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The Rock Warrior’s Way

Copyright © 2003 by Arno Ilgner. Foreword copyright ©

2003 by John Long. All rights reserved. No portion of this

book, except for brief passages used in review, may be re-

produced in any form without written permission of the

publisher.

Published by

Desiderata Institute

315 Oakwood Cove

La Vergne, TN 37086

USA

www.warriorsway.com

Project editor: Jeff Achey

Book design: Jeff Achey, jeffachey@gmail.com

Cover design: Tracy Martin, tracy@artcytype.com

Warrior’s Way logo design: Jeff Stamper,

www.jeffstamper.com

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication

Data

Ilgner, Arno, 1954 -

The rock warrior’s way: mental training for

climbers / Arno Ilgner

p. cm.

ISBN 978-0-9740112-1-9

ISBN: 9780974011271

1. Rock climbing 2. Train-

ing—mental I. Title

Printed in the United States of America by

Vaughan Printing, Nashville, TN

www.vaughanprinting.com

Second Edition; First Printing

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

Front cover photograph: Jim Thornburg

Back cover photograph: Andrew Kornylak

Author photograph, at end of book: Jeff Achey

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Photographers: All images are the exclusive

copyright property of the photographers. All

rights reserved.

Jeff Achey, jeffachey@gmail.com

Jim Thornburg, www.jimthornburg.com

Matt Burbach, mattburbach@hotmail.com

Jonathan Hollada, www.jonathanhollada.com

Andrew Kornylak, www.akornphoto.com

John Barstow, jbarstow@xmission.com

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I dedicate this book to you, aseeker who wants to improvethe quality of his or her climb-ing experience. Be open, becurious, be observant, and payattention.

Critical Acclaim for TheRock Warrior’s Way

“When I was at the peak of my climbing ca-reer I didn’t fully understand why I was suc-cessful. I wasn’t stronger physically than oth-er climbers but I knew a passion drove me.Now I know what some of the elements ofmy success were that I couldn’t articulate.Warrior’s Way has given me some ideas onhow to improve my climbing and my lifetoday. I’ve read the book twice now and itwill be a frequent resource for the future.”

—Henry Barber

“This is the first book I’ve seen that ad-dresses, in depth, the inner game of climb-ing, and it’s about time. In a growing climb-ing community of specialization, this bookgives a new look at climbing and healthy selfanalysis for almost everyone involved in thesport.”

—Jim Bridwell

“As a devoted rock climber, I am alwayslooking for tools to make me more success-ful. But rarely do I come across a tool aspowerful as The Rock Warrior’s Way. Theprinciples in Arno’s book drastically raisedmy awareness and helped solidify a goal I’vebeen working on for three years—FlexLuthor.”

—Tommy Caldwell

“Reading The Rock Warrior’s Way remindsme of my past. This book is full of the toolsthat I learned to trust during my competition

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career. I believe this book will help climbersraise their level of power without any addi-tional training.”

—Robyn Erbesfield-Raboutou, four-timeWorld Cup sport-climbing champion

“The Rock Warrior’s Way is an excellenttreatise on recognizing and overcoming psy-chological barriers to reaching one’s fullclimbing potential. Borrowing from a varietyof sources, Ilgner has designed a program hecalls ‘the Seven Processes,’ having as its un-derlying premise the impeccable use of at-tention. Carlos Castaneda’s books about theIndian sorcerer don Juan Matus have longattracted the attention and praise ofclimbers, and the author has seamlesslywoven into his program many of the salientprinciples taught by this mystical character.Perceiving a climb as a journey, set in mo-tion by intent, is a powerful stimulus for suc-cess, as this reviewer can personally attest.”

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—John Gill

“Warrior’s Way identifies and names weak-nesses within our intuitive selves. Once aproblem is recognized, it becomes a solvablechallenge. All climbers will recognize pat-terns from their own lives within the text.”

—Lisa Gnade

“When I first climbed with Arno some 20years ago, I admired his poise on the rock,his boldness on the lead, and his calm in theface of all obstacles. After reading The RockWarrior’s Way, I understand the depth ofthinking behind his composure, the innerquiet that frees his mind for pure climbing.He seems to have mastered all the mentaldemons that hold one back on rock and ice,and this book tells me how to slay them inmyself. Now I have a plan: to reread thisbook and let it transform my climbing fromwithin. Then I’ll give it to my partners.”

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—John Harlin III, Editor, American AlpineJournal

“Climbing performance evolves from the in-side out and Arno Ilgner beautifully dissectsthis nebulous subject in The Rock Warrior’sWay. Drawing on his 30 years of climbingexperience as well as a wealth of timelesswisdom, Ilgner presents a compelling seven-step process to becoming a master of yourinternal mental environment. Consistent,disciplined application of this book’s manystrategies will not only enhance the quality ofyour climbing, but it will make you a moreskilled risk taker in all aspects of your life.”

—Eric J. Hörst, personal trainer, author ofTraining for Climbing

“I have long held confidence in the theoriesthis book describes.”

—Leo Houlding

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“The Rock Warrior’s Way is a timely contri-bution to raise our awareness. Arno makes abold move with a humble approach thatreaches for a higher level of life on the rock.”

—Ron Kauk

“If you can master even a few of the manyconcepts that Arno Ilgner promotes in TheRock Warrior’s Way, your climbing may betransformed. The most memorable point tome was Arno’s lesson about improving yourclimbing by learning to deal with falling. Thisreminded me of Jorge Visser learning thesame lesson at the Virgin River Gorge. Thelast 30-foot section of Captain Fantastic(5.13c) is a run-out to the anchors with asubtle but kind of scary finish. (We call that‘salsa.’) It is a dramatic, final place to failwith the 13c already well below. Jorge loggeda number of 30- to 60-foot falls on this sec-tion. His fear of falling turned into a relaxa-tion about falling. He learned to deal with

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falling and that helped pave an importantpart of his road to 5.14. He wastransformed.”

—Randy Leavitt

“When the climb is done, what’s left? The ex-perience! The Rock Warrior’s Way will helpyou choreograph your experience through afull-frontal dance with the beautiful and de-manding realities of our sport. You’ll learn torelinquish the Ego-driven yearning for ex-ternal success and recognition, in favor of al-lowing your spirit its love-driven embrace ofclimbing and life. This is a landmark work!”

—Jeff Lowe

“The Rock Warrior’s Way describes theamazing potential of human will once theego is tamed, and is full of insight on honingthe mental aspects of concentrated effort. Itwill help you better understand the spiritualawareness that comes when engaging in a

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challenging pursuit, and make you morelikely to retain that understanding after theadrenaline wears off. This is a great book forlearning about the rock climber within.”

—John Middendorf

“Arno has managed to put into simple wordsthe psychological processes that we strugglewith as climbers. Most of us have practicedto various degrees the lessons and principlesheld within these pages, but none has evertruly mastered them. Arno breaks down thepositive and negative chatter that runsthrough our minds before, during, and aftera climb. Then, using climbing analogies wecan all relate to, he shows us how to followour personal paths to greater knowledge,growth, and ultimately success.”

—Scott Milton

“The mental aspects of climbing can be ex-tremely difficult to master. If used correctly,

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the Warrior’s Way can be more useful thanany amount of physical training and canpush you to new levels.”

—Beth Rodden

“In an era where an unhealthy emphasis isplaced on tools like rock gyms and campusboards, which train the body, it’s refreshingto read a book that addresses the critical butoften-overlooked mental component toclimbing. Blending firsthand experiencefrom his long, storied climbing career withsimple, direct prose, Ilgner offers a serene,process-based way of improving your climb-ing that avoids the all-too-common pitfalls ofanger, stagnation, and frustration. Long avictim of my own reward-based, “redpoint”way of thinking, I now intend to get out, getafter it, and celebrate my love for the sportthe Rock Warrior’s way.”

—Matt Samet, Associate Editor, ClimbingMagazine

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“In The Rock Warrior’s Way Arno Ilgner il-luminates the illusive mental states and pro-cesses that can hinder or free us to fully ex-perience the purity of climbing. Ilgnertouches in on the heart of the matter—whowe are inside—and uses this as the founda-tion for understanding how we relate to therock. The Rock Warrior’s Way is an invalu-able guide for anyone sincerely looking tohave a breakthrough in their approach toclimbing.”

—Chris Sharma

“Finally! A strength-training book forclimbers that focuses on the most importantpower source—the mind.

—Todd Skinner

“I thought I had a lot of this stuff figured out,but there were many new ideas in The RockWarrior’s Way that I took to heart. The verynext day after reading the book I pulled

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down a boulder problem that had been frus-trating me for some time. The power of pos-itive visualization is truly amazing. I wouldimagine that almost anyone, be they aclimber or not, could benefit from readingThe Rock Warrior’s Way.”

—Mark Synnott

“When you climb big mountains, you willsuffer. In alpine climbing the range of mydiscomfort has included being cold, wet, andfatigued. The pinnacle of the challenge forme, both physically and mentally, has in-cluded surviving a severe accident. I learnedto accept and embrace it. The Rock Warri-or’s Way helps you understand the need toaccept the situation as it is and guide you onhow to deal with it.”

—Jack Tackle

“Arno can teach you to climb consistently atyour highest level, no matter the medium.

