How Rock Climbing Taught me the Secret to Success
"Mountain tops are small and the air is thin for a reason, because you're not supposed to dwell on top of the mountain." -Jill Ellis, Former head coach of the United States Women’s Soccer Team
Hidden behind the physical and mental challenge of rock climbing are some of the greatest lessons of success I’ve learned - I’m going to tell you what they are. But first, let me introduce you to a world I’ve engrossed myself in for the last three years. I’m a rock climbing gym rat. I “pull plastic” as some of the hardcore rock climbers will tell you. But you don’t have to be a climbing elite to learn a few things from what you are working on. I’m glad we can get that out of the way. Now onto the main point.
Climbing routes in both gyms and outdoors are graded to inform climbers of the difficulty of the climb. They commonly range from 5.6 to 5.13 for most humans and can go as high as 5.15d, which is currently the hardest proposed grade for a climb. For more information on how these are graded you can refer to Sportrock’s post on climbing grades.
Now, back to the secret of success, which I’ve narrowed down to three distinct lessons that have unknowingly guided me professionally and personally. What better way to share this than through a story of how I accomplished the hardest climb I have done to date.
Lesson 1: Read the Route
I walked into the climbing gym on a Saturday morning and made my way to the expansive bay with 60 foot climbing walls. As I rounded the corner, I glanced to my left and realized that the routesetters had put up the new set of routes on the slab wall, my favorite part of the entire gym. The slab wall is angled just less than vertical or 90 degrees, which force your movements to be more technical and much more precise. Your body positioning, weight distribution, and controlled movement is critical - something that I always figured appealed to the analytic nature of my mind. As I slowly stepped back to take in the mixed maze of yellow, red, purple, and black holds, my eyes quickly lasered in on what I perceived to be the hardest route of the new set. As the other colors faded from my focus, I narrowed in on the route of blue crimps, which are very small holds that only part of your fingers can fit on, sometimes no larger than the width of a yellow #2 pencil.
Example of a crimp - https://www.99boulders.com/climbing-moves-holds-and-technique
I became fixated on the climb, slowly dropping my bag of gear to the floor as I began reading the route, analyzing every hold and deciphering what movements would be necessary to piece the climb together. Having read climbs for a while and knowing how to visualize the moves, I knew before seeing the grade that this was going to be a hard climb. I walked closer to the wall to see the grade and confirmed it was a 5.12+ (equivalent to a 5.12c or 5.12d), which would become the hardest climb I would attempt at that point. I had been making great gains in the past year as I consistently flashed 5.11s, which is completing a climb the first attempt without any falls, and started ticking off several 5.12s. I stepped back again and began tracing the holds from the bottom to the top, sequencing the best combination of moves to accomplish the climb. “Right hand here, left hand there, lift the right foot high” I thought to myself. I continued “rest here, swap the feet, high left foot, shift weight onto the left with a hard pull.” In my mind I was on the wall, feeling the pull of my tendons on the tiny crimps and the grit of the wall against my face as I shifted all of my weight against the slab wall to rest before the crux of the climb, the hardest part of the route.
I geared up with my climbing harness and began warming up on a few 5.10s to get the blood flowing and my body loosened up. As I neared the point where I knew I was ready to tackle the hardest climb I had ever attempted, I sat down in front of the climb and read the route once again. I mimicked the moves with my hands, shifting my hips and moving my feet as if I was on the wall. In what would look like a breakdance battle with a mime to non-climbers, it is normal for climbers. I visualized the climb one last time in my mind, move by move, making mental notes on where I could take a short rest to quickly shake out my hands, where I could chalk up my hands and get a longer rest, and how I would attempt the crux of the climb. I broke the sections down into smaller chunks to allow me to reduce the magnitude of the climb and solve the sections individually and then piece them back together into a seamless climb. Before I touched the wall, I knew which areas of the route I could breeze through, which areas I would need to grind out, and which areas I had no idea what I was going to do until I was up on the wall. I broke a 60 foot climb into six sections, with two cruxes, and two glorious rest spots:
Section 1: Difficult start, tricky weight shifts with some sketchy foot holds.
Section 2: Moderate difficulty, very technical with the first rest spot at the end.
Section 3: Enter the first crux, what I thought would be the difficult part of the climb but a great rest spot to recharge.
Section 4: A difficult series of movements forcing me to contort my body in several different directions.
