Chris Sharma On Climbing with Adam Ondra
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 23 ก.ค. 2023
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Chris needs absolutely zero introduction but it’s worth hitting a few of the highlights because it’s so absolutely mind boggling when you’re reminded what he has achieved in this sport. At just 14 years old he won the adult US bouldering nationals. At 15 he freed the hardest route in North America at the time, 14c Necessary Evil. At just 20 years old Chris sent the world’s first consensus 5.15a, Ceuse’s Biographie / AKA Realization. He was also the first to climb 15b with Jumbo Love, and the second to climb 15c, just after Adam Ondra, as the two of them worked together on La Dura Dura. Chris also took deep water soloing to groundbreaking new levels when he sent the king line of Es Pontas, 15a, in Mallorca. He later put down a 15b deep water solo, Alasha, which is the hardest of the discipline. Chris has been dominating for so long, that it might be easy to simply refer to his groundbreaking contributions in the past tense… but that would be a mistake. Chris, just a couple months ago, sent his HARDEST route EVER, Sleeping Lion in Siurana, of which he gave the grade of 5.15c.
Chris climbs with such flow, and carries himself with an almost mythical yogi demeanor, it’d be understandable to just assume there hasn’t been a whole lot of struggle for him throughout his three decades at the top of the sport. But as you’ll hear today, there’s been plenty of struggle, both physically and mentally. Today Chris opens up with stories that I don’t believe he’s ever shared before.
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"To just climb 5.15 ... you don't have anything else going on? Not that hard"
So true. I'm always saying this.
Just warm up on a couple laps of 5.14d and it's really not that bad.
😅
😂😂
dude just being humble... many ppl have time but never get there ...
@@blonk333 Ironically I actually watched him warm up on one of my projects in the late 90's. And I was not a slouch of a climber whatsoever, but I think it was a 13b or c if I remember right, and I'm not making this up, he did it in tennis shoes.
Sharma's thoughts on the personal experience of climbing towards the 5 minute mark is so awesome. That experience you have with yourself outside of grades and comparisons, but total joy in the climb and your ability in it is so almost.... spiritual to feel. So good. When the movement is awesome and you feel good on the route, it's just a wonderful thing.
🤙
always love Chris' mental/spirituality outlook on climbing. good interview.
🙏🏼🙏🏼
Chris going "...whether it's me..." 👀
Right?!
😂 slipped that in there.....
He not ready to pass the torch at all bruh
That would be spectacular.
@@thestruggleclimbingshow What 16a project that he's been trying on and off for the past 15 years does he have in his back pocket?
Great interview and both did a lovely job of communicating, relating, introspecting
🙏🏼💚
“Deep in the human unconscious is a pervasive need for a logical universe that makes sense, But the real universe is always one step beyond logic.”
This makes absolutely no sense😂
@@jimreplicantthe irony lol
Sharma has always come into it with a very spiritual foundation, and it's been so clear. The absolute best ever.
Very much enjoyed this discussion. I really respect Chris' outlook on life and approach to climbing, particular as someone now who has a lot more on his plate beyond climbing, and still somehow managing to find the joy of climbing and other aspects of his life, and of course still managing to climb harder than he ever has.
Thanks for the kind feedback, awesome to hear that you are finding balance and crushing!
Plate?
This is great. Im not into much of the spirituality stuff he often talks about and this would sound rather dumb in my opinion coming from anybody not of Chris’s insane caliber as a climber but from him it really is rather inspirational
I love this guy!
Can't find mallorcan rhapsody ? Please send the link.
On my timeline Chirs Sharma is some soloing legend who died the early 1970's ❤
I love the try hard bit, what I think holds a lot of people back is that once they get a bad injury, like bad enough to need surgery and extensive rehabilitation, causing months or even years away from the sport, most sort of lose that confidence and desire to try that hard again.
Definitely understandable. The very few who continue to try hard after serious injury (Tommy Caldwell comes to mind) just have a different gear than most of us.
Trying hard,and injuring yourself are to separate things. Adam ondra himself has very rarely gotten Injured and yet he's the best climber in the world, and arguably one who try hards the most, but it's about knowing ones body well.
