Show Notes:

Bennett’s Links:

• Bennett’s Instagram @bennettrahn
• Website: https://bennettrahnart.weebly.com/

Episode Intro:

Happy Wednesday everybody. Welcome back to the Female Guides Requested Podcast. I’m your host Ting Ting and today our guest is Bennett Rahn. Bennett is full of positive energy and her laugh always lightens up my mood. This summer I traveled up to Pacific Northwest,near her home base in Seattle,so of course I took this chance to interview her.

Bennett Rahn is a plus size outdoor athlete and has be very active on snow, rock, and water. Years ago she started sharing, on social media, the ups and downs, difficulties and triumphs she had experienced due to her body image. Her genuine stories resonated with many people and she has become a force for awareness and change in the outdoor community. In order to nurture the affinity space for women and plus size people, she became an AMGA Single Pitch Instructor to share her love of climbing and in her words to foster more “break throughs” for anybody performing on rock.

We talked about her accidental path to an influencer and how she leveraged that to speak for the plus size community. We also talked about her path to guiding from being a middle school teacher and a software engineer. I learned many tips from Bennett on how to coach plus size climbers and ways to promote this podcast on social media too! Now let’s dive into this episode and if you like this show, don’t forget to share it with your family and friends!

Things We Talked about:

• Bennett’s different jobs and why she is doing what is doing now
• Bennett’s path to an influencer
• What does “fat” mean to you? Is fat people less healthy? Why do fat people have to experience trauma in an athletic space?
• What’s plus size? And what’s the size of the average woman in the US?
• Bennett is perhaps the first(?) plus size climbing guide.
• Why is fostering affinity space important?
• How to coach plus size people? What are their strengths on rock? How to choose appropriate routes for them?
• Should we post on social media as a guide?
• What does that mean by being an influencer? and what does an influence make an impact in the outdoor world?
• … and more