22nd Oct 2009
Hi Steve,
Really enjoyed today. wasn't bored - always interested in anyone's climbing and whatever the level.
Here are some fast thoughts too:
Fear
I was interested is seeing where and what you feared. - what element of the siuation was the seed of the fear - the insecurity of the foot placements. technically this is often the case - footwork a takes time to atune too - but fear looks for any nook or crany to slip into and fester - so if it wasn't the feet (but it usually is - because they are slightly less predictable in terms of slippage and friction that hands - less feeling) it would have been something else (is the knot right? is the rope strong enough? is the rope over a sharp edge? did the karabina close right?....)
It's painful to hear somebody recount witnessing a shocking scary climbing injury. These moments taste. The impact of the ground is something you never forget if you've experience it to any level where it injures. This is something you can sense in a situation where you imagine it can happen. But it's difficlu to be objective when these thoughts / tastes feeling come into you mind. I don't want to suggst that climbing is about denial (it won't happen it didn't happen) but in some ways you have to face it down and come to terms with it - or put it in it's place. is this inhumane?
So it was interesting to witness how long it would take you to become familiar with the situation - and steps which might encourage or facilitate that. You climbed the black jugs a few times - on top rope then leading it. The knowledge of the situation grew and fears went - also interested to hear about the practical distraction of clipping. Oftent he experience is the other way that the clippiung adds extra fear becasue it takes time and when you stressed never seems to go right...
Twisty - devious - deviant
The hips thing leads into thinking about how you feel the situation - rather than confronting the wall / rock you move alongside it - you align with the rock - side with the rock if you like. make friends with it - not always possible especially when fear looms....
Personality important in climbing - you can also se it in certain climbers repertoire of routes.]
Counter culture climber...
Respresentations of climbing / climbers. Pepsi max (adrenlin - pseudo adventure / club climber (boy scouts). I guess I feel these both dismiss the key concerens / values in feel climbing has (for me). Social and anti social, introspection, routine, risk, adventure, relationships, culture, history, aethetics, respectfulness.
The route as a text which can be read by climbing - but always having the potential of being unreadable if you fall of it.
Altitude related shift in civility
I liked the conversation of the cattle as they moved up from the valley into the alp they became less domesticated and more wild. - It's a brilliant poetic. and the herders too – ALTITUDE CHANGES CIVILITY – OR CHANGES THE CRAFT OF CIVILITY.
Functional aesthetics - meaning
I've written quite a bit before about the conscious, unconcious and self conscious movements. In performance art i've always had trouble accepting the effected gesture - I tend to dismiss it as pretentious twaddle. But climbing gave me a form of movement which performed fantastic aethetics without it being self conscious. Meaning is there -there's no "reason" to climb other than love of life. The movements often need to graceful but they are formed by the negotiation of a problem. In this sense they are like other movements - walking, runnning sitting - they are directly subject to the enactment of that moment of being. But I guess you could argue that dancing like down the disco, club or gig (that which doesn't claim "meaning" - ) also has this - it's more movement for life - than movement for meaning.
That's not to say that isn't meaning.....
Does climbing close down thinking? does it reorder cognitive priorities to those of just what's in front of you? is it an escape? - is it self indulgent?. is it a form of denial? does it remove life's complexities?
Wider view
Does being on top give you a better view? Actually my experience generally of climbing is that it's a narrow visual perspective - close up - peripheral sometimes but close up and granular. I guess there's that shift from close and far perspectives - as you get onto the top (in that clasic sense of climbing things with lofty tops...) but generally nose to the rock face. close up and pornographic!
Can complex, socio-political, world view, life, art, culture exist and be present in the climbing moment / movement? It certainly does in the wider span of what climbing involves - and of course climbing history is littered with fascist climbers and socialist climbers. Could they climb together and not have a problem with their activity? Does the activity ever exist as just thE activity?
I'd love to understand more of your compositional approaches - the idea of phrasing.
I'll re-investigate some moves and try to describe them (like the climb poems I've done) - maybe as drawings?? the poems kind of reduce it to just the movement described in shorthand. i wonder if there's a way of expanding (rather than reducing) it somehow?
I'm not sure why this is relevant but:
recently (since Leo was born) I've noticed that when doing something with leo or anna (changing nappies, nursing screaming infant, making baby bottles) I get flashbacks of periods, places and moments I've experienced before. It's quite interesting - a simple banal activity - probably coupled with a level of sleep deprivation and circumstantial stress - triggers a flashback. It's probably very obvious to anaylse and read (time and place when things were freer) but it’s fascinating non-the less. Climbing doesn’t do this to my experience - but I feel there's a button / door / trigger somewhere to unleash the life in the movement moment. or i feel there's a poetic possibility in exploring this. maybe that's the crunch the movement moment doesn't allow such mind wandering and so it is the whole world - but that’s pretty narcissistic isn't it?
thats not a good place to end but i will,
hope you enjoyed DV8
best wishes,
dan
No comments:
Post a Comment