A new story from Dual Threat with Ryen Russillo
Automatic TRANSCRIPT
Would have happened there? Yeah, it just wasn't really ready. I mean, I wanted to do it. I hope to do it and I just couldn't basically. But yeah, no, it's all very fairly portrayed in the film. I mean, I sprained my ankle, maybe 6 weeks before. And thought that it was going to happen in my season, but then I was able to sort of do some prep work. You know, I recovered fairly quickly. And was like, oh, you know what? I think I can do it. But in the fall like that, the season was kind of ending. Like, winter is coming. It's going to start storming. It's getting too cold. As you're getting too short, it all, you know, it was like winding down. And I was like, oh, I really want to do this, now that I've put a lot of effort into it. And at that point, I put a lot of effort into the top part, which is where the technically the harder climbing is, but I hadn't put that much effort into the bottom. And then I gave up on the bottom because I just wasn't really ready for it. So as it turns down, I came back in the spring, I managed to put in more prep on both halves and felt much better. So the day it happens, like when you're heading to the first lab, did you just know there was everything so finely tuned at least mentally physically that you just like, okay, this is it. Yeah, yeah, pretty close. I mean, you know, whenever you're doing something that you've never done before, there's always a little bit of hesitation like, oh, this is pretty exciting. This is something. So I was confident I knew it was the day I was ready outside. But at the same time, we're still like, oh jeez, you know, because it's still a pretty daunting looking piece of rock. I remember the day that I did it, I actually parked over, I normally part kind of directly in front of el cap and you hike straight up to the wall. And the day that I did that part sort of at the east end of el cap at a different parking lot and then hiked kind of the length of the wall because I didn't want to be there didn't want to run into anybody in the parking lot and have to talk to anyone. Can you see other climbers all the time? They're like, oh, what are you doing today? Like, oh yeah, you know, and it's like, I just didn't want any interaction, so I kind of parked it like the side lot, and then it meant that I had to walk the whole length of a cap, which is not that much further, but it means that you're walking underneath the wall for 15, 20 minutes. And the whole time, we're like, that's a big wall. You know, it really gives you gives you a lot of time to reflect on the scale. Yeah, I know. It is a big wall. I talked to somebody who watched the movie on a flight, and she said she had to take a Xanax at some point. It's just too much. Which we'll definitely get to in the virtual reality stuff that you have coming out. All right, so that's the day. And this may sound stupid, but I imagine the soloing part of it probably makes you better, does it ramp it up where you just feel like every single movement every single maneuver, everything is just that more in tune because you just know, right? Yeah, it can. I mean, like sometimes you can climb at your best and like you're saying everything feels crisp and precise and you're like 100% focused on every movement. You definitely can be that way. But it also can be the opposite where you're like in your own head and you're like, oh my God, if I split my diet, you're all gripped and you're like holding on too tightly and like moving like two jerky like kicking to things and all kind of like spastic because you're like holding on too tightly. So basically it can be climbing at its best if you're relaxed and climbing well but it really depends on what you bring to it. Was there ever a moment, you know, I don't know if there was how the filming of it all worked even though the Doc actually kind of is almost doing a documentary of itself. Then I watched the other outside piece of it the other day where you guys were hanging out in your crew. It's amazing. Really how locked in everybody was and how much they cared. But there's a story through it and even in some of the outside pieces that I saw of just you being like, this might be easier if we just don't film it. Like how much would you ever come close to telling your friends like maybe this just isn't the way to do it because it certainly feels like a lot of people in your position impacts it to what degree none of us would understand, but there.