Speaker 1: We'd like to acknowledge that traditional custodians of the land
Speaker 1: on which this podcast was produced, the Galligel people of
Speaker 1: the Urination. We pay our respects to Elder's past and present.
Speaker 2: It's March twenty twenty four and we're in Manila. The
Speaker 2: man best known as the French Spider Man has just
Speaker 2: climbed forty seven stories of the GT International Tower. It's
Speaker 2: one of the highest skyscrapers in the Philippines, and Alan
Speaker 2: Robert has scaled the seven hundred and twelve foot building
Speaker 2: without any safety equipment, just a bag of chalk and
Speaker 2: a pair of climbing shoes. He's done it before and
Speaker 2: he'll do it again. With more than one hundred and
Speaker 2: fifty structures under his belt, including the Burj Khalifer, Eiffel
Speaker 2: Tower and the Empire State Building. In the climbing world,
Speaker 2: he's a rock star. More people watched his climb of
Speaker 2: the National Bank of Abu Dhabi than the opening ceremony
Speaker 2: of the Football World Cup Finals. He doesn't see this
Speaker 2: as a sport, but instead a life path. He prepares
Speaker 2: carefully before each ascent, calculating the risks and ensuring his
Speaker 2: mind is totally focused. He must get it right. I'm
Speaker 2: Att Middleton and this is Headgame today, the notorious French
Speaker 2: spider Man undertaking some of the riskiest and most dangerous
Speaker 2: challenges in the world and loving every second of it.
Speaker 2: I am extremely excited right now to be speaking with
Speaker 2: the famous French spider Man, Monsieur Alain Robert.
Speaker 3: Mons only like the Bali who the peer you know.
Speaker 3: I am live in Bali, which I've been leaving for
Speaker 3: eleven years.
Speaker 2: It's a pleasure to meet you, it really is. I'm
Speaker 2: a huge, huge fan myself. I've been following your stuff
Speaker 2: since they dot since you know you you brought the
Speaker 2: world to attention hanging off of structures and buildings. But
Speaker 2: let's get into it first and foremost, Allah, when did
Speaker 2: you start climbing? Did you start climbing the moment you
Speaker 2: know you left your mother's womb? Did you start? Were
Speaker 2: you like a kid that climbed all the time?
Speaker 3: Not exactly like that. Actually my story is more complicated.
Speaker 3: I born as a kid that was afraid of everything,
Speaker 3: that was shy. I was lacking of self confidence and
Speaker 3: I had a dream. I wanted to become courageous.
Speaker 4: So it took me. It took me quite some.
Speaker 3: Time, you know, because at some point I was just thinking,
Speaker 3: what is the meaning of a dream? Is it a
Speaker 3: thing that is just a dream and I forget about it?
Speaker 3: Or shall I try to realize my dream? And then
Speaker 3: I did choose to realize it. So later on I
Speaker 3: got inspired. I saw a movie. It's it's a story
Speaker 3: of the plane who crashed near the top of Mont Blanc.
Speaker 4: Two brothers.
Speaker 3: There are mountaineering climber climbers they are they are climbing
Speaker 3: a steep mountain. And then I've been I've been amazed
Speaker 3: by that, and I got really inspired by that.
Speaker 2: Can you remember your first climb? That the first time
Speaker 2: that you thought, do you know what, I'm actually quite
Speaker 2: good at this and I enjoy it.
Speaker 4: Well.
Speaker 3: Actually that that was even purely by accident, you know.
Speaker 4: I was at school.
Speaker 3: There was a too meeching teacher in a row, and
Speaker 3: then I went home. I realized that I didn't have
Speaker 3: my key. Back in the days, I was living on
Speaker 3: the seventh floor. And then, uh, looks the building was
Speaker 3: going to be easy, which it was, but I climbed
Speaker 3: the seventh story building.
Speaker 2: Oh wow, So that's where it all started. Nothing to
Speaker 2: do with climbing, just you didn't want to be left outside.
Speaker 4: Yeah, more more like by obligation. I did it. Yeah,
Speaker 4: but that was kind of simple.
Speaker 3: It's like going from one hand rails to the next,
Speaker 3: so nothing to do like climbing.
Speaker 4: You know.
Speaker 2: Did you climb that and think, oh I enjoyed that.
Speaker 2: I wasn't really scared And did you get a bit
Speaker 2: of a buz from it?
Speaker 3: Well, definitely, But more like back in the days we
Speaker 3: were talking about more than fifty years ago, I had
Speaker 3: no real option. I was living in France, in the
Speaker 3: middle of nowhere.
Speaker 4: Climbing was not existing.
Speaker 3: I couldn't join the Alpine Club because I was too
Speaker 3: too young.
Speaker 4: So I did start.
Speaker 3: By joining becoming a boy scout, and there I met
Speaker 3: someone that also wanted to climb. So otherwise maybe if
Speaker 3: I had never met that guy.
