English man in Font

I’ll keep this as short as possible, in an effort to be succinct rather than the usual verbose nature of my words. It’s all chronological.

My fingers hurt a lot after the BBC’s. I needed to rest. I trained twice. My fingers hurt more. I did the world cup. I did very badly, but it was still good and certainly motivating. My fingers hurt much more. I iced them lots. I rested for 1 week. I went to Anstey’s Cove on Monday. I had high hopes for my fingers. They hurt. I flashed Empire of the Sun. It is pretty cool. Certainly one of the better routes I’ve done in the UK. Perhaps I think it looks better than it climbs. Then I fell off Just Revenge. My fingers hurt too much. My phone was stolen. I attempted to go after the thief. I discovered what had happened from some witnesses. I ran into town after the guy, still wearing my harness and lacking a t-shirt. I would like to apologise to anyone who was shocked by my bulk running at them only to stop and say “I’m sorry to bother you, but have you seen someone matching this description…”. I didn’t find the guy. I did know he had spent the night on the beach in a tent. I went down there. There was lots of alcohol, some still unopened. I approached the tent with a rock in hand. I opened the tent and inside there was a midget! Just kidding. I wish I was R. Kelly. The tent was empty, apart from a sleeping bag, pillow, and large machete. I suddenly became a little worried and backed away trying to appear as if I wasn’t at all scared. That was my day out. Then my fingers hurt some more.

Now that the boring bit is out of the window I can write about something far more interesting. For a long time this blog has been exclusively climbing, which is what it started as and it’s what I intended it to continue. However, I do a lot of other things which are way more interesting than climbing. I don’t visit climbing websites any more, as I’m a bit bored of them. I like climbing, that’s certain, but I just want to enjoy it by going climbing, not to be saturated in it. I like reading about other things, things which inspire me, expand my mind, and increase my sphere of knowledge. I recently read something which I thought was worth sharing. It made me step outside of the box. This example is not mine, it’s Nassim Taleb’s (although perhaps he took it from someone else – I don’t know). I think he’s a smart guy.

You have Tim. He’s a statistician, who works for a giant financial powerhouse, and works with complex mathematics and statistics every single day. He’s done this for over 30 years. Then you have Tony. He’s a wheeler/dealer. He doesn’t work in an office, but he is very well off, making money here and there without being particularly technical in any field at all. You invite Tim and Tony to play a very simple game. You tell them that you have tossed a coin 99 times and that it has come up heads every single time. You tell them it’s a fair coin. Then you ask both of them the probability of the coin coming up heads on the 100th time. Tim smirks, as he knows the answer. Tony laughs, as he knows what’s probably going on here. Tim replies with a half. This is basic probability after all. It’s a fair coin, the past tosses have nothing to do with the 100th as they are all independent events. Tony is shocked by this answer. He knows some basic probability theory, enough to know that a coin can only be heads or tails. However, he doesn’t give you the same answer. He tells you that the game can’t be fair, that you are having them on. If the coin really has landed heads for 99 times in a row then it’s far more likely that you are cheating (ie. using an unfair coin or lying about the coin landing 99 times heads up). To me, this is such a clear example of thinking outside the box. Tim is right ofcourse, IF the underlying assumptions of the game are correct, but why has he assumed that rather than thinking there might be something dodgy in the game itself? [If I have presented this badly or incorrectly then it's due to my haste, so forgive me. It's worth reading more about such things and a good starting point would be to Google Nassim Taleb]

Personally, it’s always worth questioning your assumption, and trying to view everything from an angle slightly further back than where you think you are. Never be afraid to take another step back. After all, you can always take a step closer again if you want.

addendum. The reason I was reminded of this little anecdote was because of a track I was just listening to, in particular the lines; “If you’re not sure who not to believe, Who has better reasons to deceive”.

Perpetual underachievement. What does that mean? Surely there comes a point where your actual potential is better represented by your track record than by what you perhaps thought you had the potential to achieve? Perhaps that potential was a mistake? How many years can a “good” climber still fail to do anything “good”? At what point do they become a “bad” climber?

This sounds ever so serious, and perhaps somewhat bleak, but I can assure you this is not my attitude or current state of being! The British Bouldering Championships were at the weekend and I was there to try my luck. I’ll be the first to admit, I didn’t exactly do a lot of training in the last couple of months for this competition. I was struggling to sleep at night and in constant pain, so thoughts of training hard weren’t exactly at the forefront of my mind.

Returning from Sonar and having 4 days of training before the competition, it would obviously make no difference to my overall state of strength but it allowed me to practice a few of the things that always come up in big comps (like double dynos!). On Thursday I was climbing at the wall, feeling pretty good and feeling as though my shape was perhaps not as bad as I had feared. Then I pulled on to another bloc and suddenly my middle finger was exceptionally painful in a crimped position. Hmmm. I’d just done another bloc and felt fine, not felt anything pull or tweak, and now it was too painful to hold on. Not really understanding how it had happened, I decided to get it on ice. The next morning it was obvious that my finger was tweaked, as putting it in even a half crimped position and loading it even very gently was painful all around my second joint. Great timing. I was a bit annoyed but also very bemused. I wasn’t annoyed because of the upcoming competition, but because I’m sick of going from one injury to the next. I was just starting to feel like my snowboarding injury was subsiding and now I have a finger tweak. I know it’s not serious and a bit of rest and ice will probably fix it in a couple of weeks, but it’s so frustrating. I haven’t been able to climb continuously since last year!

