Every Body Climbs | Melissa Ruiz on Training with a Neurological Disorder

With her long purple braids swinging backwards, Melissa Ruiz hangs onto a large pink hold on an overhang. She’s half way up the IFSC competition climb holding on with her left arm while dipping her right hand into her chalk bag.
Image credit: @ifsclimbing

Wearing a purple tank top to match her purple braids, Melissa looks over her shoulder, grinning as she climbs up silver/gray blocky rock. She's heel-hooking, a move that "used to be impossible for her," she says.

Today's episode, which comes to us from Every Body Climbs, features Melissa Ruiz. Melissa has been climbing and competing for about 6 years. She’s got a collection of medals to her name, including five gold, from national and world paraclimbing championships/cups. 

But recently she's started climbing outside, and to put it lightly, she is stoked. So, this October (2024) she'll be teaching an aid climbing workshop at the Adaptive Climbers Fest in the Red River Gorge. Aid climbing is part of how Melissa has been able to access outdoor climbing with her disability, which is cerebral palsy. We pick up the conversation as she's explaining her condition and throughout the episode we talk about the importance of core strength, the joy of outdoor climbing, and what grades really mean.

---

Every Body Climbs (EBC) is a collaborative podcast bringing you interviews with para and adaptive climbers. These profiles can be heard on The Power Company Podcast and Sends and Suffers. Content about festivals, engagement projects and other modes of community building air on Sends and Suffers, while training and nutrition focused interviews can be heard on The Power Company Podcast. Host, Emily Chen-Newton is a freelance adaptive sports reporter working in both print and broadcast. Living with a chronic medical condition herself, her journalism centers athletes, not their disabilities. When she’s not reporting, she’s rock climbing with her husband and their two cats.

EXPLORE FURTHER

You might enjoy these related articles, episodes, and other resources:

More episodes of Every Body Climbs

More episodes of Sends and Suffers

Maureen Beck | Adapting

Justin Salas | Nonsighting

REWIND | Craig DeMartino on Making Hard Decisions and Using Limitations

SUPPORT + CONNECT

Help us keep the show sponsor-free when you join our Patreon Community for as little as $3.

Get two or more bonus episodes every month on Patreon, Spotify, or Apple.

Subscribe to THE CURRENT and get a monthly exploration of how we can all become better climbers.

Share this episode with a friend who needs to hear it.

LISTEN ON YOUR PODCAST APP OF CHOICE

We’re a proud founding member of the Plug Tone Audio Collective, a group of the best, most impactful podcasts in the outdoor industry.