tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-17877146663741886672024-03-05T05:24:35.296+01:00TOTOLOREThe chalk infested life.lorehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13869179431191761511noreply@blogger.comBlogger504125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1787714666374188667.post-48735128759280243382023-10-05T17:27:00.004+02:002023-10-06T18:38:13.284+02:00IN WHICH THE AUTHOR NARRATES ABOUT FREEDOM AND DEATHWhat 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.
<i>Et de hoc satis</i>, 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.
lorehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13869179431191761511noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1787714666374188667.post-27804078721540569582022-01-03T17:56:00.001+01:002022-01-03T17:56:17.891+01:00ON OUR TIMES AND AGEHello motherfuckers.
When I last wrote on here, I couldn't imagine that a far worse shitstorm than another broken meniscus was about to hit the fan.
And I won't spend another word on this matter.
Anyway, luckily I had sorted myself out with a decent home gym over the years, so the first lockdown was spent working from home and training, with my knee surgery obviously postponed. I had set myself the goal of training everyday, and so I did for the 61 straight days in which Italy was locked. I came out two kilos heavier at 6,2 % body fat. The highlight of this process was nearly completing my 30 moves board project, falling off with only two moves to the top.
Then came the surgery, that went very well, but left again my knee quite tender and resulted in a very undesired switch between kilos of muscle and kilos of fat, courtesy of large amounts of food and wine.
Autumn came and with it another lockdown.
I started struggling for climbing motivation and started training again for the project, but to no avail despite some good progress. I could always climb it in two overlapping halves with minimal rests in between, but the magic never happened.
On the other hand, I kept moving lots of iron.
The days and weeks kept coming and going always the same, with a monk life made of work and training, but with less joy than usual and no particular progress.
I didn't touch the board for weeks and weeks and I did very little finger training.
When I started back, I found out - surprise surprise - that I was quite below par.
At that point reality struck me: my idea of a continuous progress over the years, at 49 years old, was simply delusional.
Hello motherfucker.
Maintaining is gaining they say...
I sincerely don't know how it happened, but I went back to the board. At first it's been very hard to keep getting back to it. I was used to feel in a certain way while climbing, and I had to let the thought that those sensations were gone forever sink in. Or so I thought.
My fingers are still averagely strong I think: I last tested the Lattice Edge at around + 2/4 kilos consistently, and I have to take into account that I am more or less four kilos heavier than a few years ago. I can hang the Lattice Edge back3 two armed at + 30 kilos.
On the board, I basically had to re-learn how to climb, and I realized how well I used to use my feet and legs on it: I was really a very good climber on that board.
I learnt that I was playing it too prudently and I started pushing things a bit more, legs wise.
I also started to plan my sessions according to my motorcycle riding: board climbing and leather gloves don't go along very well.
Session after session I could see some little improvement, and I reckon I had the good idea of not going back on previous projects: without false modesty, some of them - that I did or nearly did - were simply ridiculous.
I set myself the goal of setting lots of new problems, and I stuck to this idea: over the last few weeks I've done a dozen of new problems or so, while before I would set a couple of hard problem and work them into submission for weeks or months or even years.
Obviously, being myself after all, I got quickly sucked into setting hard things that I could not climb, and there I was again, stuck in project mode.
I have to admit that, during the very few occasions in which I climbed with a friend, it's been very, very hard to watch how stronger than me they are now: they've climbed things that I can't do, and it's very, very hard to digest.
But.
There's always a but.
The other day, I had one of those sessions.
I was physically ready, and mentally even more so.
I climbed three problems that were feeling very far away the week before, and I went out with my girlfriend to celebrate with a few Vodka Martinis.
The magic had happened again, both in terms of climbing something and in terms, in advance, of setting something that was right at this side of the limit. I have to stick with this. I understood - after a few years - that I can keep my pleasure in hard climbing, or climbing at my limit, playing with the concepts of "hard" and "limit".
Every session is different, every session had its hard and its limit.
I have to stay on that line.
And the dream goes on, I am still the strongest motherfucker of them all.
<i>Ceteris paribus</i>, innit.
lorehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13869179431191761511noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1787714666374188667.post-54951014691028100402020-02-18T14:15:00.003+01:002020-02-18T14:20:41.443+01:00IN WHICH THE AUTHOR NARRATES ABOUT KNEES, FINGERS AND IRON<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Another year has passed, my dear reader, and I wonder who you could possibly survive the long wait for the - now - yearly Totolore post. </span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">My last one left you trembling, picturing Totolore waiting to fix his knee, in order to get back to high(est) level bouldering. </span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">This post finds Totolore again waiting to fix his knee, the only problem is that I already had the other surgery... and now I need another one. </span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">In June 2019 I had my surgery, which revealed cartilages that seemed having been chewn by a ferocious dog (a nice surprise, innit) and needed sorting out: for this task I had the pleasure to be the first patient to experiment a new tool, aptly named "vaporizer". </span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">I lay on the slab, watching on a tv screen as this machine ate my broken cartilages with ease. </span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">My medial meniscus was broken, but the cut didn't reach the surface. </span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">I was home that very evening, no pain whatsoever, just 30 fucking days on crutches to let the cartilages heal. </span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">After some time, with a right leg the size of my right forearm, I started training again. </span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">And the shit hit the fan. </span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">I might have sligtly overdone it, in any case my knee started aching, swelling and feeling generally tender and unstable. This went on for months, and then I finally had another MR scan, that revealed that now my medial meniscus was broken for good, with a complete tear, needing another surgery.</span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">There you fucking go. </span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">So, from april 2017, when I climbed my hardest board problem, I basically quit bouldering. </span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">My elbow injury kept me busy until october 2018, then my knee, now my knee again. Given my rehab times in the past, I feel that I am facing a three years long climbing hiatus, that, at 48 years of age, surely will do me good. I plan to be - somehow - climbing again this coming autumn. </span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">In the meanwhile, I've hit the weights and the fingerboard. I completely sacked the board, despite a few problems climbed before my first surgery and getting back to a decent level of fitness, namely being able to climb my two reference problems with 8 kg on and using only one foot at a time. </span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">With my knee even weaker than before the operation, I had to take a completely new approach. I ditched heavy training and focused on longer efforts and complexes. I started training on the pull up bar with some routines that I borrowed from gymnastics. Nice stuff. </span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">On the fingerboard, I did some half arsed tests on the Lattice Edge, and mainly focused on flat edges and pockets. </span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">As of late, I sacked the pockets session because it's too long and I don't have enough time. </span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">I keep training on my 14 mm edge one armed and on the 9 mm edge with back 3 and front 3 hangs. </span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">With good skin, I can one arm the 9 mm edge taking 7 kg off for my right arm and 12 for my left. Make of that what you wish. </span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">A friend of mine has opened a big climbing wall close to here, I've been there a couple of times just for a chat while getting back home from a bike ride (motorbike, obviously), but it's too painful to be there, unable to climb. </span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">In recent weeks I slightly reduced my training volume and it did me good: my muscles are a bit fuller and I feel generally more powerful. </span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">I am eating like a pig. </span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">I don't even have anything to complain about the climbing world, because I completely stopped reading any news whatsoever or following what's going on around here. Whenever I check the local climbing news, the level of bullshit goes beyond my imagination. </span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">On a side note, I spent the last year attending a second level university master in criminology, that I completed last week <i>magna cum laude</i>.</span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">It's finally good to write an entry after so much time, even if with a boring content. I feel very far away from climbing at the moment, both physically and mentally. Little time to train makes it very difficult to have a proper session, it takes too long to warm up for hard finger training or even system climbing, hopefully this will change as I'll get my knee sorted: maybe the feeling of having a functioning knee again will give me the kick in the ass that I need to put in the hours again. </span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">I would very much to climb a hard route. Boudering, I fear, is too hard on my knees, or just too hard. </span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">And with this final note, this thrilling post is over. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
lorehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13869179431191761511noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1787714666374188667.post-78347285027912336032019-02-13T15:44:00.000+01:002019-05-13T14:53:46.563+02:00IN WHICH THE AUTHOR NARRATES ABOUT ELBOWS, KNEES, IRON AND SEQUENCES<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">First of all, the news. </span></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">One year has passed since my last post, that was about my elbow injury, and my toe injury, but also about The Iron, The System, The One Arm Hangs. </span></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">Things more or less kept going that way for months and months, with the joyous monotony - or monotonous joy - of constant progress through The Grind. </span></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">A sudden change happened under the form of a message from no other than Keith, Unclesomebody himself, announcing his months-long roadtrip with wife, 3 years old daughter, and 4 months old daughter. Priorities, you know. We agreed to meet in Val Daone.</span></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">With my medial epicondilitis giving small signs of capitulation, I thought I'd better pull my finger out, if I wanted to keep the slightest form of climbing dignity in front of Keith. The thought that I had been out of the game for almost one year, injured, and with a total of four climbing days in more than two years, remained confined to the deepest recesses of my mind. </span></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">Dedicating myself to front-on lock offs on the system, one day, I felt a sudden blade through the medial side of my right knee. </span></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">I quickly stopped the session. Well I didn't, but I switched to side-on lock offs. My knee swelled a little, and four days later I was climbing - or at least trying to - in Val Daone with Keith. </span></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">I managed to climb something, but the real joy was being in a beautiful place, with beautiful rock, with beautiful people. </span></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">Of course I am kidding. </span></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">It was a nightmare. </span></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">Of course I am kidding again. </span></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">It felt really good to be moving on rock again, despite being taped up and clad in neoprene supports as if we were in one of those XXX movies. </span></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">Keith showed no sign of the 10 years passed since the last time we met, in the Dolomites, with James. </span></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">He flashed everything up to 7c and made well clear that some things and some people never change. </span></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">I came back home to The Iron and The Edges, and my knee started improving. </span></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">On an unforgettable day, months after, I realized that I had started forgetting about my right elbow. Fucking bingo. It was over. For almost one year, every fucking morning, upon washing my face, I would feel a sharp pain going from my elbow down through my forearm. Every fucking morning, as the very first fucking thing in the fucking day. A fucking reminder. Now I could start forgetting.</span></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">I could finally answer the board call with a light spirit. And a heavy body... </span></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">Fast forward a few weeks and I am at some friends' house, playing on the ground with my girlfriend's niece, Caterina. After kneeling down for a few minutes I stood up, and immediately felt something wrong. The following morning it was still there, that ugly sensation of having a tender, swollen and injured knee. </span></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">You guessed it: I had broken my right medial meniscus. </span></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">This story is quite short, I sacked completely the board (I can't pull with my right leg) and kept ironing things out, with some deadhanging and some system boarding using just my left leg. You gotta do what you gotta do. </span></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">Now I've signed for the surgery and am waiting to be fixed. </span></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">All the above has nothing to do with the real reason of this entry, which is the following. </span></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">A few days ago I watched a video that made my eyes bleed. </span></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">It was about a young hotshot "repeating" one of my problems. </span></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">In order to do this, he used all the holds of my problem, and all the holds of the nearby problem. Then he obviously commented on the grade with smugness. </span></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">Now then. </span></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">Leaving aside all the possible discussion about eliminates, one thing really bothers me. People aren't interested in knowing what happened before them. And they aren't interested in knowing if their opinion could be right or wrong. </span></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">Every problem I've put up in the last 26 years, have independent holds. </span></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">So, my proposed grades takes this factor into accout. </span></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">It's quite natural to me to act like this, because if you use the same holds of another problem, the second one ceases to be a different, independent problem. </span></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">Moreover, I love sequences. </span></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">I love to search the way of getting to the top of a small rock using independent holds, and as few of them as possible. I have applied this principle - of using only independent holds - not only to my first ascents, but to every problem I've ever climbed or tried to. Call me a fanatic bastard, an eliminate lover, call me what you like, because I don't care. </span></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">People are obviously free to use whatever they like, to get to the top. In the end, if they're weak it's not my problem. </span></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">But, since they like to comment about grades with the presumptuousness of having The Grading Truth, they should get some info beforehand. </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><i>Si parva licet componere magnis</i>, I would like to tell a story that I think explains my thought. </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">Years ago, a young, strong climber, started repeating all the old, hidden problems in the 7c+/8a range, put up by Fred Nicole in his home areas decades before. </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">He then started commenting that the grades given by the man himself were soft. "How dare you?" surged a sudden protest from the climbing community.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">Informed about the issue, Fred was interviewed about it. Being the person he is, he calmed the fuss and said: "Well it could easily be that my grades feel soft. That's probably because I'm not very good at finding sequences, and because, with those problems, I would simply see them and give them just a quick brush. Then I did them all flash or second go, so probably my sequences weren't very refined." </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">Now, I am not Fred. But the principle remains. </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">I think that when someone wants to make a statement, they should know what happened before them. </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">It's quite easy to find every possible information about everything on the interner nowadays, so the question is: do people really want to know what happened before them? </span></span></div>