I decided I may as well head up to the BBC’s as it is a good excuse to see some friends and after warming up I’d decide whether or not to do the comp. On the day it was hurting, but after warming up it hurt less whilst climbing. It seems to be the case that if I warm up thoroughly then it doesn’t hurt too much to climb on but it does then hurt afterwards (which probably isn’t a good sign).

I had expected the BBC’s to have the normal array of weird problems, many volumes, and many odd moves that I find so hard. I knew I would struggle with them, but at least they wouldn’t be bad for my finger. What I saw was the total opposite. Every single problem featured crimps. A crimp here, a crimp there, a crimp everywhere. It was ridiculous to be honest. The winner would definitely be the person who could crimp the hardest, and I knew without a shadow of a doubt that it would not be me. I didn’t even know if I would be able to do the easy ones! I tried though, and in the end I was somewhat expectedly disappointed with my 16^th place result. I don’t know why I was disappointed, because I went there not knowing if I would be able to climb and I did manage that. But I don’t measure my satisfaction on that, I measure it on what I know I could and should be achieving. Then again, maybe that is a ludicrous way to do it.

I hate being bad at something. I don’t hate it because it means I am worse than someone else, far from it. It has nothing to do with anyone else and everything to do with me knowing that I’ve tried my hardest. I know that if I try my hardest at something then there is no way I will be bad at it. That may sound ever so slightly arrogant, but I think it’s true. If you want to be good at something, and you are willing to put in the effort then you will eventually be good at it. Therefore, if you aren’t good at something which you want to be good at it stems from laziness, and I loathe laziness. I know that I’ve been battling injury and that for me is frustrating. I just want to be fit again, climbing well, pulling as hard as I can without pain. I know that time will come but for the moment I’m in a rut of frustration.

For now, I’m not frustrated because I did badly in a comp, I’m frustrated because I want to go out on real rock and climb some cool stuff, but having fingers which hurt is a nuisance. I want to make the most of being in Bristol this summer and check out places which I’ve never been like Ansteys Cove, Pembroke, and Portland. I don’t want to go and punt it up though.

The outlook is still positive, as it always shall be. I know this odd finger injury will soon pass and I’ll be able to go climbing without pain or hesitance. Hopefully then I can find my flow and start swimming with the current instead of against it.

“I don’t remember the games I won, only the games I lost” – Boris Becker

Arriving in Barcelona I was definitely ready to swap a tent for a real bed. We had one day to rest before the parties began, and then I saw very little of the bed I so much desired. The week of Sonar sees an incredible array of world class music descend on Barcelona, so each night you are presented with a plethora of difficult choices. Our first night was a wonderful aural treat, with Anja Schneider and then Pan Pot playing out wonderful music. Hearing such good music after a prolonged absence only made it sound even more amazing.

The following night was a Tresor label night, and then the next two night were Sonar by night events.The great thing about Sonar is that it is not a pure techno festival. That’s also the worst thing about Sonar. I want to go out at night and listen to amazing techno/mnml/deep house. I do not want to see the likes of Dizzee Rascal. It was a great disappointment that Magda only played an hour and that Richie only played as Plastikman for 1 hour. It was far too short a time, but likewise listening to Plastikman for 1 hour was by far the highlight of the whole party experience. Having listened to Richie do a mini talk the night before about how technology and innovation were working for and against him it made me appreciate what he’s doing a little more deeply. Of course, just hearing an amazing sound that makes your body move is great, but knowing that the person you’re listening to is trying to push the envelope of what is possible is also really cool.

I don’t think I’ll ever go back to Sonar. I’ve done it 3 times now, and it’s changed a lot from the first time I went in 2005. I want to go and explore other festivals like mutek, timewarp, exit and DEMF. Going back to a good thing is always comfortable, but how do you know if it’s really that good unless you go out and try something else? Life is all about variety, seeking out new lines, and exploring new terrain. That’s what I’m trying to do in climbing and outside of climbing. Soon enough we’ll know how that worked out. For now, click the photo below to go to a gallery or sonar images.

A couple of weeks ago I boarded a plane with Emily and headed off to Spain. The plan was to head to Rodellar to seek revenge on a 6b+ I had failed on a couple of years ago. It sounds like a joke doesn’t it, but it’s true. I’d also managed to climb 8a on the same trip, but that wasn’t the lasting memory… it was having to grab quickdraws on a 6b+ because I couldn’t hold on to the holds. I laughed it off as you would expect, but it ate away at me day and night.

The eve before leaving I checked the weather forecast for rodellar and it looked something like this;

I didn’t fancy spending 5 days in a tent waiting out thunderstorms, so another plan was hatched. I’d wanted to go and check out Gaz’s house (and surrounding crags!) in the Costa Blanca and this seemed liked the perfect opportunity. The 6b+ at Rodellar would have to wait… but that score is not forgotten. Watch out!

