Lander Festival Clinic

L to R (back): Scott, Brian, Cody, Ian

(front): Arno, Dave, Tom, Eckhard, Joann, Dan

In order to create the most powerful effort, you must have your attention fully in the present moment. What motivates you and how you set your intentions will determine what happens to your attention. We’ve discussed earlier how motivation must be grounded primarily in process goals that allow us to grow, and secondarily in end goals. Aligning goals this way maintains motivation when you are under maximum stress. Once you’ve established effective motivation, you can begin to set effective intentions.

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As we said earlier, intention is attention focused in the direction of a choice or decision. In any climbing situation, you will have both end-result intentions and process intentions. Your end-result intention involves attaining an end goal, such as achieving a redpoint or arriving at the next decision point. End-result intentions are part of the process, but you cannot act on them. You need intentions your body can act out. Process intentions might include continuous breathing and moving through the next section, giving focused effort to each move, and not allowing your resolve to waver.

]]> http://warriorsway.com/intention/feed/ 3 http://warriorsway.com/different-ways-of-engaging/ http://warriorsway.com/different-ways-of-engaging/#comments Mon, 05 Jul 2010 00:00:28 +0000 Arno http://warriorsway.com/?p=1075 You engage yes-fall risks differently than no-fall risks. By "different" I mean you need to determine whether or not to listen to your mind's doubts. - These lessons are emailed in more detail, with upcoming training, discount offers, and practical tips, to our eList subscribers. Please join our eList to receive these lessons.]]> For no-fall zones, you weigh how much strength you have left compared to how much strength and skill it will take to climb and not fall. You usually climb more slowly, stay on routes below your technical limit, and you do listen to your mind if it tells you to stop. For yes-fall zones, you weight the fall consequences against your experience taking such falls. You climb more quickly, get on routes at or above your technical limit, and you don’t listen to your mind if it tells you to stop (figure 3-3).

For no-fall zones, you weigh how much strength you have left compared to how much strength and skill it will take to climb and not fall. You usually climb more slowly, stay on routes below your technical limit, and you do listen to your mind if it tells you to stop. For yes-fall zones, you weight the fall consequences against your experience taking such falls. You climb more quickly, get on routes at or above your technical limit, and you don’t listen to your mind if it tells you to stop (figure 3-3).

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When you’re at a mini decision point (a stance with protection), determine whether the next section is a no- or yes-fall risk. What is the DAO of the fall? How much actual experience do you have taking such falls? If you determine it to be a yes-fall zone, then when you commit, you don’t listen to the doubts in your mind. You’ll commit with the intention to “make the next move” regardless of what your mind tells you. Conversely, if you determine it to be a no-fall zone, then you’ll commit with a different intention. You do listen to the doubts in your mind and retreat if necessary.

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You may be at a mini decision point where you have protection and see the next possibility for pro 20 feet higher. Your mind, noting the runout and your pump, may label the situation no-fall, convincing you to retreat. A no-fall label may be accurate, but recognize your mind’s tendency to think in all-or-nothing ways. Recall in The Awareness Process (TAP) we discussed “finding little ways to engage.” One such way is to probe into situations that initially seem to be no-fall. You may identify a micro decision point 10 feet into the runout. Climbing to that point could still keep you within a yes-fall zone. By probing you allow the engagement of your body to clarify your mind’s conception. You may engage with the option to down-climb again. Doing this allows you to learn initial sequences and how strenuous it is to do them. For no-fall zones, you’ll engage with the intention to “probe, stay in control, and be ready to down-climb if necessary.”

The Crag at Cool Springs, Franklin, TN

Grads L to R: Newton, Talley, Jaclyn, Kidder, Arno, Zach, Adam

Decision points are places where you stop, rest, and assess. We can identify three kinds of decision points: macro, mini, and micro. The sole macro decision point is at the base of a route. Next, on a route, there are mini decision points where you have a stance with protection. Third, there are micro decision points where you don’t have protection. These are places with subtle stances allowing you to stop and quickly assess.

