How this woman climbed Mount Everest with just 7 weeks of training

By Brelaun Douglas

This woman ascended Mount Everest after training for only seven weeks and having no previous mountain climbing experience.

Cesalina Gracie, 32, never planned on climbing Mount Everest.

Originally from Rio de Janero, Brazil, the Los Angeles based empowerment entrepreneur and martial artist met guide Nims Purja while he was a guest on a TV show she’s hosting with Prince Harry.

Purja eventually invited her to join him at base camp and see Mount Everest from Lobuche, a smaller peak.

“I love a challenge, so I accepted the invitation,” she said.

She began looking for a coach and found Mike McCastle, known for training record-breaking athletes, as well as accomplishing his own incredible feats.

McCastle put her through 20 weeks of training compounded into seven.

“Everything was exacerbated for me in order to be ready,” Cesalina said.

“I never thought I could move nine hours a day nonstop with a heavy-weight vest, with a band pulling on my waist.”

McCastle also simulated scenarios Cesalina might face in the mountain.

“We would do planks with my full hands submerged in ice,” she said.

“I would leave that and go straight into a wall sit with my feet now submerged in ice. He would freeze my extremities while at the same time putting a weight on my lap.

“He would give me thin ropes and tiny Legos while my hands were frozen and I would have to perform a task and be totally focused while my whole body’s shaking, with a weight on my lap and my feet in the ice.

“All you think about is ‘this is impossible, I want to quit and he’s crazy.’

She added: “But now I understand because that was literally what I was going through.

“I had to switch my ropes and my safety and perform that task without making a mistake when my hands were frozen, and I’m exhausted after climbing for 10 hours.”

“All the credit for that goes to Mike McCastle. I know for a fact I wouldn’t have made it if I hadn’t met him."

Eventually, Cesalina decided she wanted to ascend Everest instead of the smaller peak.

“When I brought the subject up to Mike, he revealed to me that he was actually training me for Everest since the first week of our training,” she said.

Cesalina began her climb on April 11.

During what is being called the deadliest season on Everest, she experienced 75 to 95 MPH winds, survived avalanches and almost fell into a huge crevasse that opened right underneath her feet.

“You’re so powerless,” she said.

“Most places and situations you get an opportunity to fight for your life. You don’t get an opportunity to fight for your life in an avalanche.”

While she was physically prepared, she credits a big part of her survival to mental skills she’s learned through jiu-jitsu.

“I’ve been training since I was born,” she said.

“Most people think jiu-jitsu is about the physical skills they develop. All of the physical skills you develop are consequence from the mental skills you acquire.

“It gives you the self-confidence to see things clearly and make difficult choices. It gives you the ability to self-regulate and control your nervous system in situations of stress and danger.

“It makes you go through every single emotion and learn how to deal with it in a constructive way.

“And ultimately that’s what you’re doing when you’re mountaineering.”

She added: “You cannot disregard that you need to be physically prepared, that comes first. But if you are physically prepared and you don’t have the mental, you’ll never make it.

“How I overcame those challenges that made a lot of other people in my expedition quit who had a lot more experience than me was the mindset I developed in jiu-jitsu.

On the morning of May 22, Cesalina reached the top of Everest - becoming the 8^th Brazilian woman to do so - after spending about 45 days at the mountain, with 10-11 of those living in the high camps.

Cesalina, who has a girls’ and women’s empowerment school where she uses jiu-jitsu and psychology to teach them important pillars to navigate the world, said she doesn’t think she’ll climb Everest again.

“It’s so dangerous," she said

“Never say never, but it’s not in my plans.

“That expedition just reinforced the purpose that I have in life, which is to share those principles with every girl and every woman so that they are able to climb their own Everest in life.

“That is my biggest mission at this moment.”

She added: “I hope it reminds people that you can do anything, even if you haven’t done it before, but the one thing you cannot do is magically show up there; you have to put in the work.”