The Rock Warrior's Way: Mental Training For Climbers

transcended and the subconscious is allowed to manifest some of its unseen forces.
    The Bullet and the Laser Beam
    We can visually represent our life and actions with two graphics that I call the Bullet and the Laser Beam. They give visual structure to our concepts of the comfort and risk zones and provide a model for understanding the warrior processes.
    There are several components of the Bullet. The entire diagram (plus the area beyond the paper) represents your potential. The area inside the inner circle represents the part of your potential that is your present comfort zone: what you know, the realm of your ordinary world, what is comfortable. Everything within this circle is potential you have already realized. An example might be your ability to lead 5.10 sport climbs. You’ve experienced many 5.10 sport climbs and are comfortable climbing them. You aren’t scared, but rather can focus on and enjoy the climbing experience.
    The ring-like area between the inner and outer circles is the risk zone. What lies in the risk zone is unknown to you. This zone is a teacher—you might also think of it as the learning zone. It represents experiences you haven’t gone through, or experiences that make you uncomfortable. Everything in the risk zone is potential you haven’t yet realized. Let’s say you are comfortable on 5.10 sport climbs but have little experience on trad climbs. On 5.9 or 5.10 trad climbs you will have a tendency to be scared, have difficulty focusing, or have difficulty enjoying the climbing experience because there are aspects of trad climbing you haven’t experienced, such as placing pro. These experiences are in your risk zone.
    Figure 5.1: The Bullet

    The inner circle that defines the risk zone represents the resistance barrier between the comfort zone and the risk zone. You feel this barrier during a challenging experience. You feel resistance to leaving the comfort zone and venturing into the risk zone. The outer circle of the risk zone represents the outer edge of a particular risk. Beyond this lies realms of the unknown that are not accessible during the particular risk you’re modeling.
    The final components of the Bullet are the “force arrows,” those originating inside the comfort zone and going out into the risk zone and the others going in the opposite direction. There is a force pushing you out of your comfort zone. You can call this force desire, but I call it the love force. It is your desire to engage life, to take on challenges, to take risks. The love force creates situations where you learn more about yourself.
    The inward-pointing arrows represent the force that keeps you in your comfort zone. This force derives from fear. I call it the phantom-fears force. This force restrains you and keeps you inside your comfort zone. It makes you resist the unknown. This force isn’t “bad.” It is quite necessary, because without it you would be soloing 5.13s and killing yourself. To take appropriate risks, however, you need to weaken this force so you can expand your comfort zone. You weaken the force by eliminating or reducing phantom fears. You accomplish this by focusing attention on the love force rather than the phantom-fears force.
    By engaging a risk you seek to expand the inner circle—your comfort zone—toward the outer circle. After having taken the risk, you will have expanded your comfort zone to include some of what was previously part of the unknown.
    The Laser Beam
    The Laser Beam adds the seven Rock Warrior processes to the Bullet graphic. A laser collects light and concentrates it into a beam that has more power than unfocused, disorganized, ordinary light. The warrior “laser” collects and concentrates attention . When you focus your attention like a warrior, you concentrate it like a laser beam concentrates light, producing an intention with concentrated power analagous to a laser.
    The preparation phase takes place in your comfort zone: attention is collected, centered, directed, and focused so that it can become powerful enough to punch through the resistance barrier of the inner circle. Punching through the inner circle is the graphic representation of the transition phase, the Choices process. Your attention is now like a focused laser beam, bursting through the inner circle into the adventure of the unknown. The last two warrior processes, subjects of Chapters 6 and 7, keep the “attention beam” from dispersing (losing its focus) during the action