I took advantage of a fine warm day today to get in a day’s climbing. Frankly, I bit off a bit more than I could chew, with a long walk in (and back) in the heat. In fact, the sun was so oppressive that I abandoned my original intention of spending some time drawing. I ate my lunch in ` cave, and had no inclination to sit for an hour in effect under a grill.
It is turning out to be be more difficult than I expected to get back into climbing after such a long layoff, and as I walked back to the car I was reflecting on why that might be. It is not a matter of the loss of strength, because I am still taking on routes at the lower end of the scale of difficulty. It is not even a question of the lack of technique. I know what to do, but the trouble is making the commitment to a move. The confidence has gone that I can do things that, in theory and in previous experience, I have found to be perfectly routine. In fact, in the later part of the trip I simply selected a relatively easy slab and did half-a-dozen routes convincing myself that, yes, boots really are as adhesive as you have been led to believe they are.
Curiously, this resonates with my experience of observational drawing over the past two weeks. The biggest problem has been persuading myself that I will be able to do it after such a long period in which I have been concentrating on work with a more conceptual basis, in which it has often been the case that I have relied upon reference photographs. It is that problem of commitment again.
I shall have to keep working at that. At least, I will if I can hold at arm’s length the snooker championships from Sheffield, broadcasts of which begun on the TV today.