Speaker 4: I was never going to climb. Ever, I'm not sure.
Speaker 3: You know, sometimes life is taking some you know direction,
Speaker 3: which at the beginning it looks a bit funny.
Speaker 2: Yes, so that yeah, that's that sliding door moment, isn't it.
Speaker 2: So talk me through your first time that you sort
Speaker 2: of realized that this is what you wanted to do.
Speaker 2: You wanted to climb. You that's you know, you were
Speaker 2: passionate about it, you had a message behind it. When
Speaker 2: was the first time that you thought, do you know what,
Speaker 2: I'm really going to make this career?
Speaker 3: I pretty much knew it right away, Like maybe when
Speaker 3: I was twelve or thirteen, I didn't know that one
Speaker 3: day I would be able to make a living from sponsors.
Speaker 3: So I was just thinking more like becoming mountaineering guide.
Speaker 3: You know that kind of people who are making a living,
Speaker 3: they get clients to climb Mont Blanc or that kind
Speaker 3: of stuff.
Speaker 4: So more more more like that.
Speaker 3: And uh and of course when I started to become famous,
Speaker 3: then I've also realized that I could make a very
Speaker 3: good living by just climbing. So instead of teaching, that
Speaker 3: was really climbing for myself.
Speaker 2: That's quite quite a segue. So when did you first
Speaker 2: do your first solo climb?
Speaker 4: Oh? You know, when I was this boy scout.
Speaker 3: I was with a friend, Pierre actually his name, and
Speaker 3: sometimes we were climbing. We were free flowing, you know,
Speaker 3: easy stuff, but you know, uh, one next to each
Speaker 3: other and you know, just doing understand like that.
Speaker 2: Yes, from a young young age, you're always always climbing.
Speaker 2: I was quite similar. You know, when I was young,
Speaker 2: I was climbing around everywhere, climbing buildings, and you know
Speaker 2: I was I went on to do mountaineering, so it's
Speaker 2: a bit different than the military. So it's a bit
Speaker 2: different to your direction. But take me back to that
Speaker 2: first moment you caught the eyes of the world.
Speaker 3: The attention of the world was in ninety four and
Speaker 3: I climbing in Chicago the Accentia Tower. But actually before it,
Speaker 3: my real legacy is on rocks. What I did on
Speaker 3: rocks is far more impressive than what I did in Berlin.
Speaker 2: Took me through that. Alan took me through that.
Speaker 3: People are not really aware because it was before the internet.
Speaker 3: Back in the days that was like only a few
Speaker 3: TV stations, so not much access to the medias.
Speaker 4: Even Climbing Magazine.
Speaker 3: They wanted not to publish me because they just thought
Speaker 3: that what this guy is doing is too dangerous. We
Speaker 3: don't want to show a bad example to our readers,
Speaker 3: so we're only going to post like a small pictures,
Speaker 3: like really something very short. Things has completely shifted when
Speaker 3: Alex o'nald climbed the r Capitan. Yes, suddenly people have
Speaker 3: started to realize that it was possible to do a
Speaker 3: very hard stuff on rocks, which Alexi said it. He
Speaker 3: gave an interview for one of my documentary film in
Speaker 3: twenty twenty and he explained that actually.
Speaker 4: I am the dude, I am the og.
Speaker 3: I am the guy who was free following five firt
Speaker 3: India when he was still a baby. You know, it
Speaker 3: was in nineteen ninety one. But the problem is that,
Speaker 3: of course he knew about this part of my life
Speaker 3: because we met in a film festival in Poland, so
Speaker 3: we knew all about it. I got, I got a
Speaker 3: bigger water back in the days and everything. But the
Speaker 3: thing is most people they didn't really know. Only a
Speaker 3: very small small niche of people were fully aware about it.
Speaker 3: And this is not the way you are making a living.
Speaker 3: This is also not a way that people are ready
Speaker 3: knowing you.
Speaker 4: So it is more.
Speaker 3: Actually, when I shifted onto buildings, and that was the
Speaker 3: right time because what I was doing on rocks was
Speaker 3: so on the edge, so on the cutting edge that
Speaker 3: I couldn't go any further. I was climbing some days.
Speaker 3: I was at fifty to fifty. I was actually the
Speaker 3: first person in the world free following five Indee even Alex.
Speaker 3: He said, he still didn't climb a third Indee free solo.
Speaker 4: Wow.
Speaker 2: So that's why we're having this conversation and.
Speaker 3: We are talking about thirty three years back.
Speaker 2: Yeah, exactly, nineteen ninety one, nineteen ninety that ever you
Speaker 2: were free climbing, and like you said, you know, free climbing.
Speaker 2: There was no internet back then. There was no exposure.
