fuck you, you fucking thing
So, in my life, rock climbing is always that interesting friend of a friend. You may know the type. You run into them sporadically, at a party or an event, and you have good time chatting, and you always end that moment by saying, "we should hang out more often. We should actually be friends." Then one of you flakes. Or really, I flake, because rock climbing isn't an actual person, and this metaphor can only go so far.
But it's true. I've liked climbing when I've gone. I like watching climber films whenever they show up in the Banff Mountain Film Festival, but whenever it came down to how I was going to spend an hour or two of exercise, my tendency was to reach for the bike.
Part of that changed when I moved closer to the city. My shorter commute was less effective exercise, so I had started casting about for alternate fitness options; and getting back into rock climbing would've been a logical choice, but at the time, I was also dealing with nerve damage in my hands stemming from six years of bike crashes and dirt road rides. I had spent a couple of years working with doctors on the nerve issues and had enough of a recovery, that I started climbing again last month.
I had gone with couplingchaos to Metrorock, and she had said that it had been a couple of weeks since she'd last gone so wanted to start off with something light and easy to warm up. Like a 5.8.
I probably should have told her that back when I was climbing a little more regularly, 5.8's were the routes that I usually took on as a challenge. Not as my usual, and certainly not as a warmup. But, I am fitter now than I was then, stronger in certain ways, and I went along because I was curious about my capabilities.
That first route wasn't so bad. Everything felt a little rusty, but I ascended fairly quickly and while I could feel my arms work and strain as I got higher, it felt good to be back, looking for handholds, feeling that small thrill when your foot puts itself on a really solid step and you can stand up straight and feel like you've just gained five feet.
We went on to another 5.8, this one with a bit of overhang on the halfway point, and I got stuck on that. I had gotten my body wrapped awkwardly, with my feet on two points underneath the overhang, and my hands in holds just over it; and the only way I could progress was to pull myself up so that I could raise my foot onto another hold. However, I spent so much time on this negative slope, letting gravity steadily drain my strength, that my hands and forearms blew out fairly quickly. I'd reach and grab and slip. Reach, grab and slip. couplingchaos was steady on the belay, patient in letting me try out a few things and failing, and good about shouting up advice to try and get me past my dilemma. However, in the end, my hands were just getting weaker, and I needed a longer rest to let them really recover; so I asked her to lower me down.
Still, that pattern repeated itself with every other route that I'd try. Climb about halfway up, then get stuck as my hands got exhausted. Try and fail repeatedly. Ask to be let down when I was feeling like I was wasting time.
I didn't like that. I rather hated failing as consistently as I had, but climbing appeals to me in the same way that golf and randonneuring does -- in that every challenge and hardship is of your own making. You choose your battles and how you will solve them. Failure isn't always an outcome to be avoided, but a signpost on the road to being better.
A new climbing gym opened up in my neighborhood, close enough that I could walk there after getting home from work, open late enough that one really cannot use the excuse of not having enough time. I checked it out a couple of weekends ago on my own, initially working on some bouldering problems and trying out the autobelayer before running into B., another friend that I know from the bike scene who was just getting started climbing, and we belayed each other on a couple of 5.6's. It was good day for rebuilding confidence, and scrubbing more of the rust off of my hands.
I went again with sirendipity last night, and this time I was cool with saying that I needed to warm up on a 5.7, while she opted to climb 5.8's. That was a good start, and she was also good on giving me feedback, building on some of the pointers that couplingchaos gave me last time. Take the time on the route to rest and regain some strength, and when you rest, let it be real rest. Get your feet stable and planted so you can take all of the weight off your hands. Don't just stop when you're firm on one foot and still balancing on the other. After we did a few routes, she asked me what I wanted to climb next, I turned my eye to a 5.8 in the same area of the gym as where I got into trouble last time.
"I want to try that one."
This one also had an overhang, and was in a corner, so it's got some trickiness to it. It was also my fourth route for the day, and I thought to myself that I had to push myself now before my hands got too tired. There was a nice big jug of a hold just after the overhang, and I thought to myself that if I could just get my hand in there and pull myself up, everything else would be easy.
Still, easier said than done.
The thing I didn't realize until I was on the route, was how far apart some of the toe holds were, spread as they were between two faces of the corner and getting me turned around as to which side I preferred to be on. So, I had already spent some energy on a couple of dead ends by the time I got to the overhang, and as I reached up for that jug, I could feel my hand wrap into it and slip.
Goddammit, here we go again.