Gaz’s house is located amidst a sea of orange groves and from the rooftop you can enjoy beautiful sunsets, which is exactly what we did on our first evening;

Gaz informed us that due to the heat climbing was only possible in the shade and this meant going out early in the morning. I’m not exactly a morning person, and so I jokingly suggested we should leave at 8am which was non jokingly agreed to.

Our first engagement was to get some pain au chocolat, which might sound totally ridiculous as we were nestled in the heart of Spain. I’d been assured that I wouldn’t be disappointed and somewhat amazingly, I wasn’t. My expectations were low as I (and every sensible person in the world) know that it’s impossible to get a good pain au chocolat anywhere except France, so it was a pleasant surprise and a good start to the day.

Onwards through the orange groves towards L’Ocaive. The crag has an impressive orange overhang on it’s right hand side, and that’s where we were heading. Day 1 is always a warm up day. I’ve spent too many trips trying to do something hard on my first day and inevitably failed which can have negative effects for the overall psyche. Success begets success, so I try to do everything I can to get on the wave of success. First up was a 6b+ which was pleasant enough all the way to 2 metres from the top. At this point you suddenly have to do what is quite a hard move in order to reach the chains. If a 6b+ climber reached this point I can only see one outcome… falling off. It’s somewhat ridiculous. Why are the chains placed at that exact point? Why add 1 move which is 50x harder than any other move on the route previously?

I felt warmed up enough to have a punt on a 7b which took a cool looking line up an overhanging orange wall, on pockets and a bit of a tufa. It’s essentially a poor man’s version of the cooler looking neighbour of this route, an 8a that I most definitely wasn’t ready for trying. The 7b proved a bit of a battle, and I combined all of my skills to push upwards. I screamed, I cut loose, I got wrong handed several times, and I was laughed at by Emily. Every time I reached for a hold, I was disappointed, each time I had to put in a quickdraw or clip it I was sure I was going to fall off. I don’t know the number of times I shouted “watch me here” and then lunged for a hold only to miraculously find myself still hanging on. I reached a point whereby the shock of still being on was overtaken by a desire to succeed, and various motivational excerpts left my mouth. I was shouting at myself not to fall off, not to screw it up. I really didn’t want to have to do all this again. I reached a jug and the overhang went into a more vertical-ish section that thankfully contained a wide crack into which I shoved a kneebar. Now I concentrated on depumping my arms as my leg began to get pumped and very sore in the kneebar. I plodded on up the jugs in the crack, fought some guano, and clipped the chains. What a fight… on a 7b! I’m such a punt. It came as a great consolation when I found out Gaz had done a few of his trademark power squeals on his ascent too… and he’s definitely not a punt!

After this I did the 6c+ and 7a in the middle of the sector. The 7a was one of the better routes I’ve done as it featured really fun tufa climbing, so it gets my recommendation. Emily was feeling quite sick, having to fight to keep any food down, but somehow managed to get to her feet and crush the 6c+. I was impressed, proud, and could see the sunshine breaking through the clouds.

The next day we arose far too early again, and headed off to Gandia. The plan was to warm up at sector Hidraulic then go to Bovedon. The first route of the day was a 6a+ which felt easy as it should. Then a 6b+, which felt utterly desperate. It was so desperate that I feared Emily wouldn’t be able to do it. The holds had been so bad that I had to pretty much try as hard as I could to do the crux, which involved a terrible sloper/crimp and a bad 3 finger pinch. I didn’t want to tell her that I didn’t think she could do it as it was pointlessly negative, but I did say I thought it was hard. She set off, cruised upwards then arrived at the crux. I fully expected her to fall off but what happened next was truly amazing. She walked up the crux section as if someone had just been up and made every hold a jug. She didn’t scream or struggle, she just got on with it. I was speechless. I was feeling dismayed but also totally impressed. It was amazing! I would like to say she used different holds or a different sequence, but it wasn’t the case! I just put it behind me and moved to the next route. I felt warmed up, so decided to do an 8a at the left of the cave. It looked like a boulder problem, so I figured I’d just put the clips in it then despatch first go. Arriving at the first quickdraw, my words were “I’m coming back down”. There was no way I was going to do this today. Knowing when to turn around is an important asset in every walk of life, so I moved on to do the 7b next to it as a consolation tick. Then I felt as though I was in Groundhog day. I was at the first bolt trying as hard as I could to pull on to do the move and couldn’t take my weight off the rope. This is no joke. I couldn’t pull on. I climbed back to the ground dismayed, confused, but laughing. This was truly hilarious.

I needed to do SOMETHING, so moved one more route rightwards, to a 7a+ that was literally covered with jugs. I set off and immediately dipped into the power scream tank. At the third bolt I admitted defeat and slumped onto the rope. I was laughing, telling Emily that I couldn’t hold on to these jugs, knowing full well that she would be able to do this route! I went up the rest of the route bolt to bolt. I was screaming whilst moving from one jug to another. It was as if I had never climbed before, that was my level of strength! Perhaps less! I wasn’t willing to be totally defeated and lowered down to the ground, then set off on a redpoint attempt. Had it come to this? Redpointing 7a+ routes? It seemed that way. Desperately, but also thankfully, I made it to the top, using up my final reserves of power screams. I was done for the day! The rest of it was spent swimming and sunbathing which provided welcome respite.