Section 5: Crux #2 - I was wrong - this part is so much harder when you are tired, but pass it and you are rewarded with another nice rest spot.
Section 6: Why do they never make the last part easy? A final series of tiny crimps followed by a big throw to the finish.
I put my shoes on, tied into the rope, and placed my hands on the starting holds. With a swift pull of my arms and thrust from my legs I began transposing the mental climbing map I had drawn into movement on the wall.
Reading climbing routes can be one of the harder things to learn as there is no great manual. It comes with experience and knowing your capabilities. Over time, it becomes intuitive but it takes practice and a lot of failures. In everything you do, you can increase the likelihood of success when you approach a new challenge by planning it out, breaking down what could be a seemingly impossible task into smaller components that, when viewed individually, don’t seem as complex. As you solve the smaller pieces of the puzzle one by one and piece them together you realize that those micro solutions contributed to the overall solution of what you were looking to accomplish. Just as I knew there were pieces of the climb that I didn’t have the answer for from the ground, that’s okay. Some challenges you will face head on and have more information after solving some of the other challenges that will best guide you. Visualizing the entire process is critical to success, much like professional athletes do to prepare themselves for their task at hand.
Lesson 2: Fail Up
I was on the fourth attempt of this 5.12+ as I entered into section #5 as I thought to myself, “just a few moves left in the crux”. I had completed each of the six sections independently but had yet to piece the final crux together with the rest of the climb. All in all, I was able to do the entire climb with only a single fall, typically on the last crux and after a short rest finish the climb strong. I knew I was nearing the finish line on this project.
I reached far above my head with my right arm narrowing in on a tiny crimp, an infuriatingly small hold that I could fit only three fingers on with just enough surface area for only a quarter of each finger pad. My fingers clamped down as I began to raise myself higher pushing through my legs. The pump of lactic acid started to creep into my forearm making every small movement ten times harder. I gritted my teeth as my arm started to flare out, or “chicken wing”, as I quickly fatigued. I thought to myself again “almost to the end of the crux where I could reach a good rest point”. Once there I could shake my arms out to lose some of the built up lactic acid, or “juice”, in my arm and release the painful pump.
Sportrock climbing center
I slowly raised my left foot to waist level, placing the inside edge of my rock climbing shoe on a tiny foot chip, only an inch wide. I moved my head to the right, watching my right foot closely as I lifted it and placed the edge of the inside shoe on another foot chip, only slightly larger than the left one, where my right knee had been just a moment ago. I shifted my hips to the right, placing the weight into my feet and my right hand as I placed my left hand on an even smaller crimp just over my left shoulder. This was it - the last hard move of the crux would require locking out my right arm close to my right hip and bumping my left hand to another tiny crimp several feet away just up and to the left of where my left hand currently was placed - it seemed miles away. At this point I had nearly nothing left in the tank - I knew that the chances of success were less than 10%. My thoughts began to bounce like the ping pong ball in an Olympic tennis table match. My body yelling at me to rest and my competitive brain screaming “DO IT”. This was the point where I could have yelled “TAKE” to have my belayer take out the slack of the rope and allow me to rest. I jumped between my thoughts like a referee in a boxing match and screamed “FAIL UP”.
My attention immediately shifted to my legs, “push 75% right, 25% left” I thought to myself. I slowly lifted higher as my right hand came closer to my waist as I tightened my grip further locking my right arm into place. I started to reach with my left hand, the crimp coming into focus. The burning sensation in my right forearm intensified like a loud siren warning of an incoming tornado. Inching closer, my left fingers made contact with the tiny crimp. The tendons in my left fingers became taut as I pulled hard and pushed off my right foot to begin shifting more weight onto my left foot. I focused on the weight distribution on my left foot, 30%, 40%, 50%....almost there...”, I thought to myself as my right fingers popped off the crimp and the world turned to a bur around me as the air escaped my lungs as the rope started to tighten to catch my fall.
Before the final jerk of the rope hit to stop my fall, I began analyzing my movements. It was the furthest I had gotten on that climb and I knew from that last attempt what I had to do to beat the crux and get the full send, a clean finish of the climb with no takes or falls. Had it not been for that last effort, where I knew going into the final moves that success was less than 10%, I would not have realized how to better position my hips and when to shift my weight so that I could ease some of the weight from my right fingers. That knowledge only came from pushing past the prior limits I had reached on that climb.
