[GQ report] I don’t envy his success

Angelina 2022-01-05 08:01:58

The original text was published in [GQ Report], editor/Aunt Xiong. Search for "GQ Report" on WeChat and pay attention to the few media in the Chinese world that are still doing long-term reports seriously.

Friction game

On the second night when "Free Rock Climbing" won the Oscar for Best Documentary, I organized an internal screening in the old yard where I lived in Dali. This film features real horror rock climbing scenes, and we don’t want to ruin it on a small computer screen. After racking his brains, the tall American translator's roommate brought a dust-filled computer monitor from his room. Six adults huddled together, ready to be frightened.

The documentary is 100 minutes long and tells the story of 33-year-old rock climber Alex Honnold climbing the 1,000-meter-high Emirates Rock with his bare hands in June 2017. The filming took two years and recorded the whole process of Alex from preparation to the final completion of this unprecedented climb.

Emirates Rock is one of the most iconic rock walls in the world. It is located in Yosemite National Park in the United States. It looks almost like a granite rock wall straight up and down without vegetation. The reason why Alex’s experience is worthy of being recorded is that he climbed with bare hands throughout the entire journey, without using ropes for protection, only one person, one pair of climbing shoes, and one powder bag.

Image Credit: Samuel Crossley, National Geographic

As soon as Emirates Rock appeared on the screen, we exclaimed "Wow!" Everyone is a rock climber. The more experienced, the more you understand the difficulty of this matter-Emirates Rock has been "rock climbing since the 1950s" The center of the universe". Just like entrepreneurs who go to Beijing, rock climbers want to go to Emirates Rock to show their skills. There are basically two ways to climb the Emirates Rock. People with weaker climbing ability use equipment to assist in climbing (Aid climbing), and the other is free climbing , which relies on both hands and feet to climb. Note that these two Climbing ropes are tied in all ways. Free climbing is equivalent to free climbing without ropes. Without any external protection measures, one foot will pay the price of life.

Except for a few wizards, most free climbers can reach the summit in about 4 days. I have been rock climbing for nearly 6 years, and so far I have no confidence in going to Emirates Rock. Even if it is free climbing with a rope, completing the Emirates Rock is the ultimate dream of countless rock climbers in the world, and most rock climbers dare not even think about it.

I only know two people who have freely climbed Emirates Rock, a man and a woman, both of Australia's top free climbers. They are sponsored athletes and their climbing years are several times longer than mine. Even so senior, the two will proudly write "Climbing over the Emirates Rock" on the front of their resumes. At present, no Chinese have climbed the Emirates Rock freely. Just a few days after Alex completed his historic free climbing, a professional German rock climbing team sponsored by Adidas climbed it for 5 days but failed to complete it. In the film, Alex reached the top in only 3 hours and 56 minutes.

It's so difficult, and you can't make any mistakes, which is naturally scary. But this is not the whole story.

I have spent two summers in Squamish, a rock climbing site in Canada, which is known as the "Little Yosemite" in the climbing circle. There are a pile of smooth granite similar to Emirates Rock, and the climbing style is similar, but the angle is not as steep as that of Emirates Rock. , The difficulty is therefore much smaller.

In Squamish, I can see people climbing with bare hands every day. They are often a group of people who climb to the top and walk down from the top when they reach thirty or forty meters. But the height is not important-the consequences of falling more than ten meters above the ground are the same. The more important difference is the type of climbing route: the vast majority of people climbing with bare hands choose only those routes with cracks that can be squeezed in with their palms. Alex also mentioned in the documentary that when you put your hand into a crack in a rock and turn it in a specific way, you can feel the bones and muscles firmly stuck in it, which is very stable and very safe. Unless you choose to let go, it will not fall off.

The challenge facing Alex in the film is that the 1,000-meter-long Emirates Rock cannot have perfect palm-sized cracks along the way, or even cracks along the way. The entire rock wall involves dozens of different styles of routes, each involving different skills, and it is possible to master all of them.

Essentially, rock climbing climbs on the weak points of the rock-cracks are the weak points, and the rock bulges on the rock face are also weak points. To climb all the way to the top, it is necessary to find a series of continuous and uninterrupted rock weaknesses. Alex chose a route called "Freerider", which is more than 900 meters long and has only a perfect hand seam of almost 100 meters. The rest can only be inserted into the finger joints of one or two fingers, or half of the fortress body. Wide seams, or large light panels with no rock spots, etc.

