Climbing.lu says goodbye to tumblr! You can find us on instagram now 😀 ... @climbinglu ... Follow us to stay up to date about all the climbing news around Berdorf 😍
Picture: Les “voleurs” de falaise - Eric de Léséleuc (Maison des Sciences de l’Homme d’Aquitaine)
“Mort aux cons”, which means “death to the idiots”, is the dictum of the local climbers in Claret (France). The same is valid for climbing.lu in Berdorf. This summer (May to September 2020) some climbers stole the quickdraws of local climbers out of some routes and one local climber got even his new La Sportiva Otaki climbing shoes stolen! ... If you uneducated idiots are not common with the outdoor ethics, stay at home or in your local gyms. ... We hope that Karma will f**k you hard!
Eric & Pierre vs 70 m rope 😀 ... They tried to make a perfect « Tom Brown ». To make a « Tom Brown » means to try to make the rope fall entirely back into the rope bag when pulling it off! The expression comes from a luxemburgish climber named « Tom Braun » who often tried to pack his rope like this. Thank you Tom for the inspiration 😉
… La terre est vivante. Les montagnes parlent. Les arbres chantent. Les lacs peuvent penser. Les cailloux possèdent une âme. Les pierres ont du pouvoir. - Lame Deer, homme médecine sioux
… When the mountains speak, wise men listen. - John Muir
The pictures all belong to John Gill / copyright John Gill !!
INTERVIEW with the legendary John Gill.
(Interview done by - and intro written by Jean-Marc Winckel in 2008)
John Paul Gill Jr., born February 16, 1937, in Tuscaloosa, Alabama (USA) is my all time climbing hero beside Wolfgang Güllich, Klem Loskot, Tony Lamprecht and some others. I admire his philosophy about climbing, especially bouldering. He is a mathematician, a gymnast, a climber and for me a philosopher, a wise man. « There is an affinity between math and climbing. It has to do with independence of effort and good pattern recognition skills, coupled with a desire to solve problems and explore. », so John.
As a gymnast, he discoverd bouldering and introduced the use of magnesia (chalk) and the dynamic movements into climbing. The jumps were aesthetically pleasing him. The picture where he does a one-arm front lever (see the pictures) became very known throughout the whole world. Therefore, he is also known as the father of bouldering. Climbing was for John an extension of gymnastics. In his first article in the « American Alpine Journal » in 1969 named « The Art Of Bouldering » he wrote : « …the boulderer is concerned with form almost as much as with success and will not feel that he has truly mastered a problem until he can do it gracefully. » But what I admire the most about him are his ideas about the mental strength in climbing and how he experimented with it.
Pat Ament writes in his biography about John Gill : « … He found in bouldering sharp, clear reality, and on occasion a feeling that – with the right consciousness – he weighed a little bit less. The right mental attitude might inspire « a slight sensation of telekinesis » or in fact minutely perceivable levitation. It was easy to listen to such concepts, as they flowed subtly and with somewhat of a sense of humor from Gill. After all, he did at times seem to defy gravity. »
In Yosemite in the late ‘70s Yvon Chouinard said about John : « Climbing is still in a stage of pure physical movement, and the next step is going to be mind control. I think Gill has already gone into that, from watching him prepare for a boulder even in the late ‘50s. … You’re going to have to use meditation and Yoga to be able to get up some of the new climbs, because pure physical strength and technique are not going to be enough. … I think it’s going to be Zen and the art of rock climbing. »
In the beginning, John found inspiration for his mental training by reading the books of Carlos Castaneda (« A Separate Reality », « The Teachings of Don Juan », « The Art of Dreaming », …) Often he soloed long, easy graded routes to enter mentally another world and experiment with the flow effect. Experiences such as these were entirely the consequences of meditative practices, for he NEVER had used psychedelic drugs.
