Coffee is for closers

Do yourself a favor and go rent Glengarry Glen Ross. This film came out in the early 90's, and other than having an Earth shatteringly good cast, was all about finishing Real Estate deals. My main memory from that film, other than a fantastic speech delivered by Alec Baldwin, is a high school club soccer trip to California. Our coach wanted us to learn what it meant to close out games, and he showed us the tape while we were in all in a hotel one night before a game. Besides the obvious irresponsibilty of showing a bunch of 17 year old boys a movie filled with dramatic swearing, it was a great show. Click on the link above, and then read the next paragraph. If you're at work, "put that coffee down," and turn the sound down low.

What did you get from that? Other than that Baldwin is a dick? I imagine you're struck by the ideal that men are meant to close. Today, I was Ed Harris. I was not a closer. I drove in my Hyundai, played with my kids, and generally hit the bricks. Drat.

What did I fail to close? Did I secretly get my real estate license, antithetical to this current economic climate, and unannounced to my loyal voyeurs? No. I failed to clip the chains, and in my world, that's tantamount to letting the sale walk out the door. I had them. They were ready, pen in hand, and I couldn't secure a signature on the line that is dotted. Why not? What was I thinking?

Coach Fullerton was a great coach for my club soccer team back in 1999. He was a smart guy, with a law degree after a college career playing ball at a Division 1 school. I'd spontaneously run into him at the library, and he'd be returning a stack of books that he was reading purely out of intellectual curiosity. We'd talk about upcoming games, and what I was doing in school, away from his tutelage. I would have my one book, my "research" for junior year English, and he'd need a cart to bring back his borrowed literature. Coach Fullerton would look at me and ask why I wasn't doing more. Why I wasn't pushing a bit harder. And I only had a meek answer that wouldn't meet any reasonably strict standard. After all, I went to public school. Basically, I was being lazy, and we both knew it.

Fullerton knew that my mentality wasn't unique, and in fact, extended well into our entire soccer team. He didn't have much recourse to change us academically, but could whoop our asses on the field. He didn't like that we were letting things slip during one particular season, and thought that Glengarry would do the trick and fire us up. While I'd like to announce otherwise, the message has yet to entirely sink in.

Today, I was trying to finish a route called Sucking My Will To Live. It is a 12c down in Clear Creek, and has two distinct hard parts. I don't know if it is my yoga, or the fact that I've been climbing a bunch lately, but this whole route doesn't feel so hard for me. I've easily figured out how do place my hands and feet on the bad holds, and felt like I'd do it after only a few tries. Not much of a project, in the grand scheme of sport climbing. So after two tries yesterday, I thought I'd go back today and clean things up.

I went down to Clear Creek with my buddy Dan, and it's important to note that Dan is, in terms of climbing, a closer. He crushes routes. When I watch him work on routes, I feel like I'm back at the library, looking face to face with Coach Fullerton. Dan's trying harder than I am. And so when I was at the last bolt of Sucking My Will To Live, looking up at three more moves before I could consider the route completed and myself a success, I should have taken the suggestion of Coach, Alec Baldwin, and Dan Mirsky, and just closed the deal. Instead, I tamely pulled with an important heel hook, didn't get nearly enough lift our of my core, and came up short of the hold I was going for. And then, I fell off. Try finished; route incompleted; hit the bricks. Why the hell did I do that?

Over the past year, I've been aiming for routes that have been much harder than stuff I've done before. Subsequently, sending the routes has taken a bunch more time and effort, with days upon days or practice before I'd even considered the send within reach. I worry that this has habituated my mind and body into waiting too long before I can reasonably expect success. All of the hard routes I've sent in the past year have felt easy once I've eventually done them, but at the expense of dozens of practice tries. (For the sake of rock climbing parlence and common diction, I'm letting you know that these are called "burns," and referring to them as such from now on.)

So today, I gave up on sending Sucking My Will To Live even though I felt strong and knew what to do at the crux, the hardest part of the route. I didn't close, and lowered down to the ground to find Dan scratching his head. Me, I'm just banging mine against a wall, wondering why simple lessons take years to sink in. I need to take a minute before I get ready to climb, and visualize good ole Mr. Baldwin yelling at me and calling me names. And then, I need to sack it up and finish routes, even if I haven't practiced them into submission. If I can do that, I might be a closer. Until then, I'm going to continue to be belayed by guys whose watches are worth more than my car.