What a crazy ride it’s been.
We were basically kids, even though it was only five years ago. We were annoyed with the kinds of instruction we were getting at the cons we were going to. We went to these events, we met and compared notes, and realized that there was a gap between the kinds of things we wanted to learn, and the kinds of classes available. We wanted something more, something more complicated, something that challenged us.
Those late night bitch sessions were sprinkled with hours of intense conversation on very specific topics. We tied together, our fingers burned, our heads ached, our partners were exhausted, but our drive was all consuming. We had to know, we NEEDED to learn, to grow, to touch the infinite through herculean effort and a near insane dedication to a passion that burned within our hearts. Those conversations represented literally thousands of hours of time spent at home doggedly practicing our craft. Time and money. We’d spent both freely in this pursuit, and we gladly shared it with each other.
“What if there were more of us?” The question was obvious, but Shibaricon was never going to give us a room large enough to realized this barely tangible idea. Who were we? A couple of almost-nobodies. We’d all had a few pics go K&P, but our teaching experience was almost nil. We had no tangible presence in the Rope Pantheon that casually disseminated knowledge to the rope community. Those “gods” did their best, but we wanted more, and there wasn’t any place for it.
“What if we made that place?” Ha! The idea was laughable. None of us had the cash to fund an event. None of us had a place to even HOST a thing like that. “But what if there was?” Never. Not in a million years. Dejected, but not defeated. We had an idea, and we wouldn’t fail. The three of us? We each had a slightly different vision about what it would look like, but goddamn, if we didn’t have the dedication to make it work.
“EURIX. We could do something like that.” That was it. That would be our guiding idea, how we would start. But Europe is so very different from North America. Felix was doing some amazing things over there, but EURIX, as it was styled, wouldn’t work. But we had our visions, and we had to share it.
As we struggled with our dream, the rope community changed. We changed. We had started branching out, sharing our passion with others, and we were being recognized for it. Who were we? Just a group of rope nerds with dedication to a dream. People wanted us to share? How could we share? We were just students! But they asked, and they asked, and we did. We found others that were willing to share our dream, our vision.
And then there was a turning point, a place when we hit critical mass. We’d shared our vision, screaming our need into the void, and someone answered. “I can’t host this thing, but I CAN host a place for us to talk about it, and maybe we can find someone who can.” And three became four.
That was it. We met. We talked. Everyone was so excited, everyone was bubbling forth with ideas. It was intoxicating, exhilarating. THERE WERE OTHERS THAT WANTED THIS. Then, the impossible. “We can do it where I am.” And four became five.
Holy shit. There were five of us. AND WE HAD A PLACE. How did this happen? This was supposed to be a pipe dream! An impossible thing that OTHER people did. But it was happening. We built the place, we shared the dream, and we struggled with making that vision become a reality. We argued about everything. “EURIX does it this way…” “But North Americans won’t respond the way Europeans do. We’ve gotta do it THIS way”. Over and over, we hammered out the idea, until we had something that maybe, against all ideas, maybe it would work.
We opened the floodgates, and what was a trickle became a flood. “We’ve got to make decisions. We can’t accept everyone.” But what if there wasn’t another? How do we manage THIS many people? OH SHIT, there are LOTS that want to be there, to share this impossible dream. This suddenly POSSIBLE dream.
I don’t know how it happened. None of us really had any idea what we were doing. We brought our skills together, and SOMEHOW it happened. Three insane days, and our lives were changed. In the following weeks, we realized ours weren't the only lives that had changed. Somehow this dream that we’d sacrificed so much for had been birthed into this world, and people were listening.
Then it happened again. Sure, there were stumbling blocks, but we learned a lot and we evolved to match what was needed.
Then it happened again. Last weekend. Three times the impossible happened. Lightning never strikes twice, but THREE TIMES? Ben said it right. “Two times is an experiment, three times is a pattern.”
I can’t tell you how many times one of us would catch the eye of another, and a look of shock or bewilderment would pass across our faces. This was happening. Again. And again. And AGAIN. More than that, though. It was working. What had started out as a protest that we weren’t getting served had changed into something entirely unforeseen. We realized that it wasn’t just something that we wanted, but that LOTS of people wanted. And somehow we’d stumbled upon a way to make it happen.
It was never about us. Sure, we wanted to feed our own growth, but what we were doing was helping EVERYONE. Those initial conversations had shown us that it was something that would fill a niche that the bigger cons couldn’t fill. They served a hugely important purpose, created a space where a structure could be cut. NARIX was a place where those blanks could be hammered into shape, reforged, hardened. NARIX wasn’t about personal growth so much as it was about helping our COMMUNITY grow.
Inadvertently we’d created a place for the Tribe to congregate. Without meaning to, we’d built that Central Fire, and dancers came from all over the continent to share the Fire. Murphy’s said it so many times, but I never realized it until now. We are all singing the same song. I may have a part, a few phrases, but it wasn’t until I sang my part into the infinite with a whole chorus of others that I realized that my part was only a part of a much greater whole.
I realized I wasn’t singing alone anymore.
That’s what NARIX is. It’s not about me. It’s not about the board. It’s about singing the song with our tribe. It’s about finding family, and realizing that we all have something to share, something to learn from. That we can learn together, and we all get to share in the process of watching our song grow.
