must-do-at-the-gym list, freeing up my limited weekend time for what truly matters – going outdoors, visiting different crags, experiencing real stone.
I even started enjoying rainy days. Before, rain meant no climbing. Now, rainy days were my perfect excuse to stay home and spar with my hangboard. Make a cup of tea, put on some music, slowly do a few sets of hangs, attempt that small hold I'd always been afraid of, or do some slow lock-off exercises on the board. It didn't feel like training, more like playing a chess game with myself, every move worth contemplating.
I moved later. My new home still doesn’t have a climbing gym nearby, but my balcony still holds that hangboard. It’s no longer just a training tool. It’s an anchor in this sprawling city. No matter how late I work, no matter how crowded the subway, no matter how frustrated I felt climbing at the gym that day, I come home knowing the board is there. It won't rush me, won't judge me. It just waits for me to get on it, hold on, hang in the air for a moment, then lightly step back down to the ground.
It’s not easy being a climber in a big city. Gyms are far, outdoor crags are even farther, time is shattered by work and daily life. But a small hangboard taught me: distance is never the problem. The problem is whether you can create a corner in your own space where you can look up.