I was just thinking about being on a college football team versus being on a college track team... which is weird enough that I was on either of those teams considering I only started playing football my senior year of high school and only started doing track my junior year of college as a way to stay fit for judo. Needless to say I never excelled at either of these sports, but I did learn a lot and met some fantastic people and had a pretty good time in general. Anyway, my point is that although I was not breaking records, earning fame, or really playing all that much (you can call me "the judge"... 'cuz I spend a lot of time on the bench), I do fancy myself a cagey observer of human behavior and I think there are some very fundamental differences in the psychology of a football player versus a track athlete.
If you're not familiar with the way college football works, I'll try to summarize it for you as best I can. You and about 60 other guys are going to spend about 2 hours a day wearing uncomfortable clothes and running into and away from each other all based on the relative position of ball, the whole time being aggressively yelled at by grown men. And you'll be doing this whether its hot, cold, windy, rainy, a blizzard, whatever. Sometimes you might be doing this early in the afternoon, late at night, and sometimes at 6am. In fact, for a two week period in late summer you'll be doing this two to three times a day. You'll also have long meetings where you watch film of yourself, and other football players, playing football in an attempt to either implicitly or explicitly absorb the tendencies and contextual behaviors or your opponents.
Now, as I was trying to learn the game of football I also noticed other athletes around me as we went through our day to day athletic lives. Basketball, volleyball, and even the rare tennis player gave me insight in what kinds of people were attracted to different kinds of sports. Each sport, and each position within a sport, had it is own personality mold that a budding young player might fill. But these other sports aside, I mostly remember the track guys.
I knew a lot of them from parties and they all seemed pretty relax and we got on pretty well. They had a certain barefooted irreverence for life that resonated with my own nascent granola mentality a lot more than the hyper-masculine, Spartan-esque comradeship of football. These guys didn't have to put on sweat soaked body armor to practice, they wore what looked like comfortable shorts and shoes and basically got to run around outside.They'd leisurely warm up, take a few jumps, take their shirts off, hang around in the sun, and then go jump some more. Perhaps the most important thing I noticed was that they also got to do all of this surrounded by amazingly attractive women who wore essentially no clothes. Now, I don't want to sound sexist, I'm sure the reverse is just as big a selling point for the ladies... I'm fully capable of objectifying both genders.
So I'm not trying to say that one sport is better than the other, all I'm trying to say is that there are two fields. One is full of three hundred pound men who spent years hammering their bodies into iron tools with the sole purpose crushing your own body into new and interesting shapes. And in the other field is a bunch of affable guys and girls running around in the sun with no clothes on. Which field would you stand in?
Friday, January 22, 2010
Monday, January 18, 2010
Gnar in the Idaho Desert
So, its the middle of the summer of 2009. I'm at home in Pocatello, Idaho with my sister (who I call "Blu" for her red hair) and my parents, mostly just relaxing in the heat of the day and playing in the mountains. I had bought my sister her first pair of rock climbing shoes earlier that year and we had been bouldering on some of local terrain, but that particular weekend we were going to follow my parents out to City of Rocks National Reserve which is located near the tiny, charming, and in many ways terrifying town of Almo, ID.
I guess I should specify what I mean by terrifying... basically all there is to do in Almo is go to the City or to Castle Rocks State Park and climb on some sweet granite (which does have a tendency to exfoliate right when you need it to take you weight high above your last piece of gear) or bomb around on your mountain bike. Now, in the highly unlikely event that you hurt yourself rock climbing or mountain biking there is no hospital for about 45 miles, cell phones don't work, you're probably dehydrated and its sweltering hot, and rattlesnakes - fleshy, death dealing, tubes or searing hate - are pretty common. That said though, my hat is off to the rangers who work in this area, they do an amazing job of keeping the place clean and the people safe!