Our third day of climbing was another early start. I wanted to check out a cool looking crag called La Murla. Gaz had said it was good and Leah had told me about an amazing 8a which was supposed to be bouldery. That translates to having harder moves but less of them… which was worrying as I couldn’t handle the jug to jug moves of 5 bolt 7a+’s! My psych was still high, as always, and it only went further up as we walked towards the crag. It’s a short crag, with a Bombay wave of orange rock that curves around the hillside. I couldn’t find much of a warm up route, so ended up going up a 7b covered in bolt on’s. Quality wise it wasn’t up there, and I didn’t manage to do it onsight, but it served it’s purpose as a warm up.

Then on to the 8a, La Chaqueta hidraulica. I really didn’t know what to expect, but I was positive. I went up it bolt to bolt, and every time I stopped Emily would ask me what the holds were like and I could only respond with “they’re jugs”. I couldn’t understand it. Every hold was a jug. I began to think I was on the wrong route. The way I was climbing it didn’t really match the description Leah had given me. I was just jumping between jugs. I got to the final bolt, looked up and saw the chain and decided there was no point going up to it as I knew it would all be jugs just like the rest of the route. I lowered down, and shared my confusion with Em. The clips were now in, so I might as well do the route, but what was it? We checked the guidebook again, and it did appear that this was the 8a, but I still decided to reserve judgement until I could ask Leah. I went for the redpoint, got up to the last bolt and decided I wouldn’t bother clipping it as the chain wasn’t too far away. I pushed into unknown territory and all of a sudden the holds went from jugs to small slimpers. I was a bit shocked but had something left in the tank so quested on, crimping as hard as I could to make sure I didn’t fall off. I was a bit surprised by the hardness of the moves here, but made it through to them, reached a glory jug next to the chain and went to clip. As I wrote, I hadn’t been up to the chain before and I also hadn’t realised until this exact moment that there was nothing to clip on the chain.  I reached down to my harness to get a quickdraw but then I saw that there was no quickdraw on my harness, as I’d ditched them all for my redpoint. Now I was up here at the end, unable to clip the chains and due to skipping the last clip I was facing a ground fall. Great news! I was mildly panicked, as was Em, but she offered some sage advice which was “CLIMB DOWN!!!”. I started reversing the moves, getting pumped exponentially quickly now that I was a bit scared of hitting the ground. I reached a point where I couldn’t reverse one of the moves off a small crimp, so I had no choice but to jump. I was still above the last unclipped draw, but I thought I would be ok and Em was reassuring me. I took the lob and ended up level with Emily about 6 feet from the ground. WOOOOOOOOWWWWWWEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!

In the evening I went through the sequence with Leah, and she confirmed it was indeed the 8a. She was quite surprised that I had used my sequence rather than matching, toe-hooking, releasing and leaping into a one armed swing. I hadn’t fallen off the moves and I thought my sequence was really good, but perhaps I’d got really lucky with conditions that day as the supposed crux move/hold felt like a jug. Regardless, it was a fun route and one that I would recommend (which is a rare thing)! In fact, La Murla is a pretty cool crag so if you’re in the area it’s worth checking out. Plus, if you’re feeling cheeky, there are plenty of empty holiday homes just next door and every single one has a nice blue swimming pool…

The following day was our final day and we headed back to Barcelona to shift from climbing to clubbing. The blog post for party time will follow…

No one seems to have taken me up on the money back guarantee which I offered on all purchases of Between The Trees. All I had requested was that you had seen every boulder problem in the film climbed (either in real life or in a video)… how hard could that be? There weren’t any first ascents, so it wasn’t a trick… but no one has come forward to claim their prize. Why? Roll up, roll up… I can think of at least one person who would have seen every single thing in the video climbed (although I could be wrong about this!).

The DVD sales have gone really well, and after the initial surge they have been trickling out. As time passed the downloads somewhat took over from the DVD sales, but the DVD’s are still being sent out. In fact, they are very nearly sold out. Once they’re gone they’re gone. If you’ve been waiting to order one, then wait no longer. I think there are approximately 40 or so left, so if you do want one then head on over to the order page. If you don’t want one, then soon you can relax as it won’t be possible to get inebriated and accidentally purchase one, only to wake up the next day and find the very object of your hate in your hands…

I hate when people start blog entries with lines such as “It’s been a long time” or “It’s been ages since I’ve been on here”, so I’ll spare you the rage and simply say “errr, well, I don’t know. I haven’t posted in ages and I’m not entirely sure why. That’s the truth”. One thing is for certain, change has been abundant in my life.

The last time I wrote anything beyond 4 lines I was in Innsbruck, enjoying the amazing powder that seemed to suddenly arrive just when it was needed. My boarding was going really well and early April provided some of the very best days of the season with a load of powder opening up opportunities for proper all mountain riding. I was psyched, but it wasn’t all sweet scented roses.

