08 January 2014

Accepting Responsibility

Tonight at the climbing gym my partner and I started off with some easy routes. Because of the holiday break, the two of us had essentially been away from a wall for almost a month. Yes, I had come in a few times to get some solo bouldering practice and do some core and general strength building exercises, but I just don't think there's a substitute for the endurance training that roped climbing can provide. So, I probably shouldn't have been so irritated with my pathetic performance this evening when I decided to take on a project 5.10 after a few 5.8 warm ups. I worked the first several moves with relative ease, but soon I came to the first crux. I struggled, failed, hung, flailed, and floundered around for at least a handful of attempts before deciding to just hang for a moment in anticipation of mustering my courage and remaining strength for one more attempt.

At that moment, however, I looked down to realize that a young man of maybe 15 years old was making his way up the same wall that I was on doing an exercise called "taps" on a 5.8 (taps is when you tap each hand hold for 5 seconds before moving on). I was initially surprised and shocked by this climber's lack of awareness of safety and common climbing etiquette. I was pissed, and it completely ruined any "mojo" I had amassed in my efforts to tackle a challenging new climb. I stewed for some time, and after wrapping up the evening with an anti-climactic climb of yet another 5.8, I called it an evening, somehow blaming my failure on a kid who was clearly twice the climber I am.

The reality is this: I was more upset at my shortcoming than I was at the kid's ignorance. Sure, there's a lesson that he needs to learn, but I believe my lesson is more important. Essentially it boils down to this: WORK HARDER. If I was a better, stronger climber, I wouldn't be getting upset at a kid barely into his teens who basically grew impatient with the "old man" struggling above him. I can make a thousand excuses for why I was a terrible climber tonight, but really, I know the truth is that I can push myself much harder than I have been. It's time to get serious.