Every climber has their reasons for why they climb. I thought I knew what my reasons were, but how little did I know what they had changed into.
To me rock climbing is just perfect, being able to spend time with your friends, experience the beauty of what nature has to offer, challenging yourself on new routes and problems, and that utter joy of feeling good when you send those routes or progress on a project.
At least that was what I thought….until this weekend came along.
During our trip it was my goal to catch some great video of us climbing some fun, classic, and sick routes at HP 40. I began to notice that when the camera was one I was struggling to climb routes that I had either easily done before or should have been able to climb.
This fact began to frustrate me quite a bit. I started to become agitated and the more I became agitated that worst I was climbing. To say the least not so much what I had planned for the weekend.
What happened next was the best experience I had all weekend.
I was becoming frustrated while a few of us were climbing a great problem at HP 40 called Mariachi. I just kept falling over and over on the same move right before the top out and was about to punch a hole in the rock. It was then that I knew something was wrong because typically I wouldn’t let this type of a situation make me angry.
I decided I needed to think for a second…I took off my climbing shoes and put on my other shoes and took a short walk in the woods. Then I asked myself some questions “Ryan, why do you climb? Is it to take climbing videos? To have fun? Etc.
Well, I can tell you one thing the first thing that I thought of was not to take climbing videos. Man do I love rock climbing and for some reason I was all caught up in the fact that I wanted all these climbing videos to impress other people.
I lost track of what I really wanted…and that was to climb for myself. I started to get caught up in grades and videos and that in my opinion is never good.
So I head back to Mariachi put on my shoes, chalk up, and then send the route no problem, with no video camera on.
The rest of the trip was amazing and you know what we were able to get a ton of video of my friends and even some of myself. So be on the lookout for that on the site real soon.
Why do I share this story with you?
Simple, I hope that it can help you stay focused on why you really climb and encourage you not to get caught up in stupid things like getting some boulder problem on video.
Remember why you love to climb
Climb with passion
Ryan Coisson
http://www.rock-climbing-for-life.com/rock-climbing-articles-why-you-climb.html