Furthermore, Pat Ament writes in the biography : « Gill spoke of a mystical reality that, as he described, was an « extension of the hypnagogic state. » He suggested that certain exertions in bouldering occasionally produced an apparent separation of « I-consciousness » and physical body, « similar to how the mind of a long-distance runner seems to soar above the automaton-like running form… » … Gill seemed fond of the phrase « kinesthetic awareness, » meaning perhaps « self-realization, » a turning inward where all realms – sensory, mental, athletic, artistic, intellectual, mystical, spiritual and aesthetic – are united. »
In his essay « Notes on Bouldering – The Vertical Path » John described that the « outer value » of bouldering, pure difficulty, is just one aspect of the sport. The « inner value » of bouldering has much more to offer. But to acquire it one has to break away from competition !
In his description about a climb near Pueblo that John Gill and Chris Jones soloed together, Chris said : « One must be free to choose a more difficult way than the easiest, if that is what strikes the fancy of the moment. The rock must be a menu, for this « menu-soloing .» The choices, freedom, movement, mental acuity inspired by the exposure, warmth of the sun, feel of the rock – the EXPERIENCE is everything. »
I am SO happy that I had the chance to have contact with John and ask him to make a little interview with this living legend. I hope you enjoy this interview as much as I did ! Let it be a little inspiration for you to improve yourself, change the way you see things, change your views about climbing and enter mentally another world while climbing.
I advice you to read the biography « John Gill – MASTER OF ROCK » written by his friend Pat Ament (ISBN : 0-8117-2853-6) and have a look at his website www.johngill.net !
Have fun … it’s all in your mind !
1. When and how did you discover bouldering/climbing ?
In 1953, as a junior in high school in Atlanta, Georgia, a classmate, Jeanne Shearer (Bergen) took me along to north Georgia on a one-day expedition to try to find a cave in the middle of a limestone cliff. She had ropes and carabiners and slings, and I was fascinated with dangling above an abyss and scrambling about. I started bouldering – without knowing that was what I was doing – in 1954, while a student at Georgia Tech. Seemed like a natural extension of the gymnastics I was learning. A couple of years later in the Tetons Yvon Chouinard told me I was "bouldering", something he and his pals did in a light-hearted way at Stoney Point near Los Angeles. No one had the faintest idea of the history or origin of the activity, and it was strictly playtime on the rock, not serious climbing. Some Brit, I'm guessing, told someone at Stoney Point in the late 1940s or early 1950s they were "boulderers".
2. Do you still boulder/climb a lot? If not, how did you put the sport behind you?
I quit bouldering over twenty years ago after tearing the biceps off my right forearm in a bouldering accident. After thirty-something years of chalked-up dynamics, my body said "enough". I returned to my other climbing love – modest freesoloing – for a number of years. These days, with arthritic shoulders and chronic rotator cuff problems, I still enjoy traverses right above the ground, and I may get back into some solo climbing this summer, as well. However, I can't jump off boulders anymore, regardless of mats.
3. Do you consider climbing in general as a sport or a lifestyle?
For me it was an athletic lifestyle.
4. In how far do you relate mathematics with climbing and gymnastics with climbing? What do they all have in common?
I'm not sure mathematics has much to do with gymnastics, but the problem-solving aspect bears some relationship with the more cerebral aspect of rock climbing or bouldering. Gymnastics was good for me, for I began climbing with no athletic background and the still rings and gymnasium rope led to chalk, dynamics, and strength. I did gymnastics for its own sake as well, enjoying learning difficult moves and feeling the grace and precision necessary for the sport.
5. What do you mean by “option soloing”?
Picking and choosing among different possible lines according to difficulty or aesthetics when going up otherwise relatively easy terrain.
6. Do you stay in tune with modern bouldering, the magazines or websites?
Not really. I read some of the articles occasionally.
7. What differs in your opinion the climbing of today from the climbing when you discovered the sport?!
The level of naiveté. When too much is known about an activity and the standards are very high, it seems more like work than play. There was a different sense of adventure back then, more like a pilot flying by the seat of his pants in the 1920s when compared to modern flight training. Jets are neat, but think of the time the old barnstormers had!
8. What do you think of the current grading system in bouldering and the 20+ moves boulder traverses? Should they be graded as a route or a boulder problem?
The V-scale seems adequate, although I'd like to see one set of numbers or letters for all kinds of rock moves, low or high, short or extended – a system incorporating some sort of additional marker to distinguish power from endurance.
