Physical and mental training intensive with Jessa Goebel of Climb Fit and Arno Ilgner of The Warrior’s Way. This intensive is for intermediate to advanced climbers willing to do vigorous workouts to take their climbing to the next level.

What you will learn to improve physical fitness:

• Making the most of your time in the gym
• Properly warming up for climbing
• How to build climbing endurance
• How to build power
• Exercises for improving climbing fitness
• Techniques for preventing and lowering risk of injury
• Supplementing your climbing workouts away from climbing

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What you will learn to improve mental fitness:

• Become aware of the mind’s limiting tendencies
• Use the mind’s intelligence to do effective risk-assessment
• Make appropriate risk decisions
• Practice falling in small increments
• Give a cushioned belay
• Develop flow and momentum
• Deal with climbing stress
• Improve problem-solving skills
• Reduce fear

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Prerequisites:

• At least one year of climbing experience
• Willingness to engage in vigorous workout and climbing activities
• Climbing indoors/outdoors 1-2 times per week

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Urban Rocks, Chattanooga, TN,  (11am – 6pm)

Fall 2010

investment: $195

Registration: Contact Arno at arno@warriorsway.com to register

We all tend to resist stress. To begin overcoming this tendency, admit that stress is a normal and desirable part of climbing. Accept this not just philosophically but in practice. When you encounter a stressful situation, accept the stress and explore its details. Accepting stress will help you see a situation as it is and avoid the distracting tricks your mind plays to satisfy its desire for comfort.

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Acceptance does not equal resignation. It means simply that you avoid wishful thinking and illusions, and focus on gathering useful information about the challenge before you. Saying, “I wish these holds were bigger,” is an expression of resistance. It will not make the holds grow or help you use them. Saying, “I hope there’s a hold up there,” will not create a hold or help you respond if there isn’t one. Saying, “If only I wasn’t so pumped,” will not re-energize your forearms or help you find the least strenuous path through the crux.

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If your attention is engaged in resisting stressful facts, wishing or hoping the situation was different, then it isn’t fully present for gathering information to prepare for the risk. Later, when you begin moving again, if you resisted stressful facts, your actions won’t be deliberate.

This course is geared toward active lead climbers who want to improve their performance in their redpointing efforts. This 2-day course will give you tools necessary to redpoint your project through the application of the Warriors Way material.

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• Session 1: June 5-6, 2010
• Session 2: October TBA

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Skills you’ll learn:

• Prepare effectively
• Assess risks appropriately
• Break climbs into smaller risk events
• Mental skills to stay calm, relaxed, focused, and committed
• Fall safely
• Improve movement skills for climbing efficiently
• Give a cushioned belay to keep the climber safe when falling
• Commit deliberately to your redpoint effort

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Course format:

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On day one we’ll work on foundational skills: breathing, continuous movement, falling, belaying, and staying relaxed. On day two, we’ll apply learned skills to redpointing a challenging route. This will include working out the beta/moves, testing fall consequences, identifying rest stances, and then doing the redpoint effort.

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What are the pre-requisites?

• Active sport climbing leader, redpointing at the 5.8 level indoors/outdoors
• Climb indoors/outdoors at least 1-2 times per week
• At least 6 months of continuous climbing experience in the last year

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Instructors:

Arno Ilgner and Elaina Arenz-Smith

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Investment:

This Camp is reasonably priced at $325 for 2 days of instruction in an intimate group setting.

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Registration:

Call New River Mountain Guides at 800-732-5462.

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Please call or email us for other questions you may have.

Elaina: 800-732-5462, info@newriverclimbing.com

Arno: 615-406-3404, arno@warriorsway.com

This course is geared toward aspiring trad leaders who want to learn how to lead trad routes without being paralyzed by the fear of falling. After the weekend you’ll climb stronger, smarter, safer and more efficiently, and you’ll have the skills you need for leading traditional routes, through the application of the Warriors Way material.

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• Session 1: April 23-25, 2010
• Session 2: Sept 17-19, 2010

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You’ll learn or improve the following skills:

• Place and assess trad lead protection
• Build belay anchors
• Lead traditional routes safely and efficiently
• Take practice falls on your gear to develop confidence in your gear placements
• Crack climbing technique on cracks of all sizes from finger cracks to offwidths
• Effective risk assessment allowing you to take appropriate risks
• Improve self awareness, effective resting skills, deliberate decision-making, improving commitment, increasing climbing momentum, and improved problem-solving skills
• Improve safety awareness

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Pre-requisites:

• Able to lead 5.8 sport, or top-rope 5.9 with no falls
• Climb indoors/outdoors at least 1-2 times per week
• At least 6 months of continuous climbing experience within the last year

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Instructors:

Arno Ilgner and Elaina Arenz-Smith

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Investment:

This Trad Camp is reasonably priced at $425 for 3 days of instruction in an intimate group setting.

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Registration:

Call New River Mountain Guides at 800-732-5462.

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Please call or email us for other questions you may have.

