Alain Robert - Famous Rock and Urban Climber - "The French Spider-Man”

Alain Robert is a renowned rock climber and urban climber. Known as "the French Spider-Man” or "the Human Spider," Robert is famous for his free solo climbing, scaling skyscrapers using no climbing equipment except for a small bag of chalk and a pair of climbing shoes. Some of his most notable ascents include the Burj Khalifa, the Eiffel Tower, and the Sydney Opera House, as well as other of the world's tallest skyscrapers. He is also a motivational speaker and the author of With Bare Hands: The True Story of Alain Robert, the Real-life Spiderman.

THE CREATIVE PROCESS

I was wondering about your childhood, your beginnings, how you began on this life.

ALAIN ROBERT

When I was like seven or eight, I saw a movie inspired by a novel written by Henri Troyat, The Grieving Snow. It's a story of a plane coming from India that crashed near Montblanc, one of the highest mountains in Europe. And then two brothers who are guides and very good mountaineering climbers, they decide to undertake the ascent of the mountain to seek survivors inside the plane. And I just didn't know anything. I was young. I didn't even know that there were mountains, and I got really inspired by that. And I just told to myself that I want to become a climber. You have to understand something. When I was young, I was afraid of everything. I was lacking self-confidence and just wanted to be like my heroes Zorro, Robin Hood, or D'Artagnan, and I had to find a way. I had to work on it. And actually, this is what I did. This is the story of my life. I've never been really attracted by sports. Actually, I don't even like sports, although I became a climber. Mainly I was just trying to become courageous.

First of all, yes, I need to know what I will be climbing, whether it's on rocks or whether it's on buildings. And then there is physical preparation. And regarding the mindset, it's more something that became a bit automatic over the years because I have been free soloing for almost 50 years. So it is pretty much my whole life. So that means that for me, being mentally ready, it's kind of simple. It's almost always the same mental process, meaning, I can be afraid before an ascent, but I know myself actually very well. And I know that once I am starting to climb, I feel fine. I put my fear aside, and I'm just climbing.

Most people don't know that actually, my background is on rock. It's not on buildings. What I did on rocks free soloing is much more impressive than what I did on buildings.

THE CREATIVE PROCESS

In terms of the free solo climbing, how are you preparing? What are you thinking about the surfaces and weather, and just getting into that place to take on the impossible?

ROBERT

Most people don't know that actually, my background is on rock. It's not on buildings. What I did on rocks free soloing is much more impressive than what I did on buildings.

Climbing buildings came along the way. You know, when I did start free soloing hard grades, on rock up to 5:13d at the beginning of the nineties, then nobody else has ever climbed that kind of grade on rock free solo. And then I started to appear on climbing magazines pretty much all around the world. And then I got contacted by a watchmaker from Switzerland. And they asked me whether I would be willing to join their team. And I did. And they were making some movies about their different ambassadors. And the film director asked me if I could climb rocks but also buildings.

So at first, I just thought that it's a crazy idea. And then I went to New York, Dallas, Houston, and Chicago. And then along the way, I realized that actually there was a brand new field. It was also good because it came at a time that I was really pushing the envelope free soloing on rocks. And maybe it was only a matter of time before I may fall, and I may die. And suddenly climbing buildings was opening my life to something different. Much safer. I won't say much easier, but in a way, because it is safer, it is also easier because, you know, on buildings it'smore or less very repetitive. So if you can climb the first few meters, usually if you are strong enough, you can manage your power, and you can last for 1, 2, 3 hours, depending on how tall is the building.

For me, my mind is a kind of safety net. We human beings, unfortunately, are only putting safety on something that we can touch, a rope, a chain, a ladder, whatever. But safety, it can be something else. It can be your faith in yourself. If you meet a lawyer and you are telling him, I've been to court many times having to defend myself in front of a prosecutor charging me for reckless endangerment, and I explain to them when I'm climbing I know what I do, and I feel safe. And if I feel safe, it means that I am not endangering anyone else

We human beings, we are the problem. We are the ones who are putting a barrier on everything. We don't want to recognize that our human brain or mind is capable of doing something that we cannot put on paper. We cannot buy, like you buy some expensive insurances. And it's just a strong belief in myself. I can make it, and I will make it because I feel safe doing it. Actually, when you are at it, you are focused. Our survival instinct is really working very well.