@@lubo3934I dont think you understand. Adam Ondra became the best climber in the world in part because he never got injured. He has said himself in several interviews that he is extremely lucky to not to sustain any injury that kept him from climbing, but its probably more genetics than luck.
I think Chris was saying for himself it did not take all that much sacrifice or dedicated training and time management to get to send 5.15. He was not implying that everyone with excess time on their hands could climb 5.15.
Another difference between the cutting edge climbers/ coaches is seeing that something can be climbed; and then being willing and able to put in the time needed to send projects.
A topic I think you could ask Chris and other top climbers is how they were mentored and brought into climbing. I know Chris had people immediately having him climb harder things and in bouldering and sport climbing it was safe to do so.
Whereas when I started it was 5.6 feels really insecure in JC Penney work boots; so every decrease in foothold size was a new test of what you could actually stand on; and we had no idea what a 5.10 foot or hand hold looked like.
Now people learn quickly what is possible; and thus people in gyms on their first day climbing often climb what the most difficult rock free climbs in the world were in the early 60s.
Chris was slower ( in absolute time) to climb hard cracks and slabs; mainly I think because he liked and did so well at bouldering/ comps/ sport.
But he did lead The Rostrum a few years in; and if memory serves; it was around his tenth crack climb.
When I started
I find that, at a pretty advanced age, my physical strength is quite diminished; but my Tryhard is at an all-time high, and with it, my climbing ability. 🙏
Chris couldn't mention any other top climber besides Ondra and himself.
and?
Megos, ghisolfi
@@levolvik5231joe kinder is the only other that comes to mind.
@@mattyHi1892 Wtf. His name doesn't belong anywhere near the top of that list. Pfft get out of here! Murican delusion at it's finest...
True, Chris isn't really the most humble person and definitely not the most humorous person, is he? Also he should be a politician.. The way he refuses to give clear answers to simple questions...
Jonathan Siegrist?? Not in the conversation IMO when you have multiple people climbing two grades higher now.
Jonathan is one of the most accomplished sport climbers on the planet, and is incredibly skilled on many different styles and rock types. Plus he tries harrrrrd. I think we will see 9b+ out of him soon.
@@thestruggleclimbingshow if Jonathan climbs 5.16 I’ll eat my hat. But compared to others, he’s miles away and almost 40. “But Chris is over 40 and just climbed his hardest blah blah blah.” Yeah let’s see where the grade ends up on that first.
The better climbers just try harder...Apparently, it has nothing to do with freakishly strong fingers.
No doubt genetic potential is a huge factor, but effort is required to reach one’s genetic potential so it seems to me that the absolute best of the best are the ones able to match their freakish potential with freakish motivation.
@thestruggleclimbingshow working out and training until you injure yourself vs. people who rarely, if ever, get injured. I think plenty of climbers try extremely hard. In fact, several have written books on training, but they're not climbing 5.15. As you said, to achieve your genetic best, you must try very hard, but the best climbers are not a cut above because they try harder.
@hblester
Look at how long daniel woods spent on return of the sleepwalker or the amount of time will bosi spent on burden of dreams, especially if you count his replica. They are trying way harder than the average climber ever will
Yes of course they are. They are pros, this is their job. The average climbers cant afford to go on 3 month trips twice a year for projecting.
What sometimes bothers me a bit in many climbing-related discussions on youtube is, how out of touch discussions frequently are. It's always assumed that circumstances for everyone are very good, just as it is for the few people at the top of climbing. Statements like "training every day with a certain workout" or "5.15 is not that hard" shows how out of touch some people are. Its fine for top athletes to discuss among themselves, but for a broad audience its not relatable. How is someone not doing something else than climbing, if this person not already a pro climber? People got work to do, study, run a family, take care of elders. And the majority of people just don't have suitable genetics and surroundings; where I grew up there was no opportunity, no gym to climb within 100km distance (in a western European country). And thats all fine, its just that the information I get on channels like this is just mostly useless for 99.9% of climbers.
I appreciate the thoughtful comment. I'm a dad with a full time job, and climb for fun. One of the main reasons I started this podcast and channel was to connect with the best climbers in the world in a way that was relatable to weekend warriors like myself. That's why we enter our conversation through the lens of struggle. Whether someone is climbing 5.5 or 5.15, the struggle is scalable and relatable. It's hard to get the nuance on these short clips, but if you check out the full podcast interviews I think you'll get some very useful takeaways in Training, Nutrition, Tactics, and Mental Game as shared by pros in a manner that's applicable for the rest of us. Good luck with your training and climbing!