I was overjoyed that my mysterious hand injury disappeared overnight, but this was balanced with the fact that I couldn’t use my body to climb because it was in pain from my snowboard crash. Most moves would hurt and I felt so weak in the body. My hands and fingers did feel ok though, which was the positive aspect I was holding on to.

Since my crash back in March, I haven’t actually recovered. The initial breathing problems subsided, but I still had pain in my chest, lower back, and neck. I’ve been injured before and I know that given enough time the pain goes away and your body fixes itself. It’s an amazing thing the human body, and perhaps I haven’t given it the respect it deserves.

Now, over 2 months on, I still have to take pain killers to sleep at night. I’ve seen 2 Doctor’s, been told to just “see how it goes”, seen an Osteopath who couldn’t really tell exactly what was wrong or why it was wrong, and also seen a Sports Injury Therapist who I have no doubt is working wonders on my body but the original problem isn’t changing. My body is clearly in some fubar’d state, and I can’t find anyone who seems to know anything about the symptoms I have. During the day, the pain is manageable, with only specific rotational movements of my chest causing sharp pain in my ribs. However, upon lying down the pain spreads instantly. Lying down on a hard surface causes instant pain in my lower back, my chest, and depending on the position, my neck. As you can guess, this makes it hard to sleep and most of us generally try to sleep lying down. Well, I used to anyway. Recently, I’ve had to sleep sitting upright on the sofa as the pain from lying down is too great… even after taking prescription strength painkillers. It’s ridiculous.

The worst part of it is that it doesn’t seem to be getting any better. I’m just living with this pain. Every night I go to sleep and know that I’m probably going to wake up in the early hours either in an amount of pain I can just about tolerate, or in agony and thus be forced to sit upright and try to sleep. I am getting sick of it to be honest. I just want to be well again, to climb at my hardest, and to “feel my body move” (without pain). I don’t know what I’m going to do to get there, because I seem to have tried a lot of avenues. I think the next move is another hospital visit and a scan that may tell me more than an x-ray.

There has been more change occurring, beyond going from a pain free to a pain managed lifestyle. Towards the middle of last month I packed up my car and made my peace with Innsbruck, then drove away from the Alps for the final time. The decision to leave has been a complex one, with a lot of shifts in my life pushing me down new paths. Life is an interesting beast, and just when you think you can see a way forward you’re propelled at c toward an entirely different goal. At the end of the day

I never do too well when I’m not challenged, and perhaps it was this lack of challenge since releasing Between the Trees that has prompted me to undertake a new adventure. I guess I’m a bit reticent to disclose all the details, but I do know that if each piece falls into place and life once again deals me AA preflop then I’ll have good news to write home about. I’ll know soon enough. An attitude which I think I have been raised with is that of being able to detach attachment from desire. Sometimes I think I really want and must travel down a certain path, but then it all appears to go wrong and at some point down the line I realise that the big wrong was actually a big right. Perhaps this is some psychological condition of convincing oneself that it’s all working out ok, but I’m certain that I’ve had every major life decision propel me down an amazing path. I’m hoping that regardless of what happens in the next few weeks, I’ll be propelled down some amazing path (one of which I can see and one of which has yet to be revealed!).

Since being back in England I’ve been mainly climbing at The Climbing Academy in Bristol, as well as the surrounding areas. It’s a major shift from the granite of the Zillertal, but look hard enough anywhere and you’ll find something cool. Proust was right. I’ve done some cool routes and some bad ones, realised I still can’t pull on small holds but that movement can sometimes get you through, and also gained a little bit of power endurance. I’ve done very little pure power bouldering as there is nothing really hard down at the wall (well, there wasn’t until a team setting session forged new ground), so I’m not sure where the max level resides. The other reason is that my body still isn’t up to it… I’ve got my project for the summer lined up now, black pinches, pockets, and undercuts up a steep board. Back to the old school (R.I.P). In fact, one of the best problems in the school was a black pinchy thing… ok, I better not start to reminisce. There are also a few choice routes on real rock (I know, shock horror) that are going to see a bit of my attention if all goes well… mainly the classic sport routes that Ian Vickers dismayingly crushed many moons ago. The more I learn about climbing the more I find that dismays me.

So here I am, stood before a fork in the road. It’s all looking exciting in every direction, so I’m holding nothing back and pushing on forward. As ever, I’m intrigued as to where I’ll end up.

680. 6.0.

It is not the strongest species that survive, nor the most intelligent, but the ones most responsive to change.

- Charles Darwin

This is a long post so here is a summary for those whose time is more valuable;

I’ve not climbed all winter. I feel pretty annoyed about it. The flipside is that I’ve boarded a lot, and I’ve put energy into some other avenues of my life which have borne the sweetest fruits. I got better at boarding, went faster, did bigger lines, and then I found myself going too fast and too big. I had a big crash. It really, really hurt. I survived intact. My hand mysteriously cured itself. I may currently be weak, but climbing is once again possible. Hooray! [ed. I think I prefer the shorter version!]

The last update I posted wasn’t exactly all bluebirds, but one thing is for sure; there is always light at the end of the tunnel if your eyes are willing to notice it.

