Alex Honnold on Meeting David Blaine

you're just used to things that are less comfortable than most Cozy in your perspective, you know, but I get it. Yeah, but this ice hotel my friend who stayed I can't remember who told me They stayed in it. They did it one night just to say they did it. They weren't their kids, too I think I know David. Yeah, he's great. Yeah, dude. Yeah, he he for him and I so tell is like a normal thing He's like he probably just lay there on the ice the whole time just yeah, just see if it is just a stupid He's a strange person, right? Strange and powerful at the same time like a very unusual human being dude I uh, I met with him years ago now because he was did you see his like real or magic documentary? No, it's really good I would totally encourage you to watch it Basically, it's all these like sort of magic tricks except they aren't actually tricks. They're just like I'm allowed to curse, right? Yeah, yeah It's like these fucked up things that he does that people assume must be magic but aren't like he puts an ice pick through His hand I put a nice pick through his arm Whether you know that's like the same kind of like made me. Yeah, exactly. I'm like, come on, man What are we doing here? Exactly that would know exactly and you're like, you're like you hope it's a trick Dude he bought me an iPhone randomly One of those classic things he I forget he yeah so I met him in New York for the thing for real magic because He was talking about maybe doing a climbing thing and I was totally into teaching him how to climb the outside of a building Basically, this is one of those things that people would assume there's a trick to it But it's in some ways it's actually easier just to learn how to do it Well enough that you can just do it rather than do a trick You know what I mean? Like because that's kind of the whole thing with the ice pick is people assume there must be a trick to it But you actually just do this crazy thing. You just learn how to do it, right? And so so I went climb with him a few times and he like, you know Gave me to around town and chat and stuff. I don't know. I was totally into his whole scene I was like such mind over matter, you know, I was like, wow he he has got a strong mind for just like Making himself do things that other people would think are impossible slash Yeah, it's just mostly his mind mostly the ability to deal with uncomfortable feelings Yeah, like the ice picked through the arm like we had to stop because I hit a nerve and then we did it again So it hit a nerve and then there was one point time where after we did it He was concerned that maybe blood was pooling up in a weird way. So you had our medic look at it So he stopped we stopped twice, right? We stopped once and I put it back in again And then we go all the way through and then after it came out We had to stop again and then one of our guys had to look at it because it was just bleeding in a weird way He was worried that was creating hematoma Yeah, if you ever watch the the show, you know real or magic whatever it's it's really good But in one of them like he puts the ice pick through his hand and and then he pulls it out and he's like look See, it's fine. And it's like and it looks totally fine. Like it's not bleeding, you know It's because your hand is so elastic or whatever. They asked him about it, you know I was like, oh, what's the deal with eggs? You pull out, you know It's like is it a trick and he's like no you pull it out And as long as you're holding your hand above your heart, it doesn't bleed for a little bit He's like then when you put your hand down obviously it bleeds because you have fucking a hole through your hand I was like, oh Jesus Like that's not a bunch of a trick. That's messed up But one of the things that he showed us was there's a guy that was famous back in the day for putting swords through his body Was the guy would run the whole way. Mm-hmm the whole way Really narrow sword. Yeah a small but they got progressively larger as you got progressively debtor Is that how he died do you remember Jamie I Feel like that's how it ended up going Or he sneezed halfway through and just like lacerated eventually made his way to like a broadsword size It was really weird to see though because there's video of this guy and there's photos video Yeah, this guy slid like right through his organs, oh geez, yeah, so look at that. Oh geez. I Mean they just puncture his lung with a fucking sword I mean, this is not a trick This is when you watch action movies and people get shot or stabbed a bunch of times and you're like that's so unrealistic He didn't like when you watch John wick, you know, and he gets like 27 times Like apparently people can actually take quite a beating and just keep going or they can get once They're going right through this right through his fucking dude. Oh My Jesus and look how he just sat sits there and I guess who's his doctor who's like good enough to poke us Sword stress around is not really a doctor. Well, but he must be a like he'd be an incredible Maybe he works in a deli, you know What are the things on its forearms by the way, oh he's so now he's going into an x-ray machine to make sure that So this guy had scars all over his body from the times that he did this Dude, yeah Yikes, that's a fucking fairly thick to wait Like definitely bigger than a pencil That the doctors examined in it looks good didn't now he's going to eat except it's all gonna fall out the hole Yeah, it's gonna score it out. That's a hard-looking man. Imagine having a conversation with that dude I bet he has a very weird way of looking at things dude Oh Fill the holes when how painful that is? Fucking piercing your ears painful. I've never freeze my ear too afraid When I just don't want to hold my ear so did he die from that Jamie? You need like a team of researchers that you're just like pulling up like yeah checking fat It's all Jamie one-handed googling He moved to Switzerland and was granted a license to perform without the ability to speak to the public I don't know that sounds