Motivations and sticking my neck out

My word for the Week, especially with the Live Earth concerts on 7/7/7/

My good buddy, Dave (nice going with the new job dude!), wrote up an entry on his blog recently about motivations in climbing and in relation to me posting about my un-successful attempts on that 29/8a in Australia before leaving. He talked about “a fall is not a failure, only another landmark on the way to a new level.” I have to say this has always been my over-riding goal from anything I ever do – If I'm not learning something, well then I lose interest pretty quickly! For most of the people who know me through the climbing community (or this blog), considering I was the quietest guy in the group of lads by a long way as I grew up, who'd have thought I'd be the louder, talk-to-a-wall bloke I am now? For that, I'll always be grateful to climbing and sports for helping me to new experiences and a newer insight on the world!?
Funnily enough, when on a really hard route, it's probably one of the few times when I'm really at peace with myelf – i.e. no other thoughts/distractions. My head is usually a jumble of thoughts, so it's nice to have even 5 minutes of clarity every once in a while on a route like this....

Anyway, back to the comment from Dave. “it takes guts to post a clip of an almost send”. In relation to this, I'm tired of the negative perception in Ireland of crap facilities, crap training, etc. and that none of us are cranking hard. For those of you who know and are aware, I've done all my training in Ireland – you just have to want them enough and do a bit of reading up ;)
Fair enough, we're still a way of top of the line world grades (I see stories of Dave Graham trying a route that is potentially 5.15c?!?!?!), but put the effort in and you can pull into some wilder grades. It's a confidence/experience thing we're all lacking from in the higher numbers. Basically, this is a shout out to all those pushing it out (Si Moore, Dave, the Corkon-ian who ticked 8a in Spain this year – sorry but forgotten your name, Ricky B, Kev P, and the others who I'm not going to name) and proving we can push grades, change pre-conceptions of our limits, and to everyone else to get going – the higher grades aren't as harder as you think!
So, yes, basically, the reason I'm publishing those videos is to show that can climb on harder stuff. I like to share knowledge - I'm of the opinion that if I'm only on the planet for x years, I may as well share the info so that future people can improve!).

O.k., since I've waffled (have to justify the name of this blog sometimes ;) a bit much in this, go forth and challenge yourselves at whatever you love.....

You think I'm enjoying myself?