A LIGHT

Sometimes I find myself wondering, à la Chatwin, "What am I doing here?". I mean, how can we find in ourselves the truth that our path is the right one? We can try to, but sometimes we just cannot be sure. Sometimes we realize that our path is not the right one, but obviously this is of little help: there is often only one way to do a thing right, and many ways to do it wrong.
"Notre vie est un voyage dans l'hiver et dans la nuit, nous cherchons notre passage dans le ciel où rien ne luit" is the epigraph at the beginning of the famous novel "Voyage au bout de la nuit", and it is something I deeply believe in.
Today the light in the sky, to help me find my way, and to help me know I'm on the right path, came under the form of a picture, shot by one of my students, a very bright one, a week ago. On the back, she thanked me for what I'd taught her: "something I'd have never learnt otherwise".
It's a light, and now I can put my head down and start walking again with renewed enthusiasm and energy.

MORNINGS, WOOD AND IRON

We all know that sometimes what others think about us is not true: for instance, and that's strange and probably the only case in climbing history, I have discovered more than once that people say that I have climbed routes or problems that in fact I haven't done. How this happens is impossible to understand to me, but given that life imitates art, it does happen.
What I found out recently, on the other hand, is much more important: I found out that some other times what we think about ourselves is not true. And I found it from nowhere.
I am lazy. I like to sleep a lot, and to concentrate all my energies in just what I like. If I could get a taxi right to the boulders, I would. This is what I thought, and it's not true. I found out that I like the walk to the blocs. What I dislike is, in reality, having to do that walk after hours driving on my own, and carrying four pads. Anyway, I'm digressing.
I don't like mornings and early starts. I have had to get up early in the past to go to work, when I was living in Rome, or in the Notary firm in Grosseto, and I hated it. Wrong again. I didn't hate the early start, I hated all that came afer that, the traffic, the jobs, the people. I hated getting back home so late that I ended my training session at 10,45 PM and I hated never having the time for anything.
It's not when you get up, it's what you get up for, that really matters.
A month ago, my girlfriend started her 5 years residency at Siena hospital, and one day, all of a sudden, I found myself wondering "What am I doing here in Florence?".
The answer was simple, I am here for work, I work here therefore I live here. Hmm, that's right but maybe a little bit too rational. What do I have in my life, beside a job that I love? I have my best friends. Most of them are in Siena, and the ones that live in Florence, I seldom meet them. Then I have my climbing. Is it easy to get to climb in Florence? No. Do I like the gyms in Florence? No. Hmmm... Reflect. Then I obviously have my girlfriend. Do I like seeing here just in the weekends? No. Do I like having to fit love and rock all in the small time of a weekend? Not at all.
What do I do in Florence, so? I wake up. I have breakfast, and I go to school. I work, I get back home and I do some kind of training. Then I have dinner, I watch some TV or kill it on the Net, then it's bed time.
Wow, what a life. It's really unbelievable, I know, but right now that I only do weights and fingerboarding, if I don't go sport climbing with someone, I can spend an entire week without talking to anyone, except my students or collegues. My human relationships are at an all time low.
So probably until now I hadn't ever felt the need to give my life a change, but the other day it dawned to me: I have to move back to Siena and to start commuting to work every morning.
WHAT? An early start. Yes, an early start. But this time for a job I love, not hate. For spending more time with my girlfriend. For building my own board, and starting again teaching climbing classes. For being able to meet a friend in the afternoon if I like. For being closer to the boulders.
I feel this is the right thing to do, because it goes against every logic: it will make things more difficult and less comfy, but I know that I have to try.
So with this idea in my mind, I have started the early wake up in the past week, while still leaving in Florence, to get used to it. I didn't even think that 6,30 exist also in the AM, but I found out not only this hour does exist in the mornings also, it can actually be a nice moment.
There is definitely something strange in the air when you start your first dead hang set and the clock says 6,59. I had never done it before, but I thought that the best use of these freshly gained hours in the morning, before using them to commute, was to put in some Beastmaker sessions. It felt great to be honest, it's a shame my left elbow does not allow me to push as I'd like.
Going to bed very early has been crucial. I never had to take a nap in the afternoon in the whole week, despite packing in quite a lot of hours of hours of work too: I have trained at will, following the program with no problems and also managing a couple of double sessions, Beast in the morning, weights in the afternoon. On this matter, I am currently doing weights twice a week, short sessions of 15x4 to sort my elbow out and staying fit. Kilograms keep adding up and I am satisfied. It's not how long you are in the gym, it's what you do in the gym, and I want to do it right. I hope to recover from my elbow problems and to start moving big piles of iron plates soon.
On rock I feel as weak as a kitten. I can't lock off, I can't pull and my body tension is non existant.
I have taken many wrong decisions in my life. This one can be just another wrong one, and in this case it won't make any difference, or the right one, making all the difference. We will see.
Everything is very confused and very simple: keep the fucking faith up and the fucking head down.

INJURY IS HERE

I think, I almost sure that I am really injured. My left elbow had been on and off in the last weeks, but after Saturday night it's quite sore.
I am trying to understand what went wrong, not to repeat the error in the future (ahah, if only that could be possible!!!): I think that the first sign of serious fatigue was after an assisted one armers session on the Beastmaker. I simply did too much: two one armers for each arm on various types of holds. At that point everything was under control really, and the first bad hit came from a PE session: I felt it achey before even starting, nonetheless I went through the sets, one after the other. Is the mind stronger than the body? Yes and no...
Anyway, the Siena comp also played its role, the overhanging holdless dihedrals smashed my shoulders and for sure compressed again my elbows.
So up to this point I was still confident: pulling up on the Beast was out of question, but on the rock I felt at ease and the post session icing was doing its little miracle each time. I have woken up a couple of times thinking that it had passed really.
Then came Saturday night, and its fever. The program for the night was a party at the gym at the sea, then straight to Tartana Club, Marco Bresciani spinning and mixing for us.
The night involved a large amount of the following ingredients: pulling on plastic holds; alcohol consumpion; loud music; barely dressed girls in high heels.
As you can imagine, it's been absolutely fantastic, but my elbow was fried yesterday and is still sore. I will do weights today, let's see how it goes under the lat machine...
In case you don't believe that I had great fun the other night, these small videos from my phone could convince you.