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His concepts will keep your mind from stray-ing and your body moving toward your goals.I consciously return to the lessons I learnedin his Warrior’s Way program while soloingbig peaks and clipping bolts.”

—Chris Warner, first American to solo an8000-meter peak (Shishapangma, South

Face)

“The Rock Warrior’s Way is a very insightfullook beyond the physical side of climbingand into the heart and soul of it—the mind.Climbers of all levels will be able to benefitfrom Arno’s work. I know I have already.”

—Mark Wilford

“Many of us are blind to our motivations andwhy we do not perform up to our desires.Reading and embracing the Warrior’s Waywill certainly change that. The book delvesdeeply into the inner reaches of our psychein ways that no other climbing literature has.

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The Warrior’s Way is not simply a guide toimprove your climbing, but shows you howto better approach life as a whole.”

—Tony Yaniro

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Acknowledgements

A creative work is never done alone. OurEgo will want to take full credit for it but in-variably we’ve been helped by friends andfamily, inspired by our heroes, and motiv-ated by challenging experiences. I’ve had myshare of challenging experiences, whichforced me to look at the limiting ways I inter-acted with the world. Working through theseexperiences was critical in developing thismaterial. My climbing heroes inspired me topush myself on routes, thus giving me the

laboratory to test the material presented inthis book. For my friends and family I ammost grateful.

Jeff Achey has been invaluable in the cre-ation of this work. He was interested in thematerial in its early stages, in 1996, and in-troduced it with his articles in Climbingmagazine. More significantly, he wrote thisbook, using my notes, stories, scripts, andwith much discussion with me before, dur-ing, and after the various drafts. His beauti-ful writing style has created a book that farexceeded my vision of it.

In 1998 I was still in the beginning stagesof developing this material. I want to thankall my students during that time, and theclimbing gyms where I taught, AtlantaRocks, Classic Rock Gym, and Climbmax, fortheir trust and faith in me. Although I feel Iadded value for the students, my materialwas a far cry from what it is today.

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As I continued to teach and refine the ma-terial several people helped me make break-throughs. Steve Jones helped me identify thecore themes in each warrior process and de-velop effective ways of teaching them. ClayRubano helped me in many ways, but wasspecifically important in integrating thegraphics of the Bullet and the Laser Beam.Chris Warner helped me see the warrior pro-cesses from the inside out, which helped meto be more effective in teaching them. TinaBronaugh helped me refine the risk-assess-ment process. Doyle Parsons has helped meto brainstorm the material throughout theyears. He has been a gracious friend, withwhom to share ideas and to help me groundmy idealistic-type thinking.

I want to thank Rita Bills, Thomas Sch-midt, Steve Anderson, and Joe Finnegan fortheir efforts to edit and proofread themanuscript. I also received valuable sugges-tions from Steve Petro, Lisa Gnade, Lynn

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Hill, Ed Webster, Eric Hörst, John Gill, ToddSkinner, Paul Piana, John Long, Jim Gil-christ, Kirk Brode, Lance Brock, Stuart andHeidi Chapin, Jeff Jenkins, Suzy Wilkinson,and my brother Mark.

I appreciate the help of Fred Knapp withSharp End Publishing and Mike Jones withWilderness Press for their feedback on thecontent and layout questions I had. I’d like tothank Michelle (Kadar) Moore, my first stu-dent, whose inquiry helped start me on thepath.

Lastly, I’d like to thank Jane, my wife, forher patience during these many years. I sin-cerely appreciate her belief in me and hersupport of my desire to create a life’s work inmy passion.

Thanks again to all.—Arno Ilgner, La Vergne, Tennessee, Spring

2003

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Statement of Risk

Important Note to Readers

WARNING: Climbing is inherently riskyand can result in injury or death. It’s your re-sponsibility to consciously choose what youare willing to do, and to do it from your ownmotivation. This program is not intended toencourage you to take unacceptable risk, but

to give you tools to help analyze and under-stand risks. Only you can determine whatrisk is appropriate for you. If you do decideto climb and take risks, I suggest takingsmall ones. Your goal should be to learnabout yourself, not to learn recklessness.Make conscious choices that make sense toyou. Don’t blindly follow my suggestions oranyone else’s.

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CONTENTS

Foreword, by John LongPrefaceIntroduction1. Becoming Conscious2. Life is Subtle3. Accepting Responsibility4. Giving5. Choices6. Listening7. The JourneyConclusionExcercisesGlossaryReading List

ForewordBy John Long

Consider the climber who wants to raisehis standard, climb Astroman in Yosemite ora route of the next grade at the local crag.Common sense says the direct path to thesegoals is to practice longer and harder. It’sthat simple, no?

No.Everything from ancient wisdom schools

to the newer “mental fitness” disciplines in-sist that transformation is largely a matter ofpracticing smarter, not simply harder. Prac-ticing harder often results in the rein-force-ment of limiting habits, meaning, you’re just

practicing the same old mistakes and reapingthe same old results.

Any worthwhile self-improvement pro-gram—the Rock Warrior’s Way included—al-lows us to learn from our direct experiencein an accelerated way. It will provide a flex-ible road map to success, which keeps us oncourse toward mastery and empowers us tomake critical course corrections before wefind ourselves totally lost in old habits. Suchis the essence of practicing smarter. It in-volves consciously studying the what, thehow, and the why of our actual experience. Ittakes us out of a pure doing mode and re-quires learning and practicing things thatcan make us wonder if we haven’t taken anawfully indirect route to the mountaintop. Asthe saying goes, the direct path to mastery isseemingly indirect.

For instance, it might seem questionablethat redefining our notion of success couldradically steepen our learning curve—but it

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can. So can other basic tenets of the RockWarrior’s Way. While I won’t try to explainthe course’s content, there are several pointsworth mentioning that might help orient aperson toward sound results.

First, accept that life is hard, and thattransforming our life—or our abilities, whichamount to much the same thing—is veryhard. For a thousand reasons, we all have apart that wants to believe the world wasmade just for us, and that the pearls of exist-ence are our birthright. In a sense, they are,but we must dive deeply to find thosepearls—down past our resistance and mech-anical thinking and behavior, and that al-ways involves hard, sustained, conscious,and disciplined effort. Few stumble acrossthose pearls by fluke or good fortune, and ifthey do, they typically lose them just as fast.This course will head you in the right direc-tion and even give you a stout push that way,but you must do the work.

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A colossal swindle of the “New Age” move-ment is the notion that gaining a state of ef-fortless being and doing requires no effort.In fact, great conscious effort, discipline, andpatience are normally required to enter the“flow zone” where previously frighteningchallenges start taking on an aspect of re-laxed ease. The venue does not change.Everest does not get smaller and the NorthPole does not get warmer. It is we who musttransform, and that takes work. If the pro-cess was easy, we’d all be world champions.

Second, the work is a process, and thatprocess lasts a lifetime. Every time you gaina new plateau, a massif of unrealized poten-tial soars above you. In this sense, you never“arrive,” once and for all, on the mountain-top. At certain points along the way, thequality of the process changes dramatically.This is especially true for those breakthroughmoments of peak performance, wheremonths of sustained effort conspire to create

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a sort of wormhole of grace through whichwe pass—often suddenly and with little “ef-fort”—into a higher realm of being and do-ing. The climb that once spanked us nowseems “easy.” In such moments we tend toforget the arduous run-up to the crown. It isthen that we might recall all of those champi-onship coaches who remind us that the gameis won or lost on the practice field.

That leads us to the third and most im-portant point: the qualities you bring togame day will be the exact same qualities youcultivate during practice. In other words, theway you live your life is exactly the way youwill climb. It’s a simple enough concept tograsp, but taking it to heart and putting it in-to practice is typically something only themost dedicated can manage; probably be-cause they’re the ones whose lives might de-pend on doing so.

At the recreational level, climbing is oftenheld in an entirely different light than one’s

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“normal” life. The casual climber sees herclimbing as a welcome if not essential restor-ative practice. Half way up the climb, shetranscends her daily stressors and morphsinto a “different” person. But when she con-fronts the summit headwall, and her abilitiesare stretched to the breaking point, the “dif-ferent” person reverts to old habits. She willmeet the challenges with exactly those qual-ities she’s cultivated—usually uncon-sciously—at work and at home.

When we start pushing the envelope, ourmost entrenched habits almost always takeover. How could it be otherwise? When theriver runs smooth, we’re all heroes. Onlywhen the big water starts to roar can we findout where we stand and what we’re made of.And the key word here is “made.” What havewe made ourselves?

The Rock Warrior’s Way provides a com-prehensive program for you to make yourselfa more accomplished climber, but only you

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can supply the means. This requires a con-scious effort and an ironclad commitment ifthose pearls are ever to be fully claimed asyour own. One of the shockers of doing anydeep work is discovering how little we actand how much we react. And our reactionsare steeped in our old fear-driven patterns,with all our survival instincts attached.Breaking loose from these patterns has beenlikened to freeing yourself from a lion’s jaws,and you’ve little chance of accomplishing thiswithout a strong commitment. We waver,slip, and revert to our comfortable old mech-anics. When we realize we’ve still made someground despite all the backsliding, we under-stand that what got us there was ourcommitment.

This takes us back to the idea that theseemingly indirect path is in fact the directpath to excellence. Here, the “indirect” pathrequires that you make the Warrior prin-ciples your own, that you live them moment

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to moment, that you practice and hone themin your daily life as well as on the river or onthe cliff side.

