zlacker

>>keepam+(OP)
I need to share a video [0] which helped contextualize Alex Honnold for me by contrasting him with another climber I've watched for years: Magnus Midtbo. In this video they're solo climbing a fairly simple and safe mountain, and Magnus is visibly stressed out while Alex calmly shouts encouragement all while recording.

When watching Alex Honnold in Free Solo, I understood there was a exceptional aspect to him, but it took me seeing him climb with other people to really grasp the magnitude.

[0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cyya23MPoAI

>>TheAce+Li
I suspect a lot of this is habituation due to repeated practise. As long as one climbs well within one's abilities, the actual level of danger is comparatively low. But the fear is still there and needs to be trained away.

>>kqr+Sq
They also did an MRI scan on Honnold and found that he doesn't have the usual fear response. It's not clear if this was trained away, or if it's something innate.

https://nautil.us/the-strange-brain-of-the-worlds-greatest-s...

>>ahussa+ah1
I recall reading about a certain species of birds where, to impress the females, the males dives to the ground. The closer to the ground before they pull out of the dive the more impressive.

The scientist found there was a gene encoding how daring a bird would be, mostly clustered in two groups IIRC. But there was a rare variant which made them much more fearless, causing them to go much lower than the others.

However they only found birds with one copy of that variation. Turned out if a bird inherited the variant from both parents, they never pulled out of the dive and smacked into the ground, killing the bird.

These crazy free solo climbs and similar reminds me of those birds.