The Rock Warrior's Way: Mental Training For Climbers

I’m feeling weak, agitated, anxious, or powerless. One day when I came home from work feeling agitated, I reminded myself that I would have a tendency to react rigidly, possibly lashing out with harsh words. Sure enough, when I entered my home, my children were loud, hanging all over me, wanting to play, and asking questions. Knowing that I was prone to reacting, I was prepared. I was able to breathe, relax, and watch myself in a detached way. I played a short time with my children and then told them I needed time alone. I had prevented a power-draining reaction and felt good about the encounter, even though I was feeling agitated and in need of quiet.
    The fourth power leak is hoping and wishing behavior. Hoping and wishing are passive states. If you hope a situation will turn out the way you want, you’re passively waiting for external influences to determine the outcome. You aren’t thinking actively about what you need to do to achieve what you want. “I hope I redpoint this climb” is worse than passive. It has a negative effect. By indulging in passive mental processes that don’t help create the outcome you want, you are actively leaking away power that could otherwise be applied to the challenge at hand.
    Wishing is also passive and leaks away power. “I wish this hold was more positive” has no action quality to it. By wishing, you try to decrease your discomfort by escaping into a fantasy. This is a dreadful waste of power. Not only do you have power going into passive behavior, but you also cloud reality, impairing your ability to problem-solve. Remember that learning is the warrior’s goal. The holds are what they are. You need to think actively so that deliberate, effective actions follow. Instead of wasting power by wishing the hold was more positive, use that power to determine how to use the hold in the best way possible.

    Stressful, high-standard traditional climbing, as found on this route in Eldorado Canyon, Colorado, provides many opportunities for growth. Photo: Jeff Achey
    Becoming the Observer
    To become conscious, you need to separate yourself from the experiences of your life. Become the observer of these experiences and a critic of your responses. You are stalking personal power, and the first step is to become aware of how you respond to life’s circumstances. Too often, we react automatically, in accordance with powerful, self-limiting habits that are resistant to change. We would like to be able to snap our fingers and have all self-limiting habits disappear, but we’re not wired that way. We need to become conscious, and then proceed with patience, intelligence, and stealth.
    One way to deal with negative self-talk is simply to delay . I experienced the power of delaying quite vividly in 1996 when I teamed up with a friend, Glenn Ritter, to climb the famous and difficult Astroman route in Yosemite Valley. As we climbed through the initial pitches I wasn’t feeling very confident. Each pitch tested me, and I experienced a continuous stream of negative self-talk: I couldn’t finish the climb, the Harding Slot pitch would be too hard, this long and sustained climb was too big a challenge, the exposure was too great, etc. By the end of the fourth pitch I wanted to go down. Instead of acting on my negative thoughts, however, I simply watched them from the Witness position. I didn’t really do anything, like fight the thoughts or chastise myself for lack of boldness. I simply listened quietly to the negative self-talk but delayed acting it out. After the fifth pitch I began to feel more confident. The limiting self-talk dissipated. I noticed that I was climbing well, and had been all day. I stayed receptive to the situation, continued climbing, and completed a fantastic and very challenging route. Best of all, I learned something.
    Delaying is especially helpful when dealing with habits. Imagine that you are halfway up a strenuous sport route, climbing with some difficulty and not very smoothly. You find yourself getting progressively more pumped. Forty feet up you make it to a bolt, feeling very uncomfortable in the effort. You clip in and now that you can relax a bit, at this island of safety, the self-limiting talk begins. “Take!” The word wants to jump out of your mouth. Your arms hurt and a shrill voice is telling you that you need to escape the discomfort—now! Do you?
    You don’t. In fact, you have a great opportunity. A habit is formed by associating one thing,