The Rock Warrior's Way: Mental Training For Climbers

cultivated—usually unconsciously—at work and at home.
    When we start pushing the envelope, our most entrenched habits almost always take over. How could it be otherwise? When the river runs smooth, we’re all heroes. Only when the big water starts to roar can we find out where we stand and what we’re made of. And the key word here is “made.” What have we made ourselves?
    The Rock Warrior’s Way provides a comprehensive program for you to make yourself a more accomplished climber, but only you can supply the means. This requires a conscious effort and an ironclad commitment if those pearls are ever to be fully claimed as your own. One of the shockers of doing any deep work is discovering how little we act and how much we react. And our reactions are steeped in our old fear-driven patterns, with all our survival instincts attached. Breaking loose from these patterns has been likened to freeing yourself from a lion’s jaws, and you’ve little chance of accomplishing this without a strong commitment. We waver, slip, and revert to our comfortable old mechanics. When we realize we’ve still made some ground despite all the backsliding, we understand that what got us there was our commitment.
    This takes us back to the idea that the seemingly indirect path is in fact the direct path to excellence. Here, the “indirect” path requires that you make the Warrior principles your own, that you live them moment to moment, that you practice and hone them in your daily life as well as on the river or on the cliff side.
    Put simply, the more you integrate the principles into your daily life, the more powerfully they will work for you on the face of the tidal wave. I’ve touched on the basic yet often overlooked fact that when we’re standing in tall cotton, so to speak, we don’t need advanced tools. But when life and limb are at stake, we can never be over prepared. If we prepare by practicing these principles when little is at stake, the lessons become instinctual and will be second nature when the crux is encountered. The boon of all this is that the Warrior principles have been gleaned from enlightened sources and are universal principles for transformation and self-mastery. If I’m going to practice something day in and day out, it’s reassuring for me to know that the material is gold by any measure.
    This course is not just another of the cut-and-paste jobs we so frequently see in today’s endless search for the quick fix or for sudden enlightenment. Arno Ilgner spent years troweling through the world’s classic wisdom traditions, as well as many modern modalities, ranging from chaos and systems theory to Voice Dialogue. Through a long process of self-study and trial and error, he arrived at a step-by-step method that allows an adventure athlete to experientially grasp the concepts and to continue the process on his own.
    Students of the Rock Warrior’s Way should appreciate that, while many of these principles have been around for upwards of 3500 years, the disciples of old never tested them 2500 feet up El Capitan. I can only feel that, seeing today’s adventurers taking the qualities of bodymind onto the great rocks of the world, the masters of old must be smiling down from the clouds, knowing their sacred tradition is being carried out in exciting and remarkable new ways.
    Finally, any sincere adventurer has, through direct participation, learned to manage fulsome levels of intensity and to maintain a focused mind. Anything beyond advanced-intermediate level climbing requires as much. These capacities put you in good stead to grasp and quickly integrate the course principles and to start enjoying results. While the world might not have been made just for you, the Rock Warrior’s Way certainly was.
    —John Long, Venice, California, 2002

Preface
    Let me reconstruct a climbing experience I had years ago.
    “I’ll lead this. I can do it! I’ll show you how it’s done.” I climb up some thin moves using underclings and side pulls for handholds, place a solid medium-sized chock, and scan the sequence above. The holds seem indistinct and not straightforward on the vertical wall above. The pro above looks like it will be intermittent and small. I am talking to myself:
    “I wish the holds were more obvious. I want to get another pro piece but I don’t see where one will fit. I have to do this—I can’t go down.”
    I climb up a bit and see pro possibilities about ten feet higher. My self-talk