Thursday, December 10, 2009

Take That Evil Voices And Apathy!

First a Quick Note
I keep finding that I have a certain tendency to attempt to try to explain things of which I have limited understanding… and roped climbing is one of them. Over the years, I have gone from being as tight as a pair of fine-fitting leather pants to being darn near a wild man when it comes to my top-rope climbing, but in the realm of leading, which is really the heart of climbing in my book, I know about as much as a preschooler knows about calculus. Recently, I gave a good solid effort toward writing an essay on fear and phantom fear while climbing, but then I realized that more experience was in order before I declare the word on confronting fear like a brother before a snoozing congregation.
So, as a consequence of my epiphany concerning my lack of expertise, I have now made the executive decision to focus on what I better understand… this moment in my climbing.

And Now for the Main Point of Post #2!
About four years have passed since my encounter with Chase in the climbing gym, and a lot has changed. Climbing has gone from being a really fun past time and means for staying in shape, to being thrown aside altogether for a period of time during which I was convinced that I was going to become a brilliant evangelist (or something of that nature). After the evangelism stage (in which I became depressive and ironically learned to not really like God), I went to Moab, Utah… one of the United State’s premier traditional climbing Mecca’s. While spending a quick day sampling some of the climbing potential offered by the smooth, red sandstone faces and perfect cracks, a switch began to flip deep within the recesses of my heart. A great call was beginning to be heard.
Realizing just how bad I still was at climbing in comparison to my climbing heroes who frequented Moab, and always secretly hoping that I could aspire to follow in their hand jams, I unleashed myself within my training facility of Spire Climbing Center like a famished raccoon in a cat food factory.
My first couple of weeks at Spire quickly highlighted the fact that even though I was a top dog in the climbing dungeon at MSU, I was but a Pomeranian with a growth disorder at Spire. The routes at the dungeon were rarely rated, and when I got to Spire I discovered that my increases in ability as a climber had taken my bouldering skill all the way to a proud V3... on a scale which goes from V0 to V15. Even though I found Spire to be a delightful place for playing around on a plethora of routes, I also began to feel a bit pathetic about myself. “Come on,” I thought. “Surely after climbing hard for three years I should be better than this!”
Do you ever notice that little voice that rises up within you when you take a glimpse at something overwhelming? For me, it usually says something highly constructive like, “give up Nathaniel… you’ll never make V10. Just quit now and save yourself the trouble.”
I’ve thought a lot about that voice as I have battled toward becoming a better climber. After nearly every session at the gym which doesn’t meet my expectations, I hear the voice blabbering away. Up until this year, the voice often situated itself as lord over my easily influenced being. The end result was a depressed and unmotivated Nathaniel. I would temporarily lose motivation toward going to the gym, and climbing would become a chore.
After having a series of arguments with the evil voice (yes, some were out loud… no, I’m not schizophrenic), I had a few realizations about how things are: 1) If I quit climbing, how will I ever know if I could have gotten to V10, 2) What is so special about the coveted V10 that makes a life of climbing meaningless if I do not achieve it, and 3) I’ve got one life to live… if I don’t seize the opportunity to be my dreams then I am a complete, head to toes, filled to the top and overflowing, moron!