Put simply, the more you integrate theprinciples into your daily life, the morepowerfully they will work for you on the faceof the tidal wave. I’ve touched on the basicyet often overlooked fact that when we’restanding in tall cotton, so to speak, we don’tneed advanced tools. But when life and limbare at stake, we can never be over prepared.If we prepare by practicing these principleswhen little is at stake, the lessons become in-stinctual and will be second nature when thecrux is encountered. The boon of all this isthat the Warrior principles have beengleaned from enlightened sources and areuniversal principles for transformation andself-mastery. If I’m going to practicesomething day in and day out, it’s reassuringfor me to know that the material is gold byany measure.

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This course is not just another of the cut-and-paste jobs we so frequently see intoday’s endless search for the quick fix or forsudden enlightenment. Arno Ilgner spentyears troweling through the world’s classicwisdom traditions, as well as many modernmodalities, ranging from chaos and systemstheory to Voice Dialogue. Through a longprocess of self-study and trial and error, hearrived at a step-by-step method that allowsan adventure athlete to experientially graspthe concepts and to continue the process onhis own.

Students of the Rock Warrior’s Wayshould appreciate that, while many of theseprinciples have been around for upwards of3500 years, the disciples of old never testedthem 2500 feet up El Capitan. I can only feelthat, seeing today’s adventurers taking thequalities of bodymind onto the great rocks ofthe world, the masters of old must be smilingdown from the clouds, knowing their sacred

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tradition is being carried out in exciting andremarkable new ways.

Finally, any sincere adventurer has,through direct participation, learned to man-age fulsome levels of intensity and to main-tain a focused mind. Anything beyondadvanced-intermediate level climbing re-quires as much. These capacities put you ingood stead to grasp and quickly integrate thecourse principles and to start enjoying res-ults. While the world might not have beenmade just for you, the Rock Warrior’s Waycertainly was.

—John Long, Venice, California, 2002

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Preface

Let me reconstruct a climbing experience Ihad years ago.

“I’ll lead this. I can do it! I’ll show you howit’s done.” I climb up some thin moves usingunderclings and side pulls for handholds,place a solid medium-sized chock, and scanthe sequence above. The holds seem indis-tinct and not straightforward on the verticalwall above. The pro above looks like it will beintermittent and small. I am talking tomyself:

“I wish the holds were more obvious. Iwant to get another pro piece but I don’t see

where one will fit. I have to do this—I can’tgo down.”

I climb up a bit and see pro possibilitiesabout ten feet higher. My self-talk continues:“I don’t know if I can make it. A fall from upthere would be dangerous. But I have do it.What will Brian think of me if I just give up?I should at least look like I’m struggling andgiving it my all before I fall.”

I climb up, not willing to commit myself togoing all the way to where the next pro pos-sibilities are, even though the next fewmoves seem easier. I hesitate.

“Should I commit? I’m getting high-er—don’t want to fall too far. I’m gettingpumped now and feel off balance.” To feelmore secure, I hold on tighter. “I have to getin some pro here.”

I see a wide slot and pull off a hex from myrack, but I can’t work it in. “God, why didn’t Ilet Brian lead this? I led the last route. I justwant to get a solid piece.”

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My forearms are flamed, legs shaking. I’mholding my breath. I want to be off thisroute. “Watch me!” I yell to Brian. I hold onfor a few more seconds unwilling to let go ofcontrol. Inevitably, too pumped to keepfighting, I give in and take a short fall. Thechock I’d placed below holds, arresting myfall and keeping me off the ground.

“What the hell is wrong with me? I suck!I’ve done plenty of 10s. Who cares about thisdumb route, anyway?”

The route was Super Slab, a 5.10d in El-dorado Springs Canyon, Colorado. The yearwas 1977. The book Climb! (a history of Col-orado climbing) had just come out, whichwas full of stories of my heroes and thestaunch ethic that guided their climbing—nofalls, ground up, and no hanging on pro. As Irested, I noticed some friends scrambling upin our direction. “Brian,” I called downquietly, “don’t tell them that I fell.”

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This was not one of my finer moments, butI realize now that it was not so unusual. Per-haps you can see in this story ways I wasthinking and climbing that limited my per-formance. Over the years to come—almosttwenty-five years, in fact—my way of climb-ing evolved. I learned to use attention moreeffectively and climb more decisively. In thepast few years, I have fashioned a powerfulway of climbing, which I use myself and alsoteach. I call it the Rock Warrior’s Way.

I started climbing in 1973. Aluminumwedges and hexes were just being intro-duced. Pitons were being phased out as free-climbing protection. Such “clean” climbingwas new, and I can still remember freeclimbing with a sling of chocks, pins and ahammer. Few climbers used chalk and belay-ing was done mostly via a “hip-belay.” I wasclimbing the limestone and sandstone cliffsof Tennessee while studying geology at Ten-nessee Tech University.

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In 1976 I attended the Army RangerSchool at Fort Benning, Georgia, and thentransferred to the University of Colorado inBoulder. While in Boulder, I was influencedby my heroes—Roger Briggs, Duncan Fer-guson, Jim Erickson, Pat Ament, Steve Wun-sch, David Breashears, Henry Barber, andJim Collins to name a few. I didn’t knowthem personally, but I identified with theirapproach to free climbing and did my best toemulate their staunch ethic. I worked myway through the grades until I was climbing5.10s regularly. Being willing to take fallswas part of my approach to climbing. Therewere no sport routes in the 1970s; it was alljust climbing. There were plenty of naturallines of weakness—cracks, series of flakes,and thin cracks on faces—that protected withtraditional chocks and later cams.

Climbing trad routes, that sometimes canbe runout, pushing beyond what you per-ceive is your limit, assessing fall

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consequences, taking falls, responding tofalls—all these facets of climbing involvedengaging risk situations. By engaging risk, Iwas forced to deal with fear. By dealing withthe fear I clarified what the true con-sequences were and eliminated or reduced il-lusory fears.

In 1978 I received a BA in Geology fromthe University of Colorado, but geology wasnever my passion. What I really loved wasclimbing. After a tour of duty in the Army, Imoved to Wyoming to work in the oil fields.In 1982 the price of oil dropped precipitouslyand I, along with the majority of oil-fieldworkers, lost my job. I was lost. What do I donow? It seemed that everything had beenlaid out for me up to this point. After highschool I went to college, then I went in theArmy to fulfill my obligation, and then Iworked as a geologist in the oil field becausethat’s what I studied in college. But whatnow?

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I was forced to look at what I was doingand look at myself. Soon thereafter I movedback to Tennessee to work odd jobs and fi-nally take a position at my father’sindustrial-tool business. One feeling keptnagging at me: I needed to align my workwith my passion.

Working in the tool business was frustrat-ing. I was in a state of divine discontent. Iwas hitting bottom. The situation was sostressful that changing my beliefs and per-ceptions suddenly didn’t seem so scary. Iknew I needed to do something different, soI started looking for help. On the commuteto work I began listening to informationaland inspirational audiotapes. At home I readnumerous philosophy and self-help books.Some of the authors were, George Gurdjieff,Carlos Castaneda, Charles Tart, RobertSpencer, Dan Millman, Chögyam Trungpa,Miyamoto Musashi, M. Scott Peck, WayneDyer, Michael Murphy, George Leonard,

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Jerry Lynch, Gary Zukav, Rick Fields,Anthony Robbins, and Deepak Chopra. For amore complete list of authors, please see thereading list at the end of this book. What Ifound in my search for meaning was this:

It’s our responsibility to create our life’swork in something we are passionate aboutbecause that is the most effective way we cancreate happiness in our life. A life’s work in“that something” is the best path to chal-lenge us and it’s the most effective way toserve others.

I was working in a job that wasn’t alignedwith what I loved to do, which was climbing.Perhaps I had a negative impression aboutclimbing careers. I felt I was too old to be atop climber. I didn’t want to own a climbingstore or gym. I didn’t want to be a guide allthe time, nor did I want to be a manufac-turer’s representative. I didn’t want to dothese things, but that didn’t change the

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reality of what I had discovered, which is tocreate my life’s work out of my passion.

So I looked deeper. I looked at my specifictalents in climbing. What did I excel in? I de-cided that my greatest strength was my abil-ity to deal with fear.

By 1995 I had mountains of notes, bookshighlighted, and stacks of favorite audio-tapes. Could I synthesize all this informationand create a course to teach fellow climbers?Would anyone be interested in what I had tosay? These questions permeated my con-sciousness. Going through all my material, Ilooked for core themes. I found them. Keyprocesses kept recurring in slightly differentforms. If a person went through one of theseprocesses effectively, he was empowered. Ifineffective, he experienced self-limitingthinking and fear. I also recognized that themass of people do indeed think in a self-lim-iting way. It made sense that climberswouldn’t be exempt from such behavior.

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I identified seven distinct processes. Fromthese discoveries, I began to create mycourse. I set the goal: to find a way to teachmy insight to climbers.

I had exposed myself to many different au-thors, all of whom had their own particularway of understanding truth and the world.They had their methods and beliefs for thebest way to interact with the world and whatwas most effective. There was the religiousapproach, the philosophical approach, thescientific approach, the psychological ap-proach, and others. What approach would Iuse? After reading and listening to over-whelming amounts of information I felt Iwas drowning in it. I needed some guide formy material.

