4/11/2019

I am traveling again. During my flight, I watched the movie documentary movie <Free Solo>.

What a thrill experience by just watching the movie!

The protagonist was a young guy in his twenties, Alex. He's a professional mountain climber, or also can be called a rock climber.

There is a big difference in the category between the mountain climbers and the rock climbers. The latter do not seek for concurring the highest mountain summits, rather than going after the world famous cliffs.

Those were Alex and likes going after. He started his pro career when his 19 years old. When you go ”pro”, it means you've got sponsored by some big companies.

The movie depicts vivid details of what Alex and his friends do. Those mountain cliffs are vertical in slope and will several thousand feet of dizzying height.

Usually, rock climbers climb these cliffs withe ropes so that in case they mess up, they would have a second chance.

But ”free solo” would mean climbing without a rope. The last one he was trying to concur called the ”Half Dome”. It was located in the Yosemite National Park. It looks like a dome but was cut right into a half. And the half side was like a single piece of granite of about 6000 feet high.

It was so difficult and scary that no climber had tried climbing it free solo. After more than a year of preparation with a movie crew, he was finally ready.

He had to do many times of climbing with rope to remember all the detailed foot and hand holds on the rocks. It was so scary that at one point he had to make a two hands jump.

He had to be extremely concentrated and calm during his climbing. Any mistake he made would meant death. Finally, he made it to the top.

How dangerous was this? One of his friends said he had 30 friends died of free climbing. Because ”If you keep stretching the limit, eventually, you will find it.”

People think he is just a thrill seeker. Scientists even had conducted an MRI on his brain to see what's unusual. What they found was something unusual. His brain didn't respond to dramatic events as a normal brain does. In other words, he doesn't get scared easily. And he's super calm.

There was a story about the brain study of London taxi drivers. It showed that some specific area of their brains were significantly larger than average human beings. You probably heard how hard that the exam is for these taxi drivers have to pass.

The evidence all proved that our brain can be trained and improved.