Speaker 2: You know, it is a very very tiny small community
Speaker 2: that went out what climbing, and you know, there wasn't
Speaker 2: really a known sport, so there was there was no
Speaker 2: way of no one even realizing what you were capable
Speaker 2: of or you know, the outstanding climbs that you were
Speaker 2: doing and how dangerous they were, because there was no
Speaker 2: exposure to it exactly.
Speaker 3: And what was frustrating for me is when finally I
Speaker 3: got access to the mainstream medias when I started climbing buildings,
Speaker 3: I was explaining to the journalist that what I did
Speaker 3: on rocks was insane, and they said, no, on rocks,
Speaker 3: you know, there is a there is a bucket, there
Speaker 3: is other guys who did it, but on buildings only
Speaker 3: one and it's smooth, And.
Speaker 4: So I said it.
Speaker 3: I don't know how many times for like maybe a
Speaker 3: year or two, and then one day I even forgot
Speaker 3: myself that that was my background and that was my legacy.
Speaker 3: It it resurve faces in twenty seventeen when Alex climbed
Speaker 3: the El Capitan.
Speaker 4: Otherwise I have I have simply forgotten.
Speaker 2: It's been submerged by the structures that you've climbed. But
Speaker 2: free climbing, free soloing on rocks is extremely difficult if
Speaker 2: you get that wrong. You know, on buildings you can
Speaker 2: get quite I suppose quite a good handhold, quite a
Speaker 2: good hold. But on rocks sometimes people that realize the
Speaker 2: difficulties of being on your fingers, you know.
Speaker 3: Being oh exactly, this is what people don't realize.
Speaker 4: You know, Climbing on rocks is far more random.
Speaker 3: There is a there is there may be good pockets,
Speaker 3: and there may be you know, like only a single
Speaker 3: finger hole even on one cm pocket. Then suddenly you're
Speaker 3: having a Dino. So you know, by comparison, it's insane.
Speaker 3: As on buildings you can easily understand right away. You know,
Speaker 3: it takes like sometimes one minute and you know, okay,
Speaker 3: I can easily climb that building.
Speaker 2: So why did you transition from free climbing to buildings.
Speaker 2: Where did that come about? How did you make that decision?
Speaker 3: Because I knew that I was going too far away
Speaker 3: on rocks, I nearly fell. I don't know how many
Speaker 3: times I was climbing, you know, some of the routes
Speaker 3: that I climbed back in the days, I was at
Speaker 3: fifty to fifty, So it means that I was never
Speaker 3: sure that I would be finishing the day. And then,
Speaker 3: you know, when I got this proposal to climb and buildings,
Speaker 3: I at first I was perplexed because nobody has ever
Speaker 3: done that before. For these guys are not at least
Speaker 3: they were paying me an ice trip in the US,
Speaker 3: going to New York, Chicago, Dallas and Houston.
Speaker 4: So just thought, well, at the very worst.
Speaker 3: At least I am having ten days a holiday, and
Speaker 3: at the very best, maybe maybe maybe there is still
Speaker 3: something that I could do. And then once I was
Speaker 3: in town, then I realized that wow, there is stuff,
Speaker 3: There is actually a real potential, and I was made.
Speaker 3: I was overly excited. But you know the problem is
Speaker 3: these people they wanted to make it officially, you know, approved,
Speaker 3: but it took them two months before they came back
Speaker 3: to me and they said we tried very hard, you know,
Speaker 3: and all of the buildings that you have spotted, and
Speaker 3: you told us that you could climb it, we cannot
Speaker 3: get a new approval. Then we said, we spoke with
Speaker 3: some lawyers. It seems that it's not a big crime.
Speaker 3: And at the very worst you could learn in jail,
Speaker 3: maybe like up to two weeks, but nothing really serious.
Speaker 4: And then and then I.
Speaker 3: Decided, okay, let's go for it.
Speaker 2: Wow, so you took the opportunity. You thought, do you
Speaker 2: know what, I can travel around the US, I can
Speaker 2: do some cool stuff. Were you excited when they told
Speaker 2: you that you could climb? And maybe maybe you know
Speaker 2: you have got no permits to climb, but climb anyway,
Speaker 2: because if you do, the worst that can happen is
Speaker 2: that you spend a couple of days in prison. Did
Speaker 2: that Did that excite you?
Speaker 4: Yeah?
Speaker 3: Yeah? Well, at the same times, it scires me a
Speaker 3: lot because I was afraid that maybe you know, some
Speaker 3: I don't know, some secuity guys or cups, they may
Speaker 3: try to shoot me. So, you know, I had kind
Speaker 3: of a funny thought on my mind, you know, like
Speaker 3: not being sure that somehow I was very frailed. I
Speaker 3: really wanted to do it. It looks like completely insane.
Speaker 4: You know.
