IN WHICH THE AUTHOR NARRATES ABOUT FREEDOM AND DEATH

What is freedom? Freedom is: not having to peak. As you may have noticed, I just love training. I've written so much about training and my love for it, on this blog, that it's not worth to repeat any of that again. Over the years, one of the biggest struggles in my sport "career" was to take rest days. I hate rest days, I've always hated them. Rest days are important though: it's in rest days that you grow stronger and you recover to perform. So, not having to peak in order to perform at the highest possible personal level in a specified occasion, is freedom. Freedom to train at will. And boy, did I train at will. A few days ago, while putting in some links on my board project (yes, I got sucked again in board projects, one thing that I swore I would have never done again), I realized that I've been training everyday for the last year. The last rest day that I took was September the 27th, 2022, after 67 days on. Now I wonder why I took that rest day. Let's define "training", in this matter. To qualify as a training session, it has to be some kind of muscular activity, done with a purpose, even if very short. For instance, every sort of weight lifting qualifies. Fingerboarding qualifies. Jogging qualifies. Well it would have, had I done it. Walking around doesn't qualify.If it did, I'd be probably a few years on. Uphill fast walking qualifies. Climbing qualifies. Stretching doesn't qualify. You get what I mean. So, over the last year or so, I managed to do some kind of training activity every day, sometimes twice a day. Sessions ranged from bodyweight squats in the bathrooms of courthouses, to 11 PM Tyson push ups before going to bed, to proper and regular sessions. I tailored a micro morning session that takes no more than five minutes, and that I can do whenever I want because it does not affect the evening session. I also tailored bodyweight sessions that I can do when traveling, if I can't access a gym of sorts. How was this project born? I sincerely don't know, I never had it as a goal. Just like Forrest Gump found himself running from ocean to ocean, I found myself training day after day. One thing I did: I never though it as a year. Days, there are only days. I wake up in the morning, and I think about when and how I'll be going to train that day, only that day. And that's freedom. The freedom that comes from not having outdoor projects (from not climbing outdoor at all, in my case), from not having to plan for trips somewhere. It is, sincerely, amazing. Et de hoc satis, about freedom. Death, then. Tragedy struck twice over Spring: in the brief space of five weeks, I lost two childhood friends. When I received the first message, I was snatching in the garage: Ghigo had passed away the night before, abroad, far from here, but at least in his house, surrounded by his wife and children. When I received the second message, I was climbing on my board: Gianluca had just passed away. He hadn't even told me he was ill, because he "didn't want to make me suffer." I have spent so much time with them, in different times and occasions: with one, long Summers at the seaside, cruising in his car - I could not drive yet! - with The Police blasting from the audiotape; with one, we basically grew up together in the block, we went to the gym together, we sat desk by desk at school. We were very similar, but then I changed a lot, and he remained the same: I guess I never forgave him for staying the same, and he never forgave me for changing. From time to time, we would bump into one another somewhere in town. In a small town like mine, every corner has a story ready to surface again when I walk around. I pass by one my friend's house every day, to go to work and back home, four times a day: morning, lunchtime, afternoon, evening. Every day I am reminded about him at least four times. My other friend had been living abroad for a long time now, but the sea reminds me of him, The Police reminds me of him, airplanes remind me of him, horses remind me of him. He was a very clever, very good, very unlucky guy. So, what do I make now of freedom and death? As of late, I have been delving into the majestic works of none other than Ernesto De Martino, ethno-anthropologist and religion historian. He knew death very well, and wrote a lot about death, especially in Death and Ritual Weeping (1958). He says, and I agree, that we need to "make the dead die again in us", to avoid his comeback as a persecutor, a haunting memory of pain and suffering, which visits us in our sleep or daytime, to curse our existence as survivors. How do we do this? First, through ritual weeping. Then, through, as he calls it, "the ethos of transcending the situation into the value". Training is my ritual weeping. When I got the news, not for one second I thought about stopping the session. I got to my knees and cried and wanted to yell, wanted to break things and curse. And I did some of that. Then I kept training, until I was so tired that I couldn't cry anymore. For each set that I completed, I thought "Another one for Ghigo.", "Another one for Gianluca." That's my prayer, the only one I am capable of. That's my ritual weeping. So, with my friends' evil phantoms now dead in me, I can recover just their good memories, purified. I keep them with me when I train, when I walk in town. When I get back home tired and don't feel like training, I think about them, I do it for them, I use their inner presence and good memories, to make my life better and with more value. It seems trivial, but it's not. It seems selfish, but it's only in part. If I allow their memories to haunt my life, to make me sad, angry and depressed, death wins: I lose the value. But if I manage to add something to my life that is important for me, because of them, then I add value to my life, and death loses. I gain in value, in human value. This is only a part of what I consider valuable, but it is a part, the only part worth mentioning on this blog. So, when I train and am tired, I think about them: I hear Ghigo saying "Turn up the volume Lore!" as when we were cruising in his car, years and years ago, and I hear Gianluca saying "Now gimme another set motherfucker!", as when we were training together, years and years ago. And everything seems possible. Even training everyday for the rest of my life.