a return to madness

Chill out. The so-called “redpoint crux” is coming up, so milk this rest for all it’s worth, damn it. Just breathe. … Trembling Jesus, what’s the matter with you? Huh? Yeah, “redpoint crux” is dumb and redundant, but now is not the time! … Can we please focus?

Good. Left hand to the jug and … you weak bastard! Look carefully at that crimp; there’s a certain way it likes to be held, remember? Right. You’ve fallen here too many times and your parents are starting to worry. OK, set up, suck in, bear down and … what are you waiting for? GO!

This is the running dialogue in my head moments before I hit the end of the rope, falling on a project I’ve been working on for weeks. I dangle in the air like a broken ornament on a dead Christmas tree. This route must be in cahoots with an ex-girlfriend, clearly invested in my failure, but so what? Of all the things to be worried about, falling isn’t one of them—for me, sport climbing is mostly aid, with beautiful, rare moments of actual free climbing.

Also, don’t be concerned with that little irate coach who lives in my head, the guy who has kept me down and perpetually disappointed my entire life. Yeah, don’t worry about him. The only concerning thing in this scene, actually, is that after failing, once again, I feel, well, I feel … nothing. You know, it’s OK to curse or throw your shoes or something,” says Dan, a good friend and bad conscience. He glares at me, like a peddler of magic beans, and says, “It feels good. Come on, I know you want to let it out.”

Why shouldn’t I? Suppressing emotion can’t be good, unless you’re trying to make a relationship work. Yet I don’t “let it out,” whatever “it” may be. That’s bad form, especially for an employee of the country’s premier climbing magazine (subscribe today— do it Now or the terrorists will Win!). What if someone saw me throwing shoes or cursing? I’d be flayed on those wicked Internet forums like a cold fish. To hell with that. Besides, I “don’t care.” It’s “just climbing.” I mean, it’s “supposed to be fun,” right? “It’s OK to throw a wobbler,” Dan says. “Everyone wobbles.”

“What the crap are you talking about?” I say. “A wobbler? Wobbles? What kind of Harry potty-talk horseshit is that?”

“That’s the idea!” Dan says. The phrase, actually, is tossing a wobbler, and it comes from Britain, the China of manufacturing silly words.

“Tossing a wobbler” means throwing a fit after trying really hard and failing. A corollary is that wobblers are most often “tossed” (Britain) or “thrown” (U.S.) by sport climbers when they fall—usually a recurring fall at a specific high point on a route (though a fall henceforth from any point lower than this is equally wobbler-inducing). Tossing a wobbler is not limited to sport climbers, and boulderers and alpinists have been known to “throw mean wobblers” (slang). Trad and aid climbers, however, typically never toss a wobbler because trad climbing is too scary and aid climbing is too boring to justify anger.




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