[comPiler]

MORNINGS, WOOD AND IRON
24 July 2011, 9:44 am

We all know that sometimes what others think about us is not true: for instance, and that's strange and probably the only case in climbing history, I have discovered more than once that people say that I have climbed routes or problems that in fact I haven't done. How this happens is impossible to understand to me, but given that life imitates art, it does happen.

What I found out recently, on the other hand, is much more important: I found out that some other times what we think about ourselves is not true. And I found it from nowhere.

I am lazy. I like to sleep a lot, and to concentrate all my energies in just what I like. If I could get a taxi right to the boulders, I would. This is what I thought, and it's not true. I found out that I like the walk to the blocs. What I dislike is, in reality, having to do that walk after hours driving on my own, and carrying four pads. Anyway, I'm digressing.

I don't like mornings and early starts. I have had to get up early in the past to go to work, when I was living in Rome, or in the Notary firm in Grosseto, and I hated it. Wrong again. I didn't hate the early start, I hated all that came afer that, the traffic, the jobs, the people. I hated getting back home so late that I ended my training session at 10,45 PM and I hated never having the time for anything.

It's not when you get up, it's what you get up for, that really matters.

A month ago, my girlfriend started her 5 years residency at Siena hospital, and one day, all of a sudden, I found myself wondering "What am I doing here in Florence?".

The answer was simple, I am here for work, I work here therefore I live here. Hmm, that's right but maybe a little bit too rational. What do I have in my life, beside a job that I love? I have my best friends. Most of them are in Siena, and the ones that live in Florence, I seldom meet them. Then I have my climbing. Is it easy to get to climb in Florence? No. Do I like the gyms in Florence? No. Hmmm... Reflect. Then I obviously have my girlfriend. Do I like seeing here just in the weekends? No. Do I like having to fit love and rock all in the small time of a weekend? Not at all.

What do I do in Florence, so? I wake up. I have breakfast, and I go to school. I work, I get back home and I do some kind of training. Then I have dinner, I watch some TV or kill it on the Net, then it's bed time.

Wow, what a life. It's really unbelievable, I know, but right now that I only do weights and fingerboarding, if I don't go sport climbing with someone, I can spend an entire week without talking to anyone, except my students or collegues. My human relationships are at an all time low.

So probably until now I hadn't ever felt the need to give my life a change, but the other day it dawned to me: I have to move back to Siena and to start commuting to work every morning.

WHAT? An early start. Yes, an early start. But this time for a job I love, not hate. For spending more time with my girlfriend. For building my own board, and starting again teaching climbing classes. For being able to meet a friend in the afternoon if I like. For being closer to the boulders.

I feel this is the right thing to do, because it goes against every logic: it will make things more difficult and less comfy, but I know that I have to try.

So with this idea in my mind, I have started the early wake up in the past week, while still leaving in Florence, to get used to it. I didn't even think that 6,30 exist also in the AM, but I found out not only this hour does exist in the mornings also, it can actually be a nice moment.

There is definitely something strange in the air when you start your first dead hang set and the clock says 6,59. I had never done it before, but I thought that the best use of these freshly gained hours in the morning, before using them to commute, was to put in some Beastmaker sessions. It felt great to be honest, it's a shame my left elbow does not allow me to push as I'd like.

Going to bed very early has been crucial. I never had to take a nap in the afternoon in the whole week, despite packing in quite a lot of hours of hours of work too: I have trained at will, following the program with no problems and also managing a couple of double sessions, Beast in the morning, weights in the afternoon. On this matter, I am currently doing weights twice a week, short sessions of 15x4 to sort my elbow out and staying fit. Kilograms keep adding up and I am satisfied. It's not how long you are in the gym, it's what you do in the gym, and I want to do it right. I hope to recover from my elbow problems and to start moving big piles of iron plates soon.

On rock I feel as weak as a kitten. I can't lock off, I can't pull and my body tension is non existant.

I have taken many wrong decisions in my life. This one can be just another wrong one, and in this case it won't make any difference, or the right one, making all the difference. We will see.

Everything is very confused and very simple: keep the fucking faith up and the fucking head down.