I read Dan Millman’s book Way of thePeaceful Warrior and saw strong similaritiesto the books of Carlos Castaneda. I wroteDan to ask him where he came up with hisapproach for his books. I didn’t really expect

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him to answer my letter but one day I re-ceived a phone call from him. “Sometimesit’s easier for me to just make a call ratherthan respond by mail,” he said. “Did you fol-low the teachings of don Juan, as Carlosdid?” I asked. His answer surprised me; atleast it was somewhat unexpected.

“The truth is out there,” Dan began. “Lookfor the truth that underlies everything.Everyone just has a little different way of ex-pressing it. Listen and pay attention.”

I paid attention and received an insightearly one morning as I was waking up. Itwould be a powerful clue—one that not onlydirected me how to proceed, but also showedme the mechanism. As I was waking, in thatsometimes-lucid state of half-sleep, I had apersistent thought. I don’t know if my higherself was speaking to me or if it was divine in-tervention, but there it was. “Follow the war-rior’s way that don Juan talks about in the

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Carlos Castaneda books.” It was just theframework I needed to guide me.

Studying Castaneda’s books and otherbooks on warriorship in more depth, I cameup with the guiding principle I was lookingfor. The warrior’s way is all about impeccableuse of attention. Everything hinges uponhow one uses attention—does one waste it orfocus it onto the task at hand? This principlewas a very pragmatic and tangible guide.

I hadn’t reasoned my way directly to thisinsight. I had gathered information, but theanswer itself had come from my intuition.This event further convinced me ofsomething I had been coming to for a while.Solutions involve a unified process, combin-ing conscious analysis, receptivity to intu-ition, and the discipline to follow through. Irefined the Rock Warrior’s Way philosophyand method using this insight from that wak-ing moment. By being observant and paying

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attention, I structured my ideas around awarriorship framework.

So when you reflect on my story of SuperSlab, do you see anything of your climbing init? I’ve now worked with hundreds ofclimbers, and know those struggles I had inEldorado are typical and widely shared.

Here are a few questions that will give youinsight into what might be limiting yourclimbing performance:

When climbing a route that challenges youat your limit, do you …

1. … get frustratedwhen things don’t turn out as you want orexpect?2. … hold your breath when you climb?3. … believe that falling isn’t part of theclimbing process?4. … dwell on what’s impossible and whatyou can’t do?

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5. … commit only tentatively when climbinginto the crux?6. … resist falling, over-protect, overgrip, orgrab quickdraws/pro?7. … rush yourself, think about wanting to bethrough the crux or at the top of the route,wanting the effort to be over?

Answering “yes” to any of these questionsindicates that you aren’t using attention im-peccably, as a warrior would.

Now, read this book. If you dedicate your-self to the mental effort of adopting the war-rior processes, your awareness will improvedramatically. No matter how imperfectly youadopt the processes, your awareness will im-prove. You’ll be shocked at the magnitude ofthe results. Awareness is the key to begin-ning any process and to solving any problem.You’ll notice big changes in your approach,your mindset, how you climb, and how muchfun you have climbing. After you’ve read thebook and spent some time on the rock, take

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this short quiz again. I believe you’ll seeyourself transformed.

—Arno Ilgner

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Introduction

The Rock Warrior’s Way is both a mental-training program and a philosophy of rockclimbing that draws from the rich warriortradition and literature. Its style is very dif-ferent from what many people think of aswar-like, being neither combative nor overlyaggressive. Rather, it is a program of bal-ance, harmony, and insight that is inspiredby a peaceable application of ancient martialtraditions. There are many books availableon warriorship you might find useful. I re-commend Way of the Peaceful Warrior, byDan Millman, and The Craft of the Warrior,by Robert Spencer, as a start for anyone

interested in fully exploring this rich way ofthinking. The Rock Warrior’s Way focuseson applying the warrior mindset to rockclimbing, using ideas and exercises that havecome from years of my own reading and re-search, personal experience on the rock, andwork with my students in mental-trainingseminars.

The warrior philosophy derives from theuniquely demanding situation facing a sol-dier or combatant, such as a samurai, in adeadly duel. He must perform with absolutemastery and calm in the face of horrendousmortal danger. In preparation, the warriorhones his body and mind. If he does not, hewill not live long. In battle, he must beacutely aware of subtle details in the envir-onment, his behavior and his opponent’s be-havior, yet remain completely impassiveabout his own peril. If he clings too dearly tohis own life, or is ruled by his Ego, he willseek escape; his attention will waver; he will

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be destroyed. Paradoxically, if he adopts astance of embracing the risk and acceptingthe consequences, he is far more likely tosurvive. It is easy to see how the warriormentality can be applied to the risky busi-ness of rock climbing.

An important component of the warriorliterature for me is the work of CarlosCastaneda, who wrote of his experienceswith a Yaqui Indian sorcerer don JuanMatus. Castaneda, an anthropology student,soon becomes don Juan’s apprentice and un-dergoes many experiences in his quest forpower that challenge his view of reality. To-gether, Castaneda and don Juan explore thewarrior philosophy, which manifests itselfnot as a component of martial art, but in thecontext of adventure in nature and the mind.Castaneda’s accounts of the pair’s outlandishescapades in the wild, rocky highlands ofnorthern Mexico have resonated with

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climbers since the books were released in thelate 1960s.

The Rock Warrior’s Way seeks to developan adventurous, vigorous, deliberate ap-proach to climbing. Initially, it breaks downthe habitual and self-limiting mental frame-work we bring into climbing and into life ingeneral. For most of us, when it comes tomeeting challenges, our own worst enemy isourselves. Our self-image and our self-worthare far too wrapped up in achievements. Egocontrols much of our behavior. We con-stantly act out of fear and avoidance, ratherthan out of the love of challenge or of climb-ing itself. Our mental habits raise unneces-sary barriers and often, unconsciously, drainthe vitality from our performances. A majortenet of the Rock Warrior’s Way is the resol-ution to become increasingly aware.

Therefore, much of this program involvesdeveloping awareness. We must becomeaware of mental processes that are subtle,

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taken for granted, hidden, or overlooked. Wecling to what is comfortable, known, and se-cure—often without knowing it. Conscious-ness of our mental processes is the first stepin understanding how they affect ourperformance.

I kept the text simple and free of jargon,but some warrior terminology is definitelyhelpful. In warrior-speak, the active form ofawareness is called attention. Attention isawareness heightened and focused, the in-tentional directing of awareness. Almosteverything you will learn in the Rock Warri-or’s Way boils down to attention and whatyou do with it.

Proper use of attention, in warrior-speak,is impeccability. Impeccability, accordingto the dictionary, means flawlessness. It is aword with a highly moral component. Al-though, in the warrior tradition, this moral-ity is completely individual and could be de-scribed as personal integrity. In the Rock

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Warrior’s Way, we answer only to ourselves.We take ultimate responsibility for ourchoices concerning what we should or shouldnot do and what life means to us. We do thisthrough an introspective, intuitive processthat is sometimes called finding “a path withheart.” Venturing out of our habitual comfortzones is essential.

When acting impeccably, a warrior directsall of his attention toward his ultimate quest:to gain self-knowledge and personal power.Power is another word used very specific-ally in the warrior tradition. It does not referto monetary wealth or dominion over others,but rather our ability to act effectively, toventure into unknown facets of the world, toexplore, and to hunt for meaning. Powermanifests itself as clarity of thought and de-cisiveness in action. It is the totality of theresources you bring to a given situation withspecial emphasis on the mental aspect.Power is your level of experiential

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knowledge, and you increase it by expandingyour comfort zone.

Essentially, a warrior is an impeccablehunter of personal power. He gains powerby taking forays into the unknown where hefocuses his attention, grapples with chaos,and learns from the experience.

The following are basic tenets of the RockWarrior’s Way mental training approach:

1. Our performance is greatly affected bythe subconscious, hidden parts of our minds.

2. Improved performance occurs through aprocess that is fundamentally one of growth,which, in the mental sphere, we also calllearning. You learn best by focusing your at-tention on the situation, in an attitude ofproblem solving.

3. Motivation is a key ingredient in per-formance, and the quality of that motivation,not just its quantity, matters. Performance isimproved by moving away from fear-based

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motivation and toward love-basedmotivation.

4. There are two types of fear: survival andillusory. The former is healthy and helpfulwhile the latter is not. It is important to beable to distinguish between the two fears.

5. Death is our “advisor.” In other words,awareness of our mortality is a helpful realitycheck. It reminds us that every action mat-ters, and thus directs our actions towardwhat’s really important, valuable, and pur-poseful in our lives. Death reminds us thatwe have no time to waste. This program iscalled the Rock Warrior’s Way because themental principles it uses have a close kinshipwith those discovered by those who were inactual martial situations. Death was so likelythat unusual mental preparation was abso-lutely essential. Even in less perilous activit-ies, such as rock climbing, death is still a realpossibility, and this truth can help us. Ul-timately, for each of us, death is certain. The

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question, then, is how can we use the un-avoidable truth of our mortality to empowerus rather than cripple and terrify us?

The Rock Warrior’s Way

Learning and growth, by definition, takeus out of the familiar and into the unknown.Hence, we must leave our comfort zone.Leaving the comfort zone is a risk—eitherreal or perceived. The Rock Warrior’s Way isin many ways a structure to guide risk-taking. Risk-taking has three phases: prepar-ation, transition, and action.

