Climbing without fear, living without fear.

At the begining of the year I was in Egypt having a great time, what the F..k happened! 

One Minuit I was doing my daily routine of Prana breathing , then physical yoga and the free diving and then maybe the odd set of pull ups, and the next Minuit it was the Pandemic. I remember thinking "oh here we go again, they will try the old Asian flu card". 

 

One of my old students, hello Mandy, hope you are well!


 I haven't blogged for a while, like most people Iam confused and battered but unlike most I am in fact desperate, no work this year means no money. I dont have a safety net underneath me like all these very nice people advocating a New Normal. I want my old normal back please, the one where I earned a bit of money, was a responsible citizen, and where low risks of death due to the flu was , well normal> 

An Aloe, tilted, it's time over, ready to die, When I die I hope its actually before my time. You might not understand what I just said so I'll spell it out for you. We are living so long that the last 10 years of most peoples lives is just a dreary purgatory of well misery. I watched my dad die, I have just watched a few die recently and you know what it wasn't nice. I dont want that, I want not to be bed ridden, I dont want to have my arse wiped like I did for my mum, I want to die a bit before I am a decaying cabbage!  

This photo is one of mine I found on the web, dont ask me how its there or why its got a frame, hey the world is changing and things are strange. I have to remember 65 codes for computers, bank accounts, phones, I have to use another 54 chargers for shit I didn't really ever want in the first place, and in having and using all this shit, I am making some people who I despise mega rich.

 This photo is from Norway I think. 2 meters of snow fell, no police, no sisters telling you not to slash the hell out of those steep slopes. It was a time before thought crime, it was a time before being accused of killing people by living. It was a great time.                                                                                   My shoulder is better, thanks to many people and no doctors, I,ll just give a shout out to Mick who sent me an exercise protocol and is enjoying a fruitful time climbing in North Wales. I was advised to have an operation by 3 doctors, but I didn't want to get cut up and suffer drugs again. So after a lot of messing around with lots of stuff, and listening to many friends but not doctors, the shoulder is finally co operating and letting me climb and swim.

This is a photo of me doing a bit of yoga, I have been doing yoga since an early age, some times its just a bit of stretching some times its actually lots more, its rebooting me, its anchoring me into this space and time, into this body and  into this kind inner mind that is always there. People who know me understand life is a little hard for me, modern life that is, mountains cliffs and the sea is where I need to be, I don't need no Facist groove thing going on. So because of my little journey into freediving my yoga practise has actually become an everyday practise, the morning Prana can be anything from 15 mins to 2 hours. What has this yoga stuff done for me I can hear you question. Well it allowed me to climb while weak, it allowed me to climb kinda without one shoulder, and it allowed me to make a little progress with my topsy turvy mind. Oh and it gave me a Breath hold of 5 mins and a deep dive of 42 meters.

This photo is one of mine from 2 years ago down there near Sudan. It was a pleasure to play with these cool cats. 

This blog will have to be cut short as my 'mother in law' wants to do some what we call 'disco keep fit', she is a demented old lady who we have to reboot everyday as she watches too much TV. We dont know how to wean her off the TV, the poor thing has to wear a mask and gets breathless when she does so. When the lock down was on we stretched the rules to get her out, but even with that she has put on many kilograms. Granny might have died in a home.

I'll say cheers to you all, I have been drinking a bit too much like many, so its time to stop. I have to tell you for 3 months in Egypt I didn't drink, this was easy to do and I felt wonderful. You probably know that drink is very bad for you, but some of my friends are dead because of drink. Some of my friends are very dead because of climbing, some died skiing or snowboarding, two free divers I knew just died, death is with us my friends but so is life. Celebrate life, the profits of doom, and the wages of fear go to the rich, life must be lived, you cannot mortgage life. Please guys and girls let people live their lives.