Speaker 3: You get to understand that I had been as far
Speaker 3: as I could go on rocks, So for me, it
Speaker 3: was the perfect transition. It was perfect. Suddenly, you know,
Speaker 3: I was discovering something new. I was discovering, Uh, traveling
Speaker 3: the whole world, meeting people, becoming famous, which is not bad,
Speaker 3: uh going to prison. You know, it was just like
Speaker 3: it was suddenly offering me, you know, a full spectrum
Speaker 3: of everything. And and to be honest with you, I
Speaker 3: really loved it. Now now I started, you know, to
Speaker 3: get you know, I came back on rocks. I am
Speaker 3: no longer performance climber, so I am more like outsider.
Speaker 3: Before I was at my I was at my top,
Speaker 3: so I wanted to push the envelope a bit further
Speaker 3: all the time. But now I have no more ambition,
Speaker 3: only climbing back on rock free solo. And for me,
Speaker 3: it's already insane.
Speaker 2: You had a big accident back in nineteen eighty two,
Speaker 2: was it?
Speaker 3: I fell from twenty meters head first and at the
Speaker 3: bottom of the cliff. It was a limestone slab, so
Speaker 3: meaning both hands they exploded. You can see the shape
Speaker 3: on my hand Wow, that was from the accident. I
Speaker 3: have inherited of a sixty six percent disability mainly located
Speaker 3: on my fingers, on my wrist, on my forearms, on
Speaker 3: my elbows.
Speaker 2: You achieved everything after with those injuries.
Speaker 4: Oh yeah, yeah, meaning what is insane?
Speaker 3: It's nine years later I was the first person in
Speaker 3: the world free following a five thirty in year.
Speaker 2: That is phenomenal, that is, and that's all in free
Speaker 2: solo climbing. See that's what I mean. You had such
Speaker 2: a credible and such an honorable and such a successful
Speaker 2: free climbing career which then has completely disappeared really because
Speaker 2: of your building climate.
Speaker 3: Completely overshadowed all I have done that was insane. And
Speaker 3: of course when I started to move back onto social media,
Speaker 3: then I have understood that I was going to use
Speaker 3: it because I had still plenty of all the footages,
Speaker 3: and then I have started, you know, step by step,
Speaker 3: and now pretty much everyone knows that what I did
Speaker 3: on rocks, especially because Alex Honold he gave a like
Speaker 3: ten minutes interview and he's explaining a lot of things.
Speaker 3: He's explaining, uh that I was in advance uh from
Speaker 3: my time, like what what I was doing so he's
Speaker 3: explaining all of that, and that has helped me a lot.
Speaker 3: You know, now, a lot of people that are like, wow,
Speaker 3: you are you are the you are the the the
Speaker 3: eu og you are you know, you are the number one.
Speaker 4: You are this are that?
Speaker 3: So I don't care because there is no competition in
Speaker 3: between me a lex or Or. There was like only
Speaker 3: a couple of guys who climb very difficult routes in
Speaker 3: the whole world. It's like, yeah, we are, we are,
Speaker 3: we are like five or six.
Speaker 2: That's amazing, That's absolutely amazing. So climbing there's always been
Speaker 2: part of your in your DNA has always been part
Speaker 2: of you. And when you went over to climb structures,
Speaker 2: it was more the opportunity, the excitement. Now talk me
Speaker 2: through the first building that you climbed.
Speaker 4: That that wasn't that was insane.
Speaker 3: Because uh I you know, I remember because on that
Speaker 3: day the film director, he knew that I was going
Speaker 3: to do something illegal, so they put me in a
Speaker 3: nice five star hotel, maybe thinking that it could be
Speaker 3: his last night something like that kind of last yeah,
Speaker 3: he's last dinner. Yeah then, and and I remember because
Speaker 3: I kept on thinking, you know about the potential consequences,
Speaker 3: but also whether I would be capable to climb that
Speaker 3: building or not, because I had zero idea. You know,
Speaker 3: back in the days, this guy, the film director said,
Speaker 3: you cannot go to the building, you cannot touch it,
Speaker 3: you cannot try it, so meaning it's just like, Okay,
Speaker 3: I saw it, that's all I know. So and also
Speaker 3: telling me, oh, in Chicago, you need to be very
Speaker 3: fast on the first sixty meters because they are using
Speaker 3: this a very tall ladder the firefighter. So it's just
Speaker 3: like so on my mind, I was thinking, I have
Speaker 3: never climbed the fucking building in my life. I didn't
Speaker 3: even check that building, and I need to get sure
Speaker 3: that within a three or four minutes, I have already
Speaker 3: climbed the sixteen meters. And then I was thinking, on
Speaker 3: the top of it, there will be cops, they may
Speaker 3: try to shoot me. Or then the next day that
Speaker 3: we plan, Okay, you go to the building at eight
Speaker 3: am and everything. But he called me in the morning
Speaker 3: and he said, we're having a bad news. There is
Speaker 3: a marathon all around the building and this area it's
Speaker 3: completely locked, is full of cops and everything. So I
Speaker 3: had to wait until two pm. So then the more
Speaker 3: I was waiting, the more I was getting anxious and nervous. Finally,
Speaker 3: at clock he called me. He said, it's fine, a line,
Speaker 3: be ready, you know, cops now they are gone and everything.