Anyway, our parents were on an archaeological dig with the Idaho State University field school. So Blu and my friend Ted (who was also home from grad school for the summer) were going to ride our mountain bikes around the various trails. Now its maybe high 90s, so we're all pretty hot to begin with, but things are going along alright. We were just kind of cruising while we're also being followed by my parents dogs "Sagi", a deaf chow-pyrenees mix, and "Thor", a big golden retriever (about 105lbs and not fat). The plan was to do a shorter loop with the dogs and then go out and find some downhills and edgier riding fare...
At first the dogs are out in front. Bounding around, scaring birds, finding a wide range of new an interesting smells. I think Ted took the first digger, catching his back tire coming across a dried up stream-bed and the dogs are right there, expressing a tender "are you okay?" that only a dog can express properly. But T's back on his bike and we're riding again, but I notice that the dogs are falling behind (apparently, in the desert factory engineered performance clothes and a bicycle beats a fur coat and four legs...).
So we pause a little bit and let the dogs catch us up. Ride again, pause again. Ride again, pause again. On the third stop we waited and no dogs... still no dogs. After a while Thor comes traipsing down the tack. His tongue is looks like somewhat took a banana slug and pumped it full of growth hormones. He walks over between the three of us with slobber on his muzzle and laid down in the shade of some sage brush. He knitted his brows together and stared up at me, blowing air out through the side of his pendulous lips that scattered the dust around his paws, "This has been fun... but I'm ready to head back to the car."
"Okay bud," I leaned down and scratched between his ears, "we'll head back to the car we just have to wait for Sagi." So, the four of us sat down in the shade of copse of trees a little to the west of the trail we had been on, and the three humans left their bikes and wandered back to the trial hoping to see Sagi scampering up. At first we tried calling for her (remember that Sagi is deaf... so we had three people yelling for a deaf dog in the middle of the Idaho desert for a good 15 minutes...) and waited. We turned around to head back to the bikes, T and Blu were going to take Thor back to the car and give him more water, when we heard the tingle of dog tags on the trail. I turned around and sure enough Sagi was trotting down the bike path, tongue lolling out the side of her mouth, legs shaking.
But she didn't see us off to the side of the trail so I yelled, "SAGI!", ...again yelling at the deaf dog... she kept on truckin' down the trail. I immediately took off after her whistling and waving my arms trying to get her attention. I was only running after her for a few seconds, but the whole time running through my head I was thinking about how bad a dog owner I was, how terrible the old girl must feel, how stupid could I have been to think she'd be able to go on this bike ride. I finally got close enough that knew I was behind her and she slowed to a walk and then sat down on the path. Her legs were shaking and her tongue was swollen but the strange thing was that I would swear she was smiling. Her eyes were bright and perky and corners of mouth were pulled up to her ears. In spite of being hot and weary, she was just so happy to be there, in the desert, at that moment.
It struck me, "that is gnar". Here was an older, deaf dog, the survivor of two knee surgeries, in the boiling heat of the summer, and she was playing as hard as she could and in spite of the heat, fatigue, and (I am sure) the pain of running the trail. The look on her face made me think she wouldn't want to have spent the day any other way. I rubbed her head and tried to lead her back up the trail... but Sagi wouldn't budge.
Okay, so she was happy, but she was also definitely tired, and after finally finding us again she was not about to start walking. Weighing my options I hoisted Sagi up onto my shoulder and looked at her to determine if this would be alright. She pushed a warm sticky tongue against my lips, rolled in my arms to get comfortable, and then started to wag. I carried Sagi back to the bikes without any problems, but when Thor was in sight the ignominy of being carried got to her and she squirmed until I put her down. We let the dogs finish our water and walked back to the parking lot, where the dogs laid down in the shade of our Jeep with fresh water bowls.
We had to laugh when I filled up Thor's dish and he laid down. He had undershot his landing, however, and was too far away from the bowl. He craned his neck and flicked his tongue to get to the water, he was stretched as far as he could... but standing up was a line that he would not cross. We went on to have finish up a fun afternoon of riding (we all definitely fell our fair share) while the dogs relaxed in the shade with their water.