Last week was the strongest week I have yet had climbing. I hit the gym on Monday feeling so strong and coordinated that I felt like a gash darn force of nature. I on-sighted (climbed in my first try) four V4’s and a V5, pulled off my hardest roped climb to date, and then, to top it all off, I sent a V5+ and a V6 into my record books. I couldn’t wait to get to the gym every night… folks, I must have been butter because I was on a roll!
Then this week happened. After three multi-hour sessions of climbing like a baboon on crack, I had reached my limit. The result… every night this week I went to the gym full of hope and promise that the glorious progress would continue…. And every night this week I drove home to a lecture from that evil voice in my head concerning how big of a loser I am. “Come on!” I thought. “Not even one week of sputtering and I’m fighting to stay in the game! Seriously, the evil voice has got some serious emotional instability.”
I wish I could lie and say that I told-off the voice and then sprung free like a unicorn from the trap of an evil sorceress. Unfortunately, despite little battles being won, I still felt a bit captured. I came home from the gym on Sunday with a “badditude” and immediately dove into a little bit of a hissy-fit as a consequence of my hands feeling a bit dry (good reason, eh?). Then, on Tuesday it took an act of God to motivate myself to go to the gym. Of course, about an hour into the session, when I was already feeling like Gumby looks (you know what I mean), I started feeling lethargic and spent the next half hour finishing the workout in a pout. Of course, as I was packing up to leave I once again felt a bit of a hissy-fit coming on as a result of my hands feeling dry.
So the million dollar question comes down to how to deal with the those times of dysfunction. Years ago, the periods of feeling like a sack of potatoes on the wall resulted in a brief and sometimes depressive sabbatical from climbing. It was a vicious cycle really… I didn’t climb because I felt pathetic, and I felt pathetic because I didn’t climb. The only thing which would end the cycle would be either a realization of missing the sport or a simple choice to go back and find my groove again.
As time has progressed, I realized that climbing was not so much of a hobby as it is a relationship. Thinking about all of the closest and most meaningful relationships in my life, it is apparent to me that my closest bonds are formed, for some strange and devious reason, through times of conflict. I suppose that even though the fun times build nice and fuzzy memories, it is during the hard times when I am forced to weigh the worth of the relationship and deliberately decide to invest in it. Over time, after consciously weighing-out what something means to me and then deliberately deciding to invest in it, it becomes a glorious pillar of love and passion in my life. Like my closest relationships, that is what climbing has become. It has formed who I am today by making me physically and mentally stronger, more disciplined, more patient, less materialistic, more courageous, and generally more wise.
Because of the fact that climbing has developed into a relationship in which I continue to invest, even in times of ultimate apathy, the evil voice which attempts to squelch my passion has become less of an influence, and more of an annoying, ankle biting, yapping dog. Every once in a while, on my way out to go climbing, I have to boot it out of my path as I say, “Hang on dream climbs, I am on my way!”