Speaker 4: Thirty minutes later, what's happened? It started to rain again again. Again.
Speaker 3: He called me and he said, alah, you know, we
Speaker 3: are really sorry.
Speaker 4: You need you need to postpone this sand because now
Speaker 4: it's rains.
Speaker 3: So I waited again like one hour, and then you
Speaker 3: called me back and he said, well, now it's sunny again.
Speaker 4: We went to the building.
Speaker 3: It's completely dry and line, you know, be ready, prepare,
Speaker 3: you're climbing shoes, take a taxi and ask your friend
Speaker 3: Alexis with the photographer to drop you. And then uh,
Speaker 3: finally I was. I was at it and uh, and
Speaker 3: right away I found it insane, except that I was
Speaker 3: really really tired because the way I managed to climb
Speaker 3: the first six meters was was really was completely wrong. Actually,
Speaker 3: now if I climb a building, I just need to
Speaker 3: be fast for the first two meters and not even
Speaker 3: if there is nobody here, I don't even need to rush.
Speaker 4: Wow.
Speaker 3: But I had so much on my mind that I
Speaker 3: nearly had to run on the building for sixty meters.
Speaker 3: That finally, by the time I have climbed the sixty meters,
Speaker 3: I was completely exhausted.
Speaker 4: I was diidrated because.
Speaker 3: Those were windows, mirror and with the sun and reflection
Speaker 3: that I was really really, really dead.
Speaker 2: Wow, So you had the This must have been absolutely crazy,
Speaker 2: because I can imagine once you get going, it's you've
Speaker 2: got no preparation, just visuals. You can't look at the building,
Speaker 2: you can't figure it out. You literally have to get
Speaker 2: on there and go sixty meters. So you hit sixty
Speaker 2: meters and and what you what's going through your heads?
Speaker 2: What do you think at this stage? You think, well,
Speaker 2: I can slow down a bit now or did you
Speaker 2: just go just keep going, just keep going no more more?
Speaker 3: Like I was into the I was into into that
Speaker 3: race with the time and I don't even know. It's
Speaker 3: like you are no longer thinking on your own you
Speaker 3: you are you are thinking, uh, based on what this
Speaker 3: film director.
Speaker 4: You know.
Speaker 3: The The problem is, once you have taken a certain pace,
Speaker 3: it's difficult to change it. It's not so simple suddenly,
Speaker 3: you know, like slowing down, reducing your speed. It doesn't
Speaker 3: happen like that. It is happening for sure, because actually
Speaker 3: your your your your physical stamina is decreasing. Then at
Speaker 3: the same time your speed is also decreasing. But otherwise
Speaker 3: it's like you are too much. It's like a little
Speaker 3: bit like if before it I have been kind of
Speaker 3: brainwashed and I had been computerized to climb this building
Speaker 3: that fast.
Speaker 2: Do you have any distractions was you're climbing. Did you
Speaker 2: know were the police around? Could you hear sirens? Could
Speaker 2: you was there any distractions where you thought to yourself, Oh, no,
Speaker 2: just I've got to I've got to ignore these and
Speaker 2: just concentrate on the climb and get to the top.
Speaker 2: You know, that might that might.
Speaker 3: Cause me to fool No, because I actually that that
Speaker 3: was different. You know, Let's say that I was really
Speaker 3: focused on my targets or priority, this is to stay alive,
Speaker 3: and then I was more on survival instinct mode. So yes,
Speaker 3: I could hear sirens, I could I could hear cops.
Speaker 3: I could hear some people screaming at the bottom, so
Speaker 3: some people, you know, gathering at the bottom of the buildings.
Speaker 3: But I didn't I didn't really care. I meaning that
Speaker 3: was not important. It's more like, you know, when you
Speaker 3: go to the supermarket, than is music as a background,
Speaker 3: and then you go to the supermarket not for listening music,
Speaker 3: but to buy some food.
Speaker 4: May I was climbing that building.
Speaker 3: My mission was to climb the building, was not about
Speaker 3: listening and watching what was happening around me. So I
Speaker 3: was really concentrated on my target.
Speaker 2: Yeah, you're super super focused. I suppose you can't afford
Speaker 2: not to be focused when you're climbing something like that,
Speaker 2: because only one mistake, and you.
