A MAD DECADE WITH MATT FULTZ
After a decade on the Mad Rock team, we asked Matt Fultz about his journey as a Pro Athlete.
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How do you balance risk and reward in your climbing today versus when you were younger?When I was younger, I would often see risk as part of the thrill of the sport. I would go all-in on dynamic moves, and I wouldn't think twice about jumping and swinging around on some extreme moves. Now, I still push my limits, but with a lot more intentionality. I keep my longevity in mind. I have too much experience with injury at this point to consider myself "indestructible" anymore. However, I am more willing to accept risk in other ways. I am really good at "showing up". I'll go to my project and try my best even if there is a high chance of failure. When I was younger, I didn't have the experience to look at each session as a learning experience. An opportunity to improve and increase my chances of future success. I wouldn't want to risk showing up if I wasn't going to be successful. These days, I have a pretty high "failure tolerance"!
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What gear innovation or Mad Rock product has impacted your climbing the most?The Drone HV has been my go-to for a long time — it’s the shoe I trust on everything from steep board problems to hard granite. Over the years, Mad Rock’s innovations in heel construction and tensioning systems have made a real difference in precision and confidence on marginal holds. Recently I had the opportunity to help design, develop, and test The Villains, a new shoe in the Drone family. That really helped my understanding of the gear and tools we rely on, and why our shoes are designed the way they are.
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What excites or concerns you about where the sport is headed?The direction of our sport is mostly exciting! The progression at the highest end has been nothing short of inspiring. My perspective on climbing has been as a top performer, and I have been keeping up to date with top level climbing for over twenty years. The past couple of years have been like nothing I've seen before in climbing, with incredible high-level ascents happening seemingly every other day. Although I still feel like I have a lot to offer the performance climbing world, I have had to change my perspective about my role in it.I think it's exciting that it's more and more "cool" to be good at climbing, instead of making you an outlier. There were even times I felt I needed to hold back my ability a little bit to not look like a try-hard so I could fit in with my friends. I feel like in the past, training for climbing was often looked down on, as if it went against the spirit of our sport. I am happy that this culture has changed and I would like to think I was a small part of that.While high-end climbing is growing so fast, the interest in outdoor bouldering has exploded. As I'm at the point in my life where I'm thinking more about passing on the meaningful lessons and experiences I've had in climbing to future generations, I want them to have the same opportunities I was able to have. I am hopeful we can continue pushing for education around outdoor ethics and sustainable development. The growth has been amazing, but we need to continue this growth responsibly.
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What’s one defining memory or proudest moment you’ve had as a Mad Rock athlete?That's an incredibly difficult question! I've been incredibly fortunate to have so many amazing memories over the past 10 years. The Madrock team trips, visits to the LA HQ and getting to visit my Mad Family, and growing relationships with our team have been invaluable. If I had to narrow my proudest moment from the past 10 years in a single memory, it would be topping out my first V16, Hypnotized Minds, at night with just me and Hailey as snow lightly started to fall. It was such a strong emotion for me, in so many ways, and Madrock Drones are really made that possible for me. Knowing I did that in the shoes we’d been refining together made it even more special.