For four years the evil voice told me it wasn't possible.


... but on Thanksgiving Day, the lengthy bouldering traverse in the Stillwater Canyon was linked together, and the evil voice was made wrong yet again... hazzah!

Sunday, November 15, 2009

Climbing My Life (part 1)


Feelin’ the Burn and Feelin’ the Learn: The story of how rock climbing has become my greatest teacher, my greatest passion, and my deepest pleasure.

It is my conversation, my quality time, and my quiet time with my creator. I learn the intricacies of his creation every time I examine the blank rock for possibility. I remember the gift of life that I have every time I stare into the void below. I remember the gifts he has given me as I draw on all my skill and attention in search of transforming the next impossibility into possibility. It is my greatest act of worship… it reminds me how much I love Him, and how much He loves me.

Recently, I heard a climber from the Czech Republic make the resounding statement, “I find climbing is sport of my life.” Needless to say, I was touched. Personally, I have been exploring the consequences of allowing one’s self to be absorbed by the call of the mountains and rocks. Now, after about six-years of gradually sinking deeper into the life of a climber, I find myself stroking the stubble of my chin and counting the gains and losses I have encountered as a result of the sport.
My experience with the vertical world officially began at age 17, when I was invited to go rappelling with a friend of mine. I strapped into my unused harness and slowly backed toward the edge of the cliff. Sweat oozed from my palms as I squeezed the rope with whitened knuckles. At the fateful moment when the rubber of my Cabela’s hiking boots met cliff-side for the very first time, I wanted nothing more than to be somewhere else. There was no magic, and I had no love for climbing at first sight… all I felt was terror. Peer pressure and the natural force of gravity was all that got me to the ground on that first rappel, and it was peer pressure and the natural force of gravity which forced me into two other trips down the cliff that day.
I had a lot of relief welling up inside of me when we were leaving the crags that evening… it was the first time in which I had so obviously held my life in my hands. The thought that all I would have had to do to lose everything I knew was let go of the rope was an unnerving consideration. Part of me wanted to never be in that position again… but another part of me knew that in order to experience my life the way my youthful dreams wanted it to be, I would have to go back.
Going back was much easier than my calculations from the first day rappelling projected it to be. All it really took was the availability of my Norwegian cousin whom we called “Gunder.” Gunder had done some rappelling and climbing in his history, and the combination of his gung-ho attitude and his availability to me as a mentor in the realms of mountaineering and spirituality made for an explosive influence on me. He provided the nice balance which is proven to get an adolescent going… combining high-challenge tasks with low consequence. When I was with Gunder I knew that I could try a rappel or climb, and if I chickened out… he would not label me with the term “mamma‘s boy.”
The first time I rappelled with Gunder was on a 100-foot tall smooth bulge of rock in the Stillwater Canyon near Nye, Montana. We scrambled to the top of the cliff and Gunder set the rope up as I looked on with rabid butterflies bouncing around in my abdomen. The wind was blowing a bit (as was usual for that position in the Stillwater), and standing there at the top of the cliff, I felt certain that I would get sucked off the edge. The butterflies seemed to mutate into more terrible beasts (perhaps Madagascar Hissing Cockroaches) as I watched Gunder clip in and back off the edge.
Now, folks, let me tell you… Gunder starting back over that edge was nothing like the group of rookies I had rappelled with a few weeks before. The moment he was over the lip, he was gone. The speed with which he traveled down the line was as if he had fallen. I was alarmed to say the least. Part of me was certain that his approach to rappelling was insane… and part of me was beginning to rethink my approach to life in the vertical. Perhaps it was not so much a walk on the edge of life so much as a new way of life… carefully placed in a zone of constant challenge and awareness in the face of grave consequence.
Rethinking aside, my trip down the cliff was not indicative of a renaissance in personal regard toward the vertical. I was wound up so tight I that any abrupt movement made me squeak (actually it was more like a whimper). By the time I hit the overhanging bit of the rappel (a part which I did not expect), my arms were roasted as a result of my death grip on the rope. Gunder, poised with his camera, was there to capture the moment as I struggled to keep my fear neatly contained. When I touched down, I was compelled to make the half-true statement regarding my enjoyment of the rappel. Within minutes, we were on our way to the top to do it all again.
I survived a few more rappels down the face before suggesting that we try some rock climbing on an easy nearby face. Feeling a bit frazzled and wanting a break from the intense exposure to height offered by the rappelling, and I thought the climbing would be a nice change. My theory was that by holding on to the nice big holds of the easy face, I would be in a position which would be considerably less emotionally taxing on my raw nerves. Boy, did I get an education.

Finishing a rappel on my first day out with Gunder (2003)

I tied into the rope and started up the face with Gunder belaying. Ten feet up I weighted the rope and Gunder lowered me a bit so I could get a feel for the presence of the rope. I started up again and by the time I was 15-feet off the deck, I noticed my heart rising up into my throat. I felt stiff as a board and I squeezed the rock harder with my hands to produce the illusion of security. It was quickly coming to my attention that climbing may just be more frightening than rappelling because hand and foot holds are not nearly as consistent as a rope to hang on. Near the top of the climb, I came to a position where the holds seemed to disappear. I grabbed the rope, and using a combination of it and the rock, obtained the top of the climb.
Gunder lowered my tense self back to the terra firma, and I breathed a sigh of relief over being done with my first climb. I was glad to have done it, but not anxious to get back on. Of course, by the time I was home, I was beginning to realize that even though part of me wanted to throw in the towel on the sport, another other part of me wanted to go back so that I could truly live. The horizontal is a nice and predictable place, but the vertical is where my dreams reside.

