Stonelifting Etiquette - Protecting our History

Before I go any further in this article I'd urge everyone who is going to go and lift a historical lifting stone to think about their own reasons for doing so as this will have an impact on how you are going to treat them.

It's also particularly important to me that this article is received with education at its heart rather than a blame culture as this is not my intention. At the end of the day we are all human and every single stonelifter has dropped, or will drop, a stone at some point (myself included); it doesn't matter if you are a professional strongman, experienced stonelifter, or a complete novice - it will happen to you but by addressing the points below we can seriously reduce the chances of breakage of these important artifacts.

One other important thing worthy of note before we go any further: the stones belong to everyone. They are Scotland's stones. Nobody owns them yet everyone can lift them. That is definitely worth remembering.

Why do I lift them ?

There are a few reasons but the most important is: it's about paying respect and honouring a long cultural strength history that has come before me. For me, personally, it's important as the stone is a very physical link to my ancestral history and when I'm putting my hands on that stone I always think about the lifters that have come before me, sometimes for hundreds of years, doing the same thing and feeling the same feelings I have. It's quite unique to be able to physically lift up a piece of history and, as my good friend David Keohan says, "you are physically picking up the bones of the earth"; bones of man vs bones of the earth. I also enjoy challenging myself and that is only a natural progression of a strength athlete to test themselves in different ways and the stones are no different, however they just require a different thinking with protection and longevity at the heart of that thinking rather than the typical gym bro thinking of "PBs", "world records", and "I'm gonna lift this higher than any man before me". In short it should always be man vs stone, not man vs previous lifters.

When I lifted my first stone (The Dalwhinnie) in the winter of 2016 I had no clue about history of the stones or about etiquette that comes with it. It's also worth noting that stonelifting wasn't that big a thing and there was only a handful of men that really lifted them. When you compare that to now it's only then that you see that stonelifting is exploding in popularity and it's that popularity that brings risks with it, risks that need to be managed so we can enjoy the resurgence of our cultural strength history and pass it on to the next generation.

So how do we do that?

Well there are a few ways that committed experienced lifters can help which we will explore in this article but first we will look at the dangers stonelifting is currently experiencing.

Obviously the biggest danger is stone breakage and ultimately, as stonelifters, it is our duty to make sure this never happens but that is not a guarantee so we need to manage the risks to reduce the chances of a stone break.

One of the biggest risks as I see it comes from people with a huge social media following who come and attempt the stones for YouTube views or Instagram likes and don't treat them with the respect and care they deserve. We have seen instances as of late showing careless and needless stone drops and this creates a problem where some of their hundreds or thousands of followers think to themselves "I can do that", or "I'm going to try that", and they will think it's ok to do the same and treat them the very same as they see in those videos.

So how do we deal with that?

Well these people have had to be called out by the stonelifting community and explain to them the problems. It's more about education to everyone about the importance of protecting them, that has to be the way forward.

Everyone who lifts these stones needs to think of them like this: they are genuine working historical artifacts that we still have the privilege to get our hands on and to be able to follow in the footsteps of our ancestors, this is an absolute honour that should be cherished.

People who are starting out or ignorant to the previous statement need to stop thinking of them as "just stones" and remember they a special, and perhaps do some research into the fascinating history (I guarantee if you do that you will have immediate respect for them). Whether you are an extremely experienced or complete novice stonelifter it doesn't matter, there are simple things you can do to reduce the chances of breakage:

1. Consider your surroundings. An example would be the Dalwhinnie stone versus The Barevan. The Dalwhinnie sits on a bed of stones next to concrete therefore a drop will be hard on the stone whereas The Barevan sits on soft grass, therefore a drop is unlikely to cause damage. However, as we saw with The Wallace Putting Stone which was also on soft grass, it was dropped from shoulder height onto grass which had a stone just under the surface which caused a catastrophic break. So with this in mind you should consider taking a mat of some kind with you and/or move the stone to a softer area for your attempt if that's possible.
2. Be realistic; understanding you own ability on the stones is particularly important to reducing the amount of drops. An example would be a particularly strong gym goer who thinks lifting stones will be easy because he can press 120kg on a bar, tries to press a stone and drops it because he's not used to the difference.
3. Don't use tacky or abrasive chalks stick to powder only.
4. Leave the stone where you found it. This is particularly important with some stones as damage has occurred through being left on soft grass or heather. Two good examples would be The Strathmore of Durness which receives a visit on average once a year at a guess. This was left by a previous lifter on the grass and when i arrived for my first lift it was 3/4 buried and as a result water had gotten into it over the winter and turned to ice causing three large cracks along it. It must be returned to its bed of stones and no shoulder attempts or anything other than safe lifting should take place. The other was The Glenlivet stone which has been left on the heather which the farmers had been burning and the stone got heat damage which broke another 3kg piece from it. It must be left on the bottom edge of its plinth Just think about leaving them in the best, safest possible position when you leave.
5. Pass on all of this to your fellow lifters when you're there.
6. We should always try to promote and educate good lifting when we can.

Every single stonelifter has dropped a historic stone, that is a fact, it happens. It's a tough thing we do and mistakes can happen, but if you consider all the above it can seriously reduce the chances of breakage. One last thing to consider:

Sporting pretentions

Some newer stonelifters are treating them as they would a sport - for example trying to set "world records", "lifetime PBs", or "world firsts" - as previously mentioned trying to outdo other lifters as their main objective.

None of these exist within historic stone lifting. They never have and never will.
If you feel the need to do that go and find field stones for your garden and lift them as you would for sport just please don't do it with historical stones.

Every lifter will have different reasons for lifting these testing stones and some will have multiple reasons however if it's for sporting reasons then historic stone lifting is not for you.