The arrival of this century gave birth to the most precocious of climbing stars: Chris Sharma. In 2001, this Californian from Santa Cruz climbed the most difficult route on the planet. He was 22 years old, belonged to the first generation of climbers who had developed in climbing walls and began to think about giving up climbing. He did not share his thoughts with anyone. ”At that time I had already done everything that could be done in the world of bouldering, competition and sport climbing. I was very young, so I began to think that a cycle was closing in my life and that I should start looking for other ways to express myself, other incentives. I wasn’t very clear about what the next step was. Then, I discovered a new way to climb, without a rope, over the sea and it opened my mind a lot: I found a motivation to recover my passion,” he explains over the phone in perfect Spanish.
He miracle It had a name: psychobloc, a term coined by the late Majorcan climber Miquel Riera, true father of a fascinating climbing modality. Today, Sharma is its best ambassador, someone determined to explain to the world why climbing over the sea is an experience of authentic freedom. A few weeks ago, a short video on Instagram went viral, driving the algorithms crazy: it was the announcement of the premiere of the documentary that captures Sharma’s struggle to climb the Black Pearl route, a line of enormous difficulty (it could be 9 a+) with a potential fall to the sea of 40 meters that the American living in Catalonia resolved in 2023.
“The psychobloc, as a whole, offers me absolute freedom when seeking my own challenges, something that classic sport climbing does not have. I come out of the water and climb according to my intuition, spontaneously, without rigid rules that force me to follow a fixed insurance line… it is something that leads me back to the motivation that led me to climb: finding my voice without Compare myself with anyone, or compete against anyone. Climbing allows you to be creative, it is not just a sport. Creating new routes allows me to explore my artistic side, imagine new routes, achieve something that transcends climbing: it is a very beautiful interaction with nature,” explains Sharma. At 43 years old, he claims to have learned to climb better than ever. He is also a father of two children and a successful businessman who manages a chain of three climbing walls located in Barcelona, Madrid and Gavá: Sharma Climbing. “I still consider myself a climbing professional, no matter how difficult it is to combine all facets of my life. The psychobloc was something totally marginal within the world of climbing, but it gave me the opportunity to ignite a passion that was running out and that in turn allowed me to reconnect with high-level sport climbing. In fact, I have been testing a route in Oliana for years that could be 9c (the highest difficulty ever achieved). Reinventing yourself is something fundamental in climbing because as people we change and our relationship with climbing must also change.
We depend a lot on the labels we put on ourselves: I am not just a climber and I have always had that internal dialogue, that questioning of what I really am: Am I a climber? Anything else? Do I still love what I do or do I do it out of inertia, to have a cliché that presents me to the rest as a climber?
To climb I need to fall in love with a project and when I finish it, I am left empty and think about whether or not it is worth continuing climbing, but I think it is good to have these concerns because without inspiration it is not worth it. We all have internal wars. It is worth rethinking what we do to discover if we are capable of leaving our comfort zone. In that sense, not going climbing could be a much more realistic expression for a climber than going out of inertia. Many are afraid to look further because they fear not knowing who they are if they stop climbing,” he reflects.
To chain Black Pearl, Sharma did unexpected things. In the morning he dropped his children off at school, drove to Barcelona airport, flew to Mallorca, tested the route and returned home in time to have dinner with his family. If you rope climb and fall on a section, you can try it right away. If you do it on a psychobloc route, this forces you to start again from the starting block, an exhausting process. “Climbing without a rope over the sea is more extreme than climbing with a rope. First, you have to know how to fall, but you also have to understand how you are going to get out of the water. If you don’t feel comfortable in the sea, it is very complicated: sometimes the waves prevent you from climbing, other times they let you manage it, but you need to know it. And you always have to have a lot of respect for the sea. Everyone knows the movie Free solo and it is undeniable how spectacular, simple and pure it is to see Alex Honnold climbing without a rope. In his case, any failure means killing himself and that is why almost no one climbs without a rope, but the beautiful thing about the psychobloc is that you can reach that level of freedom knowing that you can make a mistake without killing yourself. And that you can climb to your highest level. Furthermore, it is close to mountaineering in the sense that a component of commitment is added because you can get hurt if you fall badly and that is something that sports hardly has,” he observes.
Most climbers live enslaved by planned training and a millimeter diet. Sharma, in his golden age, used to eat a chorizo sandwich between each attempt at a route, a heresy. “And I’m still like that!” he says, laughing. “I have never been a typical athlete, with planned training, strict diet and so on: I see a path that I want to climb and if it inspires me I dedicate myself to it and from there comes the discipline to try until I achieve it. The process is usually long and painful, but if I achieve my goal I quickly wonder if I can do something even more difficult. I have a gift for climbing, but a greater talent for visualizing new routes and combining the two is something magical.” He could soon announce his best achievement on the sea.