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lorehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13869179431191761511noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1787714666374188667.post-37859157133692427232018-01-12T12:33:00.000+01:002018-01-12T12:43:26.938+01:00A CLASSIC TALE, OR: WHAT YOU SHOULDN'T DO, OR: WHAT YOU SHOULD DO<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Yesterday I received a comment from my friend Martin Keller, a.k.a. The Silent Crusher, a modest - really, not in the hypocritical way of Jens Larssen of 8a.shit - guy with a regular job, who happens to boulder 8c. </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">He complained about the lack of updates over here, and he was right. </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">So, here's the news: the news are that I spent a lot of time with straight arms.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">My last post was a gloomy one, with the black aura of lack of motivation and psyche looming over me. "Could be worse!" I should have thought. "Could be raining!" </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">And rain it did. Not in Young Frankenstein's sense, alas I wish it were. </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">A few months of weighted pull ups on a 1,5 cm edge suddenly took their toll under the form of a light niggle on my medial left elbow. </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">"FUCK YOU LIGHT NIGGLE!" I smartly yelled, and proceeded to put in a good ol' one arm, back3 session on the incut BM rung. Boy did it hurt me. </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">"FUCK YOU TOO, TWAT!" the light niggle yelled back at me, only now it wasn't a light niggle anymore, it was a green monster with eyes full of destruction. </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Cutting my losses I decided to avoid one arm sessions for a while, but my board project was waiting, and I thought it was a good idea to stick at it. Beautiful moves on front2 crimps and the compulsory Hubble-style match on a left hand undercling quickly let to big progress, of the green monster. He morphed into something like the Red Hulk, or maybe a cross between The Hulk and Silver Surfer: something everpresent and omnipotent. </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">In just a month and a half I understood that board session were to be sacked. I'm surprised it didn't take me longer to get this complex axiom. </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">I obviously stuck to the Iron. </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Session after session I learnt what was good and what was bad. Regular curls? Bad. Hammer-grip curls? Good. </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">I took out my copy of Jim Wendler's 5-3-1 and applied its principles to my weight training. I bought an Olympic barbell that is a work of beauty. 220 cm and 20,2 kg of pure, shiny steel. I bought some more plates and started snatching and power cleaning. </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">This is me repping 66 kg for 8. </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Ugly, I know, but just five minutes earlier, when doing recruitment jumps, forgetting that I had basic, hard soled shoes on, I landed badly on my right toe smashing it on the concrete floor. It hurt. It's now well blue and swollen. Oh well... </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">One day I also found out that, if I keep a straight arm, I can also deadhang. FUCKING BINGO! </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">So I went back to my trusty edges, the good ol' 9 mm and the freshly made, oldschool 5 mm. </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">I found out that I can one arm hang the 1,5 cm edge, just barely with my left hand; with some kilos added (can't remember how much, I think 5) with my right. I set a PB of 5" on the 9 mm edge with 40 kg on, and did 5" on the 5 mm with 10 kg on. </span></span><br />
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">I aptly bought some Frictionlabs Unicorn Dust chalk. </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Of course, I couldn't neglect body tension. I hit the ab-wheel hard, switching from power session to endurance ones with 2 sets of 50 or one monster set of 100. On the system board, I firstly regained confidence, then - with temps dropping - I went back to testing myself again. I worked hard on the full crimp with great benefits. </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Before hurting my toe, I was also doing foot on campusing with front and back3, front2 and mid2. Life is beautiful. </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Of course, my elbow still hurts a bit, but less than before, and in the meanwhile I got stronger. </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">There you go. </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Take home lesson: you shouldn't be stupid. You should be smart. You shouldn't injure yourself. You should train around your injury. </span></span></div>
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lorehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13869179431191761511noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1787714666374188667.post-91553043199476282732017-08-24T13:52:00.000+02:002017-08-24T13:52:00.327+02:00HOW THINGS ARE: A REALIZATION<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">2017 had started in a very good way. On a freezing and sunny early January's morning, I found myself going to a new, for me, bouldering area. Eyes on the prize, I managed to climb a 7c in a few goes and split a couple of fingers. With a migthy 4° in full sunshine and a crimpy roof, things do not come much better. </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Fast forward a few months, in April I had climbed a four years old board project, something that I had sometimes thought I would never climb. Four years trying a problem that played to all my strengths, mean that it's probably quite hard and I felt it like a monumental achievement. Possibly the hardest thing I've ever climbed. </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Then I made a mistake. I went back climbing. High temps, baby skin, lower back pain and other trivial excuses couldn't make up for a generally terrible climbing experience. </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">I repeated this mistake again and again until this past weekend, after which I decided to face the cold, hard truth: I have come to the end of my rock climbing career. </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">I have an enormous desire, a need perhaps, to perform. Possibly, to outperform others in terms of strength and power. But mostly to outperform my own self. I've come to this moment thinking that I would keep progressing despite age, work committments, injuries. And to some extent I have, but simply not on rock. </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">There is a gap, between what I can physically do in a safe environment, and what I can climb on rock, that is embarassing. </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">But most that anything else, I feel that I've come - close - to the end of my physical potential. </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Two of my best weapons, that have granted me so many climbs, that is crimping and heel hooking, are no more such. </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Crimping has become quite hard to bear, and at times unbearable. My fault, obviously. You can't spend session after session on front2 full crimps on the small BM edge without being handed a pricey bill at some time. Not if you're 45 years old, anyway. After boning down on some proper crimps, the upper side of my index fingers DIP joints gets so painful that it hurts to do simple, everyday's life tasks like using a fork or a knife, or twisting a car key. It is frankly terrifying. I think that, simply, the connective tissue between the bones has gone. </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Heel hooking has become nearly impossible, for both the state of my knees and of my hamstrings. After a couple of serious heel hooks I start to limp, the pain becomes unbearable and I feel that, should I push on, something big and serious is going to break for good. After yesterday's heel hooking - four tries in total - today I can't bend my right knee past 90° without feeling a stinging pain and without the knee collapsing down. </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Luckily, as I said, I can still perform: only, in the safe environment of my board, where heel hooks are impossible. Full crimps are still a problem though. </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">I need to get familiar with the fact that I can't climb hard on rock anymore. </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">I have my board, my BM, my various one arm edges, the Lattice Edge and so may other toys to enjoy. And I can enjoy them at their full potential, with a long and boring warm up, fans and air conditioning to make the best of the given conditions and a plethora of paraphernalia that I simply can't have out there on ze rocks. </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Plus, physical problems aside, I don't know how to climb anymore. I've never been Mr. Technique, but fuck me, now things are ridiculous. I lost any movement fantasy and intuition, and all my climbing skills are: plant foot on small foothold; become a steel beam; get next positive hold. I can't move on anything else. </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">I get frustrated if I can't climb hard. And I don't like it. </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">It's been good, even great, until it lasted. </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">In the past, I had already understood that I was mainly a board climber and a trainer, but then I've had some good success on some hard things and this led me to think that maybe it wasn't over yet on rock. </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">I was wrong. </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Climbing hard on rock now would involve so many complicated things that it's basically impossible: from the choice of a suitable problem, to the time to try it, to getting good conditions, to motivation. </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">I am a bit sad, but not so sad. </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">As long as I can climb, or keep trying, my board projects, progress on the dead hangs and move big amounts of iron, I am happy and I feel that I still have a lot to give. </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">I can now dedicate my full self to the most useless pursuit of Strength. </span></span></div>
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lorehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13869179431191761511noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1787714666374188667.post-23759331875826694012017-04-23T13:23:00.001+02:002017-04-23T14:08:21.634+02:00WHAT'S NORMAL? <div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">It's Wednesday, it's half past nine and I've just finished my dinner. I am watching TV on my couch with my girlfriend, and everything's as usual. There's nothing special in this evening. Apart the fact that I've just climbed one of the hardest problems I've ever set on my board. Apart the fact that I'd been trying that problem for more than four years. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">It's Wednesday, it's seven o' clock and I've just finished my warm up. I am on the bed, recovering from the last set of the recruitment part of the session. This time I tried something new, and, dammit, I think I screwed it. Monumentally. Instead of feeeling fired up, angry and sparky, I feel tired and empty. My forearms feel a bit worked and they don't seem to be getting much better with time. My core doesn't feel ready either. I'm not sure about what I should do: should I go for it despite everything, or should I sack it and put in another training and refining session? </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">My last sessions had marked some incredible steps forward with this project: in one, for the first time I'd been able to climb the problem in two overlapping halves, twice. I also climbed the second part three times; in the other, I nearly did the problem. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">The roots of this incredible progress are deeply sunk in the previous session. During the years I had tried many different options for the feet, to try and make the crucial section of the problem less problematic. Without success. To have a higher percentage of success on the two hardest moves, I should have used two footholds that made the previous moves very low percentage ones. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">So, I was stuck. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">There was no solution but to simply choose which moves I wanted to keep safer and which one I wanted to risk. This went on for months and years.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">At some point, to try and have some kind of success, I - forgive me gods of climbing for I have sinned - added a hold. I decided to use a good edge just beside the left hand hold, to match on it with the right hand during the first crux of the problem, a hard swing from a small three fingers crimp. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">After some effort and countless sessions, with this added hold I managed to do this move for the first time in three years, and I was happy to say the least, as it shows.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Success was far though, because I still hadn't done the second crux of the problem. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Fast forward a few months, and after many tons lifted and deadhung, one day, one magic day, I managed to do the move as originally set, without the added hold, just holding the swing from the small crimp. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Another step. And another wall in front of me, the second part of the problem. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">More months, more tons lifted and deadhung, and I finally did the second half of the problem. I thought it was game on. How wrong I was... </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Success of each session was judged not in terms of climbing the problem, or even putting in good link-ups, but in terms of being able to do the single hard moves. Sometimes I would stick the swing move once, some other times I would do the second crux once, but most times I wouldn't do either. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">For weeks and months. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Then, on another magic day, I managed to climb all the moves in the same session, and I felt like a god. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">This feat didn't happen again for more and more weeks. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Temps in the low twenties, season was over. At this point, there was no reason not to try and prepare next season's efforts, by - maybe - finding new solutions for the feet. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">I dedicated an entire afternoon just to trying new combinations for the two cruxes. The problem was that I'd already tried them all before without success. Having better footholds for the following move would make the previous one almost impossible. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Then, I tried the previously unthinkable. </span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">I tried to keep both feet high on both cruxes. I had tried this before, and it was beyond my imagination. The moves felt impossible. </span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">But now they worked. I could not fucking believe it. I could use these footholds. </span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">This time I was really onto something. </span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">This process of years had led to the infamous previous session, in which I felt closer than ever, nearly doing the problem, as it shows here. </span></div>
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</div>
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<iframe width="320" height="266" class="YOUTUBE-iframe-video" data-thumbnail-src="https://i.ytimg.com/vi/XQEZGxxGg4c/0.jpg" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/XQEZGxxGg4c?feature=player_embedded" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">And now it's Wednesday, it's seven o' clock and I feel tired and empty. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">It's Wednesday, it's a quarter past seven and I'm sitting here, at the bottom of the board. Hands chalked, shoes tight and clean, who knows what's going to happen. </span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">First move, from undercling to rounded edge: I catcht it slightly on the left side and have to adjust a little: a matter of millimeters. </span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Second move, slight cross to a good edge, again, a little bit too much on the left. </span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Third move, things star getting serious, right hand to a vertical pinch. I squeeze it and I feel good goddammit. It's on. </span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Fourth move, quick move to the undercling. Positive edge, undercling, goddammit I love this hold. So many good problems pay homage to this hold. I feel strong and set my feet and body for the next move, the start of the first crux. </span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Fifth move: to the small crimp. This hold is nasty. Three fingers, a bit less that half a pad, full crimp. Nasty. Why did I choose it? Because it's there, obviously. I catch it slightly too much on the left. Again. Motherfucker. For the whole problem I've been half a centimetre shifted to the left. Now. Now. Now it's time to be strong. </span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Sixth move, the first crux, the swing. I set my feet up, I stay low and vertical under the crimp, I press on the footholds, just the right amount of weight, not too much or I'll jump out, not too little or I'll miss the next hold. I move, I land on the edge, still on the left side of it goddammit. I feel the swing, I feel every micron of skin on the holds, I reach the apex and start swinging in, and in that split instant I feel my right hand rolling on the hold, and before I realize it my feet are on the mats. God fucking dammit. When will it ever be over? I am brought back to weeks and months and years of failure. I kick this thought out of my mind, feast or forget. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">It's Wednesday, it's half past seven and I'm sitting here, again at the bottom of the board. Hands chalked, shoes tight and clean, who knows what's going to happen. </span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">First move, I get the hold even more on the left than the previous try. I adjust and I am not there at all. </span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Second move, I get it horribly wrong, miles to the left. I am shocked by how badly I'm doing. I loose concentration and tension and my left foot slips from the foothold. I am on the mat after two moves. I need to be strong now. I need to be as mentally strong as I am physically. </span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">I am calm. I am in the eye of a hurricane. I am a hurricane. </span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">I make a small tickmark on the second hold. I will get it there. </span></div>
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<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">It's Wednesday, it's seven and thirtyfive and I'm sitting here, again at the bottom of the board. </span><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Hands chalked, shoes tight and clean, I know what's going to happen. I am going to climb the problem. I've put the toothbrush on the mats and I've muttered to myself: "This is for later, I'll brush the tickmarks off after climbing the problem." </span></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">First move: perfect. </span></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Second move: perfect. </span></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Third move, the pinch: perfect. </span></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Fourth move, to the undercling: perfect. The instant my left hand lands on the edge, I know that I'm doing great. It feels good and grippy. </span></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Fifth move, the small crimp: obviously perfect. I am exactly where I want to be. Three fingers covering all the good spot, thumb over. Now my control ends here. I am stepping off the charts on <i>terra incognita</i>. <i>Hic sunt leones</i>. I don't know what's going to happen in the next second and half, but there will be only two possibilities: I'll either hold the swing, or I won't. </span></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">I land perfectly on the edge. Swing out. Apex. I feel my right fingers moving so slightly on the crimp. An instant of uncertainty. I swing in, kick the board and stop. I am still on. But the swing took a lot of effort this time and I feel it. </span></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Seventh move, haven't been here for a while. To a very good undercling, the start of the second crux. I breathe and adjust my feet. Right one low, left one high. The unthinkable is now real. </span></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Eigth move: the cross. I set up, inhale and hold my breath. "I'm going to fall here." I think, but my body doesn't listen, it's on autopilot and I am on the hold. I twist my body under it, my left foot is bolted to the board as if it were on a ledge. On a fucking bivy ledge. The right foot comes in and I am ready to match. </span></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Ninth move. Front two match. There's just enough horizontal space on the hold. Unfortunately it tapers just where you have to match.</span></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Right. I had been here before. Three times. Once, a couple of years ago, I fell matching. Another time, a few months ago, I again fell matching. The third time, a few days ago, I fell on the following move. </span></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">And now? </span></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">I match perfectly, I feel the pressure on my index and middle fingers, I feel the texture of the hold running out where it tapers and disappears under my fingers. There's only so little to use. It's a hard compromise between left and right. You have to make each prehension equally good, or bad depending on how you see things, to make the move. If you're tempted by the sirens of immediate success, and you're lured into getting the hold too good, too deep, you'll easily twist your body under the hold, but then you won't be able to match and you'll fall. On the other hand, quite literally, if you think too long-term, and you sacrifice the left hand for a good match, you'll never get the match, because you'll fall twisting your body under. It's oh so subtle. </span></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">But I am there, my fingers are exactly where they have to. </span></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">My body is exactly where it has to. </span></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">And then... </span></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Then I don't know. The next thing I know is that I've done the next move, I find myself on the following hold, not perfectly, but on it. Three fingers on, slightly openhanded. It's unreal. I am here. I am still on. </span></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">I regain control. </span></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Eleventh move, to a very good edge on the left. Nasty shoulder move. I do it. </span></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Twelfth move, to the final jug. I get it. It's over. It's fucking goddammit over. </span></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">I can't believe it. </span></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">I slam the door open - I'd locked myself in to be more concentrated - and go to celebrate with my girlfriend. I jump around the house with arms in the air, and I can't believe it. </span></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
