What's the deal with free soloing? Sunday someone climbed Frog's Head in boots. We were worried he was climbing up to jump off (he arrived at the climb by cane and was ignoring the other climbers trying to speak with him). Is this acceptible? Should we have said something? I realize a few people do it on TV, but I don't expect them to live long. I feel like I had the potential to help in that situation but didn't want to be a wet blanket if this was something he did 10 times a week. But he was ignoring people so... WTF?
That was me. Please allow me introduce and to explain myself. My name is Donald Perry, I hope you will forgive me for being abrupt, I will apologies for that in advice. I like to get to the point. So I am sorry if I come off as somewhat offensive, I do not mean to be, that is not how I sound in person.
First, when someone is soloing you don't bother them, it is very rude. Argue with them later, that's fine. If someone is asking questions like, "would you like a rope" when they are in the middle of something what do you think is going to be going through their mind? When I was on the 5.5 crux instead of concentrating fully on the moves, now I am being distracted with speculations about what the speaker may have meant by the reason for the question in the first place. Was it that I needed help either with a rope, medication, a straight jacket … whatever worked? I was too busy to be bothered about what anyone else was misunderstanding, my job was to take care of myself not anyone else, and I do not see any reason to apologize for that. Next time I will give a lecture before I start and ask for questions, perhaps that would be a good way to start my adrenalin pumping and avert distractions. Or maybe I can take a vote first. Anything is better than trying to carry on a conversation with someone while you are in the middle of a crux.
As a matter of fact to be honest with you I do that too, interrupt people while they are on the crux. But when I do it, it is to intently make them fall off. Sometimes it works! For example, it is impossible to climb hard while your are LYAO. The way I see it, this is the best way to find out how good your jokes really are. But you have to wait and bide your time, just till the point where they step onto the crux, and then I tell them the joke. If it is a good one he falls off, if not he keeps climbing. Distraction is key. I have some youtube links for this so here.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mopVSgx1RD0http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F2QnieQNU8s