I feel like this winter season has been a total waste, squandered away in terms of my climbing. My hand started hurting in late November/early December time and since then I’ve seldom climbed, with a total withdrawal for nearly 6 weeks. The cortisone injection made my hand worse, and at that point I was feeling rather sacked with it all. If my hand didn’t recover, I would never come back to climbing, or certainly not at the level I wanted to be at. That was a sobering thought, but one I was willing to adapt to. Specialisation is for the insects, if you choose to believe the poem, and adaptation is the human condition.

There is always a flipside though. In the time that has elapsed since the end of November, many other things have changed in my life. If I was someone who looked for reasons as to why certain things happen at certain times, then I wouldn’t find it at all difficult to think that my injury came at a time when my attention was needed somewhere else, where my time was better invested in other things. But I’m not the type of person who looks back and decides to assign meaning to what are effectively random occurrences. My hand simply got injured, due to a still unknown cause, and doors opened up in my life that have led to great pathways.

One thing that came out as a positive from not being able to climb was that I was able to go boarding every day without worrying that I should be training. Snowboarding is such a great new adventure for me, and one in which I am progressing rapidly due to being a relative punt. I’ve reached a stage now whereby I feel like I can go pretty much anywhere, although this is said without having seen any truly ridiculous terrain! Snowboarding seems to progress in a few ways, which basically come down to speed or terrain. Either you go faster, you go bigger, or you do both. Yesterday James and I headed East to chase the powder and we were well rewarded, carving out new lines all day in a resort where we seemingly had all the off piste to ourselves. It was a really good find actually… I became much much more confident riding fast on powder, even though visibility was poor for most of the day due to heavy snowfall… (project triangle!). At the end of the day James was tearing down behind me when he went shooting off a drop that we’d hit earlier, only this time it came as a total surprise and at a much higher speed. The result was a very bruised leg, to the point where he could barely walk and couldn’t drive back which was a bad end to a great day.

When we got back to Innsbruck the snow had continued to fall and an early start was the only way for today, in order to find some virgin pow. James was too broken to climb down from his skybed, so any notion of shreddage was firmly done away with. The result of this is that he said “you can take my helmet and back protector if you want” which I decided to do for a change. Last week I got some wise words regarding the wearing of a helmet from someone who didn’t want to see me fubared, after I realised that it’s possible to go quite fast on a snowboard. The wise words had sunken in, but not as far as my wallet…

So this morning I was at Nordkette at 8.30 to get the first lift up with Emi. Unfortunately we were already too late and the cattle herd rammed themselves into the first lift whilst we had to make do with the second. The mountain is big though, so there were virgin lines waiting for us in nice deep powder. We dropped in, cutting across to an untracked area, and then I started to shred. I felt super confident, carving out huge sweeping turns in super soft and relatively deep powder. I was going faster and faster, taking off as I crossed other people’s lines, and I felt on top of the world. I truly felt like a dolphin in the waves… smooth, fast, elegant. I was tearing down the mountain at a rapid pace, probably the fastest I’d ever been on a board (so I’d guess upwards of 50-60mph – sounds ridic on paper, but not when you take a gps with you!). I saw a line and I was nailing it, but then I noticed an undulation which I didn’t want to hit at such speed, so I carved down inside it, into the more central line of the gully. I remember my last turn, gliding through the snow with such speed and fluidity. Then I can’t remember what happened, but I remember tumbling down, hearing the hard bang of plastic (helmet or back protector or both), tasting blood in my mouth, and cartwheeling down until I came to a stop. When I did come to a stop I could barely move. I was trembling and I seemingly couldn’t breathe properly. I was trying to catch my breath but it didn’t come. I wasn’t aware of the searing pain in my chest, I couldn’t sit upright, I just lay there trying to breathe. My first thought was a collapsed lung. I’d been with my brother when he’d collapsed his lung and I remembered what the doctor had said in the ER. It was possible to survive with one lung, but you had to relax, take small breaths, and not panic. So that’s what I did. I lay there, trying to be calm. I couldn’t take in more than about 20% of a lungful, but I knew I just had to keep breathing. I was ahead of Emi so I knew he’d be catching me up soon. I tried to sit up but it hurt too much so I lay back down, still concentrating on nothing but breathing. Eventually I saw Emi go past and stop further down. He was shouting to me, asking if I was alright, but I couldn’t muster enough breath to shout back. Another couple of minutes passed, a few skiers came past to see if I was ok and I croaked a barely audible and totally foolish “ja”. Eventually I was breathing regularly, but at about 30% of capacity, so I stood up and made my way over to Emi. I felt really sick at this point, in a huge amount of pain, and still had a way to go before reaching the sanctum of a lift. I guess adrenalin kicked in and I pushed on down, still trying only to take short breaths. We got back to the main station and I sat down, desperately trying to breathe more deeply, but each time I would try the pain in my chest would be too much. I thought I could walk it off. I couldn’t. I thought I could sit/lie it off. I couldn’t. Eventually I just admitted the obvious, I had to get the hell down to the car and perhaps get to the hospital. I took the gondola down the mountain, and on the way down happened to see a mighty avalanche on the mountain to the left of the nordpark. It’s a section that I don’t think people board/ski on, and if they do it would require quite a serious hike, so I’m sure nobody was over that way this morning. This avalanche ripped down with such force and as clichéd as it may be, it looked just like it does in the movies. I was really quite intimidated by it, remembering what Emi had told me about a day out in January this year when he saw the aftermath of a huge avalanche one ridge over from where we were today. The sad and sobering news is that a French skier had died in that one, his body not being found until days later. Seeing the avalanche really made me realise just how small I am in comparison to these mighty mountains, and their unpredictable nature.