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<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">It's Wednesday, it's twenty to eight and I'm sitting here, on the mats, and everything's normal. Everything's as usual. I take my shoes off, I brush the tickmarks off, I put everything to place: shoes, brushes, chalkbags. As always. I am ready for a shower and dinner. As always. Because everything's normal. Except for the fact that I've just climbed a four years project that I had deemed impossible until just ten days before. </span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">It took me more than twenty years to get to this point. And I'm not talking about climbing the project. I am talking about reaching this vision, in which the extraodinary is absorbed by the so called normality. Climbing doesn't entirely fill my life anymore, and my obsession is self-confined into precise boundaries. </span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">My climbing is all the climbing I know and care about, and it's just one part of my life. An important part, but a part, a fraction nonetheless. It's finally become just something that I do, I love and I enjoy. </span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">But having climbed that problem is still fucking awesome. </span></div>
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lorehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13869179431191761511noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1787714666374188667.post-65627185559099523602016-11-02T16:23:00.001+01:002016-11-02T16:23:44.974+01:00I AM STILL A CLIMBER SOMETIMES. OR: THERE'S A RIGHT TIME AND PLACE FOR EVERYTHING. <div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhJYYnq5w6SpK2LP1PdiU2wqkaF4lBNZc3zUXRc_dokHJ50TCLOKIwZEuiANIbxyMJxVuG9GjNnRtRAp8lPAL_tEcXDMN3ZAH9MsyCL9J35NCA1LduneCWIcXieZRe9oXi8einacRPlKeE/s1600/IMG-20161029-WA0019.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="180" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhJYYnq5w6SpK2LP1PdiU2wqkaF4lBNZc3zUXRc_dokHJ50TCLOKIwZEuiANIbxyMJxVuG9GjNnRtRAp8lPAL_tEcXDMN3ZAH9MsyCL9J35NCA1LduneCWIcXieZRe9oXi8einacRPlKeE/s320/IMG-20161029-WA0019.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgZGnaJTnnF-olYNmb_XEnnMDMUhkfbnG3ZB7mL3XQjK04lFb5C2xyAxMLw05RggTI8lLqP-8r47dzepNH9IMvd1sYWgopU9ZGnrJDoLvjLCASO9bDA_DQiRT1rXzowXrdQnCzSHPXlCv4/s1600/IMG-20161029-WA0020.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="180" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgZGnaJTnnF-olYNmb_XEnnMDMUhkfbnG3ZB7mL3XQjK04lFb5C2xyAxMLw05RggTI8lLqP-8r47dzepNH9IMvd1sYWgopU9ZGnrJDoLvjLCASO9bDA_DQiRT1rXzowXrdQnCzSHPXlCv4/s320/IMG-20161029-WA0020.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgy_LHxBZ0h4_6YqO1rj9c3gXbn0TpBaEPlJxK1aboYGTn1BQM8IkOWUVHW7ZnehyphenhyphenrS4nsoBk2vzTTkv5tKd1d8Rt7frgBrd7EbzPOjiUawliU_DYNRJU9fN_8Itv1sL6Zoo_UgTF71Auk/s1600/IMG-20161029-WA0021.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="180" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgy_LHxBZ0h4_6YqO1rj9c3gXbn0TpBaEPlJxK1aboYGTn1BQM8IkOWUVHW7ZnehyphenhyphenrS4nsoBk2vzTTkv5tKd1d8Rt7frgBrd7EbzPOjiUawliU_DYNRJU9fN_8Itv1sL6Zoo_UgTF71Auk/s320/IMG-20161029-WA0021.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">Perfect. </span></span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhVY5OUVKAbfqANbcGpwfYnPPwN1fzKfQ2ILrIyi2Ksl884g8nMZ3FRuX9zUSTYKSdOVrnO3wrdJSSkFqFRu1B_oa9MBcP87LUce0hBT3CieyERYC-Rpk7w3gvFVlxnGZUg2ho63gdoVHU/s1600/copertina.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="180" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhVY5OUVKAbfqANbcGpwfYnPPwN1fzKfQ2ILrIyi2Ksl884g8nMZ3FRuX9zUSTYKSdOVrnO3wrdJSSkFqFRu1B_oa9MBcP87LUce0hBT3CieyERYC-Rpk7w3gvFVlxnGZUg2ho63gdoVHU/s320/copertina.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-size: x-small;"> <span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Perfect.</span></span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjSagjF3-Rp-Wh-VxedmWECs4tM2X1hTnbXDxsBlNj1jZzRqlXFLWfzZLDC0k5LBgZOlq6ioVkdJFDN8n9aLZ-YCBPb_0PY5Ygfuyj1EaTAFIwIOjxOISLG6Xv8B8ZWTr_JJJCxMV17-Fs/s1600/mano.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjSagjF3-Rp-Wh-VxedmWECs4tM2X1hTnbXDxsBlNj1jZzRqlXFLWfzZLDC0k5LBgZOlq6ioVkdJFDN8n9aLZ-YCBPb_0PY5Ygfuyj1EaTAFIwIOjxOISLG6Xv8B8ZWTr_JJJCxMV17-Fs/s320/mano.jpeg" width="180" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">A little less than perfect. </span></div>
<br />
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-size: small;">As I've said and said and said, I pride myself on being able to express perfectly every imaginable thought and concept, analyzing their deep essence and meaning. This time though, I'm struggling to grasp exactly what lies underneath the mere facts, so I'll stick to the mere facts. </span></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-size: small;">The first day was amazing, and I allowed myself the luxury of visiting a new sector. A new sector, new boulders in a place where you've been climbing for almost twenty years now, is really a luxury and fuck me, I absolutely reveled in it. Basking in the Sun and in the Glory of ticking every problem, I got seriously reminded about everything that's great in climbing. </span></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-size: small;">All alone with just my girlfriend, agonizing with anticipation during all the three minutes that were dedicated to the theraband warm-up, it's been great to feel my body adapting to the task, morphing from steel-beam rigidity and mobility to steel-beam strength. Or something like that. </span></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-size: small;">I found myself in a bulimic orgy of problems, with the main difference that it was nothing pathologic. For once, I didn't even think about grades. </span></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-size: small;">The desire to climb every problem made that thought superfluous. </span></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-size: small;">Pocket pulling a go-go, sun on my back, chocolate and protein shakes, nothing else comes close. </span></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-size: small;">An amazing prow at 7b+ refuses to surrender under my assaults, so I'm forced to use all my four limbs, trying to actually put some weight on my feet, and it goes. I am the best. </span></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-size: small;">At that point I decided to try a problem in a roof, that was still marked "project" in the guidebook. I immediately had a sequence, that involved skipping at least three pockets. Unsurprisingly it didn't go. </span></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-size: small;">Campari Sprits and food followed, both in inhuman amount. </span></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-size: small;">The second day was still amazing, but I woke up feeling as if a freight train loaded with cement blocks had run over me. </span></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-size: small;">Back to the new sector, I did nothing apart from repeating a few problems for the camera and spotting my girlfriend. And eating chocolate, bread and honey sandwiches and protein shakes and protein bars. At some point I went back to the supposed project. To be truly honest, I couldn't believe that it was really a project: there were holds, and I know that there are many strong climbers that climb there. So I imagined that there could be some ultra-deep low start. The only problem was that it was a boulder bridged over two boulders, forming a small tunnel, so there was no deep start. I then imagined that the start could be on the opposite face of the boulder, then you would basically downclimb and join what appeared to be the logical start. I tried this, broke a few holds, hit my head twice on the nearby boulders and understood that it was no go. I decided to start one hand movement lower than I'd started the previous day, and fuck me it made a difference. </span></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-size: small;">My body was quite stretched and serious pulling was needed to stay put and not touch the boulders on which the roof sits. </span></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-size: small;">After a couple of fumbled goes, I did it, as the magnificence of the picture above shows. Best photo I have, possibly. </span></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-size: small;">So, with the new sector basically ticked I went to visit and old friend. A long traverse in a roof that I'd been after since 2010. It was dry, and I remembered all the moves perfectly. I was terrified, they were hard. The following day was going to be the day. </span></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-size: small;">Again Campari Spritz and food in unjustified amount. </span></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-size: small;">Even the third day was amazing, but my mental skies were full of grey clouds, the grey clouds of uncertainty, doubt, and pressure. I woke up at 6:40 and couldn't go back to sleep. </span></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-size: small;">The roof was my target for this trip, and with Winter approaching I knew that this might be the last chance of this season. I had taken the chance to avoid the project with the excuse of the new sector and its chanting sirens, but now I had only one option. </span></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-size: small;">I believed I'd done this problem in 2010, as <a href="https://vimeo.com/14390805">this video</a> shows, and as I wrote in <a href="http://totolore.blogspot.it/2010/08/dolomites-man.html">this blog entry</a>. </span></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-size: small;">Anyway, I was wrong. After long hours spent on the internet and speaking to one of the guys who regularly climb there, I discovered that the problem shown in the video was in fact a first ascent, and that the original problem I was after laid a few meters on the left of the roof, and it was a much more serious proposition. </span></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-size: small;">Back to the drawing table... </span></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-size: small;">In the Summer of 2015, with all the new info, I managed to climb one of the coolest problems I've ever done, as I wrote in <a href="http://totolore.blogspot.it/2015/06/even-more-days.html">this other blog entry</a>. This problem also constitues the first half of the original traverse that was starting to feel like a hidden treasure to me. </span></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-size: small;">Then in September 2015 in was back there again, as I wrote <a href="http://totolore.blogspot.it/2015/09/no-more-days.html">here</a>.</span></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">From that weekend of 2015 until a few days ago, every time I would do my theraband warm-up my thoughts would go back to the problem that had smashed my shoulder, to the project in front of which I was now stood. In 13 months I'd done a lot of theraband warm-ups and I'd thought to that moves a lot of times... </span></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">My last session, one year before, had left me not only with a painful shoulder, but with a bitter taste also. The moves had felt hard, I couldn't repeat the 8a and I also couldn't link the second part on its own. Summoning all the hypocrisy I was capable of, I blamed the torrid conditions and tried to forget about it. </span></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Now, I was feeling a coward for leaving the project to the last day, I knew that I should have dedicated all my available time to it, leaving the last day for the new sector. But the damage was already done, and there was no turning back. </span></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">I took it very easy, spotting my girlfriend and eating, I even tried to have a nap in the Sun. I couldn't sleep, but it helped me a lot, at least in terms of a cool tan. </span></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">And finally I am here. All the holds are dry, a couple of ones are a bit humid but I brush this thought off. </span></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">I don't have enough pads for the whole thing, so I ask my girlfriend for an even more accurate spot, to avoid being impaled by some sticking tree branches or crushed onto some rocks. </span></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">First go, all the bad memories of the last session disappear in an instant. The sloper feels good, and forgetting all my past errors, I perform every move perfectly and complete the 8a part, then I enter the proper roof. Months of snatches, weights and training have made my shoulders bigger and more powerful and the crux move goes down without a problem. I struggle on the reach though, a long sideways reach to a blind, distant undercling. But I get it nonetheless. I cut loose and using momentum I paste my feet on the slopey holds of the back wall. I am horizontal over some big rocks put in circle to be used as a bonfire, and I mutter "Spot me very well here." to my girlfriend. This thought breaks the magic and the thought of falling off onto the rocks enters my mind. I still do the cross move to the other undercling, but then I fuck the feet placements and I am back on the ground. </span></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">I pant and pant and can't get enough air to fill my lungs and fight the effort. I am spent. By just one go. </span></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">I find myself in a mist in which I am happy for what I've just done, yet disappointed because only four moves were left. Happy because I had retroflashed the 8a, disappointed because I had let a negative thought make a big damage. I was so close. </span></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">And now I am exhausted. I am over. It is over. I have to wait another year, soon it will start snowing here. I can't wait any longer. I don't want to. I won't. </span></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">One more go. My forearms are the size of a balloon and I take off my thermal that compresses them too much. After a few minutes collecting my thoughts, every other second that I wait feels unbearable and I must go again. </span></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">I am not rested enough and it feels. </span></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">I fumble the first two feet placements and in anger step off and start all over again. </span></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">This time it goes better, but still not perfectly. I do the first part again, but then the next moves are a bit precarious and I waste energy. I'm at the shoulder move and as I start compressing my right foot slips off the hold. A gigantic hold. A hold so big you could lose your shoe in it. </span></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">I swear and swear and swear and now I'm sure it's really over. </span></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Or maybe not. I force myself to rest forever, I put on my down jacket and try to make blood leave my forearms. It's a long task. </span></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">After what seemed an eternity I am there at the start. Should I take my thermal off or not? How will it affect my forearms? I keep it and go. </span></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">I immediately feel incredibly well, I feel the rubber squeak onto the rock. I am so comfortable in this storm. </span></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">I tap my left hand on my trousers, the sloper feels amazing. Feet are perfect and I am easily at the hole. Instead of cutting loose I instinctively keep my left foot on and heel hook with my right. I feel the difference and I know that I'm climbing perfectly and I congratulate myself. With the left foot on, I am a bit further away from the next hold and I'm not prepared to this. I struggle to identify it from the new position, but then I dig deeper and get it. I feel the difference again in my body position and I know that I have to pull harder to avoid a lethal swing. So I pull harder and I avoid the lethal swing. I keep motoring, everything seems different. </span></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">The left hand hold, instead of frustration, gives me confidence and I do the next moves with a sense of pleased surprise. I must be doing good. At the shoulder move. My right foot is sunk so hard that it hurts this time, and my position is so perfect that I can match without putting so much pressure; I can even briefly let go with my left hand to recover a little. </span></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">The reach. </span></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">The reach is still hard, I feel my left hand sliding a little but I don't care, I get the undercling. Paste feet and push as if I were to break the rock. I feel extremely solid. I am over the rocks, the thought of asking for a closer spot comes and goes and remains a thought, because as soon as I realize it I am eyeing the right hand pinch and before realizing that I'm eyeing it, I am reaching it static, and then the sensation of it being much better than it ever felt reaches my brain and shocks me. I am three moves away and I'm feeling powerful. I cross over with my left hand to the final pocket, toe hook still bolted to the rock and I go to the blind edge behind the small prow. </span></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">And I miss it. </span></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">I had missed it the day before on a quick rehearsal and I had thought about how hard it would be, if I were to miss it coming from the start. And now I'm coming from the start and I've missed it. </span></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">But I am so solid that I stay calm and search for it, then grab it. Everything feels good, I cut loose in control and one second later I am at the final jug with my left hand, then I match and jump off. </span></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">I gasp for air once again, and in between gasps I keep repeating "I can't believe it." Again and again. </span></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">I lay down on the mat and keep panting, I ask for a hug. </span></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">I know how hard it is to be with an obsessed climber. </span></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">It's over now, I've done it. </span></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Year after year after year, a story that goes back to 2010 has now come to an ending. The happy ending. </span></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">I still can't believe how well I climbed and I still can't believe that I climbed it. I am so happy. I take my flask and sip some whiskey that my girlfriend brought from London. Before leaving for this trip I'd filled my flask again because after all I was sure it was going to be gorgeous. </span></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Tomorrow we'll go back home. Tomorrow it will be sunny and clear again, but I don't care, because I've done it today. </span></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Later on we go for a walk, then we go visit the nearby LaSportiva factory for some bargain sales. It's packed with climbers buying stuff. They're all clean and branded. I am a mess of patched jeans, tape and blood stains. </span></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">I look around, and wherever I turn I think "I am the strongest one. Noone else is as strong as me." </span></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">And I feel like Jerry. </span></span></div>