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The purpose of a decision point is to make a clear and appropriate choice to which you will fully commit, rather than just climbing on with your head full of uncertainty. You’ll need to prepare by collecting information (END, DAO, and POLR), weigh the risk, and decide whether or not to commit.

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Each decision point transitions you from preparation, through a decision, to taking action. You have micro decisions, within mini decisions, within a macro decision; cycles of preparation, decision, and action within larger cycles of preparation, decision, and action. Risks are always constructed this way—cycles within cycles. How effectively you make the macro decision will determine how effectively you make the mini and micro decisions.

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Larger strategic issues—such as, “Why am I on this climb?”—cannot be decided quickly at a micro decision point. You’ll simply justify your momentary feelings rather than act effectively to execute a well-considered plan. Motivation must be decided when you have more time and less stress. At the mini points, you assess and decide the more specific, tactical parts of the risk, like the next END, the DAO you now face, and the POLR for the next section. At the micro points, you consider the tactical parts at a more microscopic level. Recall from the Preparation eLesson that climbing is a combination of stopping and moving. By understanding cycles, you separate the skills of stopping on a route from those of moving, and you begin doing each more deliberately. You rest more fully when you stop; you climb more deliberately when you move.

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How you use the intelligences of your mind also changes as you get deeper into the risk. The length of time you have to assess decreases as you move deeper, from macro to micro. At the same time, the amount of stress you experience increases. In order to make appropriate choices at micro decision points, where time is minimal and stress is maximal, you need to build a solid foundation at the macro and mini decision points.

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Standing on the ground, at your macro point, you can think to gather information. Your feeling of whether or not the risk is appropriate will not be accurate. You’re still too far inside your comfort zone. You are also too far away from the immediacy of the risk to determine the exact fall consequences and the level of pump you will feel. Therefore, at the macro point, you utilize more of your analytical intelligence, thinking through the risk. You thoroughly address strategic issues, like your motivation.

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At mini points you have diminished time and increased stress. You are intimately closer to the next section and can see the risk you face more clearly and feel the pump more precisely. Tactically, you can think to identify the END, the DAO, and the POLR for the next section you face. Decreased time and increased stress also move you closer to the edge of your comfort zone, which allows you to feel whether or not the risk is appropriate. At mini points you utilize your analytical and intuitive intelligences equally.

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At micro points, time has decreased to the moment and stress has peaked. Less available time requires you to think less to gather information. More stress requires you to feel more and make quicker decisions. You stop at micro points to quickly figure out if the risk has changed.

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If you’re in a yes-fall zone, you decide what to do to continue climbing, not whether or not it’s an appropriate risk. You can feel how pumped you are and how you will use your remaining strength to climb what is ahead of you.

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If you are in a no-fall zone, then you can feel how pumped you are and determine if you have enough strength to continue without falling. If you feel you do not have enough strength, then you will retreat. At micro points you utilize more of your intuitive intelligence to feel what is most appropriate.

One critical aspect of appropriate decisions is they must create a learning experience and not an injury experience. Many climbers never determine if it’s safe or not to fall on a climb. They engage all climbing situations by doing all they can to avoid falling and don’t push themselves to the point of purposely taking a fall. When they do fall it’s an accident, due to a hold breaking or getting suddenly pumped, and little or nothing is learned. To learn and improve, however, you must intentionally push beyond what your mind thinks you can do. To do this, though, you must learn to distinguish between no-fall zones and yes-fall zones.

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Remember, even in “yes-fall” situations you can never make a risk totally safe or eliminate every possible negative consequence. All you can do is diminish the consequences by creating an appropriate risk, meaning one you fully understand and accept. You may be willing to risk a skinned knee from bumping the rock but not a sprained ankle from hitting a ledge. You may be willing to take a clean 15-foot air fall but not a 30-footer. Whatever the specifics, the key point is that you have a clear understanding of what you are committing to.

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Yes-fall zones are not just places where it is “safe” to fall. They are places where it is appropriate for you to risk a fall. An appropriate risk pushes you a little outside your previous experience level (with falling) but not too far. You must be able to fully process the experience and learn.