I would say learning from the best climber in the world is likely NOT the way for most of us to improve. They are the exception to the rule. Sharma started climbing at age 12. By age 15 he was climbing 5.14c and did the hardest climb in North America at the time (per wikipedia). This was before youtube, before any real knowledge of climbing. I doubt you can attribute that success to a superior "training plan." The guy was 12 years old. He has freak genetics and talent. He did in 3 years what most of us will never achieve in a lifetime even with perfect training. You can train all you want but you're not going to the NBA or the NFL, sorry that's just reality.
So no... he is not relatable at all. But that is the point. It is cool to just hear/listen from one of the world's best. I might not be able to learn/apply anything, but it's still cool to hear about. If you're not interested then you're just not the intended audience. It's like going to the movies to watch a drama and being disappointed because there weren't enough jokes.
If I want to get better at climbing, there's tons of other resources. The best person to learn from is probably someone who sucked at climbing for a really long time, but managed to get better through some system that anyone can apply to. Someone who became elite after 10+ years of training would be more relatable than a prodigy like Sharma.
@@soresu I think there’s much to be learned from getting a variety of perspectives, and I have personally learned a ton from the conversations I’ve had with climbers across various disciplines and skill levels. If you listen to the full conversation with Chris Sharma and don’t come away with new learnings I would be really surprised. I think he offered up some very relatable perspectives, for climbers of any level and passion. Let me know what you think after you listen 🙏🏼💪
It's entertaining to listen to the greatest and hear their thoughts. No one wants to listen to The Average Climber with Two Kids, a Day Job, and a bad diet podcast. Greatness and genius of all kinds is almost never 'relatable', but it is inspiring.
I was working part time in a climbing shop and basically climbing/ training all the time for couple of years, would climb almost every day for months and months on end and had no obligations. Now I have a job as a software engineer and have other stuff to worry about but still hang out with a lot of climbers, who live how I used to. I've come to realise it's two completely different games entirely. You have to be so much more strategic with your training and recovery when you have other stuff going on. When you go to the crag it's much harder to just turn up without a plan with the goal of just messing around on some routes, because you can't have endless days there as you did previously. Essentially the value of your available time and energy goes up significantly and so you learn to be more efficient with it, as well as more disciplined. I do now think a lot of people who have that total freedom to climb are somewhat squandering their potential though because they haven't had the constraints forced onto them yet. A classic one I hear is "Ah I don't feel like climbing today because I feel a bit tired, perhaps tomorrow" even though if they had other obligations that would be the only day available to climb and there would be no tomorrow.
He doesn't sound Spanish anymore! 😂
Que se preocupe por bajar losprecios de sus gimnasios q son un robo
Am I the only one who thinks Sharma smoked too much pot?
Climbing needs weight classes. I want to see the first 200+ lb. Climb 5.15
Sharma is no featherweight, that’s for sure. Matt Fultz another good example of a “heavier” crusher. Not sure about 200+ 5.15 tho…
@@thestruggleclimbingshowmatt fultz is a boulderer, doing boulder with some more muscle is better, but if we are talking about rope i don't think matt fultz could do some hard pumpy routes...
@@lucaa4480 he’s done sport routes into the 5.14s. Talked a bit about it in our podcast episode 💪
@@thestruggleclimbingshow i don't know what 9a he did but i assume a quite bouldery one, but when we are talking about rope climbing 9a is not a super hard grade anymore, there are more than 1000 people that have climbed at least one 9a, i know some climbers with a couple of 9a's sended and they do a regular full time job in the week, they have no sponsor and climb on rock in the weekend...
@@lucaa4480 that’s awesome
Questions toooo long. Let Chris talk.
Check out the full interview on the podcast, Chris does pretty much all the talking 🤙
A very interesting thing is that Chris has got normal shaped hands: he doesn't have thickened, deformed fingers typical of most strong climbers like Adam. Mystery of the genetics
Actually, i would argue that Chris does not have normal hands, at least he didn't when he was a kid. He had exceptionally beefy fingers. It stood out as a gift.