Passion

I've been thinking about what makes me really love climbing so much. Is it the thrill of the rough fibre? Or the hard breathing? Or the feeling of being very pumped after a route?

Remember I posted this video of Steve Jobs making a speech at Stanford's graduation ceremony; I've found my answer.
Everything else falls away in the face of death, leaving only the most important. Climbing is a very dangerous sport - your life is merely entrusted to a piece of rope. You could take on a hard lead fall and anything might happen. Everything is on you, your inner self, and the wall. Whenever I'm on a really hard route, the nerves gets pumping because of the fear/adrenaline/excitement of meeting a crux. One slip and you take a fall. It might be a big one, or a little drop from the last quickdraw, whatever it is, human beings are naturally afraid of that moment when a fall happens. I guess that's what drives me to complete a climb, to go all out because of my fear of falling. That fear is reduced drastically during a competition on the contrary.

Climbing is really like slaloming. It's about the fluidity, the grace and the execution of the moves. It's about refining the techniques to a certain degree of perfection.
I remember those days and nights that I have spent on refining my skating moves, coming up with routines, trying to synchronise the music to the moves I was doing, falling after every 10 seconds for trying to push myself to do a particular hard move etc, it really taught me to keep trying till i get it.
After having climbed for a year, it irks me to see really strong climbers with super lousy footwork. To me, it simply destroys the whole beauty of climbing. I really admire Philip's footwork. Sure, he might not be the strongest, but the way he execute the moves with such grace and fluidity, it already makes the whole process a beauty to watch. When I was slaloming, there were a lot of better skaters who could do really technical moves, yet it somehow feels empty during the execution of the moves because of the lack of fluidity.
It's akin to living in a huge house without any furniture in it. The core is simply hollow.

This reminds me of what Mr. Kao once said about climbing as well. You cannot climb when you are angry/frustrated etc. That's the whole beauty of it. Climbing has really taught me to master the art of conditioning the mindset. Many times, I have frowned at climbers who slammed the wall for not being able to do a particular move, or simply lost their cool. By doing that, they have already lost half their battle. I have learned to use every opportunity of being unable to do a move and watch how someone else do it to empower myself to believe that I can do it as well. It's not about feeling lousy or disappointed for not reaching 'there' yet, but constantly pushing yourself to learn from the more experienced. After all, those more experienced didn't just attain that level of climbing overnight. It was through sheer determination. perseverance and a positive mindset to the whole learning process.

When you start looking at the cup being half full rather than half empty, you realise that the rate of mastering something accelerates.