This time, I gave myself permission to take longer rests, taking my hands off the wall and letting sirendipity support my full weight as I let my arms dangle and recover. I'd hush the demon inside me telling me that my friends weren't patient and that I was wasting their time. No, your friends want to see you win. They'll hang out for as long as you need them to. That's why they're your friends.
All the same, I'd pull myself back to the wall and give it another go, wedging my feet into the negative slope within the overhang, grabbing the holds that I needed, going for the move, and slipping and failing again. sirendipity would point out other options, and I'd try alternative approaches, but all of them had their awkwardness, and in the end my original idea was still the most viable one. I just needed to actually do it.
I must have fallen off that wall a dozen times, with the last half being the very definition of insanity -- trying the same thing over and over while expecting different results. No, I will not let you beat me this time, you fucking thing. I know what I need to do and I will do it. Here I go ... and go ... and DAMMIT!
The skin on my hands were torn up from missing these holds. I banged my shin on one fall. I could feel my left index and middle fingers, the damaged ones, start to cramp, a warning sign that I shouldn't push them further. Finally, I looked at the wall again and called down to sirendipity. "Ok, one last time. Either do it now or I'm done."
So, again, grab one hold and pull myself into the wall. Plant my feet. Move the left hand up to the supporting hold. Reach up with my right and push myself up with the left. Then, I took my left foot off its hold, placing all of my weight on my right foot and the damaged left hand, giving myself a couple more inches of reach, and that was enough. The right hand wrapped itself around the jug, and it was like someone else grabbing my arm and pulling me up over the overhang and past my problems.
Then, I slipped and fell again, but this time we both laughed.
"It's like," sirendipity said, "you spent all of that energy getting past that one point, you've got nothing left."
Yeah, kinda like that. I rested for about ten seconds, and got myself up a few more feet, but I could tell my arms really were shot at this point. Three feet away from the top, I was trying to reach for something with my right hand, when my left gave out. However instead of falling, I just swung all of my weight to the right and pushed my back into the right face of the corner wall. And I found myself with feet still planted on the hold, and my back fully against the wall, weight distributed evenly across both.
And again from below there's sirendipity's laughter. "yeah, that works."
Indeed, it was the perfect place to rest. It's also interesting how two different people can climb the same route in two different ways, each approach being some kind of personal expression. This approach wasn't clean at all. It was more like some exhausting, dirty street fight; with me just cursing this fucking thing. But the "thing" wasn't the wall or the route; just the inner demon saying that you aren't ready for this. This isn't comfortable for you. You're going to fail.
Yeah, screw you. If I'm ever competing against anything, it's that voice, and it isn't beating me this time.
But it's true. I've liked climbing when I've gone. I like watching climber films whenever they show up in the Banff Mountain Film Festival, but whenever it came down to how I was going to spend an hour or two of exercise, my tendency was to reach for the bike.
Part of that changed when I moved closer to the city. My shorter commute was less effective exercise, so I had started casting about for alternate fitness options; and getting back into rock climbing would've been a logical choice, but at the time, I was also dealing with nerve damage in my hands stemming from six years of bike crashes and dirt road rides. I had spent a couple of years working with doctors on the nerve issues and had enough of a recovery, that I started climbing again last month.
I had gone with couplingchaos to Metrorock, and she had said that it had been a couple of weeks since she'd last gone so wanted to start off with something light and easy to warm up. Like a 5.8.
I probably should have told her that back when I was climbing a little more regularly, 5.8's were the routes that I usually took on as a challenge. Not as my usual, and certainly not as a warmup. But, I am fitter now than I was then, stronger in certain ways, and I went along because I was curious about my capabilities.
That first route wasn't so bad. Everything felt a little rusty, but I ascended fairly quickly and while I could feel my arms work and strain as I got higher, it felt good to be back, looking for handholds, feeling that small thrill when your foot puts itself on a really solid step and you can stand up straight and feel like you've just gained five feet.
We went on to another 5.8, this one with a bit of overhang on the halfway point, and I got stuck on that. I had gotten my body wrapped awkwardly, with my feet on two points underneath the overhang, and my hands in holds just over it; and the only way I could progress was to pull myself up so that I could raise my foot onto another hold. However, I spent so much time on this negative slope, letting gravity steadily drain my strength, that my hands and forearms blew out fairly quickly. I'd reach and grab and slip. Reach, grab and slip. couplingchaos was steady on the belay, patient in letting me try out a few things and failing, and good about shouting up advice to try and get me past my dilemma. However, in the end, my hands were just getting weaker, and I needed a longer rest to let them really recover; so I asked her to lower me down.
Still, that pattern repeated itself with every other route that I'd try. Climb about halfway up, then get stuck as my hands got exhausted. Try and fail repeatedly. Ask to be let down when I was feeling like I was wasting time.
