“At 7, after climbing a few routes during a competition, I plopped down into “my mom’s” lap and began talking. Moments later, I realized that it wasn’t my mom. I was surprised and paused for a few seconds..... then resumed my conversation with the lady. When I finished talking, I hopped up and returned to climbing. Towards the end of the competition, the lady came up to my mom and I, identified herself as climbing coach Emily Taylor, and expressed an interest in working with me to help me develop as a climber. Instead of seeing a rambunctious, ADHD kid, she saw a strong young climber with lots of energy and potential.
For years I travelled from my home in North Carolina to meet with Emily in Atlanta, GA. Each time we’d train 3-4 hours a day, across 3 day weekends. During our training sessions, she’d teach me different technical skills and helped me learn how to climb more efficiently. I always left our coaching weekends with very detailed plans outlining drills and climbing routines to execute each training session until our next visit.
Through years of intense training, Emily taught me how to climb. My efficient climbing style, “special” drop knee moves, and how to rest on virtually any hold, are all of Emily Taylor. The “lady” who didn’t toss the random kid off of her lap, and instead embraced and helped me.” ”

“Coach Emily is ground breaking, foundation shaking, and awe inspiring. She has so much ground breaking history under her climbing harness and readily shares it so others may benefit from her knowledge. For me personally, she analyzes my foundation and shakes it to make me a better climber and overall person. All the tools and knowledge she has put together to serve other people’s path is truly awe inspiring. Working with her has been one of the best decisions of my climbing career, if not my overall mental health.

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““Emily was my children’s climbing coach for many years. I can’t say enough positive things about her! First, she’s extremely proficient in the sport of climbing and teaches her students everything they need to know skill-wise, safety-wise, etc. More importantly, in my opinion, Emily is a superb coach in terms of child development, and teaching less tangible (but critical) things like taking responsibility for oneself, setting and achieving goals, challenging oneself, communicating and advocating for oneself, persistence in the face of obstacles, etc. I have often teased Emily that she must have been a psychologist in a past life, because she so quickly understood my very different children and how to motivate them and not just make them better climbers, but make them better people. You simply can’t find a better climbing coach than Emily Taylor.” ”

““Emily has impacted the life’s of my family forever! I do not know how she is were to go from morning till night with that much positive energy. It is truly amazing! My kids are very excited about every opportunity to further their growth in life and climbing.” ”

““Emily is the best instructor/coach to have ever worked with my children. She took the time to learn their personalities and used this information to push them to their limits, not only initializing/advancing their climbing skills, but also in life skills: personal discipline, striving to do their best, sharing and fairness. They started with no baseline knowledge of climbing and are now confident, agile, safe climbers, in addition to being better people for having worked with her.” ”