In reply to sean0409: I went on one of his workshops years ago and wrote an article about it. Sorry for the weird format..
Scene: The Fox House car park.
Dramatis personae: A motley
cast of climbers.
The play? A hybrid of Six
Characters in Search of an
Author and Waiting for Godot,
entitled Waiting for Johnny.
We’ve all sent off our cheques
and our questionnaires with
answers to ‘Your Favourite
Route’, ‘Your Favourite Move’
and ‘What do you hope to learn
from the session?’ Now we await
the maestro to cast and direct us.
Our thoughts glide from the
external question ‘Where’s
Johnny?’ to the internal question
‘Why are we here?’
Some have heard good things
about his indoor wall workshops,
others want to improve their
grade. Another reason we’re
here is just to climb alongside
one of the heroes of British
climbing. You’re an artist:
Wouldn’t you want to see Picasso
at work? You’re a Grand Prix
enthusiast: Wouldn’t you love a
day at the racetrack with
Schumacher? I suspect another
reason we’re here is to compare
the man with the myth. The myth
is powerful: JD the Zen master
of pure climbing – the Galahad
rescuing us from the powermerchants
crimping away at their
fingerboards – the exemplar of
Huizinga’s ‘primordial quality of
play’.
Time ticks on. Where’s Johnny?
My gaze shifts from the road’s
horizon to the sky and the trees. I
half expect Johnny to parachute
in or leap from the treetops
wearing a flying squirrel zip-up
suit. But, no, he’s not that
eccentric. Here’s Johnny. A
shaven-head pops out of a wounddown
car window and asks
disarmingly, ‘Been waiting long?
Annoying, isn’t it? Anyone fancy
a cup of tea?’ We follow the Pied
Piper to Grindleford Café.
Johnny stops his car and emerges
holding a clipboard – ‘My
attempt at professionalism’, he
jokes. We kneel before a
scrawled mandala. Johnny’s
providing an explanation at
subliminal speed. Apparently the
climber’s consciousness should be
like that of a leaf. The sense of
self should disappear. I flippantly
ask him if one should retain
sufficient sense of self to claim
new routes. I think Johnny’s
already cast me in the role of
sceptic.
We walk to the café. I’m
‘redeeming’ myself by regaling
JD with the weird Zen
experience I had climbing alone
at a local quarry; a loss of selfawareness
and a feeling of total
harmony with the rock. He seems
interested in this, as though I’ve
had a sighting of a fabled
creature. Over a cup of tea, JD
explains that he’s had a heavy
night, that he’s not really in the
mood for climbing, he’d rather be
watching the Grand Prix
qualifier, and that he’s strained
his shoulder attempting a onehanded
ascent of Master’s Edge.
Then he’s babbling away about
his idea of a board game for
climbers (something about a
pulsating planet, a character
called Io, and a 3-D board). As
he free associates, his hands and
arms accompany his ideas with
climbing gestures. We strain with
rapt attention to distil and
capture the coded wisdom. Now
we’re turning Grindleford Café
into the set of West Side Story.
First Johnny, then all of us, jump
and pirouette against the café
wall, leap across gaps, and hop
on one leg (all under the
bemused gazes of tourists and
cyclists). First lesson (about
balance, weight transfer and
dynamic movement) over, we
head for Lawrencefield.
Thankfully, someone’s brought a
rope, because Johnny suggests we set
up a troprope on the Gingerbread Slab. The hot,
midge-ridden afternoon passes in
a series of exercises – the script
for which JD seems to be writing
as he goes along. Some of us are
climbing one-handed, then nohanded
up the slab; some are
building precarious towers of
pebbles; and others are
attempting balancy boulder
problems that Johnny has
identified. In between, we’re
chatting to Johnny about his
climbing experiences, and
offering him food and drink. He’s
charming and enthusiastic, and
concerned to know what we all
want to do or learn. I ask him if
he can show me how to dyno.
Then Johnny’s climbing the slab
with no hands. Picture a giant
rabbit hopping from one leg to
another, performing subtle
switches of body weight, before
failing on some outrageous nohands
dyno. We gasp and laugh
at this bravura exhibition. One
chap from another group of
climbers asks with acerbic
humour, ‘And you’re paying to
watch him do this?’
Drizzle descends in the late
afternoon, we decamp to some
blank wall that JD once toproped.
Johnny’s buzzing with
remembered excitement as he
lists the sequence of moves and
holds. The day ends in the early
evening under the Embankment
at Millstone. Johnny’s pointing
out routes and answering our
questions, but I sense he’s
becoming restless. He’s given of
himself all day and now wants to
move on to new toys. For the first
time I catch a glimpse of another
aspect of the man; the playful,
ebullient, mercurial spirit
mutates into a more pensive,
darker, restless persona. JD
cadges a roll-up from some
acquaintances. Then we walk
back to the car park and the
curtain falls on our Climbing with
Johnny Dawes workshop. I bid
farewell to the others. As we say
goodbye, our eyes and faces seem
to say ‘That was... interesting.’
As I drive back, classical music
soaring amidst the beauty of the
Peak District, I reflect on what
I’d learnt. I’d asked JD about
what certain exercises were
teaching us. He found the
question rather mystifying, and
simply asked in return, ‘What do
YOU think it’s teaching you?’ As
a teacher myself, I found the
absence of structure, aims and
objectives slightly disconcerting.
JD wasn’t the clearest expounder
of his ‘philosophy’. Or maybe it
was his ideas that were fuzzy?
Maybe geniuses don’t make the
best teachers? Perhaps they
don’t know how they do what
they do, and therefore can’t
communicate it? Or are they
reluctant to analyse their gift for
fear it might desert them ? And
yet, everyone on the workshop
had expanded his or her horizon
of possibility; all had gained some
new personal climbing wisdom.
By observing JD in action – and
by responding to his enthusiasm –
we had deconstructed mental and
physical barriers. We had learnt
to see our bodies and the rock
afresh. As Carlyle wrote of Great
Men, ‘You will not grudge to
wander in such a neighbourhood
for a while.’ Being in the
company of a great climber
unleashes some trapped potential
within lesser climbers. So much
so, that the next time I climbed
I’d catch myself thinking – as I
did some stylish move – “Johnny
would have done it like that.” To
cap it all, I leapt like a circus
acrobat onto a foothold on a
blank slab, landed it, shifted my
body position, balanced, and
stood up. Now, Johnny would
have been proud of that! Bugger
never did show me how to dyno
(with hands), though.