Driving down was a real battle, but James was in the land of nod after being up all night with the pain from his leg. I got home, stumbled in, fell on the sofa in front of James and he dosed me up with a couple grams of paracetamol. I still couldn’t get a proper breath, but soon the pain subsided and I spent most of the day lying down. As I write this I can now take a full breathe again, but there is still a pain in the centre of my chest when I do. I’m sure I’ve not done anything too serious, but this was without doubt one of the worst injuries I’ve had in a sporting capacity. Nothing is broken, but the pain I was in, the feeling of lying in the snow not being able to breathe, the fact I can’t even remember what happened are all signs that this was a big one. I’m very thankful it wasn’t any bigger.

So I may currently be a little shell shocked from boarding, but that’s just the bad news. There is always a bit of good news too, and in this case it’s the fact that I started climbing again last week. The hand specialist in England had told me to rest, but to be perfectly honest, I’d lost faith in his ability after the cortisone saga so I’d returned to trusting my instincts and my body. The hard nodule in my hand wasn’t getting any smaller, or any bigger, and so I thought I should have a climb on it after nearly 5 weeks without doing anything. The good news was that I was able to climb almost totally pain free, and that I wasn’t a total punt. Emi and James were spurring me on, which was funny as I was trying to do easy moves but was drawn to the big boys stuff. Luckily big boy problems around here don’t involve small holds so I could have a few furtive efforts in order to assess my hand. The very good news is that in terms of static strength I haven’t lost all that much. The flipside is that my explosive strength is all but gone. For example, locking off on one arm on a small campus rung was fine on 3 or 4 fingers, but doing 1-4-7 was HARD. But the overall result was positive in that my hand felt almost totally pain free. The next day my hand wasn’t really aching so I was pretty happy. If I had to live with a small hard nodule in my hand then so be it, as long as it didn’t hinder my climbing. Since then I’ve climbed a couple more times, but at some point, unbeknownst to me something very good (I think) happened. After climbing one night I was sat at home and I went to give my small lump a little massage… and boom. It was gone. The hard nodule is GONE. I wasn’t exactly sure what the hell was going on, but I got a second opinion from James and his medical diagnosis was that the nodule is gone. This leads me to believe that it was in fact a cyst of some sort, which is exactly what Nick, Tom, and Gaz had thought from the start! Quite how the multiple hand specialists in Bristol can all manage to miss this is beyond me, but that’s not my prime concern. I’m just supremely happy that the lump is gone and that I can return to climbing regularly. I know I need to take it easy, to build up easily, and that’s what I’m planning on doing. I’m just happy that climbing is on the cards again.

I feel like I’ve wasted the whole winter on a hand injury, which is hugely frustrating for me, but I’m also thankful that I can start to get back into climbing. It seems like a long uphill road to get back to any sort of form, but the best things in life come not to those who wait, but to those who try hard. Very hard.

One week ago I saw a hand specialist and I went in filled with optimism. He listened to my explanation, my adamant tone regarding just how important it is I have a working hand, and then made a swift diagnosis. He said that there was some sort of rupture on my tendon sheath, which was rubbing against my A1 pulley and getting further aggravated and enflamed.

The week before seeing the specialist I decided to try and climb as much as I could, in order to give me a good understanding of where my hand was at in terms of pain/recovery/strength etc. This way I would have a good benchmark to work from. I managed to climb 4 times, and although I could feel something wasn’t quite right in my hand, I was also able to climb on most things without any pain. Going in to the meeting with the specialist I was feeling like I was getting over the injury. Although the hard nodule was still there, it wasn’t too painful and seemed to be recovering of it’s own accord. I figured I could drop back into a steady climbing schedule again, building up from medium to hard in the next month or two.

Then the doc made his diagnosis, a single steroid shot through the heart, sorry, hand. I was definitely very apprehensive about this, but he assured me that it was an excellent anti inflammatory and that the downsides were de minimis. Reassured, but still a bit worried, I decided to follow his advice. The injection itself was mildly painful, and I left the clinic feeling like I had a hand I couldn’t use. I could barely move my fingers and it was kind of painful. He had warned me that it might feel worse before it felt better, so I figured a couple of days would pass and it would soon be back to work with all trace of injury gone! A couple of days passes, my hand feeling like a separate entity from my body. I couldn’t move my fingers to their full range, I couldn’t hold anything heavy with my left hand, and I generally felt like a bit of a spaz. The palm of my hand looked swollen and I didn’t want to be prodding it too much, so I let it do it’s thing. 5 days passed and it still didn’t feel anywhere near right. The hard nodule seemed much bigger than before, and I was still unable to hold onto anything heavy or torquey. Now 8 days have passed, my hand still isn’t feeling normal, and the hard nodule remains larger than it was before the injection. I’m no doctor, so self diagnoses isn’t my forte, but I do know that my hand shouldn’t be like this right now. I’ve made another appointment but unfortunately it’s for another 6 days time. The waiting game now continues.

