I would STRONGLY recommend AGAINST bouldering to start, because of the HIGH likelihood of injury from falling. If you are not used to taking impacts from jumpi

I would STRONGLY recommend AGAINST bouldering to start, because of the HIGH likelihood of injury from falling. If you are not used to taking impacts from jumping from high places (e.g., typical sedentary person), you will almost certainly sustain a severe injury. Broken and dislocated ankles and ligament ruptures are alarmingly common. Dislocations are especially bad, because the ankle's blood supply isn't great to begin with, so a severe dislocation is like yanking a plug out of the wall; if the blood supply doesn't happen to get re-established (which even microsurgery can't do anything about), you are looking at avascular necrosis. Imagine a dead coral reef crumbling away. It's even worse in climbing shoes because your toes are crammed together -- imagine landing on your fist. Rock-climbing (roped) gives your feet and ankles time to strengthen as you support your weight on tiny toe-holds, which is a slow process because ligaments and tendons have poor blood supplies compared to muscles. Looking at elite climbers bouldering is like looking at elite gymnasts -- you don't see all the ones who got seriously injured along the way. You see them taking 20-foot highball drops and think, how bad can 10 feet be? Or 5 feet? Even a drop of a few feet can result in a severe injury if your foot isn't flat; when you are jumping off backward onto a lumpy bouldering pad, if your foot lands inverted slightly, the impact can force it inward 90 degrees. This probably happens twice a week at popular climbing gyms with bouldering areas.