Source: TOTOLORE

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A LIGHT
29 July 2011, 3:07 pm

Sometimes I find myself wondering, à la Chatwin, "What am I doing here?". I mean, how can we find in ourselves the truth that our path is the right one? We can try to, but sometimes we just cannot be sure. Sometimes we realize that our path is not the right one, but obviously this is of little help: there is often only one way to do a thing right, and many ways to do it wrong.

"Notre vie est un voyage dans l'hiver et dans la nuit, nous cherchons notre passage dans le ciel où rien ne luit" is the epigraph at the beginning of the famous novel "Voyage au bout de la nuit", and it is something I deeply believe in.

Today the light in the sky, to help me find my way, and to help me know I'm on the right path, came under the form of a picture, shot by one of my students, a very bright one, a week ago. On the back, she thanked me for what I'd taught her: "something I'd have never learnt otherwise".

It's a light, and now I can put my head down and start walking again with renewed enthusiasm and energy.



Source: TOTOLORE

[comPiler]

ON THE DEATH OF AMY WINEHOUSE AND OTHER THINGS NOT RELATED TO DEATH
2 August 2011, 3:16 pm

Amy Winehouse's death is one of the closest things to an ancient Greek tragedy I've ever seen. It could have been written by Sophocles, really.

You have the Hero, and it's a tragic hero, because she obviously dies, and you know she's going to die from the very first moment, from when you hear her sing "No no no" to rehab. The tragic hero is completely alone, yet surrounded by many people: it's the Chorus. In the Greek tragedy the Chorus speaks the voice of wisdom: he knows it all, and is close to the Gods. Everyone knew what she was doing, and sometimes they've tried to help her, but the Hero's will is stronger than anyone else and she keeps her track, believing that she can escape her Fate. She can't, because she's left alone by all her closest ones. How can I tell? Because otherwise she wouldn't be dead. Watch her performance at "Shepherd's Bush Empire" in London in 2007: have you ever seen a star searching for friends, relatives and boyfriend in the public so often? She does it all the time. She feels alone on stage, you know it and you cannot do anything to help her.

Why not every single star's death can resemble a Greek tragedy? Because often the big stars commit the terrible sin of Hubris, the sin against the Gods, the arrogance of the human being refusing to be human and wanting to be god-like. She never seemed, to me, like that. She seemed a little girl, all alone, in desperate search of some joy, unable to keep anyone close, or maybe to little and too fragile to have someone really close. Many other stars live unreal lives. No one can really empathize with them: when they die, it's the death of a myth, maybe, but of an unknow person nonetheless. Someone you'd never get to know really. With Amy I think it's been the opposite: she apparently had a normal life of normal problems. She did not live in a 56 rooms mansion in Santa Monica. She didn't marry five or six multi millionaires. She didn't have secret sons around, and she's never been found buying boats or expensive jewels. In its tragedy, her life was more real than any other star's life. That's why she died. Because in real life, if you have an addiction to drugs and alcohol, you die. In the stars' life, you do go to rehab, you detox, you also get the chance to fix a few imperfections with botox and surgery, and there you go, ready for next year's world tour.

So, if the public didn't empathize with the Hero, if the spectator did not view himself in the hero, the overall aim and reason of the tragedy was lost: this aim was the "kàtharsin ton toioùton pathemàthon" the purification of the viewer's emotions through the act of living those emotions and dying because of those emotions in the person of the Hero. That's why Amy Winehouse's death, in my opinion, is a Greek tragedy. Because everyone could empathize with her. She could be one friend of yours. One friend you cannot help enough. Or a friend's daughter, or yours. You want to help her, you try to, you think you've made it, then you turn around (by accident or willingly?) for a second and she's gone.

I think her only sin has been to sometimes waste her enormous talent. But that's typical of a tragic hero.

On another subject, I keep beasting my elbow as much as I can. I keep moving weights in the gym and I keep dangling from the Beastmaker and I keep going to the boulders despite the +30°.

I made progresses on the Beast, hanging for the first time the small monos with my ring fingers, and doing front levers on back two on the deep pockets. On the real thing I repeated my very own "", which to me is hard.

Keep the faith and hug the big monkey man.



