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Roger Breedlove
Trad climber
Cleveland Heights, Ohio
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I am too slow on getting my posts out--got to cut back on the work thing.
On reasons not to try climbing:
Lois, I think that you are missing a logic step here. Most of us—ST campers--are climbers and we know a lot about each other just because we are climbers.
None of us care if you climb or not--as John has stated. However, you have asked lots of questions about climbing—some practical, some social, some psychological. By my reckoning, you have managed to get a pretty stellar group of current and past experts to try to answer your questions. (Personally, I haven’t been able to resist using your questions as an excuse to make up alternative explanations. None of which is for your benefit, but rather for the amusement of folks who have a history with climbing.)
Since the mechanics of climbing seem not to make sense to you, a demonstration seems in order. But we don’t climb for the gear—at least not for long—and you seem to understand that. But trying to explain why we climb at a deep level of understanding is impossible. “Because it is there,” has been the standing joke since before any of us were born.
One thing we know as climbers is that climbing triggers a link between our bodies, our physical minds, and our meta-cognition that is not common in many other pursuits. Psychologists have identified part of this process—which they call ‘flow’—with what happens when someone climbs. So the suggestions that you try climbing, or even just watch climbers do their thing, to get an idea of how it works, is practical. It would go a long way to moving along your “please explain” mantra.
Most of us have swum across lakes and hiked up steep mountains, so we have a pretty good idea of the nature of your experiences. There are quite a few posts with pictures showing these activities. We have enough practical experience to listen to someone explain their adventures to understand what they experienced. But none of us would start with hiking experiences and end up with 'only steeper' to describe climbing. Nor would we equate swimming dangerously with climbing--now Cybele might after her experience getting down form the "Leaning Tower."
Another solution to close this loop is for you decide that you have as much information about the particulars of climbing as you need.
Buzz
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Roger Breedlove
Trad climber
Cleveland Heights, Ohio
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Lois, in response to your post to me.
John is/was a gifted climber, as are more than a few ST campers. But the climbing feats fade and become jumbled with time. Nothing is forever. Heroic climbs become warm-ups. Old, bold styles become quaint affectations.
But what John is best known for is his ability to capture in his writing one of the peculiar facets of climbers and their outlook on life and their sport. I don't think anyone else has even come close to capturing that sense of...self-aware heroic ridiculousness or what ever it is about climbing. For sure there are some great writings about climbing feats and there are some great word smiths in the climbing world, but John sort of has a lock on the actual 'being there' element. We all laugh from a collective memory.
His description of his writing in the stuff I 'republished' above is pretty interesting.
Rajmit’s post, in the context of John’s love of Jorge Luis Borges, reminds me of the "The Library of Babel," written by Borges in 1941. Borges describes a vast library containing all possible 410-page books that can be composed in all possible combinations of our written characters. (If you ask why 410 page books, I’ll have Russ nuke the eastern seaboard.) The majority of the books in this universe are pure gibberish, but the library also contains every coherent book ever written, or that might ever be written, and every possible permutation or slightly erroneous version of every one of those books.
Rajmit’s post is the opening line on page 1 of the first book.
Prescript: this entire thread up to this post is in book 334,789,456,892 on pages 235-43.
Regarding your WoS 'panel', you can be sure that I was very hurt and offended that I was not included in your list of luminaries to arbitrate the WoS fiasco. But on the other hand, I would bet that there will be many wonderful opportunities to spew, ridicule, and mock the judges’ findings. So, on balance I don’t mind sitting this one out. (This shouldn’t be miss-understood as a lack of interest. I do care about the outcome and I am certain that I will develop strong opinions.)
TL-C, Roger
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Ouch!
climber
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Lois, there is a pattern developing here. Every time Largo, Roger, or numerous others lay waste to your arguments and pin you down, you wiggle off on a different slant or appear to take offense at some perceived slight. This tactic is very familiar to me. I used it extensively years ago when I was a notorious usenet troll. Of course, I have since reformed into a perfect gentleman.
In my opinion, you don't need to talk to Largo. you need to talk to Juanito.
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Ouch!
climber
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Lois, they are simply telling you if you would teach a dog, you must first know what you want the dog to know.
