Giving a spot

After drawing as much sympathy out of friends and family as possible over the last two weeks and consuming my supply of prescription pain killers I’m left musing over injuries, climbing and giving a spot. I recently had a little operation on my ankle, removing some bone and hopefully allowing me to run again. Yay! As it continues to heal and and I get back to climbing and exercise, I thought I should take something away from the experience.

Firstly, painkillers aren’t fun. The night after the operation I didn’t sleep, I tossed and turned and scratched every inch of my body like a junkie. Bad reaction I guess.

Secondly, doing nothing isn’t fun! For someone who usually does something active every day, sitting with my foot up for a week was near to impossible. I’m fairly sure my girlfriend wanted to stab me in the eye, cabin fever sent me a little crazy. So, very stoked to have had my first climb again.

The original accident happened 3 years ago while bouldering up at The Docks. All it took was a slightly inattentive spotter and the problem to traverse away from mat and BOOM. I hit the deck and felt a searing pain through my left heel. Now I’m certainly not one to blame the spotter, in fact maybe he was spotting too much… If he had have been giving a Kiwi spot, perhaps I would have been OK.

This hilarious article discusses the Kiwi Spot. What are those spotters actually doing? Protecting your safety or extracting the force?