"ugly climbs, beautiful climbs, elegant climbs, gross climbs" – C. Thi Nguyen

The other day while climbing, I had this realization that movement is such an internal experience. Movement is just another sense: sight, hearing, taste, smell, touch, movement. I just learned that there's actually a term for this, kinesthesia, the sense of body movement.

“when you are in your own world of moving, when you move, you get in a special world. It’s very hard to explain this world. To explain it in one sentence it would be like, zoom, suddenly the ground goes to the side and there is just sky. You don’t feel your weight and you are alone in a big room and you can do everything, whatever you think of. It’s not dependent on how hard you climb. It’s more about how close you are to your personal limit. How deep you go into yourself. How you allow yourself to explore things from very inside and that’s what I’m looking for.” – Klem Loskot

A climb can look beautiful, or how someone climbs it can be graceful to watch, but the internal experience, how the movement feels, is something to focus on. Sight is such a dominant sense that feeling is often overlooked.

As I write this, I question it as well. I think the aesthetics of a climb are interesting as well. I think it actually connects it to dance and references an older style of climbing when climbing gracefully was more important. It's not so simple. I think the style in which a climb is done is somewhat important and is somehow linked to the internal experience. I often want to do something cleanly because it literally feels better both in my mind and in my body.

"it's a remembrance. it's not a thought. it's a feeling." – Johnny Dawes

Maybe this is a fleeting realization or crystallization of a long thought but it was a nice reminder. To just enjoy the movement on its own.