Every month, Extra takes a look at an international student studying at the University of New England. This month we meet Alexander (Sasha) Gerzha, 26, who was born in Yekaterinburg, Russia.
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I’m a professional rock climber and sponsored athlete.
I’ve been climbing for 13 years and I started when I was 13. It means that half of my life, nearly every day, I’ve been rock climbing or doing specific training indoor at a climbing gym.
What motivated me to come to Australia? Well, mostly everything was spontaneous. I’ll clarify.
First time I roped up in 2005 at a local crag near my hometown. My father is a climber with huge experience, he brought me to the crag.
I still remember those feelings, when I did my first climb. It was very exciting and scary. I hardly moved on the wall, because I was nearly paralysed from fear.
However, when I got down, I understood that I want to do it again… and again… it hooked me – those feelings, emotions you are experiencing, athletic aspect and the huge mental fight with yourself. Every route is unique and it has specific combination of movements you have to understand and to do high from the ground.
I became addicted to climbing I’d say straight away.
It is clean style, you can’t use any gear which help you to climb. Only your knowledge, technique, power, fingers, climbing shoes and a rope to be safe. It’s a big mental game. So many things affect climbing, this I understood after years of climbing.
At the beginning, I was just paralysed and only with experience I understood how to feel free on the wall.
I became addicted to climbing I’d say straight away. Between 13 and 18-years-old I was mostly training indoor, doing national competitions traveling for outdoor climbing throughout Russia.
At 16, I went to the Ukraine on my own. It took me three days to get there and I spent three months camping under a rock and improving my skills.
At the age of 18, my life changed. I met my coach Dimitry Sharafutdinov who was four-times world champion in sport climbing. He started to coach me and a couple of other motivated athletes. We were like a family, nearly living at the gym and training six to seven days a week.
Dimitry gave me a lot of knowledge. But the most important thing was he brought me to Spain in 2012 where I got into the proper climbing community. Also, he shoved me towards the hardest climbs around the world.
My passion about climbing became stronger and stronger. In the same year, I did the hardest climb in Russia and one of the hardest climbs in Europe. I became a sponsored athlete and started to travel more around the Europe.
On one of those trips, I met a guy from Australia in Spain. I didn’t speak English at all but we became good friends and we had a few climbing trips together to Spain, Switzerland and France.
During the last trip, my friend invited me to come to Australia. I liked the idea of it and in three weeks I was in Australia. It wasn’t well planned at all. I didn’t know much about the country and at the beginning I couldn’t understand people because of my English skills.
I’m already seeing good progress and am happy with my spontaneous decisions.
During three months of climbing (I’ve done the hardest climb in Victoria) and discovering Australia, I liked the opportunities for climbing and studying at the same time. I decided to stay longer to improve my English and I moved to Sydney.
To be honest, I’m not a city guy, I prefer country town life. One day I was looking for a job at a gym in Sydney. I met a guy from Tamworth who was searching for a route setter at a local gym, called Freestyle. He asked me to come to Tamworth, where the gym was opened only 12 months ago. I accepted that.
When I came to Tamworth I realised that people do not know anything about rock climbing. The activity is so new for them, people haven’t been on real rocks though.
I really liked the country town and the community of people and I decided to move to Tamworth. I started to coach people, showing techniques and ways of improving, organising workshops and with the owner of the gym, we organised the first open Tamworth Cup.
Before that I visited Armidale once. I saw UNE and decided to keep improving my skills in here. I’m already seeing good progress and am happy with my spontaneous decisions.
Life is very unpredictable, you never know what’s gonna be happening tomorrow and it makes it more fun.
Thanks for those people who helped me along the way. Also, special thanks for my sponsors – EuroWaterjet, La Sportiva, The North Face and Rockfanatics who are supporting me on the wall.
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