Ciaos from Italy

I climb because it is a puzzle I enjoy solving, using my mind and body. It keeps me amazingly fit without even having to think about “working out”. It gives me a reason to be outdoors all day long, engaged in a personal sport but also involving treasured partners. There is that of the element of trust in our sport: holding the life of my partner in my own hands and allowing her to do the same for me seems to build friendships unlike any others. Finally, I learn things from climbing that inform my life. For example I’ve noticed that my strengths and weaknesses in the face of the risks and challenges while climbing are remarkably similar to how I handle challenge and uncertainty in life. I learn stuff from this sport that I can apply in my life. I’ve been climbing for fourteen years and I can’t imagine my life without climbing even though I didn’t start until I was 42 years old.

I climb for relatively short time (few years, not even close to you or other folks here). For me climbing has several layers:
Ultimate real word time-out. When I climb I don’t have time or mental capacity to deal with both holding myself on the wall and thinking about some troubles/tasks from the real life. Fear of falling nicely gets one of those two things out of my mind.
Second layer is that climbing is best measuring tool for finding out how strong my determination to climb-better -> workout-harder – get-things-done. This layer overlaps with personal and professional life. One of my favorite quotes is, that for climbing you need to have 3 D’s – Determination, Dedication, Desire. (Okay maybe there were more D’s but since I don’t know who’s author I’ll stick with three). The point is, that climbing teaches you to improve those three D’s, which affects not only climbing but also your real life.
Next there is social part, and as Anne already mentioned faith in person on the other end of rope is very important aspect of climbing. Learning to put your life into other persons hands and taking responsibility for that other person is definitely something that makes climbing different.
Then there is fun part. Dirtbag diaries podcast has nice episode called Fun divided by Three and as far as I can tell, climbing is definitely Type 3 fun.

Take care,
A.

Dear All,

Nice points, I realy enjoyed them.

Best Regards

Awesome video! Base jumping off the continental shelf.