As this young man gets older, slowly but surely I’m piecing together a coherent understanding of how this whole ‘life’ business works. no I’m not going to launch into some dogmatic tirade on how the world works, just penning some thoughts as much for me to see as for you. I’m lucky enough to enjoy a lifestyle that affords me ample opportunity to expand the concept of whats possible. while most people slave away on a treadmill, lift heavy things or drag themselves up boulders, it seems to me mental training doesn’t get enough attention. the old cliché rings true for a reason.
its all in your mind
one of my favourite ever climbing videos is an interview with Dave Graham, in which he talks about the ‘wizardry’ involved in doing what he does: crushing. something about this concept struck a chord. somehow it seemed to make the most perfect sense, summing up the feelings of climbing your best. some people don’t appreciate it as much, perhaps they just don’t get him. watch it. find out for yourself:
I often have trouble explaining myself when people ask how i do certain things. do i get scared of heights? how do i bounce across a slack line? how do spend days alone on a big-wall? each time a scrape together some lame response, trying to sum up some kind of deep intuition.
conscious thought has never been much use when trying to perform physical co-ordination type activities. the phrase ‘free your mind and your arse will follow’ sums that up nicely. but what does that really mean?
the concept of wizardry talked about is basically allowing your body to do what it knows how to do. climbing a route for example, theres a way to move your body over the rock thats the most efficient way. we’ve all had those days where we floated effortlessly up everything. while on sighting things just fell into place, you hit each hold perfectly and flowed with elegance and grace. other days you shook like a dog shitting razor-blades, nothing worked and everything felt like a sandbag*. why?
your mind.
the best sends are often the ‘no-aticipation’ sends. that is you honestly didn’t know how you would go, and gave yourself up to just trying. preconceived ideas about what you could and couldn’t do didn’t have a chance to step in and bungle your ascent.
so how to achieve that? OPEN YOUR MIND. why can’t you try that hard route you’ve always looked up at? why should you listen to those people that say you shouldn’t? i always find it amusing that the people who have achieved the least, feel like everyone should listen to their advice and speak the loudest. heres a good example of that.
“you have to be able to take it or leave it, then you take it” – Danny
from all my failures, and theres been more than successes for me, i’ve learnt the important skill of balancing desire and ambition, with the fact that it truly doesn’t matter. sure theres things i want to do and achieve, and I’m doing heaps to try and do those things, but so what if i don’t? the quickest way to sabotage yourself is to let the desire override your ability to let your body just do its thing.
its such a first world attitude to forget about all the time spend striving for that ideal. don’t let yourself get too caught up in the end goal, or thinking that i shouldn’t even bother ’cause i don’t think i can. what a drab life that would be…
open your mind to the endless possibilities. don’t worry so much about the what if’s and give yourself up to whatever you do. living in the moment and accepting where that takes you is the first step to a big smile. forget about what every other rat in the race is up to and ask yourself, what do I want to do? you can’t make people happy unless you are, and would it hurt so much to smile a little more?
and for something completely unrelated that made me smile, it seems I’ve garnered a new fan over here. i guess imitation is the sincerest form of flattery after all…
*sandbag – climbing term to mean something felt harder than it should, that you must have a sandbag on your back if it was meant to be easy. you can also ‘sandbag’ someone, give them wrong info intentionally to giggle at them flailing away.
Chronicles of the Flying Monkey 