"Daguangban" is a type of route, which refers to a rock wall without real rock points, and the whole person hangs on the stone by friction. We joked that this kind of climbing mainly relies on "faith". The greater the belief, the harder the foot is, the greater the friction. The more you are afraid, and the less you dare to step down, the more likely you are to fall. This is the type of line that I fear the most. When tied with a rope, I am often too scared to move because it has no sense of security at all.

Imagine you are lying on an almost vertical rock wall with your fingertips buckling a small bump on the rock wall. The contact area between your toes and the rock wall is only the size of a small fingernail, thanks to the sticky rubber on the rock climbing sole and the rock. The friction force bears the weight of a person's body. Friction is something invisible and intangible. For such a small contact area, even if the toe turns a little bit, the friction may be small, and the balance disappears instantly... Just think about my legs becoming weak.

This kind of tension makes me nauseous, and I am not interested in it. There are practical reasons why everyone chooses to climb with bare hands. One of the most practical reasons I've heard is that I have a bad waist and can't wear a climbing seat belt, so I had to climb with bare hands. Alex started free-hand rock climbing when he was less than 20 years old. At first, he was too shy to find a partner.

Obviously, ten years later, he is too far away from this original intention.

What this guy did was not just crazy.

Rock Climbing Textbook

Alex is not a lunatic, "Freehand Rock Climbing" is a meticulous rock climbing project.

In fact, the truly horrifying unprotected climbing of the Emirates Rock in the film only took 13 minutes. The first half an hour talked about how this goal had been brewing in Alex's mind for 8 years, and how he concentrated on spending 2 years to prepare. Behind the spectacle, the entire preparation process is like a climbing textbook, and the methods and techniques used can be learned by everyone.

When unsuspecting people saw the video of Alex climbing without a rope, they often thought that this was his first time climbing this line, and naturally felt that his thoughts were as unreasonable as the ability he showed. In fact, before climbing without a rope, Alex would practice the line again and again under the protection of the rope until he figured out every detail.

Take Chieftain Rock as an example. He remembers every one of the more than 1,000 movements on the line, knowing the feeling of every hand touch and every foot stepping on. He even made mistakes deliberately so that he would not panic if something went wrong and knew how to deal with it. That scary big light board, he has practiced at least 90 times with a rope, and once he climbed 5 times without using his hands in a row.

In order to train the mind, Alex specifically uses a technique called "visual mind imaging". He would meditate on the floor of the van and crawl this line in his mind with his eyes closed. If he climbed the wrong way, or felt wrong, he would think about it again from the beginning until he knew every detail. Not only that, he will also imagine all the possibilities of making mistakes, and experience the feeling of falling into the air 100 meters and hitting the ground with his body exploding.

This technique is widely used in rock climbing and belongs to the category of sports psychology. It can also enhance muscle memory on the one hand, and at the same time help break through obstacles in the mind, whether the obstacle is fear of falling or doubts about one's own abilities.

I am also using the technique of "visual mental imaging". When climbing the difficult line, I will inevitably fall into the air dozens of times at the same difficult point. This kind of frustrated memory has a huge impact on people's self-confidence, so that next time I When I climb to the same place again, I expect to fail before falling off, and I don’t even want to try. To overcome this predicament, I would lie on the bed and "climb" this line in my mind, starting from tying the rope and wearing climbing shoes, doing every hand movement, stepping on every foot precisely, and the picture is in harmony with reality. Climbing in the same speed unfolds.

Although lying still in bed, as I climbed higher in my head, I would begin to feel soreness in my arms, rapid heartbeat, and shortness of breath. I forced myself to breathe deeper and slower my heartbeat. I came to the difficult point of falling countless times, looking at the hand to grasp above my head, I did not hesitate to shoot, because I used force and unconsciously screamed-the imaginary climb did not fall. Climbed all the way to the top of the line.

This kind of practice time and time again, until I can break the barriers in my mind, and no longer expect to fail the next time I climb in reality.

