Well, I guess among other things the main reason why you attend a professional climber´s slideshow is that you want to be inspired in some way. Maybe you want to get back in the game and just need a push, maybe you want to refocus, maybe you just want to see nice pictures and maybe, even though that seems a little bit stalker to me, you just want to be in the same room with the person. Due to the fact that I´m straight, the final option is out of commission in my case, at least as long as the slideshow is done by Chris Sharma (who didn´t bring his girlfriend). That leaves inspiration.
Well, I have to say that I´m very psyched on route climbing again after last night. I have also come to terms with 2008, a year I considered largely wasted in terms of climbing.
I was, and there´s not going to be any sugarcoating in this case, just plain overweight in 2008. Not on a general basis but as a climber. But I just wasn´t as psyched on climbing then as I am now. I had put up tons of problems in 2007 and felt drained. I just wanted some chocolate cake! I needed some time to refocus and actually learned a lot more about myself as a climber and about climbing itself that year. Sometimes, failure will teach you better lessons than a win might have, regardless of its size. I finally got my coaching license, refocused and came back psyched for 2009. 2009 brought the Valley, Bishop and the US. Psyche back on, more than ever before. I have grown as a person. For the first time in my life, I think that I have a clear picture of what I want to do this year...not only in terms of climbing.
Psyche is high on routes after last night. I still predominately boulder and train very little endurance. Bouldering always has been playful for me. Route climbing is training. Still, train I will. Route climb I will. It´s not that I´m actually starting to train according to a plan. I don´t want my climbing to be training. If climbing a lot correlates with training, well, that´s the way it is and I like that.
My focus this year is going to be route climbing. Gorges du Tarn, here I come! I have a project and after listening to Sharma talking about bolting I really want to bolt this year! I have been focusing on first ascents of boulder problems for some time...the process of doing first ascents is beyond doubt the most rad thing about climbing. Especially Chris´s Spain pictures got me really psyched on finding some rock and bolt it! There is an abundance of gritty, no-good-to-climb-on rock around, there needs to be some rock that deserves to be cleaned and bolted. Steinplatte is high on my list. A couple of years ago, me and Shorty bolted a pretty visionary line and then forgot about it. I´ll return as soon as the snow has melted!
The show bringing these realizations to the surface obviously made it a success! I guess that some people in the audience were a little disappointed, Chris Sharma is a shy guy and way behind the pros of self marketing like Alex Huber in terms of slide show management and plot scheming. You can almost sense that he still feels a little
awkward speaking in front of a 400 people crowd eying him with admiring eyes. But that´s just what he is. He´s a human being after all. If you listened carefully to what he had to say, there was so much to learn or to agree with.
Queued up like the rest of the bunch. Had my beanie signed. There´s just things you´re supposed to do, if you attend the world´s best climbers slide show...
Out to cure my sinusitis. Weather forecast for tomorrow doesn´t look as good as it looked yesterday any more, still there is hope.
Take care everybody!