strange a license to perform without the abilities Oh, maybe like if you performed you had to talk to people Like they had mimes back then though. No, maybe you had a break But that seems like so maybe he couldn't say he got he was like ow it hurts and they're like I don't know like This is so silly to even have it Fair the the act is less inspiring if the guy screams in pain the whole time his then no one's to watch right Yeah, I mean the same guy doing the same thing screaming like like he's being tortured That would be certain be the same for David Blaine like when you watch the David stuff It's like if you're putting an ice pick through his arm and he was just scream like if he was just sobbing the whole time He'd be like I don't want to watch I wouldn't do it. It's like a stop. It says in 1948. He was Alleged he was instructed by voices to eat a steel needle and two days later. It was surgically removed. I Don't know. I think he got cocky. It's fair to say you might have very things going on Yeah, he was probably trying to kill himself and couldn't believe he kept surviving Yeah, he was laying on a bed They didn't think I guess they didn't know he was dead and then they finally got a doctor to check him Turns out he'd already been dead for a day Yeah, it sounds a little We need like three more research interns like you bring his whole scene as fast they get it cuz they're like wait None of that makes it he said and this was because of swallowing a needle Said he had he thought he had guardian angels. He said he was telepathic. He could heal people. Yeah. Yeah, no, he didn't heal himself very well Maybe he did that's how he survived somebody's, you know being impaled so many times I guess you can just do it though It can be done, you know, cuz they're fairly small holes, although they do go through the length of your entire body It's I mean, you just think you'd get with I think that's party What part of what that video was was improving the doctors that it wasn't all fake And that's because that's what it says. He proved as uric doctors that it wasn't his act wasn't based on fakery Why don't you it's uncomfortable just talking about this? I'm so I'm breathing heavy I'm like, maybe you need to practice a little bit you have somebody start putting needles through like little parts of your arm, you know There's just something weird about people that are willingly hurting themselves and causing themselves pain No, I kind of agree with that. I do. I do find it slightly but David very well adjusted man It's very friendly, you know And his card tricks are legitimately doing dude. So fun fact about his card tricks I don't know if you'd be so he he took me to lunch once and like did a whole thing in card tricks And I was totally I love magic and I think it's cool And you know, I like obviously they're all tricks but I was like, this is incredible the execution is incredible I was totally into it. I was super impressed and then at the time I was I was dating this girl in New York really briefly and and a couple days later we all went into the climbing gym together because like I said, I was kind of encouraging him to like do some some climbing thing and he that would then we went to lunch again and he basically did the same set of card tricks for this girl that I was dating but Having already climbed for like an hour or two and it was funny because his execution the card tricks was noticeably worse for me Like, you know I could tell that he was like doing all his tricks worse once his arms were like totally wrecked from climbing for two hours Like basically his fingers and his forearms were totally wrecked and that actually made me appreciate how difficult the tricks are even more So I was like, oh wow Like if your fingertips hurt and your muscles are wrecked and it's hard for you to hold your arm steady Then it's like very hard to fan the deck, you know Evenly and to like pick cards properly and it made me appreciate just how much skill is involved in what he was doing I was like, dude, it's pretty cool You know basically to see somebody do something at their peak and then when they're also totally wrecked and then to see kind of the Overlap you're like, oh, this is actually quite hard. Like what he's doing is is is a challenge, you know You know what? It's like he's like he's got the fine motor skills that we have for tying our own shoes Totally but for a deck of cards. Yeah, yeah when he can just cut to the 27th card or whatever I know and he's like, let me just cut this deck and he's like, oh there's card number 24 And you're like really can do that Yeah We've done it so many times that he has that you know that because there is that feeling that you have when you tie your shoe Where your hands just communicate so fluidly, you know, like that's like what people strive for in jujitsu and jujitsu you strive like that's actually what my My coach Eddie Bravo he uses that as an example that when you tie your shoe You don't think about tying your shoe You just tie your shoe and in a certain situation You'll flow into a technique like a technique will happen and it'll happen and because you your repetitions You've got so many times it'll just be so fluid and so for David It's got to be like that but with like the very tips of his fingers I know for somebody like me with you know, very callous. I can't even imagine feeling anything that right? I'm gonna see decks of cards. I just like Crumple them all together. I'm just shove them like is it shuffled? You know, like I can't even regulate them that well. Yeah, I would imagine right like your hands have to be like super rough, right? Yeah, normally pretty rough and then also just really calloused on the tip So, I mean often, you know, I can pick up like hot things and like not really notice it quite the same way I mean if you're grabbing like Grabbing a very coarse rock all the times you have to wind up with really callous fingertips. Of course Yeah, but the soon something like manipulating the edge of a card. 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