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No-fall zones seem self-explanatory: places where you shouldn’t fall because a fall could cause injury. But a no-fall zone might be one where a fall would scare you. Being a little scared is fine—-you can probably process that level of fear and stress. If a fall scares you too much, however, you’ll resist engaging a similar situation, stifling the learning process.

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Therefore, don’t just look at the objective consequences of a fall, but weigh the consequences against your experience taking such falls. I suggest practicing falling frequently and intentionally. This will help you distinguish between no-fall and yes-fall zones. The process for doing this will be outlined in future lessons. Only with falling experience can you properly determine no-fall and yes-fall zones. This determination is critical, because you engage these zones differently.

Whether or not you are willing to fall off a route, and whether or not you actually will fall, are perhaps the most ongoing fundamental questions in rock climbing. The more clearly you understand and address these questions, the less confusion and fear will affect you while climbing. This process requires both analytical and intuitive intelligence. Assessing the falls you’ve experienced in the past utilizes your mind’s analytical intelligence. You can quantitatively determine what type of routes you’ve fallen on, the distance of those falls, the angle of the rock, what obstacles were there, and how often you’ve fallen. You also know the type and grade of routes you’ve climbed without falling. This information results from your mind’s analytical intelligence applied in preparation. In contrast, weighing that information against the particular route you now face with the level of strength you now have is totally intuitive.

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Intuitive intelligence isn’t a thinking process but rather a feeling process. No amount of justifying with your thinking mind to commit or retreat will help you determine whether or not you’re taking an appropriate risk. You can only rely on an intuitive feeling for determining appropriateness.

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Analytical thinking alone will never tell you for sure if the decision to commit is appropriate. Millions of complex aspects must come together within your body and mind for each particular effort, that are too complex to analyze and think about to make a decision. You must take in all those aspects, meld them, weigh them, and then make a decision. This can only be done effectively by utilizing your mind’s intuitive intelligence.

Motivation derives from the sense that you will “get something” from an experience. Motivation is the fuel that drives your effort and increases or diminishes depending on whether or not you feel you’ll attain your goal. There are two main types of goals: end goals and process goals. Your motivation will behave very differently under the stress of a climbing challenge depending on which type of goal you are working toward. Understanding this difference and using it is key in maintaining motivation to stay committed during challenging climbing.

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End goals are such external things as climbing harder grades or redpointing routes. Process goals are the skills you learn in the process of your external achievements, internal things such as the ability to commit more completely or fall more safely. If you’re motivated solely by end goals, then as stress and difficulty increase during a crux, you see less chance of attaining your goal. The stress stands between you and your goal. Since motivation derives from the anticipation of attaining a goal, when you begin to pump out, end-goal motivation will tend to diminish. You say, “Why bother? I know I’m too pumped to get to the top.”

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If, however, you are motivated by process goals, then as stress increases you see a greater chance of attaining your goal-—improved skills. Your motivation increases. As your strength fades, you say, “One more move is valuable, so do it.”

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Most climbers are motivated by both ends and processes. End goals pick the stage where you will perform. They involve routes you want to climb or places you want to arrive where you’ll be satisfied (comfortable). End goals are realized after stress. Process goals concern the quality of the performance. They involve skills you want to learn, or stressful situations that provide learning opportunities. Process goals are realized during stress.

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It’s important to have both type of goals and to set them up in the correct hierarchy. If you want to maximize your performance, make process goals primary and end goals secondary. This way, you will be primarily motivated to engage in climbing situations that are stressful, creating an opportunity to learn and improve. You are secondarily motivated to find the most comfortable way through the stressful situation and attain the end goal of a redpoint or on-sight. Think of end goals as tests of how well you have learned your process goals.

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As living beings, we feel truly alive when we grow. Grounding our motivation in growth, in the challenge and stress that will actually cause us to grow, fuels the whole process. The source of our power and the application of it are connected, allowing our power to flow from our ground, through our being, and into our effort, as we apply it on a route. Valuing growth keeps our motivation consistent and connected to its source.