#1189 - Alex Honnold

Alex Honnold (0:02)

Should I do headphones, it doesn't matter?

Joe Rogan (0:03)

Yeah, I like headphones.

Alex Honnold (0:06)

I kind of hate hearing myself that loud.

Joe Rogan (0:07)

Why do you sound good? Why do you hate hearing yourself? I'm trying to pull this sucker up like about a fist from your face.

Good to see you again, man.

Alex Honnold (0:14)

It's been a long time.

Joe Rogan (0:15)

It has been. With a guy like you, it's always nice to see you're still alive.

Alex Honnold (0:18)

I'm doing my best.

Joe Rogan (0:19)

Do you get tired of hearing shit like that?

Alex Honnold (0:21)

Oh, I don't care. I mean, I get it a lot.

Joe Rogan (0:23)

Do you get tired of the weirdness of interviewing with people and they're like, you know, you could die. Is this scary?

Alex Honnold (0:31)

Yeah, that's all right, though. I mean, the thing is, yeah, it's funny, touring with the film, we've been doing Q&A's every night and you get the same questions from the audience all the time.

And part of that is tiring, but then part of it, like people ask the same questions because they're obvious, because everybody wants to know the same things. And I'm like, I understand that.

Joe Rogan (0:46)

One of the weirdest parts of the film is when they're showing all the guys who have died from Free Soloing.

Alex Honnold (0:54)

Yeah, though, actually, they didn't all die Free Soloing.

That's actually one of the, that's probably the only thing that I take slight issue with with the film. It's slightly hyperbolic because two of them died bass jumping and one of them died rope jumping. They all were Free Solos, which is kind of what the film is saying, that they're all Free Solos who have died, but they all died in the mountains doing mountain related extreme activities.

Joe Rogan (1:15)

Yeah, that doesn't make the story as good. That's like poetic license.

Alex Honnold (1:20)

Yeah.

Joe Rogan (1:21)

It got sneaky.

Alex Honnold (1:22)

Well, you know, I mean, they all were Free Solos, but. Yeah.

Joe Rogan (1:27)

That's not the same, though.

Alex Honnold (1:29)

Yeah, no, exactly. I mean, I prefer the other way to look at it is that no Free Solos has ever died doing anything cutting edge. That's my favorite statistic.

That no Free Solos has ever died doing hard soloing. Like, basically, a few Free Solos have died falling off an easy turn or just falling off sort of routine or, you know, I don't know, just falling off the mountain. But none of them have ever died while doing something cutting edge, something that had never been done before or something that was, you know, hardcore.

Joe Rogan (1:55)

Hmm. Do you think that's because when you're doing something that's a little bit easier, you relax?

Alex Honnold (2:01)

I think that's probably part of it. But also I think part of it is just a numbers thing. You spend so much time doing easy stuff and so little time doing really hard stuff that, you know, it's just statistics.

Joe Rogan (2:12)

How much how important is it when when you're free soloing to have that edge to be like really cognizant about how intense this is? Like if you got too calm and too relaxed.

Alex Honnold (2:23)

No, I think that's I think that is kind of the concern for sure. And I've noticed that in for myself anyway.

And I try not to do very much easy soloing anymore because there is a certain complacency that over time, you know, you just do so much mileage on easy terrain and then you're like, this is so easy. This is so easy. And then you slip and you die.

Joe Rogan (2:44)

You know, fighters look at things that way too, like at a certain point in their life, they don't want easy fights because they need to get challenged. Otherwise, they won't train properly and then they wind up losing to be.

Alex Honnold (2:55)

Yeah, you have to take it seriously.

Joe Rogan (2:56)

Yeah. Well, the difference between a fighter, say, when they're not trained and not in camp and just their skill and what their body can do without without going through a camp is probably only like 70 percent of what they are when they actually go through everything with full intensity, eight weeks, two times a day, you know, physical therapy, massage, visualization, conditioning, all the all the things that make them who they are the day they step into the cage.

Alex Honnold (3:29)

Like when you free solo, it's funny that so that's yeah, I mean, you saw the film that's all exactly the level of preparation that went into it.