New and Experienced Climbers Over 50 #16

Brandt Allen wrote:

Lori - A Sumo Basho is a Sumo Tournament, held every other month (odd numbered months) in Japan. I am a big fan and watch it on the NHK World channel. It lasts for 15 days with the Emperor's Cup going to the champ. We are currently at day 11. Terunofuji is in the lead with an undefeated 11-0 record, with two others in second place at 9-2. Starting to get very exciting as we near the end of the tourney.

I’m coming right over.

EDIT:  Terrible time to be locked out.  

Ok, where the hell are the English subtitles? Tony and I can’t tell what’s going on.  Why do the wrestlers  beat their belts?  Why do they throw rice?  What are the sticks on their belts?  

Why do they start some challenges from a standing start.  The referee looks like a Noh actor.  What’s his role?

Tony and I are home today cooking a pork butt in the new smoker.  Watching Japanese tv. Nice afternoon. 

Lori - if you have Directv it's on  channel 322 (NHK World). Look for Grand Sumo Highlights. It's an acquired taste, most matches are over in a few seconds. Today's bombshell: Terunofuji looked like he easily won his match, but after viewing the replay, he was shown to have grabbed his opponents topknot and was given his first loss! Stay tuned!

For those with more pedestrian taste, IFSC bouldering comps in Salt Lake City this weekend. Should be available on YouTube, the Olympic Channel, or both.

I cannot conceive of a 'bigger' contrast that the Sumo 'body type' and that of the 'ideal' climber. There must be an attraction of opposites going on here.

Carry on.

I just like the outfits

Guy Keesee wrote:

Carl- keep it up. Go and work climbs way above your norm- dare I say 28!- get spanked. When you try your usual grade it might seem EZ. 

Thanks Guy. My norm is about 21, I haven't really tried anything harder than that for a few years now. The hardest grade I've climbed ever is 23, so the 24 and 25 I've been working are well above my norm. 

I'll get back to it as soon as I get my elbow bursitis sorted. I've been doing my research and am shying away from cortisone but aspiration (drawing the fluid out) might be the go. I'm booked in for an x-ray and an ultrasound on Monday. Made the appt Tuesday, and as my doctor "bulk bills" I'll not pay one cent. Our health care system is great. 

Carli have had that huge swollen thing on the elbow before. the only cure was completely changing my routine. lots of hiking, easy climbing and no construction for two months. our health care system sucks so never even bothered to have it looked it... 

Well speaking of health care (sigh) .... I really like my doctors and my wife’s too. We both have had major issues the past year or so.
After the old Doc’s suggested that I pick out a good Walker and get adjusted to using it - I fired them and took my sob story to some other Doctors- yes I had to pay $15 for each visit- I finally found one who seemed like he knew what was up with me. Off to surgery- that was fun! There were at least 10 people in the room ready to get down on my back. They cut, scraped, drilled and sewed me up- took 8.5 hours!
My cost? $50.00 total. Oh yea I do pay $15 every time I see one.
My wife had a lingering issue- she would just, with no warning, get the chills and collapse for a day or so. This went on for years till finally she had a bad attack that wouldn’t get better. A great team of Doctors worked together for 5 days and diagnosed the problem. She had an infectious growth inside her liver. Because her long term Doctor had been getting MRIs on a regular basis (6 mouths) they were able to see this growth as it had grown in the last year. So serious antibiotics were given intravenously then orally.
She still goes weekly and gets tested- if the growth shrinks (not cancer thank god) she is golden, if it persists a quick simple surgery is in the future. She had 2 x weekly visits from nurses who would check her PIC line to make sure everything was cool.

So you can see that I have no problem with the health care in the USA.

I reckon you get what you pay for.

I do know two people who wouldn’t be alive right now if they lived with a “One size fits all” type of system favored by socialist folks.

End o political rant.

To add: Carl that looks bad! I bet it was caused by all that ironing. 

I and most of my co workers have zero health care because we are not old enough for medicare and make just barely too much for ACA so yes I think our health care system sucks dog shit. 

Guy, I don't get your point. Do you have private insurance? Medicare?

My husband and I have Medicare Part B and substitute Part A insurance because we didn't qualify for Medicare Part A. Medicare works great. My husband actually has a serious infection right now. He was treated first at the hospital, now at a rehab facility, and starting next week a PIC line at home with nurses, probably twice weekly. IMO, Medicare for all would be ideal. End of my political rant.

Best wishes for your wife.

Prior to qualifying for Medicare, my (and my wife's) private insurance coverage monthly premiums were astronomical and still sported a very high deductible and only covered so much of a bill, etc. 

Now, my premiums (Medicare A&B plus Supplemental Coverage) are low and basically cover everything. Medicare has incredibly low overhead costs (less than 2%; Private coverage administrative costs range from 11% to 20%). My younger bride's premiums are still sky-high and coverage is less than optimal.

And, we all pay for the large number of uninsured in this country -- about 30 million people -- in increased costs. Treating the very sick is far more costly than preventative care -- which the un and under insured commonly forego.

With so many families financially ruined by medical bills in this country -- even those with coverage (it is THE leading cause of personal bankruptcy in the US), maybe we should  join every other industrialized nations on the planet and provide coverage for everyone. 

Nick Goldsmith wrote:

Carli have had that huge swollen thing on the elbow before. the only cure was completely changing my routine. lots of hiking, easy climbing and no construction for two months. our health care system sucks so never even bothered to have it looked it... 