9. What do you think about the recent grade-explosion? Wouldn't a scaling system that is in constant evolution or a grading system depending on the number of ascents be more appropriate?
Every generation since the 1950s has seen a "grade explosion". If the circumstances are right, yes, a simple ratio of attempts vs. success might be a nearly-objective system. But this is very unlikely to occur. In gymnastics, in the 1950s, there were A, B, and C level moves. Now there are D and E and super E additional levels of difficulty. The open-ended structure is entrenched and would take a nuclear detonation to change!
10. How many moves had a typical boulder problem "at your time"? And how high were they?
Depends on where they were. At Jenny Lake the problems were very short, just three or four moves, if that, on 12 foot-high boulders. In the Needles of South Dakota, they were somewhat longer, sometimes up to 30 feet, but that was rare. I used to compare a problem with a gymnastic routine, which would have 7 or 8 moves at most. More than that and you were on a climb.
11. Why didn't you put a mattress under your boulders? For ethical reasons, transportation issues or are the young guys cowards? :-)
Are you kidding? Pads were invented to make money. We would take a simple and cheap top-rope along for some of the problems with bad landings or exposure. The "ethics" of not using a top-rope was subtly encouraged by pad makers. A mattress? Puleeese!
12. Is a boulderer a better gymnast or a gymnast a better boulderer?
I don't think there is a solid correlation. In my time – in the 1950s – being a gymnast helped, but not necessarily now that rock climbing has become so specialized and advanced. Better to avoid the excess weight of gymnastic muscle tissue.
13. Didn't you offend any purists and climbers of your time when you started using chalk and doing dynamical movements?
There were some – usually those lucky climbers whose hands stayed dry naturally – who complained about chalk. They didn't feel good losing their genetic advantage! There weren't many who complained about dynamics, although climbers had to become stronger over the years to successfully apply dynamics to the rock. The old adage about three-point suspension came down through the ages in British circles, where climbers objected to the "excessive" use of modern gear. Geoffrey Winthrop Young and others recoiled from the idea of risking falls. Also, the US Army strongly encouraged their mountain troops to follow that practice.
14. You began rock climbing around 1953! Does climbing guard against arthritis?
Little correlation, if any. My shoulders are badly arthritic, but that came mostly from still ring work years ago. My hands and fingers are fine, and it's been 55 years now. I suspect, however, that some types of crack climbing may lead to the condition./p>
15. Do you think the best climbers in the world are that good mainly through good genetics or through dedication?
First genetics, then practice. Without a good anatomical structure, the higher levels of difficulty may not be attainable.
16. Do you believe that yoga and meditation exercises help a lot to increase the level of climbing?
What I found was that meditation increased my enjoyment of climbing no matter what the level. Why does everything have to relate to reaching a higher number?
17. In Pat Ament's biography about you, Yvon Chouinard said: "Climbing is still in a stage of pure physical movement, and the next step is going to be mind control. I think Gill has already gone into that,... in the late '50s.". Please comment on that and do you agree with our saying "it's all in your mind!"?
Speaks for itself, doesn't it? But I think mental control is achieved while actually struggling on the rock – itself a disciplining authority - rather than sitting in an ashram.
18. In how far did the books of Carlos Castaneda help you to enter mentally another world?
They were a tremendous help. After entering another form of reality I saw the true and ancient foundations of religion. Saint Theresa of Avila was a pioneer in this realm.
19. In your essay "Notes on bouldering-The Vertical Path" you wrote that aiming for difficulty in our sport is unhealthy! Why?
Did I say that? Huh. It's not unhealthy, but it is overly confining. There are other dimensions of the sport. One can climb as a moving meditation – not to increase difficulty levels, but to enjoy a kind of epiphany.
20. Please explain and tell us a little bit about "kinaesthetic awareness" and the "flow effect" you experimented with for many years?
Any gymnast can understand the flow of a routine and feel graceful and precise movement. It's not merely to impress the judges. It's an inner reward. It's too bad that the sport of bouldering has been taken over by those who see it as simply competition and a numbers game.
Thank you very much for this interview John and we wish you good luck & health and all the best for the future and may the force be with you!
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