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-size: small;"> </span> </span>lorehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13869179431191761511noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1787714666374188667.post-54352329764796413122016-10-01T11:47:00.001+02:002016-10-01T11:47:27.337+02:00NOTHING NEW. OR... <div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">The rule of the part time blogger is that after a hiatus, one should immediately renew the enthusiasm of the followers, by announcing exciting news, a strong resolution, or a mega project finally hammered into submission. </span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Not in this case. </span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">I have nothing special to tell, but I want to start again with some good habits that I had to put to one side in the last months. I spent the entire Summer working and studying, and now I am finally free. </span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Belive it or not, I climbed a new problem in May, in the only couple of hours that I've spent on rock in ages. </span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">This problem is cool, it's always been there, at one of the most frequented areas around, and it was never cleaned. The most essential line of crimps on the lip of a roof, for the most elementary of all traverses. Not. </span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">While the holds were all there, in their glorious and different forms, from majestic, grainy slopiness to pointy teeth, or plain razor blades, the sequence was far from trivial. </span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">With a brainless enthusiasm I got to work and after five minutes my skin was already thrashed, but I had a sequence. Torrid temps were suggesting to let it rest for a few months, but that would have been too easy. </span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">I don't know how I managed, but I climbed it. Pulling as hard as I possibly could, surely must have helped.</span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">I called the problem "Animali Senza Tempo", which means "Timeless Animals", and it's a reference to sharks, crocodiles, and few other beasts that are almost exactly the same as they were at the beginning of evolution. </span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">In a few years time, this problem will be "discovered" by someone who is sure to be the first boulderer to set his or her eyes on this line - because he or she is sure that bouldering didn't even existed here before their arrival -, it will be "freed" with all the possible cheating techniques, brushing holds out of the soft rock, eliminating spikes and blades, not sticking to the lip, all in the name of climbing progress, all in the name of shameless self promotion. </span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">These ridiculous individuals have all my pity, compassion and sympathy. Only, I have no pity, no compassion, no sympathy at all. </span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">I wonder how one could possibly believe that nothing existed before them. I wonder why people aren't interested in knowing the facts, the history. They revel and bask in ignorance, in name dropping, in being servants of the local starlet, in shining of reflected light. </span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">People are uninformed, they love to be uninformed, so that they can believe what they like to believe without having to stick to facts, but then when they make public statements, being uninformed, they misinform others. </span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">I could go on forever on this. I won't. </span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">But you could ask why I don't face this issue, why I don't face these people and thell them how things really are: that they haven't invented anything, exactly as I didn't; that problems X, Y and Z were climbed ten years ago; that they cheat on routes and boulders. </span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Well, there are many reasons. </span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">First of all, I don't care that much at all. Knowing the truth, what is false doesn't affect me. </span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Second, they don't deserve the truth. To quote Jack Nicholson in "A Few Good Men", they can't handle the truth. Truth is not for everyone, not for those who want to be the first ones, the unique ones, the rebel ones, the pure ones. Truth is democratic: there's always someone else who's been there before, done that before. We only need to widen our views. </span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Third, I don't want to cause a stir, and if I speak, there will be much more of a stir, there will be a Maelstrom that will suck them all. </span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Finally, being a bastard, I take great pleasure in seeing how they all make fools of themselves in front of my eyes, and in front of the eyes of those who have been around for a while. </span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">It's fun, I started this post wanting just to reacquaint myself, just to post a couple of pics, and look what I've done. </span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">But I left the most amazing news last, the most incredible of all news: I want to rock climb, I'm going rock climbing tomorrow. </span></div>
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Now tell me if this isn't really unbelievable. It is. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"> </span>lorehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13869179431191761511noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1787714666374188667.post-51302162734695028762016-04-10T23:28:00.002+02:002016-04-10T23:28:42.458+02:00SON OF S.A.M.<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">With the powers granted by all the fucks that I don't give about what's going on in the climbing world, thereunto enabling me, I hereby officially command that the Board season be considered over, and as a consequence I order that the Summer of S.A.M. commence, where S.A.M. stands for "Singles, Anabolism, Metcon". </span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Getting the front two crimp I immediately feel that something's wrong. And I refuse to admit it. I refuse to admit it because I have convinced myself that today I am going to climb one last project before the arrival of Spring and high temps. I mean, higher temps. After one week with up to 26,5° a sudden couple of cloudy, rainy days <span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">have gi<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">ven</span></span> me renewed hope. I've been struck by luck and I must take advantage of the bitch. </span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">I have slept until late after a very tiring week, I have eaten well and I have done my usual, loyal general warm up routine. Then it's time to awake the fingers. Big slopers, 35°, big rungs back3, big rungs front3, small rungs back3, small rungs front3, small rungs front two crimps, one arm the incut rung. Fingers are ready. Time for some recruitment. A dumbbell complex with low reps, at full speed, is followed by some cleans and some snatches. The speed is there. Time to rest. I am ready. "One shot, one kill." I say to myself as I leave the ground for yet another moment of glory. </span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">That's why, when I feel the crimp, I refuse to believe my sensations. I start sliding off and I barely make the second move. I crimp the motherfucker out of the hold, cut loose (I mean, seriously, what the fuck? I thought the times of cutting loose were over!) and in disbelief fuck the feet sequence, then, like a hippo rolling in the mud, I try to get the next hold and I'm on the mats. </span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Jesusfuckingchrist, this is shit. I am shit. I am a shame for climbing. </span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Maybe 21° are still a bit too many for this project, that I've trying for a couple of years now, and for the last 8 weeks... </span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">I keep my calm, because I know that on this planet there's only one thing that's stronger than my body, and it's my mind. </span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">I go through all the moves, sometimes sticking them, some others not. </span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">I rest. </span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">I feel, with complete sureness, that liquid chalk is a disadvantage in these conditions. It forms too thick a layer on the skin, and that's why I slid off. Temps aside. </span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">I start again. This time, it's one shot and one kill. Not. But I make it to the third move. Moving in the right direction. Keep moving. I feel strange sensations when moving my feet, time to check the shoes. The soles are dented. Session after session the footholds - despite being slightly rounded - consume the sole in the same exact spot, and after some time a dent appears. And it changes everything. Out comes the file, and as I've done dozens of times, I start filing the dent out, cleaning all the small ridges in the rubber, making everything smooth and level. </span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">"One shoot, one kill." Bang. I get to the last move of the crux and fall with numb fingers. Excellent. This was my personal best on the problem duri<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">ng the past weeks</span>, with perfect temps. Numb fingers mean switch fan from 3 to 1. Rest. </span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Everything goes as programmed, I am a machine. I execute perfectly, not a single hesitation, I am static, strong motherfucker. But the last move is hard. </span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Three more times I get to the last hard move, maybe the hardest of the problem. And three more times I don't manage to seal the deal. </span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">I keep trying until I feel that I have no more chances. The season is over. I set the last move with a different hold, a generous 2 cm finger jug, and I immediately fire the problem as a consolation tick. But the season is over. </span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">I feel that I've done everything I could, to climb it. But it simply was too hard, at least for the day. Attaboy. Boy done good. </span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">At the end of the Summer, last year, I decided that I would dedicate myself completely to the Board during the Autumn and Winter. I decided that I wouldn't set any new problem until I'd done all the existing projects. What a great decision it was. The real thing. </span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">I stuck to my program and went through many projects that I'd set in the past years, and methodically climbed them one by one. I found myself stripping some holds that I had added when the original sequences seemed impossible, and I found myself climbing those problems as I had set them years and years ago, when my imagination was limitless and I didn't care about doing them. It was all about the perspective, all about the future. This future became real, and moves that I had imagined became moves that I was performing. </span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">And it's all about this. Nothing else. Getting to know that with some time and dedication, I can climb stuff. Nothing else. </span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">I became particularly bitter and cynical about the "climbing world" as of late. Many of the things that I read seem to me incredibly ridiculous, and I feel surrounded by attention-seeking behaviours of all kinds. Problem is: I know everything. I know when people cheat, I know when people use grades to belittle others, I know hypocrisy and I know envy. </span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">I would have never imagined it, even few years ago, that one day I would have felt so far away from "mainstream" climbing, and at the same time so happy about my climbing and my attitude. </span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">The Board. The Beastmaker. The Iron. Just these. So happy. </span></div>
lorehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13869179431191761511noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1787714666374188667.post-40630485258171131082016-01-31T16:54:00.004+01:002016-01-31T16:54:54.331+01:00ICONOCLASM<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">I've been thinking about this thing for years now, and maybe it's time for me to get rid of it by sharing my thoughts. Maybe I find out that I'm not alone. </span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">As it's easy to imagine, I've spent quite a lot of time in climbing gyms during the last ten or fifteen years. </span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">It seems to me, that many Italian climbing gyms suffer from a very clichéd behaviour. </span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">The usual pattern, at least for the gyms that I've regularly been to, is that a strong climber at some point decides to open a gym, or to go and work somehow at an existing gym, maybe setting, maybe coaching. </span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Let's not take into account, for the purpose of this post, the not so irrelevant aspect that many of the guys who do this aren't qualified neither to set nor to coach. I mean, officially and legally qualified. Like, they attended a course, passed some sort of evaluation, got a qualification. </span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Let's not take into account that many simply apply to others the kind of training that worked for themselves, without reflecting over the circumstance that they may have been training for decades and are not novices that want to go from 5c to 6b. </span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Let's overlook this all. </span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">What always left slackjawed, is the fact that, in the gyms that I know well, there is always a star, a leader that all the climbers worship. </span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">I am always shocked by how everyone seems to be needing a boss to which refer, and whose words are thought to be taken as absolute truth.</span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">I've seen things, that you people wouldn't believe. Groups of beginners destroying themselves on a campusboard for hours and weeks on end, because the rock star gave them a training plan. 14 years old, 40 kilos talents ripping their muscles with weighted pull ups, because the rock star wanted to test their strength level before coaching them. Groups of 10 novices following the rock star <span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">like</span> dumb prisoners, each one with a crashpad on their shoulders, as the leader tries all day his dangerous projects, brushing a couple of rocks nearby to make the children play when off spotting duty. </span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">I've heard every kind of amazed, adulatory and self depressing comment about the leader: "I'll never be as strong as he is." "He could be in the national team if he wanted." "Only he, can climb this." and so on. </span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">I despise this servility. </span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">A strong climber that operates in your gym, is just that. He's not a leader, a life guru, or someone to worship. He could be someone to admire, if he deserves it, and when he deserves it. </span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">I wonder why<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"> <span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">t<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">hese people always need a chief. </span></span></span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">To me, climbing has always been about the highest form of individualism, a radical behaviour that follows the rule that you are always alone on the rock. You may be tied to another p<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">erson, but when climbing, you're alone. You're alone becau<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">se you only have the respo<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">nsibility of your own actions, and of the conse<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">quences that those a<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">ctions can have on the o<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">ther <span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">person. </span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">We a<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">re always alone on the rock: if we want to <span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">kick down a rock<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">, we can do it<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">; if we want <span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">not to cli<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">p into the bolts, we can do it. Because we are alone and no one can sto<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">p us. But if the rock falls on the head of someone, or <span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">if a nasty fall puts everyone at danger, it's <span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">only our <span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">fa<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">ult. There's no sha<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">ring in climbing, there is only putting together small bits of indivi<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">dual effort. </span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span>We share the experience, but not the climbing. </span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">This individ<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">ualism was immediately evident to me, becau<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">se before <span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">st<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">arting climbing, I'<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">d always participated in team sports. </span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">All I knew was that <span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">everyone was stronger than me, <span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">everyone was better than me<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">, and that I wanted to become stronger and better than all those people. </span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">My friends and everyone who was stronger than me, were more <span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">targets than role models. I copied what <span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">they were doing, maybe even thei<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">r attitu<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">de, but only to have a<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">n eas<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">ier target to destroy.