Chris Sharma on Everything Is Karate 5.14c/d
2017 · 8 min · Sport Climbing
A short piece from Sharma Climbing covering two things at once: Chris Sharma and Tommy Caldwell working a project on Leaning Tower, and Sharma making the second ascent of Everything Is Karate, 5.14c/d. It is a straightforward Yosemite field record rather than a narrative film, carried by aerial work from drone pilot Cashus Puhvel that gives a real sense of the scale of the wall. Short, but a useful document of Sharma climbing in the Valley alongside Caldwell.
Review
A useful eight minutes, not a film. Sharma Climbing covers two things at once: Chris Sharma and Tommy Caldwell working a project on Leaning Tower, and Sharma making the second ascent of Everything Is Karate, 5.14c/d, in Yosemite.
This is for people who track Sharma's career and want the Valley chapter. It is also worth it for the aerial work. Cashus Puhvel's drone shots give a real sense of how much wall the Leaning Tower is, and that scale is the best thing in the piece. Skip it if you want story. There is no setup, no history of the route, and no explanation of why a sport climber of Sharma's kind is suddenly on Yosemite granite with Caldwell.
What it gets wrong is balance. The Leaning Tower project and the Everything Is Karate send are two separate stories, and eight minutes is too short to do either one properly. I came away not knowing what the project was or how the send went beyond the fact that it happened.
Arc'teryx Presents: Wet Lycra Nightmare is the film to watch for the Leaning Tower itself. It gives Jordan Cannon and Sam Stroh twenty-one minutes on that wall, with pitch structure, a fall, and a return season. Sharma's piece is a footnote by comparison, but it is a footnote I am glad exists.
