Happy New Year!

Since it's been snowing like mad and we've been stuck in the house with nothing better to do...

The Joy Ballad

I feel like this right now. Isn't it beautiful.

hostessing

A brief word on hostessing.  I love climbs whose holds have names. The receptionist has two such holds. The "coffee cup" that you make the crux move from to the "telephone". If you can successfully grab the telephone from the start but you can't finish the climb, it's called "hostessing". For the first time, I hostessed, twice in a row..... TODAY! And now I'm trying to study but all that is coming into my mind is Ethan Pringle's voice in my head saying, "Yeah, I flashed it." I'm still so completely thrilled that I made that move that I'm not sure I could drink enough beer to relax me so I can actually do homework. So, I'm blogging.

Give it to Yourself

So, I've learned recently that if you have something you really want to do it's most beneficial to have a plan of attack and to attempt it on a regular basis. I've had this long term, what my friend Ana Burgos calls a "mega project", that I get really good on then I leave it alone for a month. I have spastic focus...trying things all over town. Getting into doing obscure things no one has heard of... But now, I'm focused and I realize that if I want to give myself half a chance, I have to give it to myself! This is a little clip from a day last week when Jill Church and I went out and made this decision final.

Film Geeks

I began my love affair with film and photography in high school. I studied dance at the North Carolina School of the Arts where I hung out with such film geeks as David Gordon Green (George Washington, Pineapple Express) and Danny McBride (Hot Rod, Pineapple Express), who at the time was behind the camera mostly not in front of it. I married my favorite photographer Kyle George and have begun to dabble in climbing film making. I'm a complete amateur but I have a vast choreographic background and I hope that translates to film! I hope one day I can reunite with my old classmates to congratulate them on their successes and to get to work with Peter Mortimer of Sender Films who completely upped the anti in climbing film making.

Streetfighter

I have completed my second short climbing film with only a few lingering questions about video compression. I edited this one in iMovie which I have now sworn that I will never do again for anything meaningful. It was so much fun to shoot. It only took Jill and I a day to figure out the sequence (22 moves is a lot to remember) and a couple tries to send. It had been really rainy so the holds were very very dirty which was exciting at the end. The variable weather made for interesting color contrasts on the film. I'm not quit sure how to normalize that either. Time and place I suppose. I am very into the entire editing process, aside from the climbing, that for me was the best part. I get so zoned in to mixing the movement that my daughter has to tug at me to get my attention. I'm not sure that's such a good thing. Anyway, I hope you enjoy the second installment.

Story Teller

How do you tell a story using 80-90% movement? Climbing is like a dance but it's so much more calculated. With dance you have an ingrained need for artistic expression but with climbing it's all in discovery. "Can I actually do this move? Will I psych myself out?" Is this then the origin of the story? How it makes you feel to climb? Pretty isoteric if you ask me. For now, I'll keep it simple.
Each move is in itself a small discovery. Lately I've been focused on not congratulating myself too early. It's easy to through something that's hard and then get excited, lose concentration and not get any further on the problem. It's not over till it's over.