</span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">They were still friends and brother<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">s in real life, though.</span> </span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Even now, despite struggling to stay attached to the sport with everyday's life committments, I have no gods, no leaders, no models. </span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">There i<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">s a h<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">uge difference between esteem and idolatry; between matter-of<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">-factness and self<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">-deprecation. </span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">I don't know what peo<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">ple like in this attitude. Maybe it's because <span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">they think that some of the <span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">leader's golde<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">n</span> dust will rub on them<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">. Maybe it's because they like <span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">to shine with mirrored li<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">ght. </span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">In doing so, they accept and embrace mediocrity<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">, because they accept that they will never be as good as their duce, their leader, their god. They could progress, but... they will never be like him. Or her. </span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">I would like that these people kill their ido<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">ls. </span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">I would like that they shine of their own light, strong or feeble, but theirs. </span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">I would like that they say: fuck you I'm not <span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">spotting you all day and carry your pads. </span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">I would like that they take the ris<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">k of wanting to get stronger and better that anyone else<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">, or at least as strong and as<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"> good a<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">s humanly possible for them. </span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">But no, for them it's better to be part of a crew<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">.<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"> I<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">t's better to <span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">hide behin<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">d a star and be happy to be their friend, their follower, their crashpad caddy, their belay slave. </span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span> </span> </span></span></span></span></span></span> </span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">I don<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">'t even want to spend a word about the other side of th<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">is Janu<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">s' mask. The Leader, the Guru, the Star. </span></span></span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Jesus fucking Christ, guys. Get a fucking grip. H<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">ave some dignity. </span></span></span></span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Be great, be shit, but be yourself and not a pale face in the <span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">crowd of worshippers. Become your <span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">o<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">wn god. Become your <span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">own model. <span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Become your <span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">own target. </span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span><br />
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<br />lorehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13869179431191761511noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1787714666374188667.post-67122077762832548762016-01-02T14:59:00.001+01:002016-01-02T14:59:24.420+01:00USUAL START OF THE YEAR POST. OR NOT? <div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">It's the time of the year in which we tend to look back and do our math.</span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">I was going through a few posts from last year and I bumped into the concept of sowing and then - hopefully - reaping the fruits. </span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Fact is, if you don't sow you can only reap what Nature gives you, you have no choice. And Nature could also give you nothing. Or very little. And this very little could be reaped by others. So, you'd better sow. </span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">I kept sowing throughout the whole past year, and it's been oh so fun! </span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">I had never thought I could still take such a great pleasure in training. The weights. The Iron. Man, the Iron. It's so good, and it can do so good to you. I'm a bit bored about sharing all the details, about going on for ages on why you should sprint, hip-hinge, jump, snatch, etc. I still read about people training for sportclimbing by swimming, or cycling, and I'm fucking bored. I still read about people trying to lose weight by intermittent fasting, or keto-diets, without thinking for a split second in terms of quality of the weight you lose, of body composition, of relative strength, of fat-loss instead of weight loss, and I'm fucking bored. All the info we need to get smart training, at least under my perspective, that is the perspective of a nearly 44 year old male obsessed with strength, is out there. Feed the wolf that you want to grow stronger. </span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Anyway, during last year, I not only rediscovered the Iron under new forms, I also found that I could devote myself to The Board even more. After a boiling Summer that I spent doing all the above mentioned, one day I took the decision that I was not going to set any new problems on my board, until I had climbed all the existing projects. </span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">It's been so far a great choice. A foolish choice, but a foolishly right one. </span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">I realized that I had the perfect bouldering right there, at a 5 meters walk from my kitchen.</span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">I had projects that really intrigued me, with idiotic sequences made only to be at the exact limit for that problem. I found myself climbing projects that I had been trying on and off for years and it's been great. It's been stressful, also, like on rock. Hard projecting, or siegeing, is a mental task. To climb one particular problem that I had set more or less three years ago, I had to keep trying just that single problem for four weeks, four sessions a week. If you do the math, it's quite easy to see that, had it been on rock, with me being able to climb outside no more than once a week if I'm lucky, it would have been impossible. Not to mention weather conditions, driving, and so on. </span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">I completely abandoned the idea of being a climber, I fully embraced the idea of being a trainer, and I found that I've never lived climbing so happily. </span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">It could seem trivial, but really dedicating all my time to the board is at the same time an extraordinary relief and stress. </span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">I walk by my board dozens of times every day. It's always there. The projets are always there. It is always dry, and with fans and air conditoning I can make conditions perfect for most of the year. The holds are always grippy. Basically, you can only stick at it, put the hours in, and perform when it's time. At the same time, the only way to climb a new thing is to get better and stronger. You have no excuses. There are no techy escapes, you can't change anything. It's great really. After a couple of specific projects that I climbed with a lot of dedication, I needed to take one week off from climbing, because I was mentally exhausted. Now tell me, who needs rock when you can get stressed in the comfort of your home? </span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Eventually, right in the middle of this new way of living climbing, I found myself on rock. </span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Eventually, I also found myself climbing some old projects and opening a few new lines. </span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Eventually, I had a lot of fun and satisfaction. </span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">The first post of 2015 was about two lives that I had lived and also about a beautiful trip to Cresciano. This first post of 2016 is also about a trip to Cresciano, in the very same days of my last visit one year ago. </span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">I had my sights on two problems, and the magnificence of my failure has been, well... magnificent. I barely tried one being stopped by a move that I judged morpho and reachy, before reminding myself that shorter climbers than me had iced it. Blame the glassy holds and feet... </span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">But when a door is closed, often a window is opened and I saw that window open and got in. Switching from glassy holds and heel-hooks to clean, crimpy holds and feet, I immediately felt that a new love was born. </span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">On the second day of the trip, I behaved well and saved my skin and muscles. I climbed the classic "Un Uomo Un Perché", a beautiful and hard 6a. I rested a lot and then found a nice one move wonder to the right of "Slopey Traverse" called "Dragon Fly Power", 7b. It was a great feeling to find myself on top of a new problem for once. </span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">So we went to the sector where we all had our projects. The athmosphere was great and I was happy and ready. On my third go I climbed "Frankie Minchia" 8a+. And I had and have no words to describe it. </span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Riding on the wave of this unexpected success, on my last day we went to Chironico where, after a few tries and after saying "There is no way I am going to do this move!" I climbed "Vitruvian Man" without the chipped hold. </span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Bliss. </span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Sow. Be patient. Reap. </span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">There you go, a year. </span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">I really think that only by getting rid of rock climbing I can now enjoy rock climbing. I know what I can do with the right time and the right conditions. I know that when I complain about greasy holds and soft skin, it could be an excuse but often it's not. I know that I am just a trainer, a board climber at best, and that I need to be lucky to climb on rock. </span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">In the meanwhile, I started sowing again. </span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Pics now. </span></div>
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lorehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13869179431191761511noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1787714666374188667.post-81739260421690375562015-10-30T17:35:00.001+01:002015-10-30T17:35:30.421+01:00THE REAL THING<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">For a long time I've been thinking that I had become just a "trainer", not being a "climber" anymore. Given that I've ever been such. </span></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">The compulsive and obsessed search for physical prowess had finally become a goal in its own, completely independent from climbing performances and from climbing itself. </span></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">Being able to do multiple standing ab-wheel rolls, or one armers, or pulling mono one armers, and climbing 6b on rock showed no contradiction to me. </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">And it still does. </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">Then I fell to the syrens' chant, that kept me awake at night singing "The Force has multiple facets, Lore. Pursue them all in the name of our magic formula: STRENGTH X SPEED = POWER." </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">Once I finally understood the Truth, I could finally sleep again at night. But during the days, I had to snatch, clean, power clean, power press, jump, sprint, hip-hinge, do finishers, barbell complexes, dumbbell complexes, static complexes, speed complexes, contrast training, and something else. </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">When I added FOAs (Frontal One Armers) to the menu, my life was finally complete. </span></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">Was I still nothing but a trainer? Luckily yes, but a stronger trainer. In any case, I couldn't concentrate on nothing else but watching my body change and my traps grow. With veins on them. </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">Drop 1 kg of fat, put on 1 kg of muscle, the scale shows no progress, but the mirror (and the calipers) never lies. </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Then one day, while I was on the way to Damascus (in Damascus there is a gym where I was going to have my body fat percentage and cellular density checked), I saw a burning bush. </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">I stopped by to pee on it, but it said: "Lore, follow The Force." so I replied: "You fucking idiot, what do you think I've done in the last 23 years? Piss off!" </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">To which the burning bush replied: "But do you know where The Force lies?" </span></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">"Of course I do, you silly old bush! - I said - The Force lies in the Iron and in this fucking arms of mine that can tear you another one!" </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">"Aaaaight then!" </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">And I moved on toward Damascus, because I was already late for my visit. </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">When I got closer, I stopped by in a bar for coffee, and when I looked down into the cup, I saw all the divinities that I worship: Ben and Jerry, Big Malc, Terminator, Ripley and Call, Roy Batty and Deckard, Lt. Col. William Kilgore, Kate Moss and many more. </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">And they all said to me: "The Board, Lore." </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">I understood. </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">I had been enlightened. </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">And my life changed. </span></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">I was only a trainer no more. I had become a board climber and I was now ready: I am not afraid. </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"> </span></span></div>
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lorehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13869179431191761511noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1787714666374188667.post-25169889117506810682015-09-16T16:20:00.000+02:002015-09-16T16:20:08.026+02:00NO MORE DAYS... <span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">After a Spring made of good climbing on rock (yes, rock, that thing that you find outside instead of plastic and wooden holds), with Summer closing in and temps in the high 30's for weeks on end, my dreams of glory were truly shattered. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana;">I didn't admit defeat, though, before being seriously and utterly defeated. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana;">I went to the Dolomites again with a bunch of friends for a stag do, and once the effects of the first night on the cocktails were over, I managed to touch some rock. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana;">I had my sight aimed at a longstanding project whose line I had finally discovered. I thought I'd done it years ago, but it turned out that the true line was a few meters on the left, completely independent from what I'd done and completely unknown to me. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana;">To cut a long story short, it's hard and I didn't do it. In my opinion it could be around 8a+ or 8b. It's a traverse on the lip of a roof, whose first half is all the hard climbing of the 8a I did in June, and whose second half is probably from 7c up. Brilliant, totally brilliant climbing with edges, slopers and a sequence on right hand underclings that left me completely destroyed. With 25 degrees at the boulders, I couldn't do the middle moves of the 8a anymore, involving a slopey dish, so after refining my sequence I started trying the project from a few moves in. Blimey, despite bone dry holds and good form, I couldn't do it!!! It's hard! </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana;">I left emptyhanded, apart from finally repeating a 7a+ that I never found dry in 15 years of bouldering in the Dolomites! </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana;"></span> I didn't really leave emptyhanded, because I gained a nice shoulder strain from spending a day on a hard gaston move and behind the head underclings. Obviously, I immediately tried to iron the injury out. Bad choice. On my first set of behind the neck press the sound of a packet of crackers cracking woke me up from my dreams of glory and my right shoulder was useless. Theraband weeks followed. Theraband and weights. Theraband and sprints. Theraband and everything. I managed to train around my injury, tweaked some excercises like the ab wheel and the barbell carry walk. I'd like to share what I found out, training wise, during these weeks of training and healing my shoulder, but I'm a selfish bastard and I won't. You aren't going to try them anyway, so why spend time and types? Fast forward a few more weeks, in which I found out I had progressed on every aspect of my training, from crimp strength, to openhanding strength, to body tension and pulling power, I finally made it back to the Dollys. Three days of climbing, a long weekend to tick my project and finally leave rock for the Winter. No way. Weeks and weeks of rain had done the damage. First day, the roof was dripping. I tried to repeat the 8a and obviously couldn't despite being now able to repeat the part that I couldn'd do in the hot in July. I tried a one move 8a and couldn't do it because of the wet holds. Pads soaked and muddy, clothes soaked and muddy. I ate a lot. Second day, we played around for a while, I napped in the sun, then didn't resist the urge to repeat a problem that I'd done many many years ago. A roofy 7b meant a sure retroflash while waving at the crowd of hikers. No. Four fucking goes were fucking needed. I waved at the hikers though. I wanted to climb a bit more in a nice, sunny, dry spot but I was sure the roof was in good nick, so I resisted. We got to the roof. It wasn't dripping anymore, it was soaked by streaks of water running down and condensation. Got the pad again, walked to the car then I remembered of the sunny spot and headed there (another 15 minutes walking with two pads among the boulders. In flip flops.). Got there. The sunny, dry boulder was sunny and dry at two p.m., now at six it was gloomy, humid and useless as everything else. But I was there. I tried the project. Didn't even find the line or the holds. So I tried to repeat a 7c that I'd flashed in June, and of which I thought I had surely used banned holds or an easy sequence because I really pissed it (pulling very hard). Could barely do the moves in isolation. Oh well at least I cancelled my doubts about my flash. Finally did a nasty 7a+ that I'd equally done in June, only, this time I didn't bother neither matching any of the holds nor putting any weight on my feet.
