Posted: Mon Aug 20, 2007 11:49 am
Climbing is a uniquely amazing sport.
1. You can do a route that's really hard for you and know without a shadow of a doubt that you just spent the hardest 5 minutes or 10 minutes or whatever in your life.
2. You can do a move that's at your limit and know without a shadow of a doubt that you just spent the hardest 3 seconds in your life, and that you've never tried harder to do anything.
3. If you see a climb in a picture or a movie and it inspires you, you absolutely can just pack up your gear, get on a plane or in a car, go find it, and get on it, whether it's 5.15, V0, or A3. Any climber in the world can give himself the opportunity to experience any climb in the world, no matter the difficulty, and by and large, fairly safely.
4. There isn't another sport out there where the top levels are dominated by so many incredibly different body types, and ages. You need strong fingers to hold on to holds, but beyond that, you can heelhook, lock off, campus, dyno, reach, or whatever the fuck you want to get from hold to hold. So you can be short, slow twitch strong, fast twitch strong, have strong legs, or tall, and be just as effective as a climber as anyone else, even though you're doing everything in a completely different way. Look at Dave Graham, then look at Fred Nicole, then look at Daniel Woods, and tell me that this isn't a ridiculous and awesome sport.
I like climbing because it feels really really hard sometimes.
1. You can do a route that's really hard for you and know without a shadow of a doubt that you just spent the hardest 5 minutes or 10 minutes or whatever in your life.
2. You can do a move that's at your limit and know without a shadow of a doubt that you just spent the hardest 3 seconds in your life, and that you've never tried harder to do anything.
3. If you see a climb in a picture or a movie and it inspires you, you absolutely can just pack up your gear, get on a plane or in a car, go find it, and get on it, whether it's 5.15, V0, or A3. Any climber in the world can give himself the opportunity to experience any climb in the world, no matter the difficulty, and by and large, fairly safely.
4. There isn't another sport out there where the top levels are dominated by so many incredibly different body types, and ages. You need strong fingers to hold on to holds, but beyond that, you can heelhook, lock off, campus, dyno, reach, or whatever the fuck you want to get from hold to hold. So you can be short, slow twitch strong, fast twitch strong, have strong legs, or tall, and be just as effective as a climber as anyone else, even though you're doing everything in a completely different way. Look at Dave Graham, then look at Fred Nicole, then look at Daniel Woods, and tell me that this isn't a ridiculous and awesome sport.
I like climbing because it feels really really hard sometimes.