Elaina: 800-732-5462, info@newriverclimbing.com

Arno: 615-406-3404, arno@warriorsway.com

Register at the following gyms:

• Inner Peaks, Charlotte, NC, April 7 (6-10pm), 704-844-6677
• Tumblebees, Greensboro, NC, April 9 (6-10pm), 336-665-0662
• The Climbing Place, Fayetteville, NC, April 10, (6-10pm), 910-486-9638
• Charleston Parks, Charleston, SC, April 11 (9-1pm), 843-762-8090
• Triangle Rock Club, Morrisville, NC, April 12, (6-10pm), 919-463-7625 (tentative)

• Little Rock Climbing Center, Little Rock, AR, Mar 9 (6-10pm), 501-227-9500
• Austin Rock Gym, Austin, TX Mar 10 (6-10pm), 512-416-9299
• Santa Fe Climbing Center, Santa Fe, NM Mar 13 & 14 (4-8pm), 505-986-8944
• Stone Age Climbing Center, Albuquerque, NM Mar 15 (6-10pm), 505-341-2016
• Phoenix Rock Gym, Tempe, AZ Mar 16 (6-10pm), 480-921-8322
• Climbmax Gym, Tempe, AZ Mar 17 (6-10pm), 480-626-7755

Arno presenting

Espresso Lessons: Practical Mental Fitness Applications in Stress and Risk Situations with author Arno Ilgner

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Presentation Description:

Arno’s first book, The Rock Warrior’s Way, outlines the foundation of the Warrior’s Way ® material. His second book, Espresso Lessons, takes the material into practical climbing situations.

Mental fitness training is simply improving your ability to keep attention in the moment. The most challenging—and interesting—moment in rock climbing is when your mind doubts whether or not you can continue climbing. Knowing when it is appropriate to push through this doubt and when to back off is critical for taking appropriate risks.

Join Arno for an insightful evening of applying the Warrior’s Way mental training material to practical climbing situations.

In this presentation, you’ll learn:

1. Limiting mental tendencies and how to avoid them

2. How to use the mind’s intelligence for preparation

3. How to make appropriate risk decisions

4. How to understand falling and consequences

5. How to commit to taking effective action

Presentation Locations:

• YMCA Climbing Wall, Los Alamos, NM, March 12 7pm,  (505) 662-3100
• REI, Asheville, NC, April 5 7pm,  (828) 687-0918
• Jesse Brown’s, Charlotte, NC, April 6 7pm, 704-369-5140
• REI, Greensboro, NC, April 8 6:30pm, (336) 323-3117

Kelly acting crazy

L to R: Elaina (assistant), Kelly, Luke, David, Abrahm

We each have a specific tendency toward being intuitive or analytical in our climbing. Let me describe both and see if you can pick your tendency.

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Recently I taught a class at the New River Gorge in West Virginia. One student, Michael, climbed quite quickly. He climbed right past stances where he could have stopped to rest and assess. He seemed driven by an overall anxiousness to get the climbing over with. Another student, Ann, was the opposite. She lingered at rest stances and then climbed slowly between them. She seemed resistant to engage. Mike was rushing, while Ann was stalling. Both climbers were victims of their comfort-seeking minds, but in completely different ways. Mike’s path through the stress was intuitive whereas Ann’s was analytical.

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Intuitive climbers tend to under-think and do poor risk assessment. When they encounter stress, they seek to minimize it and just go. They feel uncomfortable at rest stances and tend to rush into cruxes without resting adequately or collecting the necessary information to create an effective plan. The “pro” for being an intuitive climber is that you tend to climb faster and more continuously, which can improve your flow through cruxes and minimize time spent in strenuous positions. The “con” is that you don’t gather enough information to climb efficiently or avoid inappropriate risks. Climbers of this type often are known for taking scary, out-of-control falls that may stifle their future ability to focus and improve.

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Conversely, analytical climbers tend to over-think. If you are this type, you utilize rest stances and gather information quite well. However, you get stuck in this mode and your over-thinking manifests itself in your climbing as stalling out. You stay at stances too long and then climb slowly once engaged. The “pro” is that you do take time to think through a situation, see your options, and avoid getting in dangerously over your head. The “con” is that you are still thinking when you should be focused on moving, causing second-guessing on challenging moves and hanging out too long in strenuous positions. Analytical climbers all too often find themselves pumping out and yelling, “Take!”

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Rushing and stalling are the downsides of intuitive and analytical tendencies, respectively, and both are manifestations of your mind using you to avoid stress. Intuitive climbers rush because their minds want to get to the next stance where they will be out of the stress and be comfortable again. Analytical climbers stall because their minds resist getting into the stress and linger in the comfort of the current stance. Whether rushing or stalling, your mind distracts your attention by thinking of where you’ll be comfortable.

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Whether you tend toward analytical or intuitive, you need to balance out your habitual mode with its opposite. If you find you are more intuitive and rush yourself, preparation will be particularly challenging for you. You must learn to deliberately stop at rest stances and thoroughly gather information. If you are a more analytical climber and habitually stall out, preparation will come easier. The greater challenge will be taking action, when you will need to adopt a new mode and find ways to engage quicker and stop over-thinking. No matter which type of climber you are, you will use rest stances more effectively by breaking out of habitual behavior and acting from the power base of focused attention.

Convince a friend to register and YOU receive a 10% discount on your registration. Or, YOU and YOUR friend each receive a 5% discount. Espresso Clinics excluded.

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Valid for these upcoming camps:

• Trad Camps at New River Gorge, WV
• Redpointing The Warrior’s Way at New River Gorge, WV
• Climb Fit … The Warrior’s Way at Urban Rocks, TN