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEik4iKlIxUjeTAjq-p95YeSzd50PQz7WgX70Ry5ObBOgmHg2fnZqGSlXnVhBMhywpnMbiTqVe5Z_JjiKt4-FW2C5OJwjiXDdOLRrUAKADtpR04WdU0_RuqXGHv5HwdxVA7wvOCWUIMQjoo/s1600/mighty+upsetter2.jpg" imageanchor="1"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEik4iKlIxUjeTAjq-p95YeSzd50PQz7WgX70Ry5ObBOgmHg2fnZqGSlXnVhBMhywpnMbiTqVe5Z_JjiKt4-FW2C5OJwjiXDdOLRrUAKADtpR04WdU0_RuqXGHv5HwdxVA7wvOCWUIMQjoo/s320/mighty+upsetter2.jpg" /></a><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgPd7rh-JohthR9DYKP_ywHbE5fbv7Q4w6-r6rt4GCr0ED4DF-WYjiaLkqjiMcvSLb_IsvgJzXH9dfdmgPUgFjmduisOCkpRe4MrWLVFeYwCoTQX75pquaPK_6-dKiLbIgg6hoJSzdidkw/s1600/mighty+upsetter.jpg" imageanchor="1"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgPd7rh-JohthR9DYKP_ywHbE5fbv7Q4w6-r6rt4GCr0ED4DF-WYjiaLkqjiMcvSLb_IsvgJzXH9dfdmgPUgFjmduisOCkpRe4MrWLVFeYwCoTQX75pquaPK_6-dKiLbIgg6hoJSzdidkw/s320/mighty+upsetter.jpg" /></a>
Third day dawned cloudy and rainy. Drove home stopping by at King Rock for a bouldering session. Tired, bad skin, torrid temps inside. Brilliant. Climbed until nauseated. Lesson to be learnt: bad bad planning for this last trip. Got there still tired from the week's training, I wouldn't have climbed the project anyway, probably, even if dry. Now I only have to train, stay in shape for some nine months, and then it will be mine. Do not expect, dear reader, to find much rock climbing on Totolore for the months to come: it's time. The time is almost here to dedicate all my efforts to the only thing that matters: my board. Home of the hardest things I've ever tried, this Winter will be the Winter of Glory. The Winter of the Beast. The Winter that will shatter the climbing world forever. lorehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13869179431191761511noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1787714666374188667.post-84059441479324340072015-06-24T11:53:00.000+02:002015-06-24T11:56:09.118+02:00EVEN MORE DAYS? <div style="text-align: justify;">
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<span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Photo courtesy of Pietro Mittica</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">To say I'm pleasantly perplexed is an understatement. And this blog entry could stop here. But it would be very unfair. After my brilliant weekend bouldering in the Dolomites, glowing in the golden light of my successes, I took the courage to do a few things that I hadn't done in a while. The first one, that took a lot of courage, was taking a week off. I mean, really off. Like, no board climbing, no fingerboarding, no sprints, no weights, no nothing. Not really, but I managed to do only one session, a weights and bodyweight excercises complex that left me in agony for a good couple of days. Hitting the same muscle groups with two bodyweight routines, namely front levers and paused reps ab rolls, isn't exactly a smart idea, but it was worth the risk. I felt like a Hulk. Anyway, this week off also coincided with ten days in which I never had dinner at home, resulting in lots of tasty food and wine gulped down... So, when finally Monday came, it was with terror that I slipped what I thought was my overweight frame into my training pants and top. I was training with my good friend Pietro, and fuelled by the usual dose of caffeine and protein shakes, it turned out that I wasn't exactly out of shape, at least in climbing terms. I obviously climbed a project that I'd been trying for a while, linking single moves and short bits but never coming close to success. Lesson to be learnt: train like a headless chicken for a good twenty years, then take a week off to eat and drink, then climb your latest board project.
Given that I wanted to go back to the Dolomites that coming weekend, I made a good plan to be sure that I was going to get there properly overtrained and undercompensated. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">This time I was going to be going with my girlfriend, so the weather was going to play a big role in making everything perfect: sunny days and glowing sunsets in the mountains are a good thing for a couple. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Saturday morning dawned a bit cloudy, but it was promising. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">It was promising rain. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">It turned out that the promise was wrong: it was going to be snow. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">3 degrees, sleet and snow, what more could you ask for? </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">But I'm not the one who's easily deceived, and I knew that in a couple of hours it was going to stop. After a good dose of kaiserschmarren and coffee, it was time to get our feet soaked to get some bouldering. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">There is this roof up there, that keeps attracting me and keeps giving problems (you see what I did there?). </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">I had little info, in German, and I only knew that there was a big cross through move. Everything was wet, but with the precious experience gained during my visits at Parisella's Cave, I started to dry out bits here and there, fill the seams that were pouring, and assuring some chance for success. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Then I started to figure out the moves, and everything started to crumble. The starting holds seemed to open up only to mysterious levitations to far away holds, and nothing seemed possible. The sequence that I was sure was going to earn me my first 8a flash proved to be 8c and I didn't flash it. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Then the miracle. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">I kept my cool, stayed there, dried more footholds, kept trying and refining, and after a while, make it two hours - make it three - I had a sequence. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">I also had a soaking, trembling girlfriend. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Being the old romantic that I am, I knew that it was time to leave, but I didn't leave. Instead, I took off my fleece, my t-shirt and my thermal and proceeded to reward my girlfriend with my bulging muscles beating down the problem into submission. I am the greatest. No, really. You can't imagine it. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Half an hour later we were drinking spritz and eating mortadella and cheese in Campitello as if there were no tomorrow. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">While I was walking in Canazei, that was full of people fully clad in Montura, Mammut, The North Face apparel, I thought about Jerry, and started moaning to myself: "Wherever I watch, there's noone stronger than me. I am the strongest one." </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">After this glorious day, I decided to take my girlfriend to get some more cold at Falzarego, where the meadow was lashed by a freezing wind that made everything a bit tricky and made me search for shelted in a nearby shithole that hosts two 8a's and an 8b+ in three meters of stone. Unfortunately being less than 45° overhanging, I didn't even manage to pull on. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">More spritz and mortadella. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">I had taken Monday off, so I was ready for the final sunny day. That never came. Clouds and wind, but a generous temp of 7°. Happiness all around. My girlfriend climbed a bit and got her battle scars, and I tried another problem in the same roof, getting as close as possible to doing it without actually doing it. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">A gigantic portion of potatoes, eggs and speck marked the end of the climbing trip and left room only for a brief stop at LaSportiva factory. I bought a pair of undersized Cobra for 59 Euros and everything was over. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">But I am still the greatest. I am still the strongest, and you all know it. </span></div>
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lorehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13869179431191761511noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1787714666374188667.post-23284435805932994112015-06-09T12:59:00.002+02:002015-06-09T12:59:31.154+02:00MORE DAYS <div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">I had thought that my moment of top form was going to vanish, and I had thought that I was going to run out of projects. I was wrong on both. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana;">The two days of the last post became more days, in which I found myself miraculously glued to ze rock, sticking move after move. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana;">I found myself stronger, also, adding kilos to all my previous personal bests and that's the only thing that counts, to be honest. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana;">I ask myself why now and not before. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana;">The answer is that it's happening now because now I am an overally better person than before. And I am a better person because I am a more complete person: my mind is as fast as a speeding bullet and as sharp as a laser beam. It's not hazy and lazy, incapable of thinking to anything that's not grades and moves. OK, it's never really been that lazy, but you get what I mean. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana;">Better mind, better body. I'm free. Free from others, but mostly free from myself and from my demons and ego. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana;">I know what I am and I know what I can do. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana;">The thing that strikes me most, to be honest, is that I became less shit at flashing problems. It all started in December 2014, and I suspended my judgement waiting for some more info. Then it happened again, but on first ascents, so again I suspended my judgement. But it happened again and again. So, finally, I must think that somehow I became better at flashing problems. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana;">I spent this last weekend in one of the places that I love the most, and in which I feel more at home: the Dolomites. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana;">Steep boulders on pockets and edges made for testosterone bouldering with bulging muscles and veins, fuelled by all sorts of natural and artificial food, from buckets of hyperproteic yogurt with honey and hazelnuts, to protein shakes, to honey and peanut butter sandwiches, to hamburgers and pasta. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana;">I flashed basically everything, including two 7c's (one was a retroflash of a problem I climbed ages ago). I was also very close to doing an 8a that I smartly tried at the end of the second day. Punter. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana;">OK, OK, I know what you purists are going to say about bouldering on dolomia: it's choss, they're eliminates, it's nasty, etc. I could finely discuss our diverging opinions about this subject, using my rhetoric to convince you about the quality of the bouldering there, but I won't do it. If you don't like it, you don't deserve it. Which is better for me also, because I like my boulders quite and private. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Unfortunately, this moment of splendid form coincided with a certain Chzech climber flashing 8b and 8b+ and climbing 8c in a day, so I am not surprised that neither LaSportiva nor Black Diamond called me to ask me if I'd like to be paid by them to just keep climbing and being so awesome. </span> </span></div>
lorehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13869179431191761511noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1787714666374188667.post-20818393585810285962015-05-22T15:32:00.000+02:002015-05-22T15:32:05.047+02:00TWO DAYS<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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It's raining and I don't care. It will rain for a good ten days, and I don't care. I'm at work, and I don't care. I've just had two fastastic afternoons climbin on rock, and I am happy. I am ready to lock myself in my cellar, trying my impossible projects; I am ready to swear and do yet another fingerboarding session; I am ready to do my weights finishers and my uphill sprints. I am ready to do it all again. I've hit an unexpected peak of form and, equally unexpectedly, I took advantage of it on the real thing. A friend of mine had reclimbed an old problem of mine, giving it a new, harder finish, and this motivated me to go and try it again. Fact is, when I did the old version, I also tried to give it a new, harder start... but never completed it. So, after almost ten years, I found myself with my old project and a harder finish! Oh yes! When my girlfriend asked me if I wanted to take an afternoon off from work and go climbing, I couldn't resist. With days of rain ahead, I wanted to climb! So we went, we were all alone in a fantastic setting, it was sunny and windy and I was happy. I tried to remember the sequence of my old project and it was easy, given that there are only those holds. Linking them was another thing. I had gone there to climb my friend's problem, but instead I tried the longer start and after some playing around I gave it a go. And I crushed it. I found myself on top with bulging forearms and I was happy and sad at the same time. Happy, because it had gone down; sad, because it was all over so fast. I always joke saying "The less I climb, the better!" this meaning that the perfect session is the one in which I get there, I warm up, I climb my project and I am free to annoy all the other climbers for the rest of the day, or be back home super early ready for some Gin and Tonic. But then, I really like to climb! And it was over already! After some hugs and kisses and coffee I did it again in bits to film it, and then I decided to take the monster 8 minutes walk to another sector to try another line I'd spotted years ago. It's the usual link of two existing problems, and I got there telling my girlfriend "Nevermind, I'll do it first go and then it's pizza time!" Ahahahahahah! Rude awakening motherfucker. I couldn't do any of the new moves. It took me a good hour and half only to manage three moves, and all of a sudden I found myself with a new project!!! Great, great day out! What my girlfriend didn't know, when she asked me to go climbing, was that I had already taken the following day off to go climbing with a friend! Oh yes. So, after my brilliant previous day, I found myseld in another sector, in which I had a project. The day didn't start very well, and it reminded me that I live in a place with little rock. Before heading to my project, we wanted to try two lines on a boulder I'd never seen before. What a piece of shit. It's in a steep part of the wood, so whenever you sit or step on the mat, you start sliding down surfing the wood; the rock is super aggressive and crumbly and I ripped off two big chunks. The problems seemed impossible despite their accessible grade. "Goddamn I should have stayed at home!" Then, we went to the project. Before hauling the pads, I checked if, for once, it was dry. Fuck, it was. And so I found myself there again, with my super sequence and all my fears. Obviously, this project is a harder start of an existing problem that I did three years ago. I had tried it on and off along the years, and often came back really not satisfied about the sequence: basically, to make the new start you could simply add one single move. I didn't like this, I wanted a line that was as independent as possible, but struggled to find a sequence. When I found it, the results were these: <a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhpyNzDwfXgCHP6EkuJ66lPHwvYpA4ShzIQc30aD5bCpa4zfCAZ967GYQS_H2ndo5z8v7cSwuWKfl4D2Azmz7KD3oa5AsZ8aVfVCRvs4anTh3klvmOldowoi9c8EmLd0nzCgq-ylzT43dU/s1600/IMG-20150411-WA0000.jpeg" imageanchor="1"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhpyNzDwfXgCHP6EkuJ66lPHwvYpA4ShzIQc30aD5bCpa4zfCAZ967GYQS_H2ndo5z8v7cSwuWKfl4D2Azmz7KD3oa5AsZ8aVfVCRvs4anTh3klvmOldowoi9c8EmLd0nzCgq-ylzT43dU/s320/IMG-20150411-WA0000.jpeg" /></a><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhZGSVenIe50EokOnbjJkE8jo4Y67pagv3XHTI9llIU5F8gS3WkoD6rZGbc3wWysemrd4VLRJLflrx-QXRKNJd4_nY33Sy12XOfxuhC9DEefa9g21Fhf8xvwyL2YYm1xY4C8wpt9ZoKXPY/s1600/20141104_153915.jpg" imageanchor="1"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhZGSVenIe50EokOnbjJkE8jo4Y67pagv3XHTI9llIU5F8gS3WkoD6rZGbc3wWysemrd4VLRJLflrx-QXRKNJd4_nY33Sy12XOfxuhC9DEefa9g21Fhf8xvwyL2YYm1xY4C8wpt9ZoKXPY/s320/20141104_153915.jpg" /></a><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgZL0YoR7bAtCDGL5J4rgROSRr84lcj7zETet727eDigvNcCZUTRoKsLIJlXMxY4UsMRdf7vWDu-0TdY5aTQ9SeCmmeromrKaTvHXV0qrw2dZT0vCDwOVp892jwWRkQJTlb3ZzKy4xJ1SM/s1600/20141104_153824.jpg" imageanchor="1"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgZL0YoR7bAtCDGL5J4rgROSRr84lcj7zETet727eDigvNcCZUTRoKsLIJlXMxY4UsMRdf7vWDu-0TdY5aTQ9SeCmmeromrKaTvHXV0qrw2dZT0vCDwOVp892jwWRkQJTlb3ZzKy4xJ1SM/s320/20141104_153824.jpg" /></a>
It was nasty and hard. Really hard. Like, barely doing single moves in isolation. Plus, I had basically already done it a couple of months ago, only with a very ugly pad dab (the start is very low), so I found myself there asking myself what was I doing there. The answer was that I was there to properly crush that shit. Dry holds make a big difference, blimey. I started, and everything felt easy. Well, not easy, it felt hard, but in control. The sequence is very simple, you either hang the holds, and if so it's ok, or you don't, and if so there are no tricks. After a false start, on my second go I found myself going through the moves steadily, and getting to the crux. I switched my right hand from a bad two fingers lock to the undercling, got it but not perfectly, kept going and missed the high pinch. Dammit. It was nearly over. I had crushed all the new start, that used to give me hell, and I'd fallen on the crux of the original 8a problem that I've done numerous times. Shit. I was under pressure. I rested, drank more coffee, and really, everything was perfect. It was sunny, windy and cool. I was having fun and I was full of joy. Only one question mark was left. The foot swap. The original problem, for me, is a bit morpho. You have to reach very high to this pinch, and I am fully extended on my left foot. Then you have to match feet, swap right for left, and move on. Well, on the reach I am so stretched that I can't match the right foot, because with the hips rotation I can't reach the foothold. It's the crux for me, and I can really barely do it. In fact, I've done many times, but one thing is coming from two easy moves, another thing is coming from five hard ones. While trying this feet swap in isolation, suddenly I felt particularly strong on the holds, and instead of the usual sequence, I just squeezed hard, high stepped with my right foot just under my right hand, pulled really hard on the pinch and I had bypassed the morpho bit and was eyeing the top. It was a brutal sequence, but at least it was only a matter of power! And power, is not a problem. I sat down, I went through the routine that makes me climb perfectly, and then I just performed. I motored through the lower moves and got to the undercling. I didn't get it right, and there I made the difference. I paused, locked myself in position like a steel beam and adjusted the right hand hold. When I got it right, fuck me it felt like a path. The high pinch move was just a gentle, slow reach, and then I was there, at the feet swap. I knew I could bypass it with the new sequence, but I also knew that it was hard. My friend yelled "Vai! Vai!" and I went. I high stepped, right foot under right hand, I pushed myself away from the pinch and it became good, put the left foot on the small edge, moved my right foot again and I was at the right hand gaston and the top. I came down and I was out of myself. In a few tries I had climbed my three years long project. I was happy, surprised and exhausted. In my memory it was easy, but in my emotions I know it was not. I climbed perfectly, physically and mentally, and performed almost at my limit. I did it again in bits to film it, and then all I had to do was spot my friend on the original 8a. He did good links and he will do it in the future. And my two afternoons of newly found climbing youth were over. I couldn't stop talking about how I'd adjusted the undercling, how I had high stepped, this and that. It was pure pure joy. So, in a moment in which I find myself disgusted by what happens around here in the climbing community; in a moment in which I feel completely out of it, and proudly so; in a moment in which all I read on climbing websites and magazines are bullshit and lies; in a moment in which I ask myself why I don't speak out the truth and put them to shame; in a moment in which I hate what they're doing to our beautiful discipline; in this moment I realized that for me nothing has changed. I can work and still train. I can love and still train. I can ride my motorcycles and still train. There's a life beyond climbing, and this makes climbing even better. Thanks for your time. And now some video stills. </div>