Or...
You gotta walk a mile in my shoes to feel the nails.
Or..
You can't taste the sweetness of the fruit by merely looking at it.
Or..
Largo writes his life. He can give you a peek into it but you cannot possess it.
You are a puzzle because you come to a climbing forum and express interest in climbing people but you have no interest in what they do that makes them who they are.
And with that, you can add me to your creel.
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Largo
Sport climber
Venice, Ca
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Okay, one last thing--allow me to offer this and contradict myself again (not to respond). I do it often.
LEB wrote: "I am feeling so frustrated that I can respect everyone's individual personalities and needs and yet can no one can respect and accept mine and accept that that I am different from them."
In spite of all your reading and thinking about climbing, you've still missed one key thing. It is summed up by the Marine Corps dictum that basic training is intended to destroy the identities that recruits brought with them and to fashion them into warriors. This is an extreme case, but there's a point there. You see, LEB, EVERY climber's personality told them not to go up an a big wall, for instance. Big wall and adventure climbing is not natural for anyone. But climbers generally refused to be slaves to the identifications of their personalities and to push past them and grow. The personality is an artificial sense of self that lays down rules saying this is what "I" like and should do or not do. The soul says otherwise and so people go against their fears and jump up on El Cap anyway--and they are transformed. Climbing, at bottom, is not a physical exercise but a transformational drill that pulls you out of your personality and makes room for other stuff to surface. So no real climber is going to cow tow to something they have themselves battled against their whole lives--the personality you so highly cherish. SO the more you say no and refuse the transformational experience and say, for you, it lies elsewhere, the more we're all going to say baloney, you're here, amongst us, so avail yourself the chance to move past yorself and all your fears and priorities and find out something new for the simple reason that your personality says you shouldn't. If you're looking for a crowd to congradulate you for refusing the offer and to understand why you are stuck in a perspective that refuses to let you expand--even for a fricking hour with a toprope held by our own Karl Baba--you are likely asking for something that you will never receive, and shouldn't.
I have to ask myself: what kind of life experiences would a person have to have to simply dig her heelws in and flatly refuse to even entertain the idea of trying. It has nothing to do with your personality being afraid or adverse with the idea of climbing. In fact, that's the very reason TO try, to go aginst your own rigid beliefs and ways. Everone who ever got into climbing had to struggle against those parts of their personality that said "Forget it. I'm not going."
And here you have people encouraging you to move out of being slave to that perspective, and who will take you by the hand and show you, but verily, the woman simply won't budge.
Imagine if you HAD to go climbing? What might happend to our personality? Since you don't know what the effect will be you couldn't know. What I think frustrates many here is that folks DO know the effect, and are encouraging you because they know the effect can only be good for you despite what your personality tell s you otherwise.
I'm not interested, and It's not for me are simply escape hatches for the personality to remain just as it is, to control everything down to the last detail and to call that virtue and self-knowledge and integrity. To most of us, we call that being stuck.
JL
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Largo
Sport climber
Venice, Ca
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Actually, LEB, I've done almost all of those things that you mentioned, and plently more, as have a lot of folks on this list. Actually you have the transformational game in reverse (IME). You don't go towards anything--that's the ego trying to direct your unfolding, and that never works. Transformation happens when you move out of where you're stuck, then the vacume is filled, but not with what you thought.
But tell you what, I'll do, with you, any activity that you want, any whatsoever, and in return, you will go climbing, once, with Karl Baba.
I'm good to go. And you?
JL
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sandstone and sky
Trad climber
AK
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Lois -
The thing that you seem to keep missing is, that JL isn't the one asking hundreds of questions on an energy balancing website, and then seeming surprised that people want him to try it.
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Ouch!
climber
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Lois, where your argument fails is You asked them for something. No one asked you for anything. Well..Maybe Russ suggested some options.. LOL!
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SammyLee
Trad climber
Memphis
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Lois, are we good enough cyber friends to laugh at one another? Cause ha, ha. Largo gotcha. But damn girl, you like win and then win again. Climb with Baba and roadtrip with JL.
This has truly been fun.