Speaker 3: This is you know, every day I am having this
Speaker 3: question one hundred times, and every day I am replying
Speaker 3: because people they don't understand. They are thinking that I
Speaker 3: don't feel fear, and I'm explaining I am the same
Speaker 3: as any other human being. I do feel fear. But
Speaker 3: the difference I am mastering my fear. When I am
Speaker 3: doing something which my life is at stake, I can
Speaker 3: put my fear.
Speaker 4: Aside because I can't.
Speaker 3: I can't afford to be distracted by thinking that I
Speaker 3: may fall and I may die.
Speaker 4: You know. All the more, when I.
Speaker 3: Was restollowing those Third India on rocks, I was so
Speaker 3: on the edge then I was absolute clear, no space
Speaker 3: for any single fear because I was dealing with some
Speaker 3: movements so precise, so interasing clear difficult. Then nothing was interfering. Yes,
Speaker 3: LA focused on that exactly, exactly, laser focused.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and I understand that in the military when I
Speaker 2: used to, you know, do what I do, had to
Speaker 2: be laser focused on the job at hand because if
Speaker 2: not one mistake, one error, and you know, you'd be gone.
Speaker 2: So you have to stay laser focused in those moments
Speaker 2: because it's a matter of life or death if you've
Speaker 2: got to get it right. Going back to the climb
Speaker 2: in Chicago, you get to the top, you get arrested.
Speaker 2: Do you get a buzz after that? Do you think
Speaker 2: to yourself, right, this is what I want to do now,
Speaker 2: I just want to go around the world. If the
Speaker 2: people are sponsoring me, if people are paying for me
Speaker 2: to do this, I get a buzz off of it.
Speaker 2: This is what I want to do. This is what
Speaker 2: I'm going to do.
Speaker 4: I was still not at it.
Speaker 3: Actually, I have only joined the team Sector No Limits.
Speaker 4: You know, it's a team of the athletes.
Speaker 3: Like some they are they are they are swimming, so Scooba, diving, well,
Speaker 3: all that kind of stuff. And they were making a
Speaker 3: documentary film on all of the athletes. So for me,
Speaker 3: it was free swallowing. But except that the film director
Speaker 3: he came with the idea that actually, this guy he
Speaker 3: could climb some some rocks in Utah, some sandstone looks
Speaker 3: like a bit like like like a building. And suddenly, uh,
Speaker 3: along the way, he's falling asleep, and suddenly in his
Speaker 3: image on those rock towers, he's shifting onto a building.
Speaker 4: So that that was the old That was the old idea.
Speaker 3: So so you're you're seeing me climbing something like a
Speaker 3: Mozzy's Tower in Utah.
Speaker 4: So it's like it.
Speaker 3: Looks like nearly like like a World Red Center, and
Speaker 3: then suddenly we are shifting on something very similar, except
Speaker 3: that you are in the in the city, you can
Speaker 3: drink whenever, and you're not like in the middle of
Speaker 3: the desert.
Speaker 2: And you know, and when when did you first realize
Speaker 2: that you you had captured the world's attention, that you
Speaker 2: were a global celebrity, that people loved watching you climb,
Speaker 2: people supported your climbing, and you were you were shifted
Speaker 2: into the limelight and into fame. When did you realize
Speaker 2: that moment happened in.
Speaker 3: Ninety four because for doing this, for doing this film,
Speaker 3: I had to climb four different buildings, so we did
Speaker 3: within a short period of time, well not that short,
Speaker 3: but like maybe half here, I climbed those four buildings,
Speaker 3: and then I realized that actually I started to get
Speaker 3: demons for interviews every day from all over the world
Speaker 3: and everything. So then I realized, and then I started
Speaker 3: to get demands from people willing to sponsor me, to
Speaker 3: pay me. So, you know, suddenly I was in a
Speaker 3: complete different world when I was free. Following five third indeed,
Speaker 3: I could get a very small, tiny little sponsor paying
Speaker 3: me not much, giving me a yeah, free climbing shoes
Speaker 3: and all that stuff. And suddenly for me, it's just
Speaker 3: like I could make a fortune and still climbing, meaning
Speaker 3: still doing something that I loved doing.
Speaker 4: So that was like kind of insane.
Speaker 3: And to be honest with you, I have known celebrity
Speaker 3: in some places in the world that you can't even imagine,
Speaker 3: you know. I remember in ninety six when I went
Speaker 3: to Rio Degenero. I had been previously three times on
Speaker 3: Fantastico Fantastical pretty much any single Brasilian watching it on
Speaker 3: So when I arrived at the airport in.
Speaker 4: Rio, everybody was knowing me. I was passing back.
Speaker 3: There was buses with a full of kids ambrenare.
Speaker 4: I didn't know.
Speaker 3: It's just like suddenly over night, you know, I climb
Speaker 3: in Abuddha Bie in Dubai with more than hundred a
Speaker 3: thousands people looking at me climbing. It's like it's like
Speaker 3: a meat Jagger concert. At the bottom, they're like watching
Speaker 3: at you.
