CWA Blog Archive-Cultivating Space 10 Steps To Create And Maintain Cultural Relevancy

Cultivating Space 10 Steps To Create And Maintain Cultural Relevancy

Pdf Summary

This article, written by Elyse Rylander (she/her), offers guidance on cultivating inclusive gym spaces, opening with a disarming confession that she doesn't consider herself a climber, then establishing her relevant expertise. She shares her background: born on Sauk, Meskwaki, Miami, and Ho-Chunk ancestral land (Southern Wisconsin), she took her first canoe trip down the Wisconsin River at four weeks old, and spent all her summers and winters outside canoeing, kayaking, camping, or downhill skiing with family. In 2006 she started working as an outdoor educator and then paddle sport retail associate, then moved to Alutiiq ancestral land (Valdez, Alaska) where she guided sea kayaking and camping trips in summers and worked at a climbing gym on Suquamish and Duwamish ancestral land (the text continues into her expertise and the ten steps for cultural relevancy). Notably, Rylander consistently names the Indigenous ancestral lands where she has lived and worked, modeling a practice of land acknowledgment that reflects the article's inclusivity focus. The throughline is that creating and maintaining culturally relevant, inclusive gym spaces is a learnable practice with concrete steps, and that expertise in inclusion and outdoor education, even from someone who doesn't identify primarily as a climber, offers the climbing industry valuable guidance. Rylander's self-introduction establishes both humility (openly stating she's not a climber) and genuine authority (a lifelong outdoors background, years as an outdoor educator, guide, and gym worker, and evident expertise in inclusive space-making). Her deliberate naming of the Indigenous ancestral lands throughout her personal history, Sauk, Meskwaki, Miami, Ho-Chunk, Alutiiq, Suquamish, Duwamish, itself demonstrates a key inclusivity practice, honoring the original stewards of the land. By promising ten steps to create and maintain cultural relevancy, the article frames inclusive space-making as an intentional, ongoing, actionable process rather than a vague aspiration. For operators, it argues that cultivating culturally relevant gym spaces is both important and achievable through deliberate steps, and that valuable expertise on inclusion can come from beyond the traditional climbing world, inviting the industry to learn from practitioners like Rylander who bring deep experience in inclusive outdoor education to the work of making climbing gyms genuinely welcoming and culturally relevant spaces.

Asset Caption

This piece by Elyse Rylander offers ten steps for cultivating inclusive, culturally relevant gym spaces. Introducing herself as an outdoor educator who doesn't primarily identify as a climber, she brings genuine inclusion expertise, and models land acknowledgment by naming the Indigenous ancestral lands throughout her history, framing inclusive space-making as an intentional, actionable, ongoing practice.