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Roger Breedlove
Trad climber
Cleveland Heights, Ohio
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Nice offer, John, very nice. Will you extend it to me?
Want to have a beer together? Roy says it is trans...something or another. Usually the local brews are pretty good, so I don't try to remember the names.
Then I'll go climbing with Karl.
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landcruiserbob
Trad climber
the ville, colorado
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Some serious cyber stalking going on here.rg
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Ouch!
climber
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Roger, you don't play fair. I trolled you twice with the flattop. You didn't bite.
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sandstone and sky
Trad climber
AK
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And I of you.
I think you are misconstruing a lot of people's remarks as encouragement to climb, when in fact they are trying to express to you that they think your logic, for lack of a better word, is a little off.
Whether you climb or not is irrelevant to me, but like some others, I am fascinated by the weirdness of this whole debate.
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Ouch!
climber
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Wow! Lois. Reading the thoughts of other people can lead to misconceptions. What if you read Locker's by mistake and attributed them to me? Locker would be pissed for sure.
Edit.....As to the questions you asked...Well, you answered them for me.
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Roger Breedlove
Trad climber
Cleveland Heights, Ohio
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Lois, I didn't know that you had an interest in cartoons. You should try it sometime. Ouch! can set you up. Just give it a shot, then you'll understand why Ouch! is the way he is. (You can keep your own hairdo.)
Hey Ouch!, I appreciated your JB in flattop and cuffs. Cool looking dude--just like old times. Jim would try anything, not like some people we know. Now, can you dress him in a cutting edge 2006 outfit?
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chuffer
climber
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Ok, I've been registered here for YEARS, yet I don't believe I've ever posted a single thing up to this point. I can take it no more. LEB, here are exact cut and paste copies of the first four questions you posed in the opening post of this thread:
"1. Am I correct in concluding that the “leader” of a climb goes up “unprotected” from possible falls and hazards to a specified point (per his judgement) and then fixes some bolt or something in the wall. Meanwhile, his partners cheer him on encouraging him to go higher and take yet more risk? Could this interpretation possibly be correct? If so, with friends like that, who needs enemies?
2. Does everyone who climbs El Cap drill or pound bolts and metal hardware into the wall!!!!! Yikes! Given the number of climbers, this great monolith must be literally covered with hardware. What happened to “leave no trace?” Can I possibly have interpreted this correctly? If so, that is terrible. How is this not defacing our national treasure?
3. What precisely is a “route” and who passes the final judgement on whether xyz person or persons has forged said route? How do we *know* that someone has not climbed in that particular way before? Does it get “reported” to someone or some organization so that the pioneers, as it were, get credit?
4. I don’t understand this whole fall from ropes business. Can someone try to explain this better? Long speaks of falling 80 feet, 50 feet, falling past the first this to the second that or whatever. I read it a few times but did not still do not “get it” What exactly is breaking these falls and why do the people get so banged up? Are they banging against the rock wall as they fall?"
Now these are questions that are very difficult to effectively explain in text only, or even with the aid of pictures for that matter. However if you were to go out with Karl (or whoever for that matter) and climb just ONE route, or hell even just WATCH him climb one route the answers would be perfectly clear. What has been battled and argued about in cyberspace for DAYS would literally take you less than 1/2 hour to understand at the base of a cliff. I believe that this fact is what originally prompted this whole "you should just go climbing" thing. I don't believe that the genesis of the suggestion had one single thing to do with anyone believing you have some latent desire to go climbing, the thread just seems to have evolved that way, mostly through your own arguments.
Whew, I feel better. It's back to the woodwork for me now. By the way LEB (or whoever you are), this is truly a first class troll. This one is certainly worthy of the hall of fame.
J
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Ouch!
climber
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"I am very sexually uninhibited "
Thanks for that. Somehow it doesn't seem to fit into the debacle but thanks anyway.
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roslyn
Trad climber
washington
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weirder and weirder
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landcruiserbob
Trad climber
the ville, colorado
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JL, don't answer the door.rg
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Ouch!
climber
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"you'll understand why Ouch! is the way he is."
I wish someone who understands would explain it to me. I can't quite put my finger on it. :-))
Maybe there's a cure for it.
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