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lorehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13869179431191761511noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1787714666374188667.post-81031639813749237912015-03-28T14:14:00.000+01:002015-03-28T14:14:40.598+01:00BLACK INK <div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">As you all know, it's not uncommon for me to write personal things on this blog, that are not specifically related to climbing. Because, as you may not remember, this blog was born as a climbing blog... </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Anyway, a few weeks ago I got a new tattoo. This one: </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">I have a few tattoos, and while I tend to keep their meaning and their reasons private, this time it's different. I made this last tattoo because I wanted people to see it, to read it and to know its meaning, because it's very important. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Some time ago I read the story of Eric Garner, the innocent man who was killed by some bastards who happened to be Police officers. No. They were just mentally ill dirty motherfuckers, not worth the uniform they were wearing. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">There was a video and I made the error of watching it: it's terrifying. It caused in me profound sadness, rage and disgust. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">That poor man kept saying "I can't breathe!", and still those bastards chocked him to death. To fucking death. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Young kids and innocent people killed by "policemen" is an issue. All over what we call the civilized world. We've had our share in Italy as well: Stefano Cucchi, Federico Aldrovandi, Riccardo Magherini, only to name a few. You can find everything about them on the Net. Riccardo, while two or three "policemen" were standing on his torso, while he was laying on the ground of a street in Florence, handcuffed, kept yelling "Don't kill me, I have a little son!" and yet they killed him. He could not breathe either. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Well, as you all know, after Garner's killing, many sport stars and celebrities wore t-shirts with Garner's last words printed on them, to show their support to his family, to show that that they knew. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Well, that's why I got this tattoo. Because I know. I know that there are some bastards out there, that are criminal dressed as policemen. I don't buy the stories you all sell, motherfuckers. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">The late Italian actor Antonio DeCurtis, a.k.a. Totò, was a man of incredible class and culture. He once publically challenged to duel a man, who had behaved rudely with a woman in a restaurant. The man was later to become President of the Italian Republic. Another motherfucker. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Totò once said that the only way to know the real nature of a man, is to give him a uniform and some power. The way he'll behave when wearing a uniform and having some power over someone else, will show his true nature. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">These bastards that kill helpless people are a shame to the uniforms they wear. Uniforms that have been worn by real heroes, like Salvo D'Acquisto, a Carabiniere who gave his life to save civilians from a Nazi firing squad. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">So, this is the story behind my tattoo, and this is why I want everyone to know it. Because I hate those motherfuckers, I hate everyone who uses a uniform to hurt, kill and break the law. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /></span>lorehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13869179431191761511noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1787714666374188667.post-5540119132754194522015-01-05T12:54:00.000+01:002015-01-05T13:10:08.768+01:00THE STORY OF TWO WORLDS<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">First things first: I did not climb "The Story of Two Worlds". I could have, but I didn't want to ruin my skin before projecting a nearby 6b+ with a better looking line. Priorities. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">The story is about the two worlds that I've seen in the last months. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">The first one, is a world made of work, papers, books to be studied and the most important exam of my life. I simply could not pass a single day without studying or writing papers for the exam, I felt such a need to get there as perfectly prepared as I humanly could. It's been very very strange because it's been the first time in my life in which I felt such a need for perfect knowlegde. After just working as a teacher for a few years, I was feeling that my brain was struggling a little bit to grasp all the familiar concepts and principles of civil and criminal law, when I needed to use them. Now, I feel that I master those concepts and principles, and I see my brain as a laser sharp razor that would make Occam's one pale in comparison. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">I don't know if I've done enough to pass - not true. I know that I've done more than enough, I don't know how I will be judged. In Italy they are two very different things: how you've done and how you're judged - but I do know that I gave my best, and when on the third day of the written essays everyone, myself included, was almost panicking before a case that was seemingly impossible to solve, after three hours of head-scratching, searching for a norm that could suit this situation, I finally repeated to myself the mantra that I had prepared for the exam, I went to the restrooms ignoring all the comments that everyone was making about how and what to write, washed my face, got back to my desk and wrote head down for the following three hours. Then I copied everything in good calligraphy and gave everything to the examinators. The agony was over. Three days of toil and torture, alone in another town, spending days at the exams and nights in a hotel room studying for the next day, without talking to anyone. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">I got out of the hall - where 1.700 of us were having the exam - took a deep breath and broke down in tears when noone could see me. The last written essay had drained every energy from my mind and body, and I felt betrayed. I knew that these exams could be unpredictable at least, passing from easy ones one year, to absurd ones the year after. Well, I had picked the year after. After two essays that I think I did well, the third one was the one for which I felt more prepared, and it's been the one in which I've struggled the most, in which I could make the littlest display of my legal knowledge. I got out sure that I'm going to fail the exam because of this third essay. I felt betrayed and hated Italy for how it's run and organized. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Now I only have to wait six months to have the results, then we'll see. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Be sure that passed these holidays, I'm going back to studying no matter what. A sharp mind is a sharp body. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">The climbing, as you can imagine, took a very little back seat. Luckily for me, I don't need climbing anymore to have fun, I only need training. So, I kept doing frequent, short, intense system sessions on my board, focusing on body tension and crimp strength; and some fingerboarding not to lose the love. I had good results and found out that somehow I retained some of my ridiculous endurance for the project circuit. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">On the board, when I tried some of my projects or old problems, though, I could barely do the moves in isolation... </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">During these months of this first world, I also got my knee surgery. It's been far worse than expected. When they got in to cut the broken part of my meniscus, they found out that I also had a badly torn cruciatus ligament, and my knee was full of scar tissue and debris, making it impossible to even see the meniscus. So, they had to clean and grate and scratch lots of stuff out before even starting what they had to do, and this resulted in a much heavier operation than planned. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">This was followed by weeks of sleep deprived nights due to the pain. I also lost 4 kilos, for fucks sake. Two months later, I still have to regain proper muscle mass and sports functionality. Not pleased. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Then, after that day spent doing the last written essay, I got home and was barely able to speak with humans. My mind was elsewhere, and I could not stop thinking about what I'd been doing in those days. I could not sleep for a few nights, waking up three or four times with obsessive thoughts about what I could have or should have written. I was exhausted and only wanted to cry and pity myself. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">It took me a good ten days and many dinners, gin tonics and lie-ins, to finally see the dawn of the second world. A world in which the desie to climb on rock made its presence strongly felt. I went climbing two days in the same week, and opened two new lines in an area that I've been climbing at for ages... Seeing with new eyes, isn't it? </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Then, I booked an hotel and went to Ticino. Sun, freezing temps, perfect friction. Only my lack of climbing ability (and my terror for knee injuries) hindered me from climbing 8b+ as I was normally expecting with my usual laid back attitude. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">It's been great. I also climbed something, with an achievement that, had it happened a few years ago, would have seen me bragging about it for the whole year, and now is passing almost unnoticed and almost already forgotten. Am I finally free from climbing? Am I finally free from myself? Am I finally free from my ego? </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">This second world is about to leave room to the routine of work and study, but I've planned to keep climbing a little bit. The spark is still there and my project as well. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">It's been good to finally let go of some tension, and I fear the first world. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">But as some climbers put themselves in hard and dangerous situations, and then have to deal with it, I put myself in this hard and dangerous (for my ego) situation of becoming a fully certified lawyer, and now I have to deal with it. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">I cannot wait to meet in Court that asshole of a lawyer that was doing surveillance at the exam: that useless presumptuous bastard, always arrogant and lookind down on us; I'll kick his fat ass like he's never been kicked before. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Motherfucker. </span></div>
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lorehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13869179431191761511noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1787714666374188667.post-606722672711015002014-11-24T11:15:00.001+01:002014-11-24T11:15:08.027+01:00ENVY<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">My evolution as a climber and a person, passed through envy. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">For some time in the past - and I'm sure there are many traces of it in this blog - I've been envious. Envious of those who could go climbing, those who could climb the problems that I wanted to climb, those who could reap the rewards of the training they'd been doing. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">It was horrible. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Let me talk about envy. Envy is a bad beast. To the contrary of what many may think, envy is a judgement. When we envy someone, we judge that person: we think that they don't deserve what they have, and that somehow in doing so they detract something from us, something that should belong to us. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">So, envy is a lot more than we're used to think. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">When I was envying my friends who could climb lots, my thoughts were along these lines, even though I didn't realize it and, had I realized, I would have enever admitted: </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">"I'm envious because they can climb the problems that I can't try. They climb them just because they have the time to stick at them. They're not as strong as I am. They're just more lucky in having more time and more opportunities. They don't deserve those climbs, I deserve them because I put in a lot more effort and dedication than they do." I could go on forever. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">The sense of frustration that comes with this kind of thinking need not to be mentioned. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">I don't know how things changed. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">I think that I had to go through a complete chaos to finally emerge on the other side. I had to question not only my climbing, but every aspect of my life, and how every aspect of my life had been affected, for good or bad, by climbing. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">It took me a lot of time to finally bury the hatchet with climbing, and this came with an added bonus: my envy had gone. I can feel it trying to raise its ugly head at times, but it's just the shadow of what it used to be. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">I could say that envy became something different: it became the knowledge that my life is different from my friends' lives, and from anyone else's life. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Go figure. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Years and years to come to this conclusion. Ha! </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">I exchanged climbing for training, and finally found some kind of peace. Others may have time, I have not. There's nothing to be envious about, that's just how things go. Maybe I also exchanged envy for a little sadness and disappointment, but that's a victory! </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">I was thinking about it just yesterday evening, right before starting my warm up. Never seeing the opportunity to actually put all the training efforts to good use, makes training really really hard, mentally. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">You sow, you sow, you sow, and you don't know when or whether you'll reap. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">How do you deal with this? </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">It's very easy: you either quit sowing, or you keep sowing. Make your choice. </span></div>
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /></span>lorehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13869179431191761511noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1787714666374188667.post-23368640167500128292014-11-04T16:41:00.003+01:002016-12-13T11:40:14.977+01:00SIC TRANSIT GLORIA MUNDI<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">I will remember this past month forever. It's been one of the densest, most intense periods of my life. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">I've been studying a lot, writing appellation acts, criminal and civil cases, and attending classes in the weekends. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">I've been pulling on wooden edges and plastic holds. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">I stepped on stage again after more than 15 years, to act and sing in a musical that a friend of mine wrote for our contrada, Istrice, and that sold out two nights in the main theater in town, raising more that 5.000 Euros for charity. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Finally, I've been - briefly - climbing on rock. One single day, just one day of the nearly three weeks of perfect, clear weather that we've had, but what a day. I climbed some new, easy problems, nearly climbed a project that is around 8a+, and opened a beautiful arete. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Now I'm here in my bedroom writing this with my left knee wrapped in ice and swollen after I got my meniscus surgery yesterday. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">It seems all over now, while I roll left and right to change position and ease the pain and discomfort: the stage, the public, the pointless training, the perfect rock. The pointless training. The pointless training. The pointless training nearly made me climb 8a+ on Sunday, on the first day on rock after 6 weeks. The fifth day on rock since the beginning of Summer. Is it really pointless? </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">It's been great and beautiful. When I was there with my headtorch, rushing another pointless - yes pointless - attempt on the project, I thought: "Right, I'm gonna come back tomorrow evening and finish this." I had forgotten I had to be in hospital... Ahaha! </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">I thrashed my hands, that now seem bitten by a dog, and got home. I really really wanted to get this done before this layoff, but it did not happen. I did not make it happen. But I tried with all my will and skin. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Next time. The path is right. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Study, train, love and destroy. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; text-align: center;">A few pics and videos of this incredible Autumn so far. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; text-align: center;"> Below, the beautiful prow I climbed last Sunday. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Below, a new PB on paused rep one armers. </span></div>
