On Sucking: In Three Acts

[All photos courtesy of Kyler Deutmeyer, an amazing Denver-based photographer.  These images are raw, but you can check out some of his other finished climbing pics at kylerdeutmeyer.com.  If you don't check it out, you will suck!]

Act One

The Site of Suck? I think not...

This story begins with my birth.  Right there at the beginning.  I imagine my parents both overjoyed and ebullient by my cherubial arrival, but I would never bet on that.  They’ve mentioned otherwise.  I’m sure they have bandied about the notion of me sucking.  Maybe parents slip these genes into our cocktail while we’re still bopping around in the belly, this notion of sucking.  It might as well be a gene, because it will never go away; not with therapy, not with opening the chakras, not by bathing in patchouli and wearing open-toed sandals and dancing like a person recently tazered.

And that, dear friends, is what this very, very meaningful blog is all about.  Sucking and our perception of our own suckitude.  For the sake of time, other people’s perceptions of our suckitude will be investigated at a later date.  Suffice it to say that they probably suck more than you.  That’s a good way to look at it.

I’ve thought I’ve sucked, here and there, since happily waving at my mom in the hospital that first day of life, she surely heaving a sigh of relief and sweating and thinking, “Sweet Jesus, having a baby sucks.”  Even when I probably haven’t sucked, I still think I suck.  Is this just me?  Am I the only self-suck cognizant?  Oh, come on.  I think not.  I think all of us struggle with our sucking, most often when we undeniably suck for some reason.  But, also when we don’t suck at all yet still obstinately demand that we are sucking.

What a curious thing.  To say you suck when you are totally aware that you don’t.  But still.  You feel like you suck.  So, you say, arms dallying about as if you were swatting marauding flies, “Gaahd!  I suck!”  And then sometimes you make a scene.  Pitch a fit.  Then you really start sucking, verifiably.

But I don’t want to talk about verifiable suckitude, because that is inevitable to the human condition.  Yes, we get carried away and then we start sucking and then Dean from accounting taps on our cubicle and wonders aloud, “Hey, how can you manage all that sucking there in that tiny office space?”  So, let’s breeze on by that.  And by the way, fuck Dean.  Tapping on my cubicle?  Sheeeeeeyat…

And onto a story of Joe's Valley, as I ponder my nemesis...a crack.

Act Two

Let me share with you an example of what I’m trying to say.  Two weekends ago a group of friends and I drove to Joe’s Valley, Utah for a long bouldering weekend.  The weather was fair, we didn’t drink too much, everybody had some Butterfingers donuts.  Things went swimmingly.

The bouldering was outstanding, as usual.  The feel of Joe’s sandstone on your skin is both a physical and mental exfoliant to all that high alpine Colorado granite you’ve been hiking miles to climb all summer long.  Joe’s is the shoulder season mecca, where you can shed your summer’s skin and begin fostering the fur coat you’ll need for the winter climbing months.

Joe’s or no Joe’s, I am a self-critical guy.  I dislike what I’ve already written so far, for example.  Just plain loathe it.  Isn’t that fun!  I am also critical on the rock, but not as much, because my brain is off picking dandelions or scooping sand in an old tractor tire or looking at a daddy-long-legs through a magnifying lens (right before I use it as a SUN DEATH RAY!).  The brain and body amiably shake hands and skip off in different directions.  Play time for both, but not in the same place.  Some people would call this a vegetative state.  But those blowhards are all wrong.  It’s actually called bouldering.

As fun as Joe’s was, I couldn’t escape the suck creeping in.  I wasn’t climbing particularly well, but I was holding my own and having fun.  Yet, if I failed on a climb at the top of my limit, in the beginning of the weekend, I would mumble under my breath, “Ugh, I suck.”  When, a day later, we went back to a particular problem at the ceiling of my current ability and my friend quickly sent it and I was stymied by the crux move, I declared louder and with more authority, “Holy crap, I suck!”

As you are wont to imagine, I “sucked” a lot during that trip to Joe’s.

Fast forward to tonight.  I got off work early, packed the dog and pads into the car and drove to Flagstaff.  After warming up I got on another problem at the top of my ability ceiling and then I hit my head on that ceiling with a big old thud.  I fell and tried again and fell again.  “Fuck,” I whispered to my dog.  “I suck, buddy!”  Hank, my pooch, looked at me for a beat and then licked beneath his tail.  An unmistakable message.

So, I went to a slightly easier problem and sent it first try, but shakily, really working for it.  “I still suck,” I said.  And then I put in some good attempts on my other project at Flagstaff, but still I whimpered quietly about my sucking.  I even kind of growled an affirmation of my sucking while a group of boulderers were walking by, staring at me.

“Hello!” I said, waving cheerfully.

“Ehhhh,” they said.

So, I drove home with no super wicked awesome sends, contemplating my suckiness.  Why do I suck? I wondered.  My brain answered, This is far too complicated a matter for you.  The Family Guy will be on television in a couple hours.  I told my brain to stop being such a cheeky little smart ass.

