Pumpfest happened about a week ago, but I think the long and short of it boils down to "I fucked it up, I shouldn't have, but I did, and that's that". After the whole thing though, I realised that I wasn't as salty as I normally would be.
Which brings me to what I really want to talk about, which was the Grampians trip. I think this trip really changed the way I view climbing on a fundamental level.
Some background:
Ever since I started participating in hobby/CCA activities, I've always been a really competitive person. So it kinda started out with football, League and NCC in secondary school. If I started learning something, I wasn't just going to be good at it, I was going to be.... the very best (AYYYYYYY). That meant that inevitable disappointments always hit me really hard. I say inevitable not because I didn't try hard enough. Rather, I say it because disappointment is part of life. Failure happens everywhere, every time, and sometimes you cannot change it no matter how much effort you put in.
"It is possible to commit no mistakes and still lose. That is not weakness, that is life"
This quote by Jean Luc Picard, a fictional character, but a real quote nonetheless.
To be fair, disappointment has never actually stopped me, it's just that it always hit me really hard. I would have a hard time accepting that I had fucked up, or that I was just not at a certain level yet. When I entered climbing in JC, this same competitive drive followed me, mainly starting with NSSCC in J2 (which remains my happiest accomplishment to date). Even after entering NS I still stuck to my goal of promoting to Inter Men. But competition after competition I was never good enough to make the cut. Eventually, the regular climbing guys had mostly got in already, save me, which sort of made me feel really isolated sometimes. I think I became a bit too focused on hitting a certain level of climbing so I could PROMOTE, and not simply because I wanted to do better in something I enjoyed. This bad mentality stayed all the way until we went to Australia to climb in the Grampians.
On the new philosophy of climbing:
Being in the Grampians really made me feel at peace, something I haven't really felt in a while. No tech distractions, no cars, no high rise buildings. Just the crew, the wall and me. There was no pressure. No timer by the side. No tops and bonuses. Within the first few days I quickly realised that grade chasing, as I was wont to do back home on plastic, was going to be a fruitless endeavour. Not to say that grades were irrelevant, but I found that a lot of times the grades given might be soft/solid by quite a bit, which made me come to the philosophy that I was going to have fun, regardless of the grade. It was important to me to try routes that were good quality and were an enjoyable challenge, and I do think I managed to achieve that. Of course I still felt good about snagging "difficult" routes, but it wasn't something that overwhelmed my psyche as a priority anymore. In a nice way, I managed to hold onto this way of thinking even when coming back to Singapore, realising that it was okay to just relax and enjoy climbing for climbing's sake. I still want to improve of course. I became a little less stubborn and accepted the fact that I might have to change things up a little, which I've been doing. In the end I hope all this work will be able to lead me somewhere.
List of climbs in order:
Day 1
A Horse is a Horse - V4 (Flash)
The Nevin Rule - V7
Day 2
Innocence - V3 (Flash)
Sesame Superhighway - V3
Day 3
Farmer's Traverse - V4
Day 4
Caterpillar - V3
Tonka - V4
Waiting in the Air - V7
Volume 1000 - V4
Day 5
Passion - V5
Fashion - V4 (Flash)
Bitch Slap - V7
Day 7
Wimmel Friedhoff - V5
Day 8
Faith - V3 (Flash)
4.45 - V4 (Flash)
Day 9
Pinche and the Brain - V4 (Flash)
Out of the Bleau - V5
White Destiny - V5 (Flash)
Riding Shotgun - V6
As the Crow Flies - V6
Day 10
Sick Nutter - V5
Uncompleted
Flash Gordon - V7
Querulaut - V7
Attack of the Killer Drop Bears - V6
Aphrodite - V7
Bleausard - V5
Peter Parker - V5
Favourite routes probably go to Nevin Rule, Bitch Slap and Aphrodite, simply because of the quality and fun of the moves themselves. Bitch Slap in particular is memorable because of the amount of people trying it there that day.
Been watching a lot of videos trying to recreate the sense of adventure and fellowship that came with climbing in the outdoors, but nothing ever comes close to the real thing I guess. Really looking forward to the next trip. Hope I have enough saved by then lol.
Good Night
We could change this whole world with a piano