Source: TOTOLORE

[tomtom]

Superb war cry

[Eddies]

Fuck the war cry, that shit about Winehouse was inspired! Bravo Nibile 

[Fultonius]

Fuck the war cry, that shit about Winehouse was inspired! Bravo Nibile 

I nearly wrote the same thing earlier - more insightful than anything I read in the press!

[csurfleet]

Some superb writing there dude 

[markmcgowan01]

 

[Jaspersharpe]

I've said it before but it's worth repeating. For someone like me who struggles with basic French (and even more basic Spanish) it's pretty fucking stunning that you write like that in a second language Lore.

[Nibile]

grazie ragazzi!

[comPiler]

THERE'S A RIGHT TIME FOR EVERYTHING
16 August 2011, 2:23 pm

In the pic, showing who's the real beast.

I am here at home, waiting to go out and join my friends to see the Palio.

I remember that years ago, these days didn't bring anything except tiring days spent together having fun and doing silly things, and endless, sleepless nights of partying.

Now everything is different, I get sick with two drinks, and climbing never leaves my mind: after a night out, the following morning I think about recovering soon and well enough for my next session, and I know that I should be more disciplined, especially when I have so little time to go out. So the other day I got up early and went bouldering. The night before had been very relaxed, and I had a beasty day out. Despite the high temps The Roof was in good nick and a scientific preparation with Antihydral the previous days provided the necessary grip.

I was with my girlfriend and with the dog, and I've had a wonderful time. I repeated the roof direct twice on two attempts, then I repeated "The Green Room..." again twice on three attempts.

Those feelings, especially on the direct, will remain with me for a very long time: feeling the holds as different holds from ever before is a great sensation, and even greater being able to detach and watch oneself going to the next hold in a previous unimagined and unimagnable control.

So, while the nights on the whiskey leave a trace of hangovers, tiredness and waste, the hours on the boulders, sometimes, leave a heritage of joy and power forever.

I don't regret the many nights wasted, because I have great memories, I have met amazing girls and laughed just too much, but now I can't feel completely free when I'm out, I know that my goals are so hard that I have to be serious, disciplined and completely focused.

It's been good until it lasted, but now I'm up for something else, that I feel much more important.



Source: TOTOLORE

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DOLOMITES REPRISE
23 August 2011, 3:05 pm

 

In the pics, some great moves on great rock in a great setting. They only lack a great climber.

Every time I turn right, at the end of that private road that comes from my friend Filippo's house, I can't help but think that I am going in the wrong direction.  

Down right, there is the valley, then the plain, the motorway, work, bills, rent.  

Up left, at the end of the road, there are the mountains. A lot of rock.  

When I turn right, I keep telling me that there are also a work that I enjoy a lot, and a girl I love (most of the time anyway). That makes the journey home more bearable, but there is always another bastard of a thought that comes in: "Why can't I have a nice job and my girlfriend up here?".  

Anyway, after one year I went back to the Dolomites, this time just for bouldering. It's been great, sunny and hot, really hot, but chilly in the nights, so that I had to sleep in my sleeping bag, in the van. Bliss. I mean, really bliss. What's better than crushing (kind of...) all day long in the sun, then eat as much as you want, then get into your van in a nice grass field just beside a house where all your climbing friends are, and sleep for 9 straight hours?  

The weather was superb, not even the slightest of afternoon showers. I climbed a lot, a fucking lot, a whole lotta love, too much simply.  

DOMS and sunburnt made my back and shoulders painful during the second day, but hey, that's a small price to pay.  

I did a few new problems and I repeated a few old ones, adding a super low start to a problem I did years ago: three more moves, now Keith and James have to come back and flash it again ah ah!

I also managed to repeat "Dolomitenmann", a problem that is so evident yet completely unknow to the climbing world. You cannot find anything about it on the Net, except my own blog entry. It's really a brilliant problem, and not easy also: this time I did it at the end of my second day, but I had to fight hard!!! I am doing some comparisons with other problems of mine with confirmed grades, I hope to get a better idea over the weekend.

Checking some guy's guide, I found out that none of the problems I had done had a sitstart, before I did them. I don't really know how people judge lines: they were the most evident sitstarts ever. Kind of...