Of course, the prerequisite for all skills and methods to work is climbing ability, which requires years of practice. Alex has been climbing since he was 5 years old and he has been climbing for 28 years. During these 28 years, he felt uncomfortable if he didn't climb for a few days. Anyone who devotes so much time to any thing can become an expert in this field. Alex is one of the best, and his body is trained to be specialized.

Alex's fingers are different from ordinary ones, and he joked that they were "sausage hands". Finger force is a rock climber’s “superpower”. I have only climbed for less than 6 years. I have been able to carry dozens of kilograms and hang on a 10mm wide wooden slat. At this time, the contact area between the fingers and the wooden slat is less than the first. Half the width of a knuckle. My finger strength is not worth mentioning in the climbing world. Alex can do pull-ups on a wooden strip of this size, and the strongest climber can even pull his body up with his little finger.

A cold knowledge is that fingers actually have no muscles and are mainly composed of bones and tendons. Studies have found that the finger tendons of rock climbers are twice as thick as ordinary people. From this perspective, the fingers of a rock climber are as abnormal as the lungs of a freediver who can stay underwater for dozens of minutes.

The muscles of rock climbers are not as big as bodybuilders. Because rock climbing is a sport against its own gravity, it pays attention to the ratio of muscle strength to weight, which has two main performances. One is that the muscles of rock climbers are more slender, and they are more efficient than size. They look lean. Furthermore, the upper limb muscles are obviously more developed than the lower limbs, so the legs of rock climbers are often as thin as bamboo bars.

The most developed upper limb muscles of rock climbers are mainly concentrated on the back. Because the back of the shoulder is used to pull the body up when rock climbing, the muscles used for pulling up in the back and the muscles used for pushing down on the chest are not balanced. The typical rock climber has a chested hunchback posture, and Alex is also quite obvious at this point.

In this way, the film took one and a half hours to carefully shape the character of Alex, showing his life as a rock climber and his preparations for climbing the Emirates Rock with his bare hands. It is easy for the public to resonate.

No, I don’t want to be Alex

"So do you want to be him?" After the movie ended, my roommate turned around and asked me. The subtext is, since you are also a rock climber, you think he is so great...

The answer is no, don't be him.

A person’s motivation for doing things may be very complicated. In the film, Alex summarizes this extreme challenge simply as "Samurai Spirit": In this climb with life as a bargaining chip, he is approaching his personal limit to get a perfect experience, even if only It will be satisfied in just a moment. Just listen to it and feel enthusiastic. Who doesn't want to approach perfection as an imperfect human being in this flawed world?

I almost believed him. It’s a pity that this cruel person is no exception to himself. Alex exposed another motive in the film. In 2016, he tried to climb Emirates Rock for the first time. He felt bad when he reached the big light board and gave up. . After driving out of Yosemite, he said frustratedly, "Maybe I just suck."

Ha, it turns out that this guy is like me: he hates himself.

How familiar I am with this feeling, a bottomless pit of self-rejection. To some extent, my adult life is almost driven by this thing. It is a hungry monster that only lives in its body, and feeds on human self-rejection. "You suck", "You are worthless", "Your life has no meaning"... It achieves its purpose by initiating periodic existence crises.

In the opinion of psychologists, self-disgust is closely related to childhood experiences. Alex claims to have a "heart of darkness" as a child. His father is suspected of having Asperger's syndrome, and he rarely communicated with him since he was a child. "We would drive for a few hours without talking, and expressing our emotions was not very comfortable for him," he recalled in his autobiography.

His mother seldom encourages and admires him. No matter what he does, he is always "not good enough." Alex’s parents’ marriage is not happy. The family never hugs and hardly uses the word "love". It is an atypical American family. .

Fortunately, he was exposed to rock climbing at a young age and never put it down as soon as he picked it up. When he was 19 years old, even though Alex was admitted to the University of California, Berkeley, he did not fit in with the environment. In this elite environment that should be full of interesting souls, he could not make friends and felt that he was wasting time. After spending the most isolated and lonely year of his life, Alex chose to drop out of school and seek refuge in rock climbing.

Free-hand rock climbing is dangerous at a glance. The more severe the consequences of extreme sports, the higher the sense of accomplishment after completion, and the more it can silence the screaming monster. Alex admits that he has gone to rock climbing several times because of emotional failures, and it sounds like he is self-destructive.