Lowering off on a revisit of my first rock climb (2006)

One of the most brilliant things which climbing has taught me is humility. I can’t say it was easy when my best friend’s 14-year old sister and mom successfully climbed the cliff which forced me to hang on the rope to finish. I had to come to terms with the fact that even though I was an All-State track athlete, I really just wasn’t good at climbing. In so many areas of my life (school, working, athletics), the favorable views that people had of my abilities really fueled my performance. Climbing was different because I was bad at it and we all secretly knew it. Part of what kept me going was the strong belief in the hope that I would eventually overcome my fear of heights and learn to use my athletic ability to climb like a caffeinated monkey. The basis, however, of what really kept me going was my love for the challenge and adventure presented by climbing beautiful and seemingly featureless cliffs.
In the absence of outside awe of my ability as a climber, my love and passion for the sport became less about accomplishment (although that was still significant), and more about the process of exploring aesthetic cliffs and learning more about climbing. Shortly after heading off to college in Bozeman, I began climbing in the tiny, dungeon-like gym on the MSU campus. Even though the gym regularly became packed with sweaty, grunting men who, quite frankly, intimidated the heck out of me, I quickly became a common face around the gym. As I gingerly tiptoed around the “good” climbers in search of routes fitting to a beginner, I eventually began to climb increasingly difficult routes, to the point where I almost felt like one of the guys. Every once and a while, I would strike up a conversation with another climber who was working on a common problem with me. The camaraderie was great, and I realized that by climbing with other people and by watching the stellar climbers at work, I could learn a lot about the nuances of the sport. The improvement I experienced was one of the most empowering things I had ever felt… deep down, every time I struggled with a route and found success, I felt like I was moving down a road toward something that was almost spiritually profound for me.
All great things must come to an end, and for me it came in the form of a plateau in my climbing ability which I reached four or five months into my time at the MSU climbing dungeon. I began to lose interest in the sport from time to time, and found it frustrating that I was not improving. Doubt began to well up inside of me, and I began to wonder if I had reached my personal limit. The magic was dying, and though I still enjoyed getting out climbing, some of the fire I felt toward the sport was diminishing.
I returned to Bozeman the following fall after spending the summer in my hometown of Absarokee. Three months of deprivation from a climbing gym had me super wound up to get back at it. I was back in the dungeon within a week of getting into town, and I quickly got my weakened fingers back into shape. Just as I was beginning to once again hit the plateau, I learned something about the sport of climbing which revolutionized my perspectives drastically.
I was playing around on my usual bouldering problems which I assumed were within my ability, and one of the “hot-shots” in the gym took notice of me. He spoke to me in such a way that he seemed oblivious to my incompetence as a climber. “You should try this sweet route I put up.” He said. “It’s all hexes and naturals and traverses the gym.”
I felt a bit of blood rush to my head… here I was talking to the great “Robin Rocco,” and he was confidently assuming that I would have a chance at getting one of the hardest routes in the gym. He deftly demonstrated the opening moves and stood back. “Give her a go and then I’ll give you some beta,” he said as he waited expectantly for me to get on the route.”
With my adrenal glands squeezing out a healthy dose of liquid power into my blood stream, I chalked up and grasped the first holds. Hoping not to disappoint, I clung hard to the wall and attempted to repeat the motions of his demonstration. A quarter-inch crimp, a two finger pocket, another pocket, a couple of awkwardly placed side-pulls… “Holy smokes!” I thought, “how am I still on this thing?” After about 12-feet of traversing, I came to an overhanging section and quickly lost confidence and fell off. Robin jumped on and demonstrated the sequence of moves which made the overhang possible. Moving off of tiny pockets, he shuffled his feet out to the side, lunged out and grabbed a disgustingly small hold on the overhang with his right hand. “He’s not going to?.. No way!” I thought as he turned his knee in, while releasing his left hand and crossing it under to a hold far out under the overhang. I was dumbfounded by how he was able to hold onto nothing as his body became completely horizontal. Then, after a few quick shuffles of the feet and bumps of the hands, he was through the overhang, off the route, and waiting for me to give it a shot.