Speaker 2: That's amazing, man, How did that make you feel?
Speaker 4: Well?
Speaker 3: It's the same, you know, at the same time when
Speaker 3: I'm climbing, all the more if it's difficult. If it's
Speaker 3: not difficult, I can make a show a bit. Now
Speaker 3: I have started to understand that when when the crowd
Speaker 3: is shouting, you know, I can hear that they are
Speaker 3: cheering me up because you know, all all the stuff
Speaker 3: I did for sample in the UAE or in Katar,
Speaker 3: I did it officially, So it means that that's why
Speaker 3: they're allowing more than hundred thousand people to come on
Speaker 3: the spot, because it is regimented by like five hundred cups.
Speaker 3: So I got also this kind of stuff in China.
Speaker 3: In China having like seven hundred the militaries taking care
Speaker 3: of me with a lot of cops and being sure
Speaker 3: that they could manage all of the people. So those
Speaker 3: are things that I have been living in Kazakhstan. I
Speaker 3: have been living in Katar and many times in Dubai,
Speaker 3: many times in a budha b in Brazil, in Caracas,
Speaker 3: you know, in many countries, even in Moscow. In Moscow,
Speaker 3: because that was during the Moscow Anniversary in twenty eleven,
Speaker 3: they were doing the biggest video mapping and a burning.
Speaker 3: I was climbing the Moscow University at night. There was
Speaker 3: a twenty three minute films that cost fifteen million. There
Speaker 3: was Vladimir Putin that was medve F and there was
Speaker 3: eight hundred thousand people.
Speaker 2: Wow, that is phenomenal.
Speaker 4: Seeing a crowd that huge.
Speaker 3: I am still having pictures sometimes I am posting it
Speaker 3: because it's just like I still need to scratch my head. Yeah,
Speaker 3: pinch yourself now nowadays, Yeah, my career is more like backwards.
Speaker 3: But however, I am still climbing. I am on the
Speaker 3: project of a big film, a bit like the one
Speaker 3: like a free solo, you know, something really with money
Speaker 3: and you know, and also you know the new generation
Speaker 3: of material because you know, now when I'm watching all
Speaker 3: the difficult buildings, I did twenty five years ago. The
Speaker 3: way the way they get film was ship because the
Speaker 3: cameras were bad. The angles were wrong because they were
Speaker 3: at the bottom. As the good angle they are from above.
Speaker 3: So it has to be drawn or it has to
Speaker 3: be good.
Speaker 2: Yeah, the angles, the long lenses, everything exactly.
Speaker 3: So you know, it's like even in this department, the
Speaker 3: level I shifted, like, you know, it looks like what
Speaker 3: I was doing thirty years ago looks like well, like
Speaker 3: Charlie chapin a movie. And what you are doing now,
Speaker 3: it's a mission impossible.
Speaker 2: It's completely different.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 2: And and what I love about you and what you've
Speaker 2: done for this community and what you've done for globally
Speaker 2: is you've broken the mold when it's come when it
Speaker 2: comes to climbing buildings, because at first it was highly illegal.
Speaker 2: It had to be a secret operation. You know, you
Speaker 2: had to go down at the bottom, said at first,
Speaker 2: wait for the rain, wait for the security to go,
Speaker 2: then climb. And you broke that mold where it became accessible.
Speaker 2: People were granting you and you only permission to climb
Speaker 2: this building, you know, an audience and an escort, a
Speaker 2: police escort. You completely shattered the mold. When it came
Speaker 2: to something being highly illegal, to something being celebrated and
Speaker 2: put on the map and almost breaking down rules and
Speaker 2: regulations because of what you achieved. How did that? How
Speaker 2: does that make you feel? Now that you can you
Speaker 2: can go wherever you want basically and go I want
Speaker 2: to climb that structure. Anyone else they'll be like, no,
Speaker 2: mister Allah, go ahead, you climb it. That's phenomenal, that's
Speaker 2: really good.
Speaker 4: It's interesting.
Speaker 3: You know that I am in the English school books
Speaker 3: for the primary school.
Speaker 4: There is my story all over the world. People they are.
Speaker 3: Learning because sometimes says, there is a lot of haters
Speaker 3: and social medias and they are wishing me deaf. They
Speaker 3: are you know, I got it again this morning. So
Speaker 3: I am blocking people, but it's annoying. But sometimes I'm responding.
Speaker 3: I am saying, well, you know that maybe because most likely,
Speaker 3: if you're having kids, they are learning my story at
Speaker 3: school because I am in their school books.
Speaker 4: And whether you whether you like it or not.
Speaker 2: I'm there. Maybe you like you or not, your children
Speaker 2: are going to be reading about it.