I didn't like that. I rather hated failing as consistently as I had, but climbing appeals to me in the same way that golf and randonneuring does -- in that every challenge and hardship is of your own making. You choose your battles and how you will solve them. Failure isn't always an outcome to be avoided, but a signpost on the road to being better.
A new climbing gym opened up in my neighborhood, close enough that I could walk there after getting home from work, open late enough that one really cannot use the excuse of not having enough time. I checked it out a couple of weekends ago on my own, initially working on some bouldering problems and trying out the autobelayer before running into B., another friend that I know from the bike scene who was just getting started climbing, and we belayed each other on a couple of 5.6's. It was good day for rebuilding confidence, and scrubbing more of the rust off of my hands.
I went again with sirendipity last night, and this time I was cool with saying that I needed to warm up on a 5.7, while she opted to climb 5.8's. That was a good start, and she was also good on giving me feedback, building on some of the pointers that couplingchaos gave me last time. Take the time on the route to rest and regain some strength, and when you rest, let it be real rest. Get your feet stable and planted so you can take all of the weight off your hands. Don't just stop when you're firm on one foot and still balancing on the other. After we did a few routes, she asked me what I wanted to climb next, I turned my eye to a 5.8 in the same area of the gym as where I got into trouble last time.
"I want to try that one."
This one also had an overhang, and was in a corner, so it's got some trickiness to it. It was also my fourth route for the day, and I thought to myself that I had to push myself now before my hands got too tired. There was a nice big jug of a hold just after the overhang, and I thought to myself that if I could just get my hand in there and pull myself up, everything else would be easy.
Still, easier said than done.
The thing I didn't realize until I was on the route, was how far apart some of the toe holds were, spread as they were between two faces of the corner and getting me turned around as to which side I preferred to be on. So, I had already spent some energy on a couple of dead ends by the time I got to the overhang, and as I reached up for that jug, I could feel my hand wrap into it and slip.
Goddammit, here we go again.
This time, I gave myself permission to take longer rests, taking my hands off the wall and letting sirendipity support my full weight as I let my arms dangle and recover. I'd hush the demon inside me telling me that my friends weren't patient and that I was wasting their time. No, your friends want to see you win. They'll hang out for as long as you need them to. That's why they're your friends.
All the same, I'd pull myself back to the wall and give it another go, wedging my feet into the negative slope within the overhang, grabbing the holds that I needed, going for the move, and slipping and failing again. sirendipity would point out other options, and I'd try alternative approaches, but all of them had their awkwardness, and in the end my original idea was still the most viable one. I just needed to actually do it.
I must have fallen off that wall a dozen times, with the last half being the very definition of insanity -- trying the same thing over and over while expecting different results. No, I will not let you beat me this time, you fucking thing. I know what I need to do and I will do it. Here I go ... and go ... and DAMMIT!
The skin on my hands were torn up from missing these holds. I banged my shin on one fall. I could feel my left index and middle fingers, the damaged ones, start to cramp, a warning sign that I shouldn't push them further. Finally, I looked at the wall again and called down to sirendipity. "Ok, one last time. Either do it now or I'm done."
So, again, grab one hold and pull myself into the wall. Plant my feet. Move the left hand up to the supporting hold. Reach up with my right and push myself up with the left. Then, I took my left foot off its hold, placing all of my weight on my right foot and the damaged left hand, giving myself a couple more inches of reach, and that was enough. The right hand wrapped itself around the jug, and it was like someone else grabbing my arm and pulling me up over the overhang and past my problems.
Then, I slipped and fell again, but this time we both laughed.
"It's like," sirendipity said, "you spent all of that energy getting past that one point, you've got nothing left."
Yeah, kinda like that. I rested for about ten seconds, and got myself up a few more feet, but I could tell my arms really were shot at this point. Three feet away from the top, I was trying to reach for something with my right hand, when my left gave out. However instead of falling, I just swung all of my weight to the right and pushed my back into the right face of the corner wall. And I found myself with feet still planted on the hold, and my back fully against the wall, weight distributed evenly across both.
And again from below there's sirendipity's laughter. "yeah, that works."
Indeed, it was the perfect place to rest. It's also interesting how two different people can climb the same route in two different ways, each approach being some kind of personal expression. This approach wasn't clean at all. It was more like some exhausting, dirty street fight; with me just cursing this fucking thing. But the "thing" wasn't the wall or the route; just the inner demon saying that you aren't ready for this. This isn't comfortable for you. You're going to fail.
Yeah, screw you. If I'm ever competing against anything, it's that voice, and it isn't beating me this time.