A foundational decision determines why we climb. Primary decisions determine what we will climb. Secondary decisions determine how we will climb so we can accomplish the primary decision. This progression takes us deeper into the climbing experience itself. At the bottom, the foundational decision about why we climb supports the primary decisions about what we climb so we can make effective secondary decisions about how to climb.

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Secondary decisions are about the process, about actions we will take. Let’s say your primary decision is to redpoint The Prow. Secondary decisions are made easily without hesitation because you are clear about why you climb (foundational decision) and what you are climbing (primary decision). Therefore, secondary decisions become the most obvious course of action to take.

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For a primary decision to redpoint The Prow, typical secondary decisions would be:

• Climb as much of the route free, but hang on protection so you can learn the protection placements, sequences, fall consequences, and resting points.
• Continue to work on the route until you’ve learned all of these elements.
• Climb the route as free as possible making note of how many times you need to hang to rest. Diminish these rests as you continue to work on it until you are down to one or two rests.
• Climb the route with the intention to redpoint—no hangs; no falls.

We make a foundational decision to climb because climbing gives us something we can’t fully explain. This decision determines why we climb, even though we cannot answer it specifically. Now, as we go deeper into climbing itself, we make primary decisions about what we climb. If we didn’t make the foundational decision well, then we’ll make poor primary decisions about what we climb.

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A primary decision is a choice we make to accomplish a major goal for its own sake. That goal may be a mixed ascent of the Nose of El Cap, Everest without supplemental oxygen, or a redpoint ascent of The Prow on Cathedral Ledge, New Hampshire. These are not ascents you do as steppingstones to other goals. Rather, you decide to climb the route as an end in itself.

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Primary decisions address macro goals that are clearly defined, such as a redpoint ascent of The Prow. You decide to redpoint the route, not on-sight it or climb it in a mixed aid/free fashion. This distinction, that you’ll redpoint the route, creates a clear image of the outcome and also determines how you’ll make secondary decisions. Since you’re going to redpoint it, your initial efforts on the route allow you to freely hang on protection to figure out sequences, rests, falls, and protection possibilities. This is a very different set of actions than if you decided to on-sight the route or climb it in a mixed aid/free fashion.

A foundational decision determines why you live your life as you do. It’s about why you do activities, not about what you want to accomplish. “I choose to climb” is a foundational decision. It isn’t dependent on the difficulty you want to climb or which routes you will be able to climb. You decide that you want climbing to be an integral part of your life. You commit to living your life through climbing.

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This decision is essentially the vehicle you choose for an even greater purpose in your life: to learn and grow. This is really the purpose of life regardless of the sport, job, or circumstances of your life. If you enjoy climbing then why not make climbing that vehicle for learning?

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This foundational decision is not subject to circumstances. You may achieve your climbing goals quickly or slowly, but either way, your foundational decision to climb remains the same. You aren’t climbing to get something out of it, but rather climbing for its own sake. In other words, you don’t climb because it is good for you; you climb because it gives you a feeling of being alive.

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This foundational decision can’t be explained away. You climb because you have to, because if you couldn’t climb, in a sense, you would die. Climbing gives something to your life to such a degree that to live without climbing would essentially kill your purpose for living. “Why do you climb?” You can’t answer why; you just know you have to climb.

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However, we will make many decisions as we move through the structure along the path of least resistance. There are different types of decisions. It’s important to understand how decisions differ and how they determine our actions. We will investigate three types of decisions: foundational, primary, and secondary. Each of these decisions is very different. A foundational decision is our foundation, determines our motivation, and determines how we’ll make primary and secondary decisions. A foundational decision determines why we climb. Primary decisions are tangible end results that we want to accomplish. Primary decisions determine what we will climb. Secondary decisions are made to support a primary decision and determine how we will climb. Understanding this difference will help clarify our creative process and allow us to take effective action along the path of least resistance.

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In the next three eLessons we’ll investigate these different decisions.

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.

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.

Preparation and action are two distinctly different phases of risk-taking. In preparation, you stop and use your mind’s thinking intelligence to gather information. In action, you move and use your body’s doing intelligence to act on that information. A shift of emphasis occurs, from your mind to your body, as you stop thinking and begin doing. The effectiveness of this shift depends on how well you make decisions. Your decisions can be tentative or powerful, and lead to tentative or powerful actions.

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Decisions shift you in one of two directions: committing or retreating. If you don’t understand the risk, then you’ll make tentative decisions to commit or decide to retreat. You may say to yourself, “I think I can continue a bit higher,” when you still have a lot of uncertainty about the risk. You make a tentative decision to commit, waiting until you are stressed and pumped to make a final decision. This final decision will be based on your ability to deal with more stress, instead of whether or not the risk is appropriate.

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Or, you may let the sense of uncertainty overwhelm you and decide to retreat, when in fact the risk may have been appropriate. Neither type of decision leads to powerful climbing. What you need is absolute clarity.

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The transition phase will have three parts: letting go of the old, a pause in the neutral zone, and embracing the new. You let go of preparation, allow yourself to be in the neutral zone to make a decision, and then embrace the new by taking action.

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First, in order to let go of preparation, you need to be as familiar with the risk as possible and be convinced that you have done thorough preparation. Using your mind’s thinking intelligence to clarify the END, DAO, and POLR gives you a clear understanding of the risk and certainty that no other information is needed. Once you have this information you need to stop the preparation phase. Effective decisions cannot be made if your mind is still collecting information.

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Next, you enter the neutral zone. Don’t rush into action. Allow yourself to be in the neutral zone and tap into your mind’s intuitive—feeling—intelligence to weigh the risk and make a decision. You weigh the consequences against your past experience with such consequences, getting an intuitive sense of how the risk compares with similar risks you’ve taken. If you determine the risk to be appropriate, then you set a clear intention for committing, which aligns your attention with your decision.

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Finally, you embrace the new by taking action. You engage your body to do the climbing with the resolve to follow through with your decision.