No mistake allowed - Free Solo

Yosemite El Capitan.jpg
Alex Honnold climbed El Capitan, in Yosemite National Park, in 2017. Three years ago one of the most stunning athletic feats of the sporting world was made.
Why was it so stunning?
Because he climbed this rock, a 2900 feet wall (that is almost 1000 meters), in the free solo style. It means no ropes, no gear, no nets or rockets (I'm looking at you, Stanislaw Lem).
This means one mistake that led to you losing any of your grips, and you fall. And falling means death, with no exception. Even when you are at the beginning of the climb.

Did he do this because he is a daredevil, tired of life? No, hearing him talk, watching him interact with humanity, it doesn't seem the case. He did it because the wall was there, and it was calling him. It was a cool thing to try, it was an incredible challenge to his mind. And he prepared for this for as much as he could. It was his 8 years project. From the early days, in which he was just thinking: "Wouldn't it be cool to free solo El Capitan?", to which he replied "Yes, but it's freaking impossible and I don't wanna die"; to when the idea started seeming possible. And then the years in which he started preparing the route, climbing up and down (with ropes and security) to get used to the route, know every part (pitch) and learning what to do, how to do it, to the extent that he memorize every move that was needed to be done by heart.

Yes, he memorized what was needed to be done, every "step" (not much step, since you use all 4 of your limbs, and you also have to adjust your body in different ways to remain on the wall) for a 1 km ascent so that he could practice them in his mind. Thousands of movements, thousands of tiny modifications of grips, balance, body position, so that he would not fall. He can probably tell them still one after the other, in the correct order, to this day. 3 years later.
Probably you already know it, but he indeed succeeded. He did it. There is a beautiful movie called Free Solo that shows how he did it, his mental process, and what was going on around him.

So he finally, after 8 years, thought he was ready to do it. And he started up in the early morning, with the filming crew ready to capture this incredible feats, and after few pitches he bailed, because he was not feeling it. So much to the daredevil that wants to joke with death. 8 years of preparation and he knew he was not ready. So he bailed out... to try another day. And again, yes, he tried another time, and he aced it and became a sensation (at least for the duration of the clamour around the movie, that is).

What he has done shocked me. Not because of the difficulty, not because of the danger that is embedded on this climb. Not because I actually like the person. But because he has shown me that there is a different way to face challenges, and to commit to them.
I have played football (soccer?) my whole life (here he comes, as usual talking about football...). Since an early time (probably when I was 12? 13?) I understood that the most important thing during a match (I use football as an example, but we can extrapolate this to any sport, and actually any endeavour of life) is to reduce the mistakes to the bare minimum. It doesn't matter if you are skilled, if you do tricks around and above any another player. The team that commits the least mistakes is the one that most probably will come on top. 9 out of 10. This understanding made me seek high concentration during a match, a commitment to costs and risks on every of my moves, passes, shots. In a team sport this reducing mistakes at all costs it's even more effective, since there are so many mistakes around that they are countless, and everybody makes them, so reducing them it's fairly easy. Also usually everybody tries to increase the difficulty of their "actions", thinking that's the way to success. By doing so they increase the possibility of a mistake, and a smart team can exploit this to great extent. The problem? It's not fancy, so that having a team commit to this culture is difficult.

Nevertheless I commit to it, becoming a fairly good player, overcoming evident physical and technical limits. I enjoyed playing football with that culture in mind. But until I saw Free Solo I always believed that making mistakes it's "normal". You can reduce them, but you cannot eliminate them completely. Even the top of the top, I think about Michael Jordan, Muhammad Ali and the like, managed to reduce the mistakes to a minimum, but not eliminate them. Jordan hit 50% of his shots, Ali got knocked down. Honnold did it. Managed to go mistaken less for 4 hours. It was an eye opener. Of course his discipline is helped by the pace of the sport he chooses. It's easier when there is no one around you and you have time to go at your own inner pace. But anyway it is something that should not go undetected. He managed to be spotless for 4 hours, under the most difficult situation. How did he do? Repetition, training, concentration, and repeat.

This is something incredible. Again, I repeat that of course the situation in which he was is different than many others. But we can extrapolate from that. For example in our day to day life we are committing mistakes constantly And we feel it's ok, it's normal, they are not "costly" so we accept them. But maybe we should not. Maybe we should strive to that perfection here and there. Even in the more common tasks. Typing this post I made at least one typo every 2 or 3 lines. Why do I do them? Lack of concentration? Lack of habit?
When I played football I many times misplaced a pass, I found myself out of position. Why? Because I could recover in time, or because anyway after one misplaced pass I can take another one. There are so many opportunities of taking passes that a wrong one doesn't seem a big deal. But if you actual analyse a football match you understand that actually the chance of winning are really slim. A mistook pass now, if taken correctly, could have lead to an opportunity of scoring. That maybe will not happen again at all during the match.

Bottom line, because this is long enough, striving to perfection is daunting, being spotless is difficult. But it's achievable. And I didn't know it before seeing him doing it.

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