re-re-re-flections

Hi Dan,

I have no sense that you climb for competitive reasons or encourage competitiveness when you are supervising other people. In fact I’d say quite the reverse. Sorry if I gave that impression.

I wasn’t thinking of you at all when I reflected on the absence, in me, of a very strong drive to succeed on the beginning of a climb.

Actually, when I wrote that bit, I wasn’t even thinking about the new route. I was reflecting on my inability to get up the first stage of the climb Pauline’s Crack. I watched two strong guys go up it with determination and others not manage. I am quite sure that I have in me the physical strength and drive to arrive at the ledge about 3 or 3.5 metres up, but for some reason I just don’t access the energy. In some sense that must be because it isn’t important enough and I’m trying to understand what it is that would trigger the necessary determination and effort and whether I have any interest in that “trigger”. I used to be able to be really physically competitive with myself and towards others but these days it seems like too much trouble beyond a certain level. Maybe this has to do with age, but also maybe with having had so many injuries from dancing and before that from sport and not wishing to pop my shoulder or twist my knee by going to the edge of my capability. I wonder what my reaction to the necessity of physical effort for the first bit of Pauline’s Crack would have been if that rock formation was the second stretch, higher up, especially if I was leading. Of course this is a hypothetical and there is no “answer” to that question but I think perhaps the feeling of necessity would be the trigger. I have very contradictory feelings about whether I really want to put myself in conditions of neccessity like that. In relation to those feelings I have to say I actually really enjoyed the comment about me having too many commitments already. I thought it was funny and accurate

I understand your broad definition of enjoyment. I think I make a distinction between how I view the pleasure of an event before and after. After an event I can pretty much enjoy whatever it gave me (I speak from experience of injury and suffering as a consequence of my decisions as well as “nicer” outcomes). I suppose I view the past from the continuous present of being happy with and grateful for my experiences, as they were, without regret.

Looking into the future is a bit different. I definitely don’t equate the potential of a twist, pop or bang emerging from commitment and necessary effort with the potential of a pleasant feeling of balance co-ordination and calmness.

Of course I understand that there is a process of risking one thing to get another and also realise that in retrospect the most valuable and/or enjoyable experiences are often ones that are outside the “plan”. I don’t think that understanding this removes the process of planning and evaluating and making taste-based judgements about intent or preference. Even the decision to climb a certain route because it offers a particular challenge has an evaluation in it that the kind of challenge offered will be worthwhile. Looking at a route and thinking “ mmmm... that looks nice”, is explicitly an aesthetic value judgement.

So when I tried again and again to “solve” the beginning of the Pauline’s Crack route I was definitely on the careful side of effort, not wanting to commit myself beyond the level of muscular effort where I felt I could remain “intact”.

This led me to the search for a more “technical” solution. I was looking for a way of getting up that first bit more with balance and rhythm than with direct maximum muscular effort. I didn’t find it. I didn’t find the movement in me to find a good accommodation with that bit of rock. That is in one sense a pity but that doesn’t stop it being an enriching experience which I enjoyed having.

I think this differentiation between attitudes to “value” judgments about the past and future is significant in creative practice too. It always find it interesting to observe myself in creative processes between the future and the past just getting on with dealing with the “score” as it unfolds and seeing the value judgements I make as I go along.

I agree about the inadequacy of the success/failure dichotomy.

I didn’t at all feel pressured to try to second the new route. I backed off pretty quickly, before even arriving at a difficult or especially challenging move for a number of reasons. I realised that I would need a lot of that strong muscular effort to get up the part where your foot slipped and I didn’t feel I had that in me. Partly because of seeing you hurt but more clearly because of the reasons I outlined before about the start of Pauline’s Crack. Your injury just deflated me a little more. I was also concerned that you might need to look after yourself immediately. Of course that was your decision and you were clearly happy enough to secure yourself at the top so I could climb, but that feeling also sat with me.

When I wrote that I “didn’t have the guts” I meant it viscerally. I didn’t have that feeling of being able to access the strong pattern of Ki energy from my Hara, from my belly to be able to meet the task. I didn’t mean that I felt cowardly or a failure.

My feeling of disappointment isn’t really to do with “failure”. It is largely focused on the lack of time to revisit things and to develop skills, sensitivities and strength in an organic way and to try approaching things with different attitudes and attentions.

I have really begun to enjoy climbing again and I’d like to do more but as someone with a low level of skill and experience and a highly developed sense of fear, rooted in experience, I feel dependent on more experienced people to open the opportunity for me.

When I described the climb as “ugly” I wasn’t clear about what I meant.

Obviously the rock formation isn’t ugly. In itself it isn’t anything except what it is. Actually I find it really very beautiful, the way the crack leans towards the beach and the way it persuades me that it is actually perpendicular. The way that its base is available at low tide but not when the sea comes in. The feeling of age, weatheredness and crumbliness halfway up. I like these things.

Writing again I probably wouldn’t choose the word “ugly”. Perhaps “unsettling”, “disturbing” or “unattractive” would be more accurate because those words describe my experience not the objective facts of the rock, the route, or your ascent.

Maybe the disturbing, unsettling, unattractiveness is located in my misjudgment of the degree of challenge the route offered. Maybe it was in my inability to remain at equilibrium and composed as I watched the climb unfold. Maybe it was in the fact that the climb seemed to demand awkwardness and dynamic strength and these things worry me. I prefer the prospect of challenges to my balance and imagination.

The main feeling I am now left with is the consciousness that my perspective is from a point of deep inexperience and lack of skill and the memory of how much I enjoyed the hanging belay.