The conscious mind is the primary agentactive in the preparation phase. It lays thegroundwork to allow the subconscious mindto effectively guide action later, when you’reactually in action, when there’s little time forthought. In the preparation phase, ideas andconcepts are the important elements. Youwill “clean house” in your brain, assess, andplan. You’ll learn to avoid traps such as

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wishing behavior. You will train to focus noton how difficult the climbing is, but ratheron what possibilities are open to you. Youalso will prepare the conscious mind to stayout of the way once you’re in the heat of ac-tion. The preparation phase includes Pro-cesses 1 through 4 below.

The transition phase, Process 5, is short:it’s the moment of truth, of choice. Your goalwill be to make a powerful, abrupt, and com-plete transition from preparation into action.

In the action phase, Processes 6 and 7,your goal is to live fully within the challengerather than try to escape it. You’ll avoid the“fight-or-flight” mentality and embrace theeffort as an opportunity for learning. Youwill keep your conscious mind quiet, therebyallowing your intuitive abilities to come for-ward. You’ll keep your focus on the journey,not on the destination.

Outline of the Program: the Seven Processes

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1. Becoming Conscious. In the first pro-cess, you improve observation skills to be-come more self-aware. You direct awarenessonto your inner dialogue. You examine thegrounds of your self-worth. You detect grossattention leaks.

2. Life is Subtle. Attention is collectedand centered. You direct awareness ontosensations in the body (breathing, posture,etc). You speak to yourself deliberately,rather than listening to the regular chatter ofthe inner dialogue.

3. Accepting Responsibility. Here, youfocus on being responsible for the situation,rather than assigning blame, wishing thatthe situation was otherwise, or hoping formagical deliverance. Blaming, wishing, andhoping take power out of your hands. Ac-cepting responsibility comes to terms withthe objective information you gather aboutthe risk.

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4. Giving. Here you adopt an attitude ofpower: you ask what you can give to the per-formance, rather than what you might re-ceive if you “succeed.” You focus your atten-tion on options and possibilities. This pro-cess collects the subjective information aboutthe risk and comes to terms with it.

5. Choices. This is the transition phase,the moment of truth. You choose either todirect attention away from the risk or intothe risk. Declining to take the risk is not fail-ure. Many, many risks are foolish and takingthem could kill you. The key to the warriorChoices process is to be absolutely decisive.If you’re going to back off, you do it withoutmisgiving. If you go forward, you do so withyour full being, without looking back. You setan intention to act with unbending intent,which produces 100-percent commitment.

6. Listening. This process guides you asyou act out the risk. It helps you stay on

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course, in the risk, rather than falling into acontrol mentality that will divert attentionand rob you of power. You are in action now,in the unknown; you need to learnsomething. “Listening” to the situation andthe route facilitates the learning process.This is a very intuitive process. In Choices,you accepted the possible outcomes of youreffort and made the leap; now you must trustin the process.

7. The Journey. Once in the chaos ofrisk, you focus on the journey, not the des-tination. When you’re stressed, you aretempted to rush through the stress. Yet, ifyou have prepared well, this stressful situ-ation is exactly why you came here in thefirst place. It holds the rhyme and reason foryour climbing. When you’re stressed, you arein prime territory for learning. A journeymentality helps you align your attention for-ward into the climbing process instead of let-ting attention wander to the destination, or

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to self-limiting thoughts that won’t help yousolve the problem and learn.

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Chapter 1

Becoming Conscious

The first Rock Warrior process, BecomingConscious, lays the mental groundwork uponwhich the other processes will build. Becom-ing Conscious revolves around developingyour powers of self-observation andexamining self-limiting aspects in your cur-rent ways of thinking and acting. If you areunaware of how you think and where yourmotivation comes from, you have very little

power to change. Without change, there is noimprovement.

Your goal is to replace lazy, habitual, self-limiting ways of thinking with a disciplinedmental outlook that will maximize perform-ance. In order to make this replacement, youmust gain a conscious awareness of the wayyou are now. In Becoming Conscious, themain task is simply to become aware thatself-limiting thought processes exist and ex-plore the how and why of them. You willidentify different ways in which yousquander attention and personal power, in-cluding power sinks, which funnel attentioninto ego and self-image, and power leaks,which fritter away attention throughnegative self-talk or wishing behavior.

As climbers, we think of ourselves as ad-venturous people, yet we often react to chal-lenges in unadventurous ways. After we’vebeen climbing for a while, we tend to lose theopen-mindedness and quick learning that

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characterized our early climbing experiences.We fall into patterns and habits that limitour learning. When faced with a challenge,we become distracted from the immediatesituation and fall into some sort of ego gameor useless inner dialogue. We tend to behighly goal-oriented, and arriving at a per-formance plateau saps our motivation.Without even noticing, we become involvedin an unconscious, repetitive, habitual spiral,and our power declines.

The ordinary person’s mindset is one ofvast unconsciousness. He is imprisoned byhabit and doesn’t even know it. An averageperson has approximately 60,000 thoughtseach day, and most of these thoughts are thesame ones he had the day before. The warri-or’s task is to free the conscious mind of thishabitual thought, to direct attention moredeliberately, and to respond spontaneouslyand non-habitually to challenging situations.Full attention and spontaneity are the keys

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to power, and the first step in improvingthose qualities is shedding light on our dimunconscious realms.

An important component of our uncon-sciousness is our habitual system of beliefsand motivation. Our early learning—our so-cialization into our culture—has determinedmuch of the mental structure that subduesour potential.

You can feel pretty worthless at times be-cause reward and punishment have moldedyou. When you did something that was con-sidered good by your caregivers, you were re-warded, and when you did something thatwas considered bad, you were punished.Your caregivers associated your worth withyour performance—your behavior. Then, asyou grew older, your caregivers’ expectationsbecame embodied in the Ego, which tookover the job of rewarding and punishing.Your caregivers’ expectations were supple-mented or replaced by the expectations of

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society at large, the expectations of a peergroup, or the expectations established by aset of beliefs you adopted with little criticalthought. Regardless of the source of theEgo’s expectations, the result is the same: weare slaves to externally derived influences,rather than being the masters of our internal,mental environments.

We generally have adopted established be-liefs rather than formulating our own. Soci-ety, of course, encourages such conformistbehavior. We may be competitive or compas-sionate, radical or politically correct, sportclimbers or trad climbers. These orientationstoo often derive from a deep unconscious at-tempt to align ourselves with people we ad-mire or to get others to like or admire us.Though we may hold these beliefs close toour hearts, they do not come from ourhearts. They come instead from that insidi-ous mental monster called the Ego.

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The Ego is a mental entity, a crude andruthless ghost masquerading as our “self.” Itis a mental construct, produced by socializa-tion, which rewards and punishes us withfeelings of self-worth. The Ego lives by com-parison. It identifies with events in ourpast—our personal history—and then com-pares our history to the histories of others.This comparison leaves us feeling better thanor worse than, but not equal to, others.

Naturally, the Ego wants to make us thinkwe are better than others. Yet, making us feelinferior is just as much a tool of the Ego asfeeling superior. If the Ego feels we don’tmeasure up, it will punish us, but at thesame time, it will separate itself from ourfailing and somehow shirk the blame. It willfabricate justifications regarding why wehave fallen short. The Ego may not always beable to pretend outright superiority, but ithas plenty of tricks to ensure its dominanceeven amid feelings of inferiority. Substantial

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amounts of energy and attention go into thepetty maintenance of the Ego. Not only isvaluable attention wasted, but the whole pro-cess creates a state of separation from real-ity. Consequently, performance suffers.

Many discussions of the Ego appear in thebooks of Carlos Castaneda, and I’ll refer tothese books many times. In his first fewbooks, Castaneda, a graduate student in Cali-fornia, describes his experiences with donJuan Matus. Although Castaneda originallysought out don Juan during an anthropolo-gical study of medicinal plants, his relation-ship with the old Indian quickly turned intoan apprenticeship. Much of this apprentice-ship involved don Juan breaking Castaneda’sold habits of thought and perception, andfreeing him from his Ego. The Ego’s gamesare so plentiful and powerful that don Juancalls the Ego the “1000-headed dragon.” Ifind this to be a very helpful image.

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In order to reclaim the energy that the Egowastes, we must usurp its power and de-throne it. In exchange for the Ego, we callupon the Higher Self. The Higher Self isn’tcompetitive, defensive, or conniving, as theEgo is. It sees through such petty ploys. TheHigher Self derives self-worth not from com-parison with others, but from an internal fo-cus that is based on valuing growth andlearning. As you advance along the path ofwarriorship, you will increasingly replaceEgo-based behavior with behavior that is un-der the guidance of the Higher Self.

The development of my personal Ego isnot unusual. While growing up I was condi-tioned to believe, “I am an Ilgner and that’sspecial.” My great grandfather Paul owned ahuge vegetable and fruit processing companyin Germany in the early 1900s, and was amulti-millionaire. His son, my grandfatherGerhard, was an accomplished pianist whotraveled the world. After World War II, the

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family fortune was lost, but my father,Harry, having grown up in a rich household,still saw himself as different and “betterthan.” He was talented in several watersports including skiing, skating, sailing, andswimming. The sense of superiority camefrom both sides of my family. My mother’smother, Vania, was a prominent opera singerin Europe, and my mother, Kornelia, was avery talented artist. All through my child-hood, I perceived an Ilgner as “better.” Wedidn’t do things like everyone else and therewas a pervasive sense of being superior.