In climbing, you fail every time you climb - well, at least I do. It is part of the journey. For many climbers, they yell “TAKE” too early, at the very first sense of feeling tired or uncertain of what they should do. As they rest, their thoughts wander to whether they left the oven on. And yes, that was an actual conversation overheard in the climbing gym. By taking too early, they cheat themselves out of invaluable knowledge and insights that could further their gains. Instead, they stop at their perceived limits. Instead of yelling “TAKE”, why not go for it? If you are going to fail, why not fail up? You may very well end up in the same spot sitting on the rope, resting your arms. But what if you learn something from failing up? What if you can take something from that last ditch attempt. Better yet, what could you possibly achieve if you go beyond the limits you set for yourself. What if you don’t fail on that attempt? These are all missed opportunities when you stop short and don’t fail up.
Lesson 3: Success is Brief, Enjoy it and Find the Next Challenge
I returned to the 5.12+ the next climbing session and knew that it was going to be the day. I geared up once more, visualizing the route again in my mind. I incorporated all of the lessons I learned from the last climb. I had replayed it at least ten times on how I would move my hips and shift my weight. As I tied in and looked at my beautiful belayer (relax, she’s my wife), she said in her casual yet confident way, “You got this.” I attacked the first section with ease. I breezed through section 2 and took my first rest of the climb, calmly shaking out my arms. And chalking my hands to dry the sweat that had formed on the prior sections. I slowed down as I entered crux 3, which still could give me problems from time to time. I meticulously worked through it with ease. I entered section 4 feeling great. I had never fallen on it before - it was locked in. As I reached for a hold that I had gotten every time before, my left foot slipped off a small chip! I pulled hard on the tiny crimps to hold myself to the wall as the momentum of the left foot pulled my right foot off it’s hold leaving all of my weight on these two tiny crimps. I pulled even harder and forced my feet back onto the wall and regained my composure as I looked down at my wife and gave her a surprised look of relief. I continued on and entered the second crux - game time.
I paused momentarily to fight back the fear that started to creep in, my stomach tightened and thoughts began racing on whether this would be it. Thoughts of “did I tie in correctly?” creeped up as I quickly looked down at my knot. “All good”, I thought to myself as I played the next movements in my mind. My body acted as if on autopilot. Right hand to the crimp, lift my left foot, lift my right foot. Place my left hand. Bump my left hand. Hips in, shift my weight - it was effortless. The recap from my previous failure and the lesson I learned pushed me through the crux and to the rest spot as if I had done it hundreds of times before. Pumped out, I rested on the last rest before the series of final moves to the top of the climb. I replayed the moves of that final section one final time and pulled hard to begin the final sequence.
Left hand high, super high right foot, smear my left foot against the wall as I prepared to throw for a tiny crimp with the right hand. The fear of failure popped up once more but I gave it no time to settle as I went for it. Pushing hard off my left foot, time slowed as my right hand inched closer to the last crimp, my fingers latching on and pulling hard as I pushed with my right foot to create tension to hold myself to the wall. I quickly raised my left foot to a comfortable foot chip and reached up with my left hand to grab the top of the wall as my wife exclaimed “Yes!” below. As the slack in my rope tightened and I began to lower to the ground, I breathed a sigh of relief and recognized what I had just accomplished - the hardest climb I had done. There is no greater feeling than the accomplishment of solving a puzzle that blends mental and physical elements together - it’s the joy of climbing.
Over the next month I attempted the climb several more times, some ending in failure and others ending in success. Then one day, I entered the gym and the climb had been reset. It’s the benefit and curse of a climbing gym over outdoor climbing. You continually get a new set of challenges, yet if you were so close to one and it goes away, you never know what could have been. I have found that success follows a similar pattern. You set a goal, you accomplish it, and then you are onto the next goal. Success is a series of tiny victories, strung together over time to form a sum greater than its parts. That path includes small wins and many attempts at failing up, all of which got you to where you are today. What’s important is that you recognize the success and acknowledge that it isn’t the end. As Jill Ellis, the former coach of the US Women’s national soccer team said, "Mountain tops are small and the air is thin for a reason, because you're not supposed to dwell on top of the mountain." Take a moment to recognize and appreciate your success and when that new route emerges you’ll be prepared to:
Read the route to determine the best path through it
Break the challenge down into smaller pieces to solve it easier
When you fail, fail up - remove “TAKE” from your vocabulary as you climb through the challenge
Enjoy the view from the top and acknowledge what you did, knowing that the next challenge is just around the corner.
-Jason