Powerband

Ω

A

long

time ago,

in a galaxy

far, far away,

some wuss invented

bouldering because he was

too scared to go sport climbing,

even though it’s really safe; unless your

belayer perhaps has English as a second language

and comes from a country where ‘Gri-gri’ refers not to

a belay device but perhaps a dish with neither meat nor

vegetables but is still somehow chunky and you wonder just

what it is that is in there and gives it such a strange texture? Anyhow,

there are a few secrets about bouldering that many people don’t understand

and I feel that it is high time to uncover these secrets and demistify the whole shady

enterprise. What I’m referring to is ’spotting’. You might think spotting is when one ‘climber*’

stands beneath or behind (or to the side of, to mention one particularly effective method) of the climber** in anticipation of their forthcoming ‘epic fail’ and holds their hands aloft as if in some kind of prone state of idolatry or worship, supposedly ready to catch them or at least make sure they don’t land on their bottom and bruise their coccyx, or roll an ankle, or in the case of that crazy upside-down climbing that some people do, their back or their head. This worship is often more pronounced in the case of ‘hero climbers’ such as those who are most often mentioned in the tags on this website, or who have names that start with Chris or have been in more than one Big-Up Production feature film. Travel abroad and you will find hordes of climbers*** following around such celebrities offering their spotting services and generally just being so nice. They offer helpful advice, such as to spot with your ‘thumbs unsplayed’, as a stray thumb can easily become snagged on a piece of clothing (since when did a climbing celebrity wear clothing?) resulting in a dislocation or other nasty injury which may threaten your own climbing operations. While they are on the subject they might even mention that it is prudent to remember the same while driving, as having your thumbs hooked around the inside of the steering wheel can result in multiple thumb-loss trauma during a head-on collision as the hands and arms travel forward on impact, leaving the thumbs behind. You might thank them for their advice, or you might wonder why they don’t just go off and climb**** something themselves instead of milling around at the bottom with everyone else. This is true for most countries and the residents of any cities claiming to be ’super’, though Australia is a marked exception as the tradition in this colony involves less prone worship and more actual fondling of the climber***** while they climb******, thereby providing ’support’ (this is meant to be mental but seems to cross the line into the physical in many instances).

In any case, as a Kiwi, you are often a little at odds with such activities. This may be for no other reason other than that you have been told by some vague associate that there is such a thing as a ‘Kiwi Spot’ and being a Kiwi it is your duty to adhere to its guidelines on all occasions. The Kiwi Spot involves standing off to the side at a safe enough distance to avoid mat rebound collisions or the dreaded wind-induced-mat-takeoff-into-clothesline/bodyslam incident. The arms are usually folded and the Kiwi will preferably be leaning up against something looking bored and irreverent and only really half-watching what is happening, perhaps more interested in chewing a piece of dry grass or considering their next project and inevitable conquest of said project. A lot of people think this tradition has come about either through the flat cushy landings of Baring Head and Castle Hill, which require very little spotting and certainly a minimum of fondling, or perhaps the competitive and shall we say ‘non-community-spirited’ attitudes of a select group of climbers once considered to be at the head of the field and therefore role-models for all aspects of climbing, including how tight they wore their shoes.

In actual fact, the Kiwi Spot exists for neither of those reasons. The Kiwi Spot exists because the secret of bouldering, long protected by a secret order of Knights and little known outside of a few elite climbers in New Zealand, is that spotting is a way of unintentionally using the force. Have you seen Yoda in those Star Wars movies? Is he not, when using the force, holding his arms out in the exact same spotting/worship position, manipulating some invisible force used to levitate weighty objects? Yes, yes he is ( you might think his thumbs in fact ARE splayed but I would suggest that in a creature with only three digits per hand it is unclear whether thumbs even exist and can be differentiated from fingers, three-toed tree sloths are in an equivalent category). Now, you might point out that Yoda is a master of using the force and that the weak-minded fools you see spotting are unlikely to be such elite and highly-evolved organisms as Yoda. Right about this you be. However, as evidenced in the worst of all the millions of Star Wars movies - Episode 1: The Phantom Menace, the young Anakin Skywalker and others are able to use small amounts of the force even though they are completely untrained and unaware that they are doing so. What is more, skilled manipulators of the dark side of the force such as The Emperor are able to draw the force from others without their knowledge. This is exactly what is happening when hero-climbers are climbing with all those people spotting! The hero-climber has actually tricked all those people into standing around the bottom and then cunningly draws the force from each of them in small amounts and thusly is able to channel it into levitating themselves up the rockface, while at the same time putting on an often unconvincing charade of actual climbing (ever heard someone use the ‘gecko-skin’ argument?). That is how people climb things that seem impossible, there is no other secret involved.

You might wonder how I stumbled upon such a discovery, blowing open the conspiracy of elite climbers and their use of the dark side of the force? Well, here I will put forth my watertight argument. I was perplexed in regard to my own lack of success in climbing, despite obviously being the biggest, strongest and most talented climber ever to grace these fair shores. Whenever I went climbing I noticed that I would continually fail while others more shrivelled and wasted-looking than myself would succeed (clearly use of the force has a withering effect on them as it did on The Emperor). After many years of research I realised that this success experienced by others was especially likely when I was ’spotting’, while my own success was equally unlikely despite the ’spotting’ efforts of the wasted and sickly-looking creatures I climbed with. Obviously my cohorts were using some kind of unseen magic tricks to not only advance their own efforts, but also to retard my own.Then I thought about Star Wars. I, too, immediately came to the same incontrovertible conclusion that you just have, but I will spell it out to you for the sake of this record. I am undoubtedly a huge reservoir of the force, I’m sure you’ll agree this needs no evidence, and so it occurred to me that the others were actually draining the force from me when they spotted me with their sneaky outstretched hands, then using this stolen force to propel themselves when they climbed and stealing yet more force from me secretly when I took up the ’spotting’ position out of my own good will. I’m sure you’ll agree this conclusion is as obvious as it is despicable. In case you need any more proof, I offer the evidence of the Kiwi Spot. This arms-folded position of concentrated lack of attention is specifically designed to be as far removed from the position of spotting as possible, thereby thwarting the efforts of the climber to draw any power from the individual in question. And so you have it, undeniable evidence of non-legislated use of the force and also theft of the force through the establishment of cultural norms.

After making this discovery I decided that henceforth I would climb on my own and without spotters, so as to survey my own climbing aptitude without the negative effects of the force present. This is when the truth of my discovery really hit me. Not only could I climb better, but I have now, on my own and without anyone else around, climbed every hard boulder problem and unclimbed project in the country on my first try, without chalk, in the sun, in jandals, fifth day on and even though Dave Kopp put sunscreen on the holds just before I got there.Ω

*In actual fact just another wuss boulderer.

**See previous note.

***Even further from a climber than those mentioned in previous notes.

****Getting old yet?

*****Nothing wrong with getting old. It happens to everybody except those who die young, and what have they done on the Gritstone?

****** Yep, it’s time for a nap Grandma.