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On belay? Belay on.
Live. Climb. Live to tell about it.
The other night I had one of the worst climbing days I’ve ever had. My partner was great: patient, but gently mocking, and also a total headcase. But I could not get my head in the right place to lead. The sewing-machine leg phenomenon that occurs when I get scared and tired on the wall was in rare form. My belayer started calling me “Elvis.” I couldn’t finish clipping a route that I can normally dance right up. I over-gripped every hold so hard that when it was my turn to belay, I couldn’t actually close by brake hand around the rope. It had turned into this weird, numb claw. I couldn’t calm down enough to get comfortable belaying and kept short-roping my poor, poor partner. I gave up. Not climbing, not forever, but for the night. I was so far off my game that I wasn’t even in the right arena to play.
The closest thing I can relate that experience to is surfing. I remember there being days, every once in a great while, where things got “sharky,” and I couldn’t get over it and I had to paddle in and go home. “Sharkiness” doesn’t mean that there are sharks right that second, but it also doesn’t mean that being freaked out every time a hand or foot dips in the water isn’t pretty rational. The fear is about something completely rational. I’ve seen some big sharks. My favorite surf breaks are pretty much littered with things that bite. It’s a real concern. Sharkiness is more the experience that every single thing that could go wrong gets stuck in your head and you can’t shake it and it snowballs. The sheer volume of fear is irrational. All of a sudden, every bit of rationality leaks out of your pores and all of the things that you have trained yourself to handle, every potential risk that you are completely capable of dealing with and mitigating, take over and then even the pathetic-ness of your inability to get yourself calm buries you. I’ve come pretty close to drowning a few times, and I had to take a few months off of surfing after an especially bad experience in Costa Rica. My sharky days, surfing, usually involve not being able to handle shorebreak washing over my head as I paddle out.
My sharky climbing days are worse than that. I left the gym that night so out of sorts that I dropped my phone in the parking lot, slammed my head in the car door, and cursed the entire way home stopping only when I opened a beer. Then I thought. I have some pretty good reasons to be off my climbing game. For me, right now, the pressure is on, and climbing is not the least of it.
In early June, I will be moving to Colorado. I do not have a job there. I do not have an apartment. I do not have an amount of money saved up that will provide much cushion. I am leaving a job and community that provide me security in a number of ways and where I know I matter. I am leaving my nephew who is at an age that I desperately want to be there for, my father whose health is a constant concern, my great-grandmother who I will almost certainly not see again, friends and family who love me and who I love, and a house that I actually own. On the way to Colorado, I will be going on an amazing road trip touring the climbing areas of the Souteastern US. I will be the most experienced person on the trip and I can’t help but feel a huge responsibility for my friends’ safety.
So I’m feeling sharky. To switch back to climbing metaphors, I’ve spent the last few years reading this route for my life, I’ve put up the draws, I’ve clipped the rope and now I’m at the anchors. The way up was not as it was described in the guide book. There were bolts where I didn’t expect them to be that provided rest and relief, and there were run out stretches where there should have been protection. I’ve got to go back down and clean the very things I put in place to protect me. The only thing I can do is anchor in and go off belay. This is the step where the only thing protecting me is my own knowledge. At least briefly, all my belayer can do is watch and wait.
Thinking it through with my beer that night, I went through each little fear and disappointment and I did not go to bed clear-headed. But, sharky or not, I’m going to have to do what needs to be done, and I will. I will dive under the water. I will rappel and collect my gear. The landing might be a little rough, but I’ll land with my feet on the ground.
I will be updating from the road. I did buy a helmet, so there is that.
You thought I gave up on this, didn’t you? Nope! I will definitely be moving to Wordpress soon, though, so I’ll keep you posted.
A quick update and some teasers:
I now spend all my time at my local rock gym… working. I won’t be talking about that much because that wouldn’t be terribly professional. I learned to lead at Obed, TN. Went to my first competition at Hound Ears, NC, for the Triple Crown Bouldering event.
I started making chalk bags! It’s really, really demanding on my time, patience, and BAC (sewing and drinking are inextricably related activities in my world, okay?). Yes, I technically have an online store. No, I don’t actually have anything up for sale because after I spend 30+ hours sewing and crocheting, I have no patience left for editing photos and posting descriptions.
I’m pretty well entrenched in my job, but I am applying to graduate school for sometime in the murky, unforseeable future. My thesis project will almost definitely have something to do with rock climbing.
I have learned a LOT about gear, shoes, and climbers, and have some reviews and opinions to share. No longer am I the superN00B, but the more climbing takes over my life the more I have to learn. I’m super lazy about taking and editing video, so don’t expect much in that department, but I’ll include photos in my new posts!
In the meantime, go climb. It’s not that cold yet.
tumblrbot asked: WHERE WOULD YOU MOST LIKE TO VISIT ON YOUR PLANET?
Right now, Hawaii. I usually travel to more exotic places, but the combination of surfing, climbing and mountain biking is prettyy awesome. Lately it seems like the universe is gently nudging me to apply to grad school in Hawaii.
I understand that in Blog World, when a writer takes a break, especially an unannounced one, he/she risks losing readers because the internet attention span is… awful. So to my readers: I’M SORRY! I don’t feel I have to explain everything, but I graduated from college, had my hopes dashed and then frantically looked for work. Tumblr wasn’t high on my priority list. That doesn’t mean that I haven’t had material. I’ve learned plenty about tendon injuries and assessing my abilities. I got hired at my home gym and went on my first outdoor climbing trip. I finally went surfing again, sort of, and spent some time pondering the similarities between rock and water, spiritually and molecularly. That’s a lot of stuff to write about. Today, I first want to thank Brian Hollinger for inspiring this post and providing good information (and being a fun person to talk to at the gym)!
I have some feelings about the benefits of being open to being wrong and I am cocky enough to think other people, particularly new climbers, could gain something by adopting a similar attitude. Teaser: I’m wrong a lot!
In the previous post (with the video) I referred to different tactics in finishing a climbing problem. Some people are more impressed with themselves when they send a project on the first try. While it’s exciting and satisfying to be really good at something, I feel like if a route is that easy for me then I’m not learning anything new.
The video I posted is of me working on a route that I have since finished twice. I was more excited each time I made it one move further than the last attempt than I was when i finally finished it.
Maybe this is just a reflection of individual attidtudes. If it is, though, I think climbing brings this out of people more than a lot of other sports do. All sports require patience, but progress is not always marked so clearly on an actual, literal wall.
A lot of serious climbers spend a lot of time working on a project. This is most clearly demonstrated in “First Ascents,” or the first documented finish of a particular climbing route. It can take a lot of time and exploration to know any particular wall well enough to find the way to the top.
The website for Climberism magazine has an entire secction dedicated to first ascents, http://www.climberism.com/category/first-ascents/ . For me, sending a route after having worked on it for weeks has at least an echo of that feeling of exploration.
Flashing something is like taking the shortcut instead of the long way. It all depends on how you want to get there, and the reason you’re doing it in the first place.