Finally, a small video of one of the many overhangs I visited in these two days.  



Source: TOTOLORE

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TWO FINGERS FOR YOU ALL AND FOR ME
27 August 2011, 12:11 pm

 

From the 7 AM sessions, a few pics I'm quite proud of: they are about progressing. It's all about progressing. If you progress, you are on the right path, and I always want to be on that path.

The different expressions on my face tell a lot.  



Source: TOTOLORE

[comPiler]

THE THIN RED LINE
30 August 2011, 1:13 pm

The thin red line which separates enthusiasm from idiocy, psyche from obsession, has been crossed again last Sunday.  

The previous week had been the hottest of the whole summer, and of the last three decaded, with temps constantly in the 40's: it was quite incredible to read 26° when I got out at 7 AM each morning.  

This climate made me feel incredibly weak and lethargic, I could not escape a nap in the afternoon, but miraculously I always found the mental energy to go to the small, cozy gym to push and pull tons of iron: I mean literally tons. Not in one time of course, but if you pause to reflect on it, it's amazing what those small little muscle fibers can do. In my pulley sets, I move more than 2.400 kilos.  

Anyway, this was still ok.  

Then came the weekend, and a drop in the temps; an increase was very unlikely to be honest. So, I don't know why, I felt incredibly strong all of a sudden, and on Saturday evening I thought that the following day, with the new fresh temps, was going to be the right one to put my project in its place.  

I woke up at 8 and drove to the boulders. I got there and failed. I felt weak. I didn't manage to repeat one single problem, despite doing again the first part of the roof direct. But I was dryfiring off holds, and I had to squeeze the shit out of those holds in order to stay put; despite one good go I obviously did not complete my project.  

Incredibly disappointed, and close to hang the shoes to the proverbial nail, I drove back home, only to be saved by the sight of a thermometer measuring 34°.  

What I had taken for excellent conditions, was just a "normal" August temperature for central Italy, ten degrees less than the previous week, but maybe, only maybe, a little bit too much to climb your hardest problem to date.  

So, after the wonderful Dolomites weekend and a boiling week, I am here with my mind completely absorbed by the wall I want to make: I would like to make it fast, but still I have to work everyday, and I can't decide what's best. I have taken the first half of October off, direction Swizzy. So I have five weeks to go. Should I take advantage of these weeks and focus only on weights and fingerboarding to get to the holiday with some juice and build the wall after my return, or should I try to build the wall super fast to try and train on it for at least three weeks, or else should I do half and half, training regularly and fitting in some wall building sessions?  

Please advise.



Source: TOTOLORE

[Nibile]

I think I've been forgotten somewhere in the web!!!
http://totolore.blogspot.com/2011/09/53-degrees.html

[Duma]

same thing that happened to Nat and Robbies blogs? think shark fixed it yesterday so maybe pm him to have a look at yours?

[chris05]

Looks amazing Nibs  , just imagine how beastly you'll be when you can do those moves 

Keep the fucking faith!

[comPiler]

53 degrees.
9 September 2011, 4:45 pm



In the pics, the Beastmaker on again, the system monster and a phase of the building.

No, it's not the temperature, although it's still over 30°.

53 degrees is how much my board overhangs.

The very day of my last post, after pressing "publish", I went and bought the beams to build the frame, after nights and nights spent sleeplessly obsessed by the thought of the construction details.

The walls of the room cannot bear any weight, they are super thin. So I thought the best way was to take advantage of the little geometry I know and build the frame from the angle formed by the wall and the floor, and the angle formed by the opposite wall and the ceiling: the hypothenuse of a rectangle triangle. I measured the height and the length and found out the beams had to be 5 meters long. So, I thought, I go there, I buy them, then I stuff them in and I'm golden. Hmmm... how do I carry them? All right, I'll spend a few Euros more and I'll get them delivered to my door. Luckily, before doing this, I thought "How do I get them into the room?". A quick round of measuring showed it impossible. Panic. The dream was dead even before starting. So, thinking about all the money I will save from not paying the rent in Florence anymore, I decided to have someone build it. I sent a few emails, but when I got the answers, with prices going from 1.600 Euros up, I had already seen the light. I bought 2,5 meters long beams, with other 2,5 meters long beams to join them together via 10 mm bolts. And that's exactly what I did. After a few more sleepless nights and some long drives to and from Florence spent thinking about what I was going to need and so on, I couldn't resist the tension anymore and went for it.

