In reply to leehawkins: Hi Lee, great to hear that you want to get into climbing.
As a general point, I'd suggest filling out a UKC profile with some basic info. The advice I'd give you will vary depending whether you are a 17 year old student with no transport or a 35 year old in full-time employment with a car.
The best place to learn to belay is at an indoor wall. I'd first try and see if anyone you meet at the bouldering wall also travels to one of the larger climbing walls. If so, see if you can tag along. Climbing indoors in a group of three is ideal for learning the basics. You can observe the other two belaying and then have one of them coach you as you practice it. Most experienced climbers will be able to teach belaying without making a complete hash of it. Once you can belay it is much easier to link up with others to climb.
Longer term, to go climbing, you will need climbing partners. The big question is therefore how you are going to meet them. There are several obvious routes for you to consider;
- via the climbing walls you visit by chatting to everyone you meet there.
- by specifically joining a local climbing club.
- by asking around where you work/study and asking all your acquaintances if they know anyone who climbs.
- by being involved with other organisations with an outdoors/sport focus.
- by meeting other climbers on courses.
- by advertising, via here on UKC or on noticeboards at climbing walls.
- by persuading/cajoling existing friends and acquaintances to also start climbing.
When it comes to climbing partners, like any friendship/relationship you need to make an effort. Don't expect people to immediately want to spend time climbing with you unless you do your best to be someone they will enjoy spending time with and have an understanding of what they want to get out of climbing with you. Equally, don't expect finding stacks of people to climb with to necessarily easy, it isn't. However, the longer you climb and the more people you meet, the easier it gets.
Finally, if you want to get instruction, I would recommend you find a least one other person in a similar situation (ideally more) and then book an instructor who is a member of the Association of Mountaineering Instructors (see
http://www.ami.org.uk ). Anyone in the UK can set themselves up as a climbing instructor but with an AMI member you are guaranteed to get top notch instruction from a professional holding the highest level qualifications and not just someone who is trying to make money out of the fact the do a bit of climbing. The standard rate for an AMI instructor is around £170 per day which especially split 4 ways is not that bad.
HTH