The Porta-Potty at Joe's thinks I suck...

Act Three

Let me tell you, really, I neither sucked in Joe’s nor did I suck at Flagstaff.  I simply didn’t send everything I tried or everything I expected to send.  I was climbing at the top of my ability level and I even had a couple triumphs.  I had many more failures.  And everything, success or failure be damned, everything continually felt easier and more doable, little by little.

The question must be asked, why does someone like me – and maybe like you, as well – too often focus on an aspect crucial to the sport (failure) rather than the process inherent in climbing (projecting, failure, failure, failure, failure, SUCCESS!)?

Reasons abound why we focus on our sucking, that’s for sure.  Let me dazzle you with my profundity.  Brace yourself for these three indubitable pillars of wisdom, stumbling blocks each one.

The Expectation Quagmire

We expect to climb something at the height of our abilities, quickly and without adversity.  HA!  BWA HA HA!  Oh boy, I’m tearing up, here.  When this does not come to fruition, we demand that we must suck.  We have to suck to not have climbed that problem quickly.  But that, my friends, is not the case.  Failure is a part of crimpers and slopers and heel hooks.  You slip, you fall, you split tips.  You don’t send.  You don’t send a little bit more.  That’s part of climbing at your limit.  Isn’t that just the deepest thing ever!

This is my crushing friend, but since he's so much stronger than me, I have no opportunity to be some narcisstic and envious butt hole.

The Crushing Friend

You have a friend crushing, as Obe Carrion would have it, “squeezing juice out ‘da rock.”  Your friend climbs in the zone, in the flow, and everything looks effortless.  Meanwhile, you grundle and trundle and look like you’re trapped in seaweed.  You think, God, I’m as strong as that guy!  I must not be, though, because it’s obvious to everyone that I suck!  The problem is neither strength nor ability, but rather one of two different variables.  One, you are a competitive and invidious little prick that wants to do things smoother, easier, and most of all faster than your friends.  If you don’t, you wonder why you suck so bad.  Two, you really do suck and you have nothing to really worry about.  If the Crushing Friend bothers you, you might consider checkers.  Electronic checkers against your computer.  Give up climbing, please.

The Recycled Ceiling

This is the real rub of it all.  We all struggle to break through plateaus and smash through our own glass ceilings.  For most dedicated climbers, this is a common occurrence, the relatively recherché success that keeps us coming back to the crags like one good, deep fairway drive keeps golfers coming back to the links.

One ceiling down, however, does not forestall a new ceiling’s construction immediately after a success delivered.  This ain’t bowling.  There is no perfect game.  Think about this: Remember back to that project that you worked X number of months on and finally sent.  Oh my god, you were so stoked!  You slapped hands and babbled like a street urchin and belayed your friends altruistically for the rest of the day!  Wasn’t that awesome?  Don’t you love that feeling of success after struggle, the splintering of a ceiling afforded by dedication, obsession, and the physical and mental marriage of the perfect skill set?  Of course you do.

And that’s why we always keep recycling our ceilings.  After one breaks we build another.  And another.  And another, ad infinitum.  We’re addicted to the fight.  But while we’re smashing the next ceiling to bits, one shard at a time, we think, Why do I suck?  Why can’t I do this?  Will my suckitude never abate?

Stupid!  Tell me this.  You think Sharma doesn’t think he sucks during an off-day struggling on his newest 5.15b route in Margalef?  You think Rands doesn’t think she sucks, even for a split second, falling from a sphincter puckering highball at the Buttermilks?  You think John Long, Lynn Hill, or any of those old Stonemasters didn’t dip their toes into the rancid pool of suckington?

Of course they did.  We all suck when we’re smashing ceilings.  No matter how strong the climber, they must say, “Son of a prune the fucking raisin, I SUCK!”  V3, A5, WI7, 5.14d.  Doesn’t matter.  If we’re tapping on the old rooftop of our abilities, we must struggle with the notion of suckitude.

Sometimes, success...

I guess the trick is to remember that we don’t, in actuality, suck.  No way.  We’re just failing, methodically, in preparation for achievement.  Isn’t that a pleasant way of looking at it?  Maybe “sucking” is our brain’s way of saying, “Listen, you little baby, you’re going to have to try harder.  You’re going to have to write off this day, just like every climber in the history of climbing has had to do, and reassess your strategy.  Maybe you’re just having a bad day.  Maybe – and this might hurt – you’re being an over-competitive or vainglorious little prick.  Go home, have a beer, and watch The Family Guy.  We’ll start again tomorrow with a clear head.”

And what should we say to that, as climbers?  “I hate you, Judas Brain!”  No, just kidding.  We should never say such a thing to our brains.  We should say, “Yeah, you’re probably right, Brain.  Sucking outnumbers success, but it’s a battle of attrition.  All it takes is one try, one good day, one wonderful suckless afternoon to clip the anchors.”

But then, of course, after that we just suck again.

Isn’t climbing fun!