Speaker 3: I am not such a bad example. I've been invited
Speaker 3: to the Elize Palace. I have been invited by the
Speaker 3: King and the Queen and Malaysia, the Sheek Mahammad in
Speaker 3: Dubai and plenty of people. I gave talks in Oxford,
Speaker 3: I gave talks in Cambridge. I am having a statue
Speaker 3: in China. I am featured in the book among the
Speaker 3: Andred Greaterst Sport People from Old Time.
Speaker 4: I wrote many books.
Speaker 2: You know, yeah, but you push. You are the epitome
Speaker 2: of pushing human capability and performance. You know, what is
Speaker 2: there not to celebrate about that? It is? You know,
Speaker 2: you talk about emotional intelligence, psychological resilience, physical robustness, capability.
Speaker 2: Why wouldn't you push that out? Why there's such a
Speaker 2: positive message in what you do? And listen to the
Speaker 2: haters of the haters unfortunately that's a generational thing that
Speaker 2: you get on social media.
Speaker 4: Ignore them.
Speaker 2: But when it comes to human capability and performance, you
Speaker 2: are showing the world that we are a phenomenal, phenomenal
Speaker 2: species and that if you put your mind to things
Speaker 2: and you focus on things, you can achieve the impossible,
Speaker 2: which is absolutely phenomenal. And what I love about you
Speaker 2: as well is that you recently climbed with your son.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, we did it like pretty much two years
Speaker 3: back and that now this coming October.
Speaker 4: He wants to do another one with me.
Speaker 2: And what did you climb with him?
Speaker 3: Ah, there was an easy belding in a Barcelona We
Speaker 3: climbed glorious tower. But you know, he has never climbed
Speaker 3: before and more than forty four meters. But the problem
Speaker 3: is that he didn't know how to manage his muscles
Speaker 3: so othough he's built like Bruce Lee or small translegger,
Speaker 3: he was completely wasted. I was telling him because we
Speaker 3: were close to each other, and I was telling him, Look, Julian,
Speaker 3: actually me, I am using maybe five percent of my
Speaker 3: physical capacity and you you are using ninety five percent.
Speaker 3: It took him, It took him ten days to recover.
Speaker 3: Ten days.
Speaker 4: And he's a guy.
Speaker 3: He used to be a parashutist. He's good in any
Speaker 3: kind of sports. But the thing is, you know, when
Speaker 3: you are confronted with more than one of the meters
Speaker 3: and you have never climbed before.
Speaker 4: Then I guess the way you are.
Speaker 3: You are you are grabbing your hords, you are pulling
Speaker 3: far too.
Speaker 2: Much, you are exhausting yourself exactly, you're using your legs correctly, exactly.
Speaker 3: You're so afraid that you may for then then you
Speaker 3: want to be absolutely sure. So you're you're you are
Speaker 3: giving like maybe one orndd kg, which at the end
Speaker 3: of the day maybe two kg is enough.
Speaker 2: But of course, and again you know, there's nothing like
Speaker 2: he's obviously got the best, the best teacher, the best
Speaker 2: mentor because when it comes to experience like that, it
Speaker 2: is it's about knowing your body. It's about knowing how
Speaker 2: to control your emotions and to use them to your advantage.
Speaker 2: Like you said, putting yourself up, that's going to exhaust you.
Speaker 2: If you keep doing that, you've got to just you know,
Speaker 2: know what you're doing, use all your bodies, you know,
Speaker 2: try and try and conserve the energty to get up
Speaker 2: to the top. And I've absolutely loved chatting with you.
Speaker 2: It's been absolutely phenomenal. You are, like I said, the
Speaker 2: epitome of human capability and performance. And what is next
Speaker 2: for you? What's happening now?
Speaker 4: Next for me? You know?
Speaker 3: Now I am redoing my visa, so it's gonna take
Speaker 3: like another two months. It's going to be a permanent
Speaker 3: resident visa in Indonesia. Then I will be honest traveling
Speaker 3: in October. There would be the release of my new book.
Speaker 3: I'll be climbing as well in Europe. I'll be climbing
Speaker 3: on rocks in Verdon and also we start working on
Speaker 3: a big film.
Speaker 2: Wow, I can't wait. It's been absolutely phenomenal talking to you,
Speaker 2: my man. I love your energy. You're one of these
Speaker 2: rare people that I can feel your energy through the screen.
Speaker 2: You know, it's great, mate. Thank you so much for
Speaker 2: coming on head Game and listen. I look forward to
Speaker 2: reading your new book and look forward especially to the
Speaker 2: new film that's coming out.
Speaker 4: Thank you mate, Thanks a lot. That was a great pleasure.
Speaker 2: Thank you so much for joining me on Headgame. If
Speaker 2: you enjoyed this episode, make sure you're subscribed so you
Speaker 2: don't miss any of our incredible stories and leave me
Speaker 2: a review wherever you're listening. I'm Matt Middleton. Catch you
Speaker 2: again next time.