Just curious as to why each of us climb? Been climbing for more than 3 years now and though this is a short period of time compared to many climbers I know, I hardly ever stop and take the time to ask them what keeps them in the sport and pushes us forward? Maybe I will start the ball rolling =)
For me climbing has been more than just a sport. I guess it has become a template of my life, a way to centre myself when things go awry, a zone of peace to escape everything that defines reality. What was once a sport I did only monthly has become something so integrated into the fabric of life that I cannot imagine what I would be without it. Perhaps this is what they mean and feel when someone says they have found their passion.
Climbing has also brought me on adventures that have both opened my eyes to things both inspiring and well not so inspiring (*cough submarine style swimming). It is just amazing to see others cruise something that I need to scream my heart out on or how some people make movements that are impossible seem effortless. Climbers seem like painters who use their physical forms as their brushes with the vertical realm as their canvass. Furthermore it feels as though I share this mutual feeling with fellow climbers when we talk about climbing waving our hands in the air and bystanders must just think we are KEE SIAO! Now who can forget those sessions where everything just seems right where everyone is so psyched and trying to stick that move or pushing harder together than if I was training alone. I guess that’s when the individualism in this sport fades away and team spirit takes centre stage.
Most action we take in life has a purpose. We study to get that magical paper that is said to open doors of opportunity, we are curious about how businesses run in hopes that one day we too can earn big bucks. Ironically none of these seem to apply to this peculiar habit of climbing where the purpose of climbing is to be climbing. It is even more inexplicable why I would spend so much time to train even though my muscles are screaming in pain telling me to stop, yet the mind brushes these thoughts aside thinking that such things are necessary to make that move or stick that hold. I guess climbing has proven to me that logic and purpose are not always essential to want to pursue and do something.
So why do you climb?