My wife has suggested lawn bowls. That comment almost caused me to self harm but luckily that was addressed by the ingestion of beer. I DID say to her the other day "I wonder if MAYBE it's not been wise to be trying the hardest routes I've ever tried when I've got this huge lump on my elbow?"

Guy Keesee wrote:

To add: Carl that looks bad! I bet it was caused by all that ironing.

I might have to start 'ironing' with my left hand :-)

thank you  Wendy!  

Jay Goodwin wrote:

I just like the outfits

Jay, when I read that, I had a mental image of you in a sumo outfit!  Will I hurt your feelings if I say LOL?

Back climbing in Pine Creek today.  It was windy AF.  But the fellow climbers were quite convivial and everyone was in agreement that it was a bit heady leading techy granite face with winds gusty to 40 mph!

No hurt feelings. I'm getting close to having the body for the outfit, finally!

Guy Keesee wrote:

I do know two people who wouldn’t be alive right now if they lived with a “One size fits all” type of system favored by socialist folks.

Perhaps I'm one of those two people. If not, then you know three.

I have a rare type of vascular malformation in my brain. Until it symptomized in 2007 there wasn't a clue that there was anything wrong between my ears. Some behavioral issues, perhaps, but nothing else.   I always kept a very high deductible policy strictly for dire emergencies. A few grand mals in a row qualified. I had to cough up a hefty chunk of $ to pay off the deductible. After that I was cool. The problem was that the damned thing was deep, therefore not operable. The Dr.s referred to it as exquisite. They pulled me out of the system and into a research program at UCLA, and turned the thing into a lump of scar tissue about the size of a medium shrimp, using ionizing radiation in what was then a cutting edge procedure called stereotactic radio surgery. Without the procedure I was due for a major brain hemorrhage.

Fast forward to about 2011. I was hanging out at the Needles working on a book. There were four British doctors there, good climbers all. Among them was Charlie Woodburn, who on-sighted Pyromaniac.   

One night we were talking. They invited me to join them the next day. I explained that I couldn't climb well due to a medical issue. Needless to say they were curious, so I explained what it was. One of them said "Isn't that kind of like a hemorrhoid in your brain"? I wasn't pleased by the comparison. Anyway, I was told, in no uncertain terms, that in their system, at my age (54 when it reared its head) I would have been given seizure meds and sent home. Tic-toc... tic-toc... Instead I get to live a fairly normal life, and it's highly unlikely that this thing will affect my longevity. Or let me put it this way, there were a few years there where climbing was much more likely to affect my longevity.

I'm helping a friend make the audio version of his book, which is an expose type thing about our health care system. Between the insurance systems and big pharma, the money trail is obscene. My question is, in a public system which will be overwhelmed by people with self-inflicted lifestyle illnesses, how can we continue to offer highly specialized treatments for people who, like myself, present with very rare problems. In my case a rare version of an already rare disorder. Or perhaps it's selfish of any one person to consume so many resources. I'm not being sarcastic about that. It might be the truth. 

fact is that we rank about 30th in developed countries for both quality and results of health care. NPR did a show way back in 2010 about  two brothers. one lived in the US and worked in health care so had best insurance possible. the other lived un the UK. they both had rare genetic heart conditions requiring the same surgery. In the end the actual heath results were similer  and good but the cost difference was stunning and the hoops the American had to jump through to get the proper care were staggering. he felt that he would not have been able to negotiate all the hurdels had he not been a professional in the healthcare system..   I simply refuse to buy the if everyone had health care the system would be overloaded argument when the alternative is that people like myself have no health care and simply don't have life changing and shortening illnesses dealt with because we can't afford it.  I am   over due on a colon cancer test cause I can't afford it..   our health care system covers the very poor, the very comfortable and the very old. the working middleclass are thrown to the wolves... sink or swim pall. 

I just bumped into this post about Joshua Tree, which to me is kind of startling.  I'm not a world traveler, and haven't been to a lot of climbing areas.  i've just been happy to be right here for now, settling in and trying to acclimate to the weather, the desert itself, and the demands of the local rock.  I have known very little else.

"JT was an amazing place to learn to climb the margin of error allowable was minimum, routes were short committing and failure not an option.  you down climbed, top roped or just walked away. we set up a rap..."  

More experienced climbers may have broader thoughts on this.  I'm trying to take the measure of this place, and learning to climb here relative to other climbing areas.  

Observing the experience of my friend who stayed with me... I think she found climbing here overwhelming.  For someone who has climbed in Yosemite and Red Rocks and many other places, I can't quite understand this.  

PS. We tried out the smoker yesterday and made a pork butt roast which melted in the mouth... AND we found the Sumo highlights, with absolutely no idea what was going on.  I posted questions back on another post of mine, but now we're hooked.  Tony was baffled at the top knot issue.  I am trying to understand why they slap their belts, maybe some macho gesture?  Or a Shinto prayer?  

They throw salt into the ring right before the match - a purification ritual thing, and then slap their belt to clean the salt off their hand so it doesn't get in the eye of their opponent.

Brandt Allen wrote:

They throw salt into the ring right before the match - a purification ritual thing, and then slap their belt to clean the salt off their hand so it doesn't get in the eye of their opponent.

Oh no! Is this true? I was asking Tony how he felt about slapping his belt as a kind of come hither thing.  I don’t think he was feeling it.  
What are the sticks or strings on their belts all about?

And what does the umpire hand the winner? I’m guessing it’s not money.

The calls sound like my recollection of a Noh play. 

I wish I could eat 22,000 calories a day.