When I got home with the beams, I drilled and joined together the first three, and I put them in place and they fit, I felt like a god.

In just three afternoons the frame was done, and then I went to buy the panels.

I drilled them, but sadly here, in this remote country abandoned by God and civilization, it's impossible to find T-nuts. After hours of driving around, I found a hardware shop which had... 33 T-nuts. I only needed 327 more. So I have to wait, I can't put the panels up until they are T-nutted. Naturally, I couldn't resist the desire again, so I thought "fuck it" and put two panels on nonetheless, one third of the all board. The rest of the frame is still open, so I will place the T-nuts from behind, without dismounting the panels. I know it will be a pain in the ass but I don't care. I have my 1/3 of board on.

Then I made some holds from small (they seemed big to be honest, when sitting on the chair) wooden beams, I made them as precise and smooth as I could; then I made footholds, from a 1 cm thick beam ("You can't slip off 1 cm footholds!" Unclesomebody once told me), I drew some lines on the panels and screwed everything in place, system like.

The result is a monster.

I just can't stay on.

To put together two moves in a row, I had to TOEHOOK the edge of the panel!!! As the video here clearly shows, there's room for improvement!!!

So, while I wait for the holds to arrive, I have my Beastmaker on again, and the hardest system wall I ever touched.

The future is here.



Source: TOTOLORE

[robertostallioni]

Well done building the thing Nibs. I'd probably do the t-nutting outside though as it will be a)noisy as fuck and b) vibrate your own brains/walls to dust. Look forward to seeing more pics........

[Nibile]

thanks guys.
I'm very proud of what I did, really. a youth dream come true.

[comPiler]

1080 LITTLE SCREWS
15 September 2011, 5:21 am



The board is almost finished. Yesterday, in an endless afternoon, I put the T-nuts on, with 1080 little screws. I had 360 T-nuts, and each one has three small holes for three little screws. That's why I drove 1080 little screws in, yesterday.

When buying the stuff, a few people, included the guy I bought everything from, told me not to buy and place three screws for each T-nut: after all, it's not going to be reset as often as a public wall, and being private it will suffer less abuse (ahah, they wish...). They said two screws were more than enough.

I refused and bought and put three little screws for each T-nut, because I am sure of few things in my life, but I'm sure that I want to do this job just one time, and the best way to do so, is to do it RIGHT the first time.

I don't want to be driving more little screws anytime soon or not: that's why I wanted all the screws in.

Whatever the task, there are only two ways to complete it: the right one and the wrong one.

I can't be sure that any of the T-nuts won't break or any of the little screws won't move or who knows what.

But the only way to do my best to do it right was to put THREE FUCKING LITTLE SCREWS FOR EACH T-NUT.

And that's what I did.



Source: TOTOLORE

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SOME PICS
19 September 2011, 3:49 pm



Here you are a few pictures from a finally cold Amiata top, from the Dolomites, from a day at school, and the first moves on the completed board at home. They pretty much cover the majority of my life.

I rarely have been so happy about  the arrival of the fall. I know that when I'll get up in the next months  and it will be cold, dark and wet, I'll probably change my mind, but  for the moment I enjoy the freshness in the air, that yesterday made me  cling to the rock effortlessly.

It's addicting.

Source: TOTOLORE

[grimer]

Dear Nibile,

When me friend Donie and me talk about your blog we say your name different. He says it with a silent 'e', as in 'nibble'. I accentuate the 'e' as in 'nibbly'.

Which one of us is right?

Niall

[r-man]

Dammit Grimer, you've gone and spoilt it by making me look at the word properly. I was quite happy to keep reading about Nubile action...

[Nibile]

grimer, to be precise none of you is right. the pronounce of the 'e' is like in the words 'pervert' 'permission' 'exciting'. of course you can keep calling me 'my man' as ever.