Ok, admission time…
As a ninja obsessed little half Japanese kid, I actually somehow convinced my usually quite wary parents to get me some of these out of some craptastic “martial arts” catalog some time back in the 80’s…
And yeah, you can really climb trees with these. Two bits of advice: 1) Put dry sponges or some other kind of padding on the back of these things (on the part that goes across the back of your hand) because metal/skin contact is not fun when it’s supporting your weight. Also 2) it’s a lot easier to go up than down with these things. Learned that at camp from a pretty tall redwood tree…