I don't feel like falling. I don't feel like dying, and even if something happens like a close call. It doesn't really bother me that much. It's like, Okay, I nearly fell, but I didn't. Then the show must go on. And that's it. I'm not panicking. I'm just dealing with the obstacles one by one.

It just came like that. I made myself, I had no reference point because when I started to climb, nobody was climbing. There was no climbing gym. There were no clubs. I was not even living near the mountains. So I just had to find a way, and I found it.

It can be quite complicated to understand my mind. Even some very famous climbers who wrote books about the best climbers, they portrayed me, and they said that it's very hard to understand my mental universe.

It's the combination of everything. It's a combination of faith in the invisible, faith in myself as well. But, I guess, God, maybe also part of the answer. I prefer to speak about my worst accident because it was in 1982. I fell from 20 meters - 20 meters free fall, hands first. Head first, actually, but what touched the bottom of the cliff was my hands. So both hands, they completely exploded, tearing apart my skin, my flesh. I pretty much lost 45% of my blood. Both elbows also exploded because my forearms worked as a kind of shock breaker. At the bottom of the cliff, it was a slab of limestone. So, it can't get any harder than that. It's rock. And, fortunately, I bounced back and continued my fall. But it was a steep slope. So I got another 20, 30 meters. And I guess that all of that absorbed a lot of energy. It's a bit like if you compare somebody with a being in a car accident. If you're bumping onto a tree, usually you are dead because you are speeding and suddenly something is really stopping you. Nothing is bouncing back, so this is why it kills you. And the fact that my body did manage to bounce back on the limestone and then roll again on a steep slope most probably saved me. I was in a coma, but my coma was just one week. And then somehow I woke up.

Deep down I have no idea why I am still alive because normally you are not supposed to stay alive after such a fall, but obviously, I did. And doctors, they said that I was never going to be able to climb back, and actually I made them lie because I came back. It took me two years to be even better than I was before my accident. And although I was 66 percent disabled, I did manage to come back and become even much, much better than I had ever been before. I climbed in 1991 the hardest free solo route in the world. So that was something completely unthinkable because with such a broken body that also doesn't really make sense.

I think we should be able to help one another, but you know, it is not actually what is happening. Our societies are becoming more and more individualistic. We own this, we own that, and, you know, if you have land, you're going to put fences all around your land. If you have valuables, you are going to put it in a safety deposit box. So at the end of the day, I am glad because we live, we die and we don't bring, anything with us. So it shows the stupidity of our world. We absolutely want to own everything, as we are not owning anything, or only temporarily."

First of all, maybe being a little more concerned about global warming. But it's a huge task ahead because things are also - you know, I am living in Bali. It is the Developing World. So it means the quality of tuition is not, sometimes is not good enough. So kids, they are not really concerned, and they're totally unaware, and their parents are also unaware. So it means that in some parts of the globe, it'll take ages before people start to feel concerned. You know, we are having every year a day that is earlier and earlier, meaning that starting from July, we human beings have already used all the resources renewable human resources.

There is too much industry, too much of everything, actually. I remember when I was young, I was going to the - first of all, I was not even going to the supermarket because there wasn't one, there were only some small groceries. You could buy maybe there was one pack of chips. There was maybe two or three types of yogurts. Now there are 300 types of yogurts. There are 300 snacks. There is a balance in everything. So the more we are producing and the more we are destroying the planet. And if you want to stay alive, we need to protect the planet. That's why Red Indians, they call it Mother Earth.

Images courtesy of www.alainrobert.com

This interview was conducted by Mia Funk and Sydney Field with the participation of collaborating universities and students. Associate Interviews Producer on this podcast was Sydney Field. Digital Media Coordinators are Jacob A. Preisler and Megan Hegenbarth.

Mia Funk is an artist, interviewer and founder of The Creative Process & One Planet Podcast (Conversations about Climate Change & Environmental Solutions).