Its been five days of the same thing. 15 ft of easy traversing lead me to
the crux. Surf out with the right hand, bump left over, adjust the feet,
stand tall.. Bam! Back on the friggin ground. Over and over I beat my head
into this 10 ft scrap of rubble I like to call a boulder. I've done the
calculations while resting and I've successfully related mm of rock to total
hours trying to do this problem. The number I got was one, and at this rate
its surely plummeting even lower.
My smile is giant however, I'm not pissed, I'm psyched, so psyched. I can
feel my muscles getting weaker, I know I won't send today. I am happy though.
Most of my peers would have given up by now, too many days of work. But I
have learned better and understand more now. I know the old thought process
though. I used to look at my friend Joe Kinder: After spending 15 days trying
to send a problem, I would think to myself, "damn that kid has killed all
of his brain cells, how else could he STILL be psyched on that problem. He
isn't even close." A couple days later the phone would ring and Joe would
tell me all about his send. "Christ," I would say , " Does he really enjoy
failing, OVER and OVER again. That must suck..that's not for me." But as
I watched Joe (and our friend Dave and Luke) slowly send one hard problem
after another, I began to realize that they knew something I did not.
What I learned from them is this, Always stay psyched by finding success
in failure.
Climbing is mental. "Well, duh," you say?
I call bullshit on you! I read post after post on the NEB message board about
what's the best way to help me send my 'proj' followed by crap about system
boards, campus boards, training boards, hoof maker, iron palm, and even some
malarkey about going on unemployment.
The most important tool in sending your project is psych. If you believe
you can send you will. Now the difficult thing is maintaining this psych
while you work on a problem, sometimes for several days.
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I've learned to not judge my performance on whether or not I send. Instead
if I learn one little piece of information from a problem I am psyched .
Getting one move further, a new little foot move, and doing one hard move
several times are all psych building in the sending process. It doesn't matter
if you spend weeks on a problem there is always something new to learn. When
trying a problem you haven't done before, make learning all about the problem
the goal and the send will come naturally and won't feel forced.
-
Think about what you have learned on the way home, in bed, at school, and/or
at work. Feel the holds. Get psyched to stick one more move and a long hard
problem won't seem overwhelming
-
Hang out with friends that support you, are psyched that you tried your hardest
and don't think you are lame because you didn't send. They are weak and negative
vibes ruin a day at the boulders.
By finding success in failure the days you spend working and finally sending
your project won't seem like days at all and the mm to hours driven ratio
will just be icing on the cake.
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