^_^
I guess I should specify what I mean by terrifying... basically all there is to do in Almo is go to the City or to Castle Rocks State Park and climb on some sweet granite (which does have a tendency to exfoliate right when you need it to take you weight high above your last piece of gear) or bomb around on your mountain bike. Now, in the highly unlikely event that you hurt yourself rock climbing or mountain biking there is no hospital for about 45 miles, cell phones don't work, you're probably dehydrated and its sweltering hot, and rattlesnakes - fleshy, death dealing, tubes or searing hate - are pretty common. That said though, my hat is off to the rangers who work in this area, they do an amazing job of keeping the place clean and the people safe!
Anyway, our parents were on an archaeological dig with the Idaho State University field school. So Blu and my friend Ted (who was also home from grad school for the summer) were going to ride our mountain bikes around the various trails. Now its maybe high 90s, so we're all pretty hot to begin with, but things are going along alright. We were just kind of cruising while we're also being followed by my parents dogs "Sagi", a deaf chow-pyrenees mix, and "Thor", a big golden retriever (about 105lbs and not fat). The plan was to do a shorter loop with the dogs and then go out and find some downhills and edgier riding fare...
At first the dogs are out in front. Bounding around, scaring birds, finding a wide range of new an interesting smells. I think Ted took the first digger, catching his back tire coming across a dried up stream-bed and the dogs are right there, expressing a tender "are you okay?" that only a dog can express properly. But T's back on his bike and we're riding again, but I notice that the dogs are falling behind (apparently, in the desert factory engineered performance clothes and a bicycle beats a fur coat and four legs...).
So we pause a little bit and let the dogs catch us up. Ride again, pause again. Ride again, pause again. On the third stop we waited and no dogs... still no dogs. After a while Thor comes traipsing down the tack. His tongue is looks like somewhat took a banana slug and pumped it full of growth hormones. He walks over between the three of us with slobber on his muzzle and laid down in the shade of some sage brush. He knitted his brows together and stared up at me, blowing air out through the side of his pendulous lips that scattered the dust around his paws, "This has been fun... but I'm ready to head back to the car."
"Okay bud," I leaned down and scratched between his ears, "we'll head back to the car we just have to wait for Sagi." So, the four of us sat down in the shade of copse of trees a little to the west of the trail we had been on, and the three humans left their bikes and wandered back to the trial hoping to see Sagi scampering up. At first we tried calling for her (remember that Sagi is deaf... so we had three people yelling for a deaf dog in the middle of the Idaho desert for a good 15 minutes...) and waited. We turned around to head back to the bikes, T and Blu were going to take Thor back to the car and give him more water, when we heard the tingle of dog tags on the trail. I turned around and sure enough Sagi was trotting down the bike path, tongue lolling out the side of her mouth, legs shaking.
But she didn't see us off to the side of the trail so I yelled, "SAGI!", ...again yelling at the deaf dog... she kept on truckin' down the trail. I immediately took off after her whistling and waving my arms trying to get her attention. I was only running after her for a few seconds, but the whole time running through my head I was thinking about how bad a dog owner I was, how terrible the old girl must feel, how stupid could I have been to think she'd be able to go on this bike ride. I finally got close enough that knew I was behind her and she slowed to a walk and then sat down on the path. Her legs were shaking and her tongue was swollen but the strange thing was that I would swear she was smiling. Her eyes were bright and perky and corners of mouth were pulled up to her ears. In spite of being hot and weary, she was just so happy to be there, in the desert, at that moment.
It struck me, "that is gnar". Here was an older, deaf dog, the survivor of two knee surgeries, in the boiling heat of the summer, and she was playing as hard as she could and in spite of the heat, fatigue, and (I am sure) the pain of running the trail. The look on her face made me think she wouldn't want to have spent the day any other way. I rubbed her head and tried to lead her back up the trail... but Sagi wouldn't budge.