“You’re kidding,” I thought. In the presence of the peer pressure of a climbing great (at least in my mind), I couldn’t back down. I jumped on the route where I had fallen and reached out for the tiny hold on the overhang. It definitely didn’t feel like it was going to work, but I had to give it the old college try. I tried to do the knee twist and crossover thing I had seen Rob do, but quickly ended up on my hind end on the floor. Rob encouraged me along and got me back on to try it again… only to fall again… and again… and again. I must have tried the move seven or eight times before I folded due to fatigue and aching fingers.
I returned to the gym a two days later and, following a quick warm up, went right to work on the hex traverse. I worked my way through the first moves, dropped into the overhanging bit and fell. I jumped in and tried it again to no avail. I quit for a while and watched some of the gym “hot-shots” work on it for a bit. None of them found any more success than me. Feeling no pressure of disappointing, I gave it another go. After falling a few times and examining the problem, I gave it another go. At the crux of the movement, I shifted my hips in a bit more over my feet, crossed over, and stuck the move. A surge of adrenaline went through my system and a smile struck across my face which I could not control. Power increased as I finished the overhang and eventually jumped off the route. I absolutely could not believe that I had just done the crux of the hex traverse. A couple of the “hot-shots” congratulated me, and with new born confidence, I went on a spree of attempting route after route in the gym which I had previously written off as too difficult for me. I found success on several, and left the gym feeling as though my life had been changed. I quickly called everyone I knew and told them of my success.
The very nature of climbing makes it a sport which is all about turning the impossible into the possible. In order to successfully climb, it is important to realize this fact. My life felt changed that day because I had experienced the impossible to possible progression first-hand. From that day on, climbs didn’t have to make sense to be able to climb them. A few months after the hex traverse success day, I was climbing with another climber named Chase who was one of the toughest guys in the MSU gym. He was working on a route which seemed illogical to be able to stick to. It was an overhanging problem which started on a couple of tiny, sloping ¾” holds. After the initial move, one had to catch a terrible sloping hold in a side-pull. Somehow, if you could stick to the side-pull, you would have to do a huge move off of it to a very inconveniently placed crimp above it. All logic suggested that since there was nothing to really solid to hold on to, the route was impossible. Chase seemed to think it was doable, and before long, I was working with him.
I had never felt such an insecure route in all of my two years climbing. It was strange though, the more I tried it, the more I could balance out the amount of pressure and angles of pull on each hold. Before long, the first moves felt almost as secure as balancing on a bike. Chase and I continued to get closer to success, and then finally, on probably about my 25th try, everything came together and I made the top. Once again, the jolt of adrenaline surged through me and an uncontrollable smile struck across my face… I had once again done the impossible.
My time climbing in the MSU gym had caused me to become a very strong climber on short routes over padded floors, but there was a gnawing feeling that I wanted to be able do more with my climbing than simply play around near the ground indoors. I wanted to use my new abilities as a climber to go to new and beautiful places. Unfortunately, even though bouldering at the gym made me strong at climbing movement, it did nothing to cure my paralyzing fear of heights. Most of the climbers who I worked with at the gym were very strong outdoor climbers. Even though I was better than many in the gym, my resume for climbs on real rock was embarrassing compared to theirs.
Following my success on the sloper-loaded route, Chase said something unforgettable to me… “Do you climb much outside, cuz you are a f%&ing good climber?” After hearing that from a hardman like Chase, I was confident that if I took on the impossible… attacking my fear of heights, my ability to climb would be able to take me to the incredibly aesthetic places which I had dreamed of going. I knew it was time to kick it into gear in the realm of roped climbing.

Confronting some fear as I lead a route as Gunder belays (2006)