After watching the documentary, my rock climbing partners and I had two or three days. Once we got together, we would discuss this "Freehand Rock Climbing" repeatedly and enthusiastically. The residents of Dali Xiaoyuan come from China, the United States, Canada and Australia. Before climbing full-time, we all had an education and career recognized by the mainstream society. Perhaps it is easier to look back at Alex from a neutral standpoint.

After the film won the Oscar for Best Documentary Award, I found in many articles that the audience was portraying Alex as a decisive hero. At the same time , everyone avoided mentioning another key point of the film: his relationship with his girlfriend.

In contrast with his "normal" girlfriend, many of Alex's thoughts looked terrifying and pitiful. His girlfriend asked him if he could take her into consideration when making a decision. "If I have the obligation to live long, obviously I have to give up free rock climbing," Alex replied, "but I don't think I have this obligation."

"You always say let me be careful, I have tried my best. I can stop doing (barehand rock climbing) these things, but it will make me hate you, because the things I love most in my life are crushed." Alex's The answer is calm and cold.

This makes me feel that Alex is very pitiful: this person can't get satisfaction from ordinary life, and there is no close relationship to rely on. All he has is rock climbing, and it is the most dangerous kind.

I can't do without rock climbing. For those of us, rock climbing is the key to personal identity. If you don't climb for a few days, you will start to be anxious and overwhelmed, and you will repeatedly question yourself: Are you still a rock climber? If you are not a rock climber, who are you? This is a terrible bottomless pit. I don't want to be a person like Alex who gives up intimacy time and time again for rock climbing. A more mature attitude is, as his girlfriend said, "You can have both."

For Alex, the bargaining chip for rock climbing is bigger. No matter how Alex de-dangers unarmed rock climbing, how he doesn't take it seriously in front of outsiders, he can't change its extremely dangerous nature.

Four or five years ago, Alex climbed a 500-meter large rock wall line in Mexico with his bare hands. There is a limestone rock. Unlike granite, there are almost no cracks. The quality of the stone is much worse, and the rock points are more likely to break. He successfully completed the climb, which is as crazy as climbing the Emirates Rock with bare hands.

I went there a few years ago, and the local rock climber told me that because of weathering, a large piece of rock that Alex had grasped had collapsed and fell off. I can't help thinking, what if Alex just happened to suffer a collapse? In addition to skill, perseverance and careful preparation, extreme sports ultimately have to face the unpredictable nature. Can he be so lucky every time?

Going back to the film, Alex's first attempt in 2016 ended early because it felt wrong. After going down the mountain, the photography team and friends told him that it was a good thing to give up this time. However, Alex later admitted that if there is no photography team there, he will probably bite the bullet and continue to climb-the result of bitterness may be failure, and failure is death.

"Free Rock Climbing" recorded a perfect extreme challenge, and won the highest recognition of top industry awards such as Oscars. However, the photography team said that the day Alex climbed the Emirates Rock by bare hands was the most horrible day of their lives and never wanted to experience the second. Time again.

The film is over, but Alex's life will continue. Will he stop there? █

Ji Yun, a former Internet media person, now lives in Yunnan and is climbing full-time.

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Extended Reading
  • Luisa 2022-01-05 08:01:58

    As soon as Alex’s girlfriend showed up, he was injured twice in a month. “I will push him to buy a big house before getting married”, and finally said'i hope he's done' after climbing up. I can’t see where it’s supportive, she’s a female fan. . For such a perfectionist, I don’t have a girlfriend in my heart/a girlfriend like Amy is perfect. You can shoot better, but with a protagonist like Alex, it’s already five points

  • Cullen 2022-03-25 09:01:14

    I really hate that girlfriend...

Free Solo quotes

  • Alex Honnold: You're standing on tiny edges, small variations in the texture of the rock. If you slip, your hands can't hold you. It's just the two tiny points of contact that keep you from falling, and when you step up, there's only one.

  • Alex Honnold: My Mom's favorite sayings are, Presque ne compte pas, Almost doesn't count, or, uh, Good enough isn't. No matter how well I ever do at anything, it's not that good. The bottomless pit of self-loathing. I mean, that's definitely the motivation for some soloing.