Okay, so she was happy, but she was also definitely tired, and after finally finding us again she was not about to start walking. Weighing my options I hoisted Sagi up onto my shoulder and looked at her to determine if this would be alright. She pushed a warm sticky tongue against my lips, rolled in my arms to get comfortable, and then started to wag. I carried Sagi back to the bikes without any problems, but when Thor was in sight the ignominy of being carried got to her and she squirmed until I put her down. We let the dogs finish our water and walked back to the parking lot, where the dogs laid down in the shade of our Jeep with fresh water bowls.
We had to laugh when I filled up Thor's dish and he laid down. He had undershot his landing, however, and was too far away from the bowl. He craned his neck and flicked his tongue to get to the water, he was stretched as far as he could... but standing up was a line that he would not cross. We went on to have finish up a fun afternoon of riding (we all definitely fell our fair share) while the dogs relaxed in the shade with their water.
^_^
Friday, January 8, 2010
What is gnar?
If you spend much time around certain subsets of the population (e.g., climbers, surfers, paddlers, boarders, etc.) you're likely to come across the word "gnar," as in, "that gaston on the arête was pretty gnar," or, "let's shred some gnar." What does this word mean exactly?
Well, most dictionaries I've looked at have no definition for the word gnar... but the eminently popular UrbanDictionary.com defines gnar as: "A shortened version of the word gnarly, meaning high on the scale of dangerousness and coolness. Often used among the skateboard crowd."
Alright, so for something to be gnar things have to have a certain element of dangerousness and generally be impressive enough to enthrall the audience (even if its and audience of one). But does this mean that only the best climbers working at the height of danger can be gnar? Well, I think Chris Sharma deep-water soloing definitely qualifies as gnar. But I've also seen the elation on the face of a person sending for the first time on maybe a 5.10 route. Certainly 5.10 is nothing to sneeze at... but it's not the height of skill and daring either. Does this have any less gnar?
Purists can argue this one-way or the other, but my goal in this blog is to compile stories from my own life and the lives of my friends that embody the spirit of gnar. In so doing maybe I can make an interesting series of stories for people to read and at the same time answer a question for myself, "What is gnar?"
... I'll probably never thoroughly define gnar, although at periods in my life I hope to attain gnar, but in putting this blog together maybe I can at least elevate my understanding of gnar to supreme court Justice Potter Stewart's understanding of obscenity: "I shall not today attempt further to define the kinds of material I understand to be embraced . . . but I know it when I see it..."
^_^
Well, most dictionaries I've looked at have no definition for the word gnar... but the eminently popular UrbanDictionary.com defines gnar as: "A shortened version of the word gnarly, meaning high on the scale of dangerousness and coolness. Often used among the skateboard crowd."
Alright, so for something to be gnar things have to have a certain element of dangerousness and generally be impressive enough to enthrall the audience (even if its and audience of one). But does this mean that only the best climbers working at the height of danger can be gnar? Well, I think Chris Sharma deep-water soloing definitely qualifies as gnar. But I've also seen the elation on the face of a person sending for the first time on maybe a 5.10 route. Certainly 5.10 is nothing to sneeze at... but it's not the height of skill and daring either. Does this have any less gnar?
Purists can argue this one-way or the other, but my goal in this blog is to compile stories from my own life and the lives of my friends that embody the spirit of gnar. In so doing maybe I can make an interesting series of stories for people to read and at the same time answer a question for myself, "What is gnar?"
... I'll probably never thoroughly define gnar, although at periods in my life I hope to attain gnar, but in putting this blog together maybe I can at least elevate my understanding of gnar to supreme court Justice Potter Stewart's understanding of obscenity: "I shall not today attempt further to define the kinds of material I understand to be embraced . . . but I know it when I see it..."
^_^
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