Though he’s pulled back on the amount of commissioned work he’s doing and maybe dialed back on some of the additional side gigs he’s taking on, one thing Talbott has not forgone is engaging in the things that satisfy his appetite for adrenaline and more dangerous experiences.
In one collection of images and videos posted to his Instagram account with the simple caption “acrophobia,” Talbott and his friends are shown climbing up and swinging off massive rock faces in Yosemite. Another from the summer opens with the bantamweight perched high up the ladder and scaffolding of a radio tower he likes to climb.
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“It’s just fun, honestly, and all my friends were doing it too; a lot of peer pressure,” he deadpanned when asked about the draw or motivation to chase those rushes. “I think it’s just that you don’t get to do that any other time, so if I were to go to bed that night and not have done that, I’d be like, ‘Dang, I should have just gotten on that swing.’
“They just let me be me at this point,” added Talbott when asked if he gets any pushback from coaches or others in his circle when it comes to his adventuring, whether solo or with his friends. “I’m so used to it too that I don’t even think like, ‘I need to do this for the scary release’ —I just see it, and it’s like, ‘Let’s get on that! Let’s do that; it’s gonna be fun.’
“I don’t even consider it, honestly.”
