Captain Arschlecken

“…ich denke mir aber, arschleckenmäßig, - warum?”

This is the Captain. You know the flattened “x” on your climbing holds? He’s the guy behind those. The good ones with the “x” (there are other ones, too).
Captain Crux.

You may have heard a little about him; nevertheless he eludes the very spotlight. We (myself and M.) have been granted access to crawl into his shaping cave and see some of the magic for ourselves.
Just the place, though - not Captain shaping. I suppose you’ve gotta earn that. Besides, cigarette breaks are important. It’s like lunch in small, regular doses.

We talked rock and climbs, and creative ideas. Assholes and problems. Shaping. Climbing routes. Bus routes. But not climbing on plastic. We never touched climbing on plastic.

There’s one thing my photographer self can say about Captain for sure: he’s a natural - but only, solely when he fancies it. There ain’t no forcing him. Team Arschlecken*, you know.

He smoked one, and another. Then he shaped a hold that resembled the Fontainebleau structures. And hell, it did. I don’t think he’s been to Font in years - and I mean quite a few of those.
Then he had a cigarette.

I met Captain two or three weeks after that. It was during a short sunny spell on a day that was otherwise rainy and grey. A day after a downpour. Me and M. were just walking into an indoor climbing gym, to climb indoors - on his shapes, among others. Captain asked about it, and as we confirmed his fears - well, you hear more cheerful voices at a funeral (or in a gym for that matter). He asked if it can impair you - training (indoors), that is.
(Yes, it can, Captain.)

Well, whatever you say about him, he’s not impaired. Pure as a drop of water from a Franconian karst spring (I leave the evaluation to you here). All dirt you could prove him to have touched was when he made a stamp on M.’s bicep. M. didn’t wash for a while after that (*don’t take it as an exception, though).

Long live Team Arschlecken.

“Es ist Methode drin. Ich mache alle fertig, vor allem mich selbst halt.”

*Team Arschlecken (German) - Team Asskissing; as in the expression “Kiss my arse”; Team Arschlecken as in “you can all kiss my arse, I'm having none of your shit”.