Occasionally, I video myself climbing. Generally, I look like a complete dufus so this is definitely not a narcissistic endeavour. The idea, of course, is to see what you are doing wrong and correct these mistakes. Strangely enough, I generally know what I am doing wrong, but just can’t seem to change these things. Good climbers, it turns out, are really strong (much, much stronger than me) and flexible, two things I no longer am, if I ever was.
September is Sendtember in Canada where cooler temperatures and still long days send rock climbers out to finally “send their projects.” I recently saw a video of a young friend of mine (lives in BC) out climbing, seconding a route behind her male partner. Good grief I could see myself in my younger days. Climbing the same routes as my much bigger stronger male partners and fully immersed in a struggle session as I attempted to follow some burly route that favoured big blokes with long ape indexes and strong fingers on the 9th straight climbing day in a row.
It was all there, the body hanging out from the cliff too far, the hands that touch one hold, then move wildly around and touch three different hand holds before moving, inevitably, back to the first hold, the foot bumping up haphazardly instead of precisely being placed on the hold, even the perplexed and somewhat desperate facial expression and the heavy breathing. Hard rock climbing is about conserving energy but when you are really fatigued the ability to conserve energy evaporates. Life is full of paradox.
However, I do love seeing folk, whether they be young, old, fat, thin, strong or weak, getting after it. There is no doubt, we live in dangerous times: the hazardous age of safetyism; and the paradox of being obsessed with safety is that you become less able and thus, less safe. It’s Sendtember, get after it.
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