<iframe allowfullscreen='allowfullscreen' webkitallowfullscreen='webkitallowfullscreen' mozallowfullscreen='mozallowfullscreen' width='320' height='266' src='https://www.youtube.com/embed/X832jHC42S4?feature=player_embedded' frameborder='0'></iframe><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"> Below, the Move. </span><br />
<a href="http://vimeo.com/109309457">http://vimeo.com/109309457</a><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"> Below, the new PB on the circuit. </span><br />
<a href="http://vimeo.com/108706275">http://vimeo.com/108706275</a><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"> Below, a sore soul, a sore knee two sore hands. </span><br />
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lorehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13869179431191761511noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1787714666374188667.post-17016082879652825672014-09-18T15:42:00.002+02:002014-09-18T16:10:12.307+02:00BODY AND MIND, BUT MOSTLY MIND<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">If my body sometimes is giving me signs that it may give up (back pain, meniscus, strained finger) my mind is not. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">My mind is strong and therefore my body is as strong. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">My mind is young and sparky and indestructible, therefore my body is young and sparky and indestructable. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Body. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">The numbers say so: after a recent body exam, I found out that my body composition sits just shy of the one of bodybuilders, at the extreme top of that of "athletes". And I'm 42 motherfuckers. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Anyway, this is not important. Well, it is, but not for you. Just for me. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">I have been on rock, and I had fun, despite thrashing my lower back. I need to sort it out properly, otherwise everything in terms of training and power gains is useless.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Despite injuries and ridiculously few and brief training sessions, I managed to retain some ability to cling onto holds: I am currently focusing on super short system sessions, almost no board climbing except some attempts on the project circuit. I've been trying it for 13 months now... Still 4 moves to go, but now I always complete it with one resting. I get to hold number 25 with exploding forearms, fall down, wait a little bit then get to 30. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">This led me to think about the mysteries of endurance training: I am progressing on the circuit without training Power Endurance (or even Stamina) at all, or at least in no structured way. I have only been doing some laps on 12 moves long problems pausing 5 seconds on every hold, for a minute and half more or less of climbing; and some one foot bouldering on the same 12 moves long problems with 6 kg on. No repeated problems, no feet on campusing for Power Endurance, nothing. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Could it simply be that I am reaping the fruits of the structured training I did until May? Hmmm.... it seems a long time ago to be still progressing. Who knows. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">As soon as temps and humidity go down, I need to test myself with the objectivity of a stop watch. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">I tried a variation of the foot on campusing, under the form of not campusing, not moving at all. It's very cool. Becoming able to shake out in such a position could lead to interesting things in the future. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Mind. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">I'm stuffing my mind with notions, preparing myself at best for the most important exam of my life. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">"Who are you?"</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">I ask this question to myself many times a day, and I always have the right answer. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Some pics. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Higher, he luxurious foothold that I use for foot on power campusing and for the new excercise, with its majestic 1 cm of contact surface (As Keith once told me: "You can't come off from 1 cm thick footholds!"). At least it's incut, it's almost like cheating. Lower, the bleedin' bivy ledge is use for Power Endurance. "You are weak" written on it. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Trying what will become my hardest problem. </span><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh0VxC4ECaYeuR9ruSyYrHrOA3qnWPqfzWOS16DogtlsZX9TkM-doQe056Ug7SM203CIe2Z-ZrX0KfiIyFVTdrvRoir0i0esGxkxKADwJ9XQLfB9wlnuzD10E9EJmAXt-zFBhEnroVy7Kg/s1600/image.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh0VxC4ECaYeuR9ruSyYrHrOA3qnWPqfzWOS16DogtlsZX9TkM-doQe056Ug7SM203CIe2Z-ZrX0KfiIyFVTdrvRoir0i0esGxkxKADwJ9XQLfB9wlnuzD10E9EJmAXt-zFBhEnroVy7Kg/s1600/image.jpg" height="320" width="240" /></a></div>
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">The books I've studied in the last months, in the spare time from work. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">SAN Power edge. The big one. Those guys are selective. </span><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhEMrPbbmXzF91SARsZucaxcL7OiXNHxa0Iz1DKCInJ5KbRbomHArGulzlQCUKEeIYR6a293gKJRP7h-B80fzBpBnX3RrXMddXRHo1YN9o-1iIhtv0EIsY7hOR09vb6OdihTzCQCwjGZLc/s1600/image.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhEMrPbbmXzF91SARsZucaxcL7OiXNHxa0Iz1DKCInJ5KbRbomHArGulzlQCUKEeIYR6a293gKJRP7h-B80fzBpBnX3RrXMddXRHo1YN9o-1iIhtv0EIsY7hOR09vb6OdihTzCQCwjGZLc/s1600/image.jpg" height="180" width="320" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Staying there, staying put, shaking out. 65 kilos locked between the foothold and the crimp like a steel beam. Breathe, feel the greatness. Who needs real climbing? Not me. </span></div>
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lorehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13869179431191761511noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1787714666374188667.post-38971058491681861232014-09-03T15:47:00.001+02:002014-09-03T15:47:51.904+02:00SCHOOL IS OVER, BACK TO SCHOOL<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">School is almost over. After spending most of the Summer teaching Italian again, now the time has come for me to go back to my own school. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">In two weeks I'll start following a course that will last until December, with lessons every Friday and Saturday, exam-simulations every other Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday and a final exam at mid-December that is the first of the two final steps to finally become a Lawyer, or I should better say a Barrister with no limitations of practice and full competence: three written essays, on three different days; one Civil Law case, one Criminal Law case, and one procedural act. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Then I will spend six months working and waiting for the results. Then, in another six months or so, I will face step number two, under the form of five oral exams on five different subjects: Criminal Law, Criminal Procedure Law, Constitutional Law, International Civil Law and another one that I still haven't chosen. One year. Fifteen months from now. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">I am terrified. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">When I started back one year and half ago, I had one year and half of compulsory practice in front of me, behind the protective presence of two Lawyers, with no need to step up onto the main stage. Then my turn came as well, and I found myself spending sleeplees nights before going in Court on my own. Now I face this other challenge. This exam is very hard, and I want to pass with full marks, and I will pass it with full marks. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Then, in more than a year's time, with this maelstrom behind me, I will go climbing. </span></div>
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lorehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13869179431191761511noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1787714666374188667.post-35084826689226894572014-08-27T17:28:00.001+02:002014-08-27T17:59:41.332+02:00SOMETHING DIFFERENT<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">A very different Summer is about to end. Basically, we haven't had a Summer. An Italian Summer, I mean. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Apart from a boiling start, with temps quickly close to the 40's, then it's been just warm and rainy. I mean, very rainy. With floodings, casualties, and all that stuff. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">I didn't manage to touch dolomia at all. The boulders are soaked and a couple of project will have to wait for next year. Booooo. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">In the last months I have been plagued by my lower back, that really gave me hell, but finally it seems to be going better now; but at a very high price: stretching after every session and also on many rest days. Boring, but being able to stand almost straight is priceless. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Another different thing: I have taken lots of rest. I took two entire weeks off. Not in a row, but still something very different. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">I went back to training one armers, trying to improve, with paused sets training, a.k.a. deadstop sets. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Then last week I got a finger injury. It had been a long long time since the last time I had heard that terrible cracking sound. The sound of your climbing dreams being shattered. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Luckily it seemed worse than it is, but still very very unpleasant and annoying, especially because I was feeling super strong that day and not bad at all in general. Could this renewed sensation of power be related to taking more rest days? Surely not. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Anyway, injured finger meant back to one armers, and last Saturday I finally managed an L-seat one armer, on my right arm. Still not as cool as Juri Chechi would do, but pleased nonetheless. Blimey, they're hard. I can do 6 paused one armers on my right arm, but just ONE L-seat one armer was maximal. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Brilliant. Video here: </span></div>
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><a href="http://vimeo.com/104277058">L-seat one armer</a></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">I also went climbing, and tried a long time project of mine, that unfortunately has few holds, that are a bit crumbly, and therefore tend to disappear. A new sequence was found on my last visit (after three years of not trying it) and I am very psyched to nuke it to orbit this next Autumn. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">This project also earned me the almost-best climbing shot I have. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Dammit that left hand. </span><br />
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<br />lorehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13869179431191761511noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1787714666374188667.post-28413830412455212332014-07-18T11:02:00.000+02:002014-07-18T11:02:44.733+02:00HOW IT USED TO BE, HOW IT IS<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">I wanted to blog about how much my days changed since last Summer: the long hours at work, the double schedule of teaching and practicing as a lawyer, with some translations thrown in for good measure. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">But I won't. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Some things change, some others don't. I'll tell you about the second ones. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">I still want to train and to get strong, even if I don't climb on rock basically anymore. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Temps are still awful. Luckily humidity is high... As my sense of humour. </span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiqNv4V4kg5Uk8B1MqiQ5KNFvD18swC7W1vyMyyaWjD9Zs7l6EmvJ-sZef4ehOOn12q4HDRdf089c1q2hKF-lfVWiawOp0aoR4OVdvkQgIpBWs5pt4SaJztlaNoV8khcBZ3CH_cwNbBjdU/s1600/temp.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiqNv4V4kg5Uk8B1MqiQ5KNFvD18swC7W1vyMyyaWjD9Zs7l6EmvJ-sZef4ehOOn12q4HDRdf089c1q2hKF-lfVWiawOp0aoR4OVdvkQgIpBWs5pt4SaJztlaNoV8khcBZ3CH_cwNbBjdU/s1600/temp.jpg" height="240" width="320" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">I still want to tweak my routines, namely the foot-on campusing, so I added 2 kg and switched to old, flat shoes instead of downturned ones. Train heavy, climb light. Still working the full crimp. </span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiEUvT7HZAA73jMSjqooM1XLwfZs_dfisnjUhgCrZwdmrv95u3OfJFfE4Xd0qeEUfVdDlICcpN_mFmopmFwExGjj8CVwAVl-chtwHWTexA2OieXl3uUqvZXOmpRAHnc46yEQkj1voycpHM/s1600/foot+on2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiEUvT7HZAA73jMSjqooM1XLwfZs_dfisnjUhgCrZwdmrv95u3OfJFfE4Xd0qeEUfVdDlICcpN_mFmopmFwExGjj8CVwAVl-chtwHWTexA2OieXl3uUqvZXOmpRAHnc46yEQkj1voycpHM/s1600/foot+on2.jpg" height="180" width="320" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">I am still a cool motherfucker. Or at least I try to be.</span><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEikOaac4w9wftzM30LsRDSa076BHUvfajrZIkU5j__zX6XYZ-oLasHkL069U7enLxb4lXoBEVROfQuzFSvrJUPZHuUreih4p-ufnTyq3AEsBipJlnrusW0XAtyLq2QkGXAA2M0lpiUL2Z0/s1600/wedding.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEikOaac4w9wftzM30LsRDSa076BHUvfajrZIkU5j__zX6XYZ-oLasHkL069U7enLxb4lXoBEVROfQuzFSvrJUPZHuUreih4p-ufnTyq3AEsBipJlnrusW0XAtyLq2QkGXAA2M0lpiUL2Z0/s1600/wedding.jpg" height="320" width="240" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">On the side of the many changes, I introduced some Finishers to my training. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">What is a Finisher? As the name suggests, it's something that terminates your session. What the name does not suggest, is that a Finisher terminates your session by terminating you. After a well done excercise, or series of excercises, you should be lying on the ground, crying for your mamma to make you dinner and put you to bed. You don't look at your bulging muscles eager to go out for a drink and some girls, you just lay there and cry. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">A Finisher has to be very short in duration (less than 10 minutes they say, but just 6 minutes leave me properly finished) and very high in intensity. Being performed at the end of the session, with muscles already fatigued and poor in glycogen, these excercises creat a very high metabolic stress that induces, teamed with proper eating, anabolism and fat loss. Yay! </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">For my finisher I chose to perform two excercises, back to back, in two sets of 2 minutes followed by two sets of 1 minute. I do Spider Crawls and a complex of Half Squat, Biceps Curl and Overhead Press. All with a 6 kg weightvest, that I wear under my sauna jacket. Just 6 minutes in total, but I can assure you that they are some very, very long 6 minutes. They seem to last an eternity. </span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgU8e4rZrqHuFsZinoQ_8sz8qfRWjYhJOP6jXGUVF7R47BINIlmLQ_hspQ8nD_LI8YboNKdApRJpr6_kNVuNsfvTOHP1_PfkQbk3QeYeUFTNsI8OqrXiJSRP5M-jg_0aJ4FZjhGA8P-x3w/s1600/sauna.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgU8e4rZrqHuFsZinoQ_8sz8qfRWjYhJOP6jXGUVF7R47BINIlmLQ_hspQ8nD_LI8YboNKdApRJpr6_kNVuNsfvTOHP1_PfkQbk3QeYeUFTNsI8OqrXiJSRP5M-jg_0aJ4FZjhGA8P-x3w/s1600/sauna.jpg" height="320" width="240" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">You, my dear reader, may be sitting there wondering why I still keep training so hard, instead of dedicating my time to (enjoying) climbing: I'll tell you why. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Beyond trivial matter-of-fact reasons (hours to go to the boulders, lack of doable projects, etc.), the main reason is: Delusions of Grandeur. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">No, not the famous boulder problem. The other problem. The mental problem. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">I can't be the best at climbing, so I want to be the strongest. I don't mean overall best and strongest, like in the world (I'd like though); I mean the best I can be. The strongest I can be. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">To be the best I can be at climbing, I would need to climb loads. I should travel to many destinations, try many problems on different rock types, different prehensions, different angles (from 45° onwards). Refine my technique. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">But I can't. I have no time and no money. At least for the moment. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">So I want to be the strongest, because I have time and tools for this. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">I can't be the best I can be without being very very strong. I could simply go climbing and punter around, maybe even have some fun. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">I don't want to. I want to be as strong I can be, ready to seize the opportunity, if it will ever dawn on me, to try and be the best I can be.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Luckily, I don't even care about if and when I'll be able to create this opportunity: as I've said so many times, I love training as a goal in itself, and sometimes, the more useless it is, the more I enjoy it. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Finally, I got an MR for my left knee, and it showed a tear in the posterior horn of my medial meniscus. I will need surgery to fix it, still don't know which kind of: it's not too bad, so they could simply file the damaged part off, or cut it off, or stitch it, or combinations of the above. Recovery times will depend on which one they'll choose. </span><br />
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lorehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13869179431191761511noreply@blogger.com3