Today’s episode is about The Progress, because everybody starts somewhere, and chronicles my progress from bumbling-gumby to bumbling-idiot-soloist! As an experiment on this episode, I recorded a lot of my own guitar for segues and such! Feel free to inform me how much I suck by emailing [email protected]

PS: I downloaded a metronome app for my computer after this episode, and I promise to practice with it before the next episode. By which I mean *during* the next episode!

Just remember, there’s nothing safer than not falling!

While I’ve been covering the process in specificity, with a play-by-play on a week-to-week basis, I haven’t covered the process generally. What am I thinking about *before* I go to think about individual climbs? What preparation goes into these things? How does that enrich my life off the wall? That’s what today’s episode is all about!

For 18 months I lived in my Nissan Frontier, but I had a roof over my head thanks to the company putting me in a hotel all the time. One major perk of a traveling job!

This is the story of that one time I had a one-way ticket to Vegas for Valentines day!

 

I’m Building a new layer of technique, tactics, and ability on top of the fitness that Lattice’s training protocols had given me I had become a whole new machine. In the three years before this season I had only soloed seven 5.12’s, and then I turned around and soloed eight 5.12’s in two months. Two months to match what had happened in the previous three years. It’s absolutely bonkers, and totally mind-blowing, at least to me personally. I doubled my repertoire in the space between the start of October and the end of November. 

Gravity is heavy, and so is the responsibility we have to make sure that we come home, time and time again. Folks are alarmed when they see soloing because they think I could die. And the fact is that I could. But life is an inherently dangerous sport, the only safety any of us have lies within our ability to make competent decisions, but even so… sometimes your number comes up and there’s nothing you can do about it. The fact of the matter is that there’s nothing particularly safe about a human hanging from a rope 50ft off the ground. No matter your style of climbing, if you fuck up badly enough… You will die. 

While it’s obviously imperative that I think while practicing my lonesome dance with gravity, that doesn’t make me unique in any way. We all have to think. It’s our best form of life insurance. 

Rather than shirk the discomfort of these thoughts mid-route, I instead stayed with them and used them as a focus for meditation while exploring the inner recesses of my mind, and managing my heart rate. I allowed irrational anxieties to float across the sky of my mind like clouds drifting across the sun in an otherwise empty firmament. They did not carry my attention away, but rather they simply “were,” and I allowed them their own space to be, beside my attention rather than competing for it.  

Walking out to the Deep End alone felt empowering. While initially, I’d balked at needing a rope to lower-off of routes, I realized that having the cord allowed me to rope-solo the route to practice the movements so I could dial the climb and send same-day.

When onsighting, often the most effecient beta isn’t as valuable as the first beta that works. You’ve gotta get outta there, so you don’t pump out.

After spending precious minutes of progressive fatigue faffing about, I chose my sequence and committed to the moves. Screaming, flailing, failing, I fell.

Being from Texas, a complete idiot, and having practiced at the most intimidating crag I’ve ever visited in the worst conditions I could’ve chosen short of freezing… the end of September at The Red looked mighty fine in my mind.

Vimeo.com/freesoloist

Instagram.com/freesoloist

TheFreeSoloist.com

Recently I had the honor of giving a presentation for Member’s Night at my local climbing gym (Vertical Endeavors of Glendale Heights). It was a one hour presentation followed by a fun Q&A segment where the audience asked a good amount of questions which I really appreciated

To understand where you’re going, you first must understand where you’ve been

Welcome to The Process! I am your host, Austin Howell! Why am I making a podcast? Why does it matter that we talk about risk, and more in my first podcast episode ever! My only regrets so far? that I didn’t say “so” or “um” any more than I already did