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Climbing on the Whitesides Headwall, western

North Carolina. The route is called The Warrior’s

Way. Photo: Jeff Achey

Even as I became an adult, this flawedthinking continued. Local climbers con-sidered me to be a bold climber who put upscary routes, which fed my sense of superior-ity. Ironically, there were long stretches oftime when I felt inferior. I was caught in anexternal value system which forced me to seemyself as either better than or worse thanothers. I compared my externals to the ex-ternals of others, concocting weak schemeswhy I was more or less valuable thansomeone else. These justifications led awayfrom understanding and seeing the intercon-nectedness of the world.

Everyone can recall certain moments thatleave lasting grooves in the gray matter. Onesuch moment revealed how asinine I couldact when driven by my Ego. I had just gottenout of the Army in 1980, having served in

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Korea during peacetime. I was drivingthrough town with some friends late at nightwhen the truck in front of us stopped sud-denly—seemingly intentionally. I was surethe driver was purposely wanting to aggrav-ate us, and I reacted by getting out of the carand angrily confronting him. Unintimidated,the truck driver also got out. I was fuming,but my emotions were muddled. I felt offen-ded that the driver had intentionally stoppedin front of us. The feeling was strong becauseI felt important for having recently servedmy country. Huffing and puffing I shouted,“How dare you stop like that! I just got backfrom Korea serving my country!” His re-sponse left me feeling like an idiot, a feelingthat remains vivid to this day. “Well, I servedmy country in Vietnam,” he stated. My Ego’scomparative game had been decisivelyturned against me. Serving in peacetimeKorea was clearly no match for serving in Vi-etnam during a war. I just stood there

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embarrassed in front of my friends. My Egowanted some kind of response to retain itssuperiority, but fortunately I was finished,for the time being, with obeying its dictates. Iat least was aware my Ego had made a fool ofme and that I didn’t want to feed it with anymore stupid acts.

Don Juan tells Castaneda that if you liveby the Ego, then you can count on being of-fended or defensive for the rest of your life.You will constantly be tricked and trappedinto doing idiotic things and wasting power.It took me until age 35 to go beyond the ideathat I was better than others. I also realizedwe are interdependent, and each of us has avalue which is not determined bycomparison.

Achievement

Once in place in our young psyches, theEgo serves as a tool of society. We are easilytrained to equate our self-worth with our

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achievements, whether those be the tradi-tional achievements of mainstream culture,such as wealth and “success,” or the equival-ent elements in climbing, such as the highestnumber grade or biggest mountain we havemanaged to climb. We have been condi-tioned to believe that great accomplishmentssomehow make us more valuable. It may betrue that success in business makes us valu-able to the nation’s economy. It is inaccurateto compare a high-volume producer/con-sumer with an actualized human being.What about our true self-worth? Is our es-sential value as a person defined by our po-tential to generate cash or, for that matter, toclimb difficult rock? Obviously it is not.

Achievement, as a primary motivatingfactor, is a self-limiting trap. Our value sys-tems have been shaped to equate our owndeepest sense of personal worth withachievement, but the light of logic casts seri-ous doubts on this mindset. Is a poorly

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educated or disadvantaged person intrinsic-ally less valuable than a business executive?Does climbing 5.13 make us more valuablethan an acquaintance who merely climbs5.11? Few of us would answer yes when thequestion is put bluntly. Yet, this system isdeeply programmed into the average person,and it controls his sense of self-worth. Themore we think about it, the more misguideda pure achievement-orientated value systembecomes.

A warrior is a realist. He realizes that, inan absolute and external sense, he is no moreand no less valuable than any other humanbeing. Outside factors, such as other people’sopinions, change capriciously in response tocomplex agendas. They are not reliablesources of self-worth because they are hereone day and gone the next. A warrior knowsthat the functional, day-to-day value of lifeand of acts must be decided personally,internally.

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The point is, a value structure tied to theEgo is an unconscious habit, logically flawed,and is out of tune with reality and our ownnatures. Ironically, not only is this valuestructure flawed, but it actually damages ourability to achieve those goals on which it isbased, in our case, specifically, the goal ofclimbing harder and better.

We face a paradox. We want to climbharder in part because of our desire toachieve. Yet achievement-motivation is tain-ted by the ploys of the Ego. In reality, it is thegood feelings associated with achievementthat inspire us. We will embark upon a pro-cess of striving indirectly for the externalgoals we may have. The Rock Warrior’s Waybegins with breaking down our habitual,achievement-oriented mindset and placingour motivation on more solid footing.

Breaking Habits

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Our habitual mindset feels comfortable,since it is familiar, but it draws from a shal-low well. Once you carefully examine youradopted beliefs and achievement-orientedself-worth, their power begins to dry up.They lack the heart and the force that accom-panies a true inner guidance system. One ofthe warrior’s first tasks is to establish an in-ternal value structure that taps into deeperreservoirs of motivation. This structure willincrease the power available to respond tochallenges, in climbing or in any other aspectof life.

Developing a new, internal value structurerequires increased awareness, but the pro-cess of becoming aware feels threatening.New beliefs and new ways of thinking—bydefinition—threaten the comfort zone webuild around ourselves through familiarity.This comfort zone is complex and full of de-fenses. It is composed not only of self-limit-ing habits, but of unconscious mechanisms

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designed to protect those habits from theharsh light of objective self-examination.

Habits protect themselves by staying hid-den or unconscious, but once noticed, theircover is blown. We begin to feel foolish forindulging in them. Once we’re aware andsuspicious of them, self-limiting ways of be-ing cease to be unconscious habits that pro-duce automatic—and often negative—resultsand responses. They become part of con-sciousness, subject to revision and change.The mental energy that old habits once re-quired is liberated, and the components ofthe old value structure become raw materialfor a new and powerful mindset.

Prepare yourself to be challenged and tobe uncomfortable as you read further. Ifthese words have struck a chord within you,you have already embarked on the process ofBecoming Conscious.

The Witness

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As with all the Rock Warrior processes, thekey step in Becoming Conscious is to focusattention. In this case, you focus attention onyour inner self, on the flow of your ownthoughts. Sit back for a minute and let yourmind wander. You may be thinking of a hardclimb you haven’t been able to redpoint,which is what led you to pick up this book.Soon your thoughts drift off to what you’dlike to have for lunch. Maybe the image of aperson pops into your head, or a randommemory of something that happened lastweek. There seems to be no logic or order tothese thoughts. They simply pass throughyour head like a movie, apparently out ofyour control. The point is not how thesethoughts come about or what they mightmean. Rather, you can stand back and watchthem. They are not you. When you “standback” like this you have done something im-portant; you have located the Witnessposition.

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By identifying the Witness position andgoing there, you separate yourself from thecomplex goings-on within your consciousmind that affect your life and climbing per-formance. This separation allows you the ob-jectivity necessary to analyze and change ha-bitual or unconscious ways of being. It alsoprovides the sense of autonomy necessary toexamine issues that threaten your Ego, suchas, how you develop your self-image and as-sign your self-worth. Knowing there is an in-ner you independent of any beliefs orthoughts gives you the power to change.

As the Witness position creates a place foryou to conduct your observations, it also ef-fects the thoughts and feelings you’re ob-serving. By itself, it will not reverse self-lim-iting thoughts, but it does help thesethoughts be less overwhelming. In 1985 Iwas going through a divorce and was over-whelmed with feelings of negativity. Onewinter night during this time I was driving

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with my mother through the country. A fullmoon reflected off sparkling snow that hadjust fallen. As we were driving, I was feelingbitter, angry, and resentful. All of my atten-tion was focused on these negative states. Mymother noticed my state and asked why Ihad to be so sad and angry. “You don’t evensee the beauty of this winter evening,” shesaid. She was right, and her comment stirredthe Witness in me. I noticed my sour atti-tude, the beauty of the evening, and my res-istance to letting go of the unpleasant moodin which I was immersed. Even though Iwasn’t able to let go of my negative thinking,I noticed it and knew that I wanted to let itgo. My awareness was piqued, and it was thebeginning of the transformation of myattitude.

Performance, Self-Image, and Self-Worth

Self-worth is how valuable we feel. Self-image is our sense of who we are and what

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we can do. Self-image directly affects how weperform. Regardless of our actual level of fit-ness, if we feel strong, agile, and adventur-ous, then we climb better than if we feelweak, clumsy, and meek. Climbinghard—and “hard” is always relative—involvesmaking moves that feel improbable, and con-tinuing when the situation seems nearlyhopeless. If you have a low opinion of your-self, you will have difficulty imagining your-self doing the unlikely things necessary tomake it through your climb. If you can’t ima-gine yourself doing these things, you won’tdo them. You absolutely must have an imageof yourself as one who is capable of pulling itoff. All the training in the world will haveminimal benefit to you if you don’t give your-self room to believe.

Unfortunately, you can’t simply improveyour self-image on a whim. You need to un-cover the roots of your self-image and valuesystem and reshape the hidden structure

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holding you back. Fortunately, this detectivework doesn’t require an advance degree inpsychology. The typical person’s self-imagesuffers partly from its attachment to pastperformances, which anchor us more thanthey need to, and partly from an externallyderived sense of self-worth, which poisonsmotivation.

Mentally speaking, past performanceshould function as a platform from which tomove ahead, not as a limit on what we mightaccomplish. The strength of our arms andfingers is the most noticeable factor that af-fects climbing performance, but we put fartoo much stock in it. Some people climb at astandard far above ours with far lessstrength. When a climber runs out ofstrength, it’s usually because of the strengthhe’s wasted, not from an essential lack.

Think about your best performances.Chances are the essential difference betweenthese and others was something in your

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mind—a mysterious, unexplained confid-ence, or a feeling of joy from being in an in-spiring setting. Your outstanding perform-ance probably was in some essential waysimpler than your normal performances. Youhad less clutter in your mind, better focus,and fewer cares. This is typical. Performanceis most easily improved not by adding things,but by removing obstacles. Maybe the differ-ence was an ironic but common one. You felta complete lack of performance anxiety spe-cifically because you were out of shape andhad no stressful expectations to cloud yourefforts. Think of a time when your mentalstate made all the difference, and use that asa proof and reminder that on any given day,you can exceed your past performanceswithout being physically stronger.

Our self-image shapes our day-to-day per-formances, dulling them down to what weconsider “normal.” This concept of normal isessentially a habit. The most significant

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factor that differentiate top climbers fromthe rest of us is their habitual sense of “nor-mal” performance is extraordinarily high.They may approach a 5.12 or 5.13 climb withthe conviction that they will not find it diffi-cult. This mindset, this self-image, goes along way in creating that reality. The expertexpects to find a way to climb through thehard sections so he quickly homes in on thatway. He expects to be able to rest, and hefinds rest positions. We, on the other hand,home in on the difficulties, the obstacles, andthe certainty that we will become exhausted.The expert knows there may be difficultmoves, but is confident he will find a way,and that he has enough reserve for a climb ofthis difficulty. We balk at the hard moves be-cause we fear we won’t make it unless we dothem exactly right. We fear the moves willexhaust our reserves, and we won’t be able tocope with what follows. These are mentalhabits produced by our image of our

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abilities. This image, not our lack of strengthor technique, is our most limiting factor.

Part of Becoming Conscious is to recognizethat our self-image is not an objective de-scription of our selves or our immediate cap-ability. We can experiment with new atti-tudes, new self-images. We’ve experiencedthe expert’s mindset, even though we mayhave only mustered it for a climb rated 5.2.Our performances are constantly being sab-otaged because we cling to a self-limitingself-image based on past performance. If youcan fully embrace the new belief that yourmind, not some external factor, is limitingyou, then you open up powerful possibilities.You begin to hoist the anchor of your pastperformances.

Habitual self-image is one limiting factoryou can work on. Working on self-image in-volves redefining yourself. Another limitingfactor is self-worth. Working on self-worthinvolves changing what you value. Our self-

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worth constantly becomes tied up in our per-formance. If we want to improve, we need totest ourselves on challenging climbs, but adiet of challenging climbs will yield plenty ofperformances that fall short of our aspira-tions. Poor performances can make us feellike “failures.”

Many people lose effectiveness in theirclimbing (and other aspects of life) by tyingtheir self-worth to how they are performing.All of us have experienced this to some de-gree at some time, and many of us feel it con-stantly. If we are climbing well, we feel good,not just about our climbing but aboutourselves. After a “good” day on the crags,we might be confident, upbeat, and self-as-sured in all our affairs for days afterwards.Conversely, a “bad” day can make us feeldown and unsure not just about our climbingbut even our jobs, relationships, or our op-timism for future happiness. In short,

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climbing rewards or punishes us, as if wewere naïve children and climbing was ourparent.

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Babysitting your self-image or hunting for personal

power—climbing can be either, and the choice is

yours. Photo: Jeff Achey

Basing your self-worth on climbing per-formance puts you at the whim of externalfactors. These factors may be random andmisleading. Comparison is one source of illu-sion. Perhaps you felt that you performedwell on a certain climb because your partnerwas having an off day and found the climb-ing very difficult. You found it only slightlydifficult and conclude that you were climbingquite well, when in fact you were climbing nobetter than usual. Or, your partner was at thetop of his game. You felt lame in comparison,when in fact, objectively, you put in a verystrong performance. Environmental factorsmay be involved. Perhaps you mastered yourday’s objective due to especially favorableconditions, such as low humidity, when infact, you really didn’t climb particularly well.In all these cases, the good or bad feelings

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you have are not based on something youcan take credit for. If the performances boostyour self-worth, the boost is grounded infiction.

Perhaps you truly did climb well. You roseto the challenge and applied your skills ad-mirably. You can, then, honestly derive satis-faction from the effort, but beyond that, whatelse? Should your self-worth get wrapped upin the event? Are you a better person for hav-ing accomplished your climb?

No. Authentic self-worth comes from aninternal value system, not from simpleachievement. Self-worth comes from thepositive results of your effort. You may havelearned something about yourself or gainedthe experiential confidence to attempt moredifficult challenges. These effects are genu-inely valuable. The achievement itself,however, is no reason for an elevated senseof self-worth. You might not have learnedanything from your “success,” or you could

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have learned something equally valuable bynot meeting your objective.

Here’s the complete scenario forperformance-oriented self-worth: If you havea string of weak performances, you’ll bedown on yourself in general, creating a de-structive downward spiral. If you climb wellhalf the time, you’ll be the passive recipientof reward half the time, and of punishmentthe other half. If you manage to climb well allthe time, you’ll get the dubious reward of be-coming an egomaniac with a precarious self-image, destined for a crash. You can look for-ward to an old age spent in endless rehash ofpast days of glory. If you think about it, nomatter how well you climb, tangling up yourself-worth with your performance is a lose-lose situation.

Instead of simply falling into this habitualself-worth mindset, analyze it. Focus your at-tention on it. Discover its logic, or lack there-of. In the light of consciousness, its hold on

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you will begin to break down. You will seethat external achievement is not the root ofanything really valuable that we can derivefrom a climbing challenge. So what is? Whatcan we take away and really use?

The answer: learning. Hard climbs push usout of our comfort zone, and once in the un-known, we can learn. Often, in the midst ofthe challenge, we push ourselves in ways wedidn’t know possible, gaining knowledge thatwe can’t lose. And, if our effort is strong andcreative, we can gain that knowledge regard-less of the outcome of the climb. Achieve-ment may or may not be the result of an ef-fort, but the essential payoff of the experi-ence is learning.

An important principle of Becoming Con-scious, then, is to untangle your self-worthfrom your performance. You will performbetter on some days than on others for reas-ons ranging from muscle fitness at a crucialinstant, to the temperature of the rock, or to

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what music you listened to while driving tothe crag. This should not be a self-worth is-sue. Achievements are satisfying, but simplyhaving them doesn’t increase your personalpower, regardless of what your Ego may tellyou. If you want a more consistent and au-thentic source from which to draw a sense ofself-worth and personal power, you willeventually need to reject external factorssuch as comparison and achievement. Youmust look inside and embrace learning.

Learning to Love and Loving to Learn

Let’s recap the process so far. I’ve said thatmany climbers are largely unconscious ofhow they think about their climbing, and ofhow they attain their sense of self-worth. Allof us fall prey to hidden, habitual thoughtpatterns that lead to sub-optimal perform-ance. Indeed, these thought patterns andperformances comprise our sense of who weare. Yet, the Witness position reminds us we

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are not these things. We are not ourthoughts, but the observers of thosethoughts. Once we consciously appreciatethe Witness position, our mind becomes afield of inquiry. We observe that ourthoughts about self-worth are tied toachievement. We also identify that this sys-tem of thought is flawed. We realize that itpromotes performance plateaus and generalunhappiness. Our habitual thought system isstubborn, but once we’re aware of it and dis-satisfied, we begin to look for a bettersystem.

When you focus on the external outcomeof your efforts, you are at the mercy ofchance. You worry about making it up yourclimb, and how you’ll feel if you don’t. Ifthings go your way and you make it, you’llreact to the outcome with happiness. Ifthings don’t go your way and you don’t makeit, you’ll be unhappy. Either way, you are re-acting to a situation that is out of your

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control—a stressful, unempowering state ofaffairs.

If, on the other hand, the self-worth youderive from your climbing is based on whatyou learn during the experience, then youare less concerned about the outcome of yourefforts and able to focus more on the effortitself. What really matters when facing achallenge? What matters is learning. Youwant to test yourself, throw yourself intosomething outside your comfort zone andsee what you’re capable of. Your true goal isnot to conquer fifty feet of inanimate rock,but to expand your abilities throughlearning.

With a focus on learning, awareness im-proves. During the climb, you’re free fromanxiety and therefore, free to apply yourselfmore fully to the effort. Obviously, thismindset increases your chance of making itup your climb. After the climb, your thoughtsfocus on the internal process, not the

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outcome. If you fall off your climb, you arenot plagued by thoughts of failure. You don’tkick the rock and yell, “I suck!” as someclimbers do, nor quietly hang your head,victim-like, and let your performance affirma poor self-image. Instead, your attentiongoes to the positive aspects of the experi-ence: what you learned, what mistakes youmade, why you fell off, what you will do nexttime in the light of your new knowledge.Self-worth does not enter the picture. Yourself-worth comes from inside, from yourdedication to the quest for knowledge, froma love of learning. This gives you a more real-istic and consistent basis for your motivationto climb and improve.

Of course, shifting over completely to in-ternal motivation is easier said than done.Most of us have a combination of internaland external factors motivating us. To in-crease the power of your internal motivationand reduce your dependence on external

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factors, it helps to analyze what’s importantto you and what you’re passionate about.Spend some time identifying the things youlove about climbing. These may include thebeauty of the rock and environment, thefriends and companionship, and the manycomplex factors that relate to challenge andachievement. Beauty, friendship—these areever-present in climbing. Our experience isimproved by taking the time to appreciatethem, and to remember that whatever hap-pens, we are involved in these things wevalue. The last category, challenge andachievement, requires more careful analysis.

Do you love to challenge and test yourselfon a difficult climb, or do you simply love thefeeling of accomplishment or the praise fromyour peers once the climb is over? If love ofpraise and need for gratification are yourcore values in climbing, you are drawingfrom a shallow well. If you could be foreversurrounded by weak, inept climbers, who

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constantly fed your Ego, would you choosethat, even if it meant that you never im-proved? Would the pleasure and satisfactionlast? Would you knowingly choose such asituation over one where your Ego had tostruggle face-to-face with climbers more ac-complished than you?

The Ego plays a game, making arbitraryrules so that it can win. If it’s losing, it makesexcuses and creates a fantasy world where itcould have or should have won. The tricks ofthe Ego are not helpful or meaningful waysof thinking. Rather, they are traps that we allfall into when we become separated fromwhat we truly value. Connecting with thedeeper reasons you climb is essential for pro-gressing in the Rock Warrior’s Way.

Looked at objectively, your self-worth isessentially static: you are worth the same asanyone else, no more and no less. Havingmade it up climb X, Y, or Z is not relevant.You may be glad to have accomplished these

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climbs, but they have not increased yourworth as a person. Yet your best climbs havegiven you something. You can feel it. What isit, if not self-worth? It is growth. The experi-ences have helped teach you somethingabout yourself. They have increased yourself-knowledge and thus your personalpower. Once you learn to consciously separ-ate achievement from self-worth, you be-come free of the self-limiting need to estab-lish external “proof” of self-worth. You’rebetter able to focus on what the efforts ofclimbing really can do: improve the selfthrough growth and learning. For mostclimbers, a little soul-searching will go a longway toward replacing the value of achieve-ment with the value of learning.

Shifting from external toward internal mo-tivation gives you the power to determinevalue and worth. Thus, internal motivationbuilds self-confidence. Variable externalfactors play a smaller role in how you feel

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about yourself. You are in tune with whatyou are doing, with your strengths and weak-nesses, and you have a reliable, stable core toyour being. You are not invincible, but yourabilities can be counted on. This is confid-ence—confidence in your self. Self-confid-ence gives consistency to your performance.By having a solid core, you’re more comfort-able and secure in the uncomfortable, insec-ure atmosphere of a climbing challenge. Thiscore grows when you value the learningabove the achievement.

Power

The ability to do things, the ability tolearn, having energy to apply to newsituations, self-confidence, boldness—allthese are elements of something the warriorliterature calls power. We are not speakinghere of conventional power, control over oth-ers through money or influence, but rathersomething more personal. Power is the

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ultimate goal of the warrior. Doing difficultclimbs, taking risks, challenging oneself, do-ing new things—these are undertaken for thepurpose of increasing personal power. Forthe Rock Warrior, power is the currency ofclimbing effort. It appears in the form of fullattention, shrewd analysis, timely action, in-ventiveness, explosive effort, and commit-ment. Power gets the job done and trans-ports the warrior into the wild and riskyplaces where opportunities for learningabound. Above all else, a warrior is a hunterof personal power. He takes proper care ofthe power he has and constantly searches formore.

Power Sinks

We all have generous helpings of personalpower, but we waste it. One form of waste iscalled a power sink. Power sinks areenergy-sapping elements of our personalit-ies. The first power sink is self-importance.

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In an ordinary frame of mind, we constantlysink attention into unconscious, ineffective,Ego-promoting thoughts. The Ego’s sense ofself-worth, as we have said, relies on pettycomparison, being better than or worse thanothers. A warrior, in contrast, sees self-worthas a non-issue. He is equal to others. Hedoesn’t sink power into proving to himselfthat he is as good or better than others. In-stead, he is aware of the self-importancepower sink and stops it. Instead of valuing apersonal identity relative to others, he valueslearning, growth, and situations that in-crease his personal power.

The second power sink is generated by theEgo and involves self-image. The Ego goes togreat pains to maintain the fiction of a con-stant, unchangeable self. This is a manifesta-tion of the Ego’s hunger for security. Just asthe Ego likes to brag about its achievements,showing it is better than others and thusworthy of value and survival, it likes to cling

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to the past and create a complex, detailedidentity out of past events. The warrior liter-ature calls this element of the Ego, personalhistory. Identification with personal historycreates this power sink.

At face value, personal history seems be-nign, yet perhaps you can sense its power-sapping ability. Do you feel threatened by mecalling your personal history a hindrance? Ifyou do, then your Ego is raising one of itsthousand heads.

Personal history is comprised of your fondmemories, great triumphs, and saddest days,all claimed by and attributed to an essen-tially unchanged you. These highlights add tothe richness of our experience, but they comewith excess baggage. Many elements of per-sonal history are not landmark moments inour lives, but rather oft-repeated, self-limit-ing ways of being, frozen at some early stageof learning. These fossilized responses arethe habitual you. The maintenance of a fixed

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self-image requires energy. We are con-stantly and sometimes strenuously refram-ing new experiences to fit our old concept ofourselves. This requires power that could bedirected towards facing challenges in thepresent.

Whitesides, North Carolina. Photo: Jeff Achey

One simple example of excess baggage ismy own climbing experiences on Whitesides

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Mountain in North Carolina. Early in myclimbing career, I made several first ascentson what’s known as the Headwall of the700-foot face of Whitesides. It was a very in-timidating section of cliff, unclimbed beforemy first ascent, and locally was consideredimpossible. Doing first ascents on this un-climbed cliff made me feel important. MyEgo filed away those experiences, identifiedwith them, and looked for ways to inform theworld that I was more “important” than oth-ers. “I’m important,” said my Ego, “becauseI’m a bold climber who did the first ascent ofthe Whitesides Headwall.” That’s my person-al history. That personal history makes mefeel special and separate from others. Separ-ation, however, leads away from learningand understanding.

So how does that personal history affectme when I climb in the present? If others arewatching me climb, I tend to worry that Iwon’t live up to the bold image I’ve identified

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myself with. I end up shunting energy tryingto maintain an image, when I should be us-ing that energy for problem-solving on theclimb. These positive and satisfying experi-ences in my past have become a power sinkbecause I haven’t been able to release myEgo’s sense of personal history. Manyclimbers I know have similar difficulties.They feel nervous climbing in front of others.They can’t fall or people will “know” theyaren’t as good as their reputation makesthem out to be.

A more general example of personal his-tory could be poor footwork. Perhaps yourpast is full of experiences of popping offsmall holds, banging your knees, and makingunnecessarily strenuous moves to avoid rely-ing on your feet. This is how you see your-self; it’s part of your personal history.Whether you realize it or not, part of yoursense of self comes from having poor foot-work, and therefore, the Ego puts energy into

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maintaining that aspect of your self-image.Though the Ego may chastise you for it, itwants you to have poor footwork, giving it-self an excuse for not climbing harder. Thepower sink of personal history binds you toyour past in an endless, energy-sapping feed-back loop.

The warrior can’t tolerate such a waste ofpower. He is much too deliberate with hisenergy and attention. He doesn’t wastepower on boosting his self-importance ormaintaining a fixed self-image. In fact, heactively attacks the devices of the Ego in or-der to free attention for use in the challengesof the present. When he’s climbing, he chan-nels all his attention toward problem-solvingwithin the challenge.

Power Leaks

Power sinks drain personal power intomental activities such as bolstering the Egoand maintaining a fixed self-image. Another

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way to lose power is to fritter it away in inef-fective mental habits, limiting self-talk, reac-tionary behavior, or hoping and wishing be-havior. We call this category of power-sap-pers power leaks.

The first power leak is ineffective mentalhabits, things we do automatically with noconscious involvement. Certain habits ad-versely effect climbing performance. One ex-ample is placing too much protection on atrad climb—too much meaning more than isneeded to keep you safe and providereasonable back-up for pieces that might pullout. You might do this even though the effortyou expend to place protection causes you tofall.

Consider the habit of chalking your hands.Some climbers spend so much timenervously chalking their hands that they losethe ability to climb smoothly and continu-ously. As you become more conscious of yourclimbing habits you can begin to analyze

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them and discard the ones that inhibit yourperformance.

The second power leak, intertwined withhabits, is inner dialogue. Your inner dia-logue is the voice inside your head thatseems to accompany and advise you whenyou’re facing a challenge. Most climbers’ in-ner dialogue, however, is not an effectiveclimbing coach. Instead, its function is to re-inforce habits.

For example, when faced with a difficultmove, the voice inside your head might say,“I don’t trust my pro