I hate this feeling of not knowing, of not even knowing what I should be doing to help the situation. I’m just waiting and trusting that someone else makes the right decisions for my body.

Following on from the previous post on feeling somewhat directionless, baby steps have begun to take shape. Or rather, a certain path is being explored. There are many paths to explore, but without committing to the exploration I won’t get anywhere, so here goes.

Movement. A good friend once sent me postcard which said “movement is life. Stillness is death” and it’s the kind of statement that can mean nothing but can also mean everything if you choose to read something into it. It’s true on a very logical level, in that being dead is intrinsically linked with being still. Nothing moves when you’re dead. I guess it’s also logically the case than you can’t be totally still when you’re alive, because you’re heart would be beating, no matter what sort of deep meditative trance you entered. However, I don’t think the quote is intended to be taken solely on this logical level, because on that level it’s clearly true. I didn’t read too much into the quote when I got it, beyond thinking it was a nice thing to point out. I still haven’t read too much into it, but my mind does sometimes slip back to thinking about it, and normally it’s linked to thoughts about where I may be going in life.

There are only 3 directions you can move in life (if you accept the definition that stillness is death) and they are forwards, backwards, and sideways (also assuming we are on a 2D plane and can only move in right angles!). For better or for worse I’ve always linked forwards with good, backwards with bad, and sideways with sometimes acceptable but not really good enough. I’ve also linked forwards with progress, perhaps obviously. I don’t ever want to be still. I only want to move forward, and will accept that sometimes sideways movement will occur, but I would like to minimise it. Backwards movement is something I’ve always strived to avoid, in the sense that I think of it as regression. Sometimes turning around isn’t moving backwards, it’s really moving forwards, and that’s something which I’ve always tried to remember. Never be too proud or too stubborn to turn around, not when it’s the right thing to do.

Climbing is such a simplistic thing to do. You put energy in, you get better. You can set a goal, you work for the goal, you achieve the goal. You move on. It’s an intensely simple process, but it provides a wonderful framework for having direction. It’s easy to maintain your forward direction when you can see what you’re aiming for. Life isn’t so simple, and sometimes it’s hard to see the difference between forwards and sideways. Sometimes they only reveal themselves with hindsight. Right now, I feel like I’m most definitely moving sideways. My actual climbing is probably moving backwards, mainly due to the lack of it, but that’s a physical limitation and so I can’t do anything about it and it doesn’t worry me in a simple sense. But once I lose my ability to go climbing I lose a major focus and direction in my life. I’ve never wanted climbing to be my whole life, for I think it’s unhealthy to only have 1 dimension. But without the carrot in front of my eyes it’s much easier to look around. Without my goals and direction being largely climbing based, I feel a little bit freer to take a look around me and see what’s on offer. It’s usually at these (massively rare) points in my life that I suddenly start to think that maybe climbing isn’t what I want to be doing. Perhaps I want to go back to Uni and learn some more, or perhaps I want to plough my energy into some career path. I end up facing all these huge life changing questions but never coming up with an answer. Maybe I’m not asking the right questions. I want to know what it is that I really want to do, and I usually answer myself by saying there are lots of things that I really want to do. But how do I choose one of them? Sometimes I simply recover from my injury and I return to climbing, return to my natural (or should that be nurtured?) home amongst the rocks of the world. Then I suddenly feel at peace again, as if I should be nowhere else in the world other than trying that particular route/boulder problem. But could it simply be the case that I’m most at peace solely because of re-finding my comfort zone? I guess it’s possible, and to be perfectly honest I don’t know the true answer. I can only say that I’m searching for it. I’m left with a feeling of uncertainty about whether to ask myself such questions, questions which I struggle to understand whether or not can even be answered. I always thought that asking questions was the right thing to do, but could I perhaps have been wrong? The comedy of my previous sentence doesn’t evade me, not at all.

As for right now, in this moment, I don’t have my climbing. I’m being held away from it, and I have been for quite some time. I’ve almost forgotten what it feels like to be stood amongst the boulders of Ticino, gazing out at snowy mountain peaks, feeling a cold breeze against my face, and breathing in so deep and so hard that I want never to exhale. Almost forgotten. I can never truly forget because it’s so much a part of me that it will always exist deep down. For now, I’m left looking for a path into the future, and right now I have no idea where that path will lead.  There can be no doubt that I’m moving sideways, which is something I guess, but it doesn’t sit comfortably with me. I don’t like moving sideways. I want progress. That’s just who I am. The last couple of months have sat a little uncomfortably with me, as I’m not moving towards something that I desire. Now I’m finally realising this and trying to figure out what the next step is. Hopefully clarity will drop by soon.

It seems to me that sometimes realising where you want to go is harder than getting there.