Rock Climbing: Self-Discovery

Why Climb?

People become hobbyists after being at the mercy of the corporate world. We wear many hats daily, be it at work, with friends or solving problems. Being homo-sapiens, an avenue for detox is essential, we return to our inner sanctum and find our steady-state new or old. Like most people, I’ve quirks and hobbies, some followed me growing up, others picked up along the way. Today I’d like to talk about Rock Climbing, a pastime picked up earlier in March 2018.

Like most sports, Rock Climbing is very much affiliated with mountaineering and is not new by any standards. In my opinion, it requires more brains than brawn. Part of the reason picking up this sport was due to spontaneity and a decision that everyone should pivot or do something crazy at some point in life. Picking up this sport was tied together with a change in career, the idea here was to ensure the sport builds my character and keeps me competitive. 9 months into this sport, I find I’ve become stronger in physique, mental reflexes and emotional balance.

Common definitions

Before talking about the technicalities of the sport, I’d like to run through some commonly used terms and how the sport works. There’re a couple of different types of climbing in the sport: Bouldering, Top-rope, Lead-Climbing, Trad Climbing just to name a few. The sub-group “Bouldering” when lemmatizes to the root word “Boulder”, essentially meaning “Large rock”. This sub-group is becoming increasingly popular due to the ease of the sport, requiring only climbing shoes, some chalk, and the climber. As for the other 3 types of climbing, Top-rope, Lead-Climbing and Trad Climbing, they require additional equipment ranging from harnesses, belay devices, ropes, runners, quickdraws and the list goes on. The focal point of this article is to discuss the takeaways for the sport — Bouldering in particular — and it would be easier if the reader were to be acquainted with the terms used in the sport.

How Climbing helps

Over the course of bouldering, I began understanding my body better and the mental barriers climbers face. While I was reading “Peak: Secrets from the new science of expertise” — the book discusses how talents can be taught by connecting neurons and provides case studies relating to musicians, cab drivers- of the many concepts discussed, a particular concept which stood out and was very relevant to athletes in rock climbing: “purposeful practice” and “mental representations”. Both concepts were not entirely different or new, they were just less frequently explained. It then dawned on me how the sport helps develop and strengthen certain character traits within us unknowingly.

Mental representations; Purposeful practice

Purposeful practice or Deliberate practice: Practice which requires focused attention and is conducted with a specific goal of improving performance.
Mental representations: is a cognitive state where the brain interprets certain scenarios and preps the body to respond accordingly.

Before ascending any rock wall, seasoned athletes usually map out their route, form mental images from past climbs and experiences on various holds, routes, and techniques. Once the mental visualization process is done, they get up the wall (which really is the fun part). The mental process helps the climber to better posit his body, optimally distributing body weight.

Trust; grit & resilience

One of my favorite type of wall when I started, was the slab wall — walls that are upwards slopping- the kind where you could walk up the wall. The routes on these walls generally focuses on the climbers ability to balance, and to trust their feet regardless of the size of the foothold with minimal handholds. When you put these small footholds on a top-rope route, the climber would have to put his faith to test. That said, however long or tough the route on the wall may be, climbers seem to be able to finish them — this seems to be common observation for me as well. The more I climbed, I observe seasoned gurus spending more time sitting around mapping out their routes. With seasoned resilience and grit, they don’t back down when faced with a difficult route. Once the gurus think they’ve gotten the route figured out, they signal to their buddy to belay them on their next attempt up the wall.

Greed; Anger; Disappointment

The sport has a funny way of teaching us to manage our emotions and limits. Seasoned climbers who enjoy the sport tend to spend an entire day climbing, be it at an indoor gym or outdoors. We get worn out easily from all that explosive muscle expansion and contraction. Part of the takeaway is to really know when your body is worn out and beat. Not acknowledging that and pressing to climb is sheer greed. People who love the sport would keep going at the wall for hours. With that, each subsequent climb may be less productive and eventually the climber becomes angry at himself. From being able to manage 4–5 moves to just barely 2 moves off the same route, anyone would feel discouraged and disappointed. That said, while being greedy may help push our physical barrier, it may damage some of the precious tendons or ligaments in our wrists, forearms or elbows. The climber has to find the right balance where he/she knows when and when to take a break from climbing, let the body recover. A timely example, I recently felt discomfort in all my finger joints and decided that I stopped immediately. A friend of mine told me to stop “full-crimping”, I told him I’d be better off not climbing if you’d ask me to do that. “Full-crimping” gives me the confidence, power and it meets my requirements to ascend tougher routes. I may not be the best climber out there, but I want to do my best on every climb.

Fear; Confidence; Discipline

Sure enough, fear will find you. This topic resonates with the spirit of entrepreneurship and may very well be the most important out of the many lessons. Fail fast and fail hard, we hear this phrase often enough. In climbing, we fall fast and fall often. The lessons I took when starting out- doing Top-ropes, lead climbing — taught me fear. One key difference between lead and top rope, you get to stay at the same spot when doing top rope. You don’t when doing lead climbing, if your last clip was 1–1.5 meters away, you’re probably going to fall by twice that amount plus an additional amount of slack which is present in the system. The fear of falling makes us think twice about letting go. In some sense, the sport teaches you to climb with confidence, handling every step of the way up in a disciplined and controlled manner. If the route requires a dynamic move or a “Dyno” to get past, then the climber has to have the confidence to swing or jump by that amount taking into consideration the chance of falling off the wall. That said, we’ve to ensure every move on the wall is executed in a controlled manner.

Humility and social skills

As on the trading floor, we get schooled by the market more often than not. Greedy people who crave the profits to be made from the market. The market makes us humble, teaches us to listen to others and have an open mind. This is no different in rock climbing, there’re many ways to solve a boulder problem. The solutions could be different for people of different dimensions. Solutions for people with a height and span advantage may not work for their counterparts. As such, climbers often discuss and ask for help to solve these boulder problems. This is where climbers begin honing their social skills, engaging in topical conversations helps as a conversation starter and may branch out into other fields.

A Journey of Growth

Of course, the sport has taught me various tangible and intangible skills and these are some of the lessons I picked up so far. The pivot I made was just a beginning of a journey and I hope to continue learning and be humbled by the Climbing.

Originally published at http://thestrangecommoner.wordpress.com on March 24, 2019.