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Alex Honnold: The Soloist VR

thesoloist-vr.com

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Re: Alex Honnold: The Soloist VR

#21

Post by qbasic_forever »

lordnacho wrote: post #10

Makes me feel weird just watching him. One wrong move and you die. So you need to have extremely high confidence in each move. But how do you build that without falling off something? Practice in a safe environment? Ok so when is it safe to try for real?

Practice with a rope. Part of learning to lead climb is learning to fall and trust your rope and anchors so you can really push yourself in climbs. Presumably once you have enough experience and skill at climbing as Alex then you'll start to know what climbs are trivially low risk for you. Alex makes it very clear that when he's free solo climbing he is not pushing his climbing limits or feeling scared--if he has fear then something is wrong and free soloing isn't the right thing in that moment.

Re: Alex Honnold: The Soloist VR

#22

Post by eternityforest »

lordnacho wrote: post #10

Makes me feel weird just watching him. One wrong move and you die. So you need to have extremely high confidence in each move. But how do you build that without falling off something? Practice in a safe environment? Ok so when is it safe to try for real?

The craziest part is the talk where he says “I didn't want to be a lucky climber. I wanted to be a great climber.”

He literally went back and did it all again after that one part when he felt like he was in danger. Almost anyone else would say "It happened once, it might be bad next time" but he wanted a run where he did everything perfect and didn't feel like luck saved him.

He is not like other people.

Re: Alex Honnold: The Soloist VR

#24

Post by salty_biscuits »

aeonik wrote: post #16
lordnacho wrote: post #10

Makes me feel weird just watching him. One wrong move and you die. So you need to have extremely high confidence in each move. But how do you build that without falling off something? Practice in a safe environment? Ok so when is it safe to try for real?

He climbs all these routes with a rope dozens to hundreds of times before free soloing them. The routes that he free soloes are also considered relatively easy to intermediate in skill level, well within his skill level. The really incredible part of his free soloes is just how long his body can last. It's Olympic levels of endurance.

5.12d is pretty hard. Seems beyond intermediate to me (but maybe I'm just soft).

Re: Alex Honnold: The Soloist VR

#25

Post by eternityforest »

I would never in a million years want to do this, but it must be pretty amazing to be able to do something with that degree of reliability.

There's only one thing that I can start doing and be reasonably sure I'll succeed, and that's coding, and only because there is a defined process to follow that is resistant to basic errors, because it's so highly mutable and mistakes can be fixed individually without starting over.

To be able to do anything to that degree of reliability must be pretty amazing.

Re: Alex Honnold: The Soloist VR

#27

Post by robotresearcher »

eternityforest wrote: post #25

I would never in a million years want to do this, but it must be pretty amazing to be able to do something with that degree of reliability. There's only one thing that I can start doing and be reasonably sure I'll succeed, and that's coding, and only because there is a defined process to follow that is resistant to basic errors, because it's so highly mutable and mistakes can be fixed individually without starting ov…

Do you drive a car? Ride a bike in traffic? One false move and you are dead. You, like most people, are probably competent at these things that would be very risky but for your skill.

Re: Alex Honnold: The Soloist VR

#28

Post by jasonkester »

lordnacho wrote: post #10

Makes me feel weird just watching him. One wrong move and you die. So you need to have extremely high confidence in each move. But how do you build that without falling off something? Practice in a safe environment? Ok so when is it safe to try for real?

It's unfortunate that most people are first exposed to rock climbing by watching videos of free soloing. It really distorts your perception of the sport.

It's no surprise, of course. Free soloing is pretty much the most riveting thing you could watch on a screen, whereas every other form of climbing is frankly quite boring to watch if you don't know the sport intimately. Mostly, it's people pushing their own personal limits, without any risk whatsoever, on things they've aren't visually all that spectacular.

Here's an example of what most of us do:

https://youtu.be/dp8b45CdUAc

I defy a non-climber to make it through 3 minutes of watching me fall off the same 15 foot tall rock. Climbers, however, will notice that there are harder moves on that stone than anything you'll find in Alex's big free solo videos. They'll also know, of course, that Alex would likely be able to send this thing on his first try, because this is well within his limit.

Those two facts, reconciled together with him having practiced the easy route in the solo video every bit as much as I did this little boulder problem, give you an idea of how unlikely it is that he would fall off it.

Sadly, that's all lost on non-climbers, who just see a spectacular thing happening way up in the sky, stripped of all context.

It's a cool sport, by the way, go give it a try some time and I bet you'll get hooked.

Re: Alex Honnold: The Soloist VR

#29

Post by stickfigure »

lordnacho wrote: post #10

Makes me feel weird just watching him. One wrong move and you die. So you need to have extremely high confidence in each move. But how do you build that without falling off something? Practice in a safe environment? Ok so when is it safe to try for real?

Have you ever climbed up a really tall ladder, like a 3-story extension ladder? It's... kind of terrifying. You're a long ways up, you can see the ground, the ladder is flexing under your weight. But other than the fear, it's actually pretty easy; all you have to do is keep climbing and not do something stupid.

To a phenomenally accomplished climber like Honnold, a 5.11 route is like climbing a ladder. That's hard to imagine as a normal flightless human who hasn't spent his/her life training the relevant muscles. But if you think of a ladder as a 5.1 route, you're already on the path.

That said, "3rd classing it" is definitely not for me.

Re: Alex Honnold: The Soloist VR

#30

Post by robotresearcher »

impish19 wrote: post #18
lordnacho wrote: post #10

Makes me feel weird just watching him. One wrong move and you die. So you need to have extremely high confidence in each move. But how do you build that without falling off something? Practice in a safe environment? Ok so when is it safe to try for real?

If you'd like something that makes you _weirder_ I recommend this: https://www.netflix.com/title/81500204 This film opens with a testimonial from Alex Honnold for Marc-André Leclerc - whom the film is about.

The film shows Leclerc free soloing hard routes on sight, including ice routes. The degree of difficulty is totally bananas.

It's a fascinating character study.

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