Toby Apperley - 169423

I have been involved in climbing since my father started taking me to High Rocks and Harrison's at the age of four. Living in London and in those days, there being no indoor climbing walls, my father and his climbing friends used these outcrops mainly for training for North Wales, Cornwall, The Peaks amongst others. 'High' is still one of my favourite places.

My father was killed in a climbing accident when I was eight leaving my mother with four young boys, me being the oldest.

Still showing an interest, when I was fourteen I went to Plas y Brenin on a climbing course that was organised by my mother and the climbing fraternity. I regularly went climbing with my fathers friends and made my own over the years, climbing has been shared with my football activities so mainly became my summer sport and varied in it's seriousness.

Since moving to South Wales with my wife and two children, my interest became rekindled as a climbing instructors job opportunity came up at Bridgend recreation centre, I completed my CWA training with Tony Penning (09/03/2014) at Boulders in Cardiff and started work at Bridgend. I have since moved over to Boulders where I work as an instructor.

I have visited a fair amount of indoor climbing centres apart from the two above: Dynamic, Pencoed collage,Awesome walls (Liverpool), Mile end, The Castle to name a few in this country. One just outside Pau in France and the spectacular Brooklyn Boulders Chicago. I have also managed to get in a decent amount of personal climbing (Log entries may be incorrectly placed). Apart from indoor climbing I have had the opportunity to climb in various areas of the UK, recently mainly in South Wales. Just recently, on a wedding trip to Brazil I managed to squeeze in some climbing in The Chapada Diamantini national park, Bahia. A fantastic and unforgettable experience.

I have taken part in almost all the in house training available at Boulders and have been signed out on these. They include, games, warm up, movement, technique etc. I have also had some training from Simon Rawlinson aimed at coaching and culminating in completing the Foundation Coach Training course at Dynamic. This has enabled me to get more involved with NICAS and the 'Project' which is the direction I would like to take.

* Unable to upload the FCT course to this Dlog for some reason (probably me). * Please note there is a fair chunk of information missing on my Dlog. * There is also a large gap from April 19th 2015 where I suffered a rather nasty leg break (football).

Update:

For the last three years I have been working as a freelance instructor at White Spider, London. White Spider has an extensive NICAS program mainly run over the weekends that I have been heavily involved with and I have averaged twenty one hours each available weekend since September 2018. The hours that include the usual, birthday parties, beginners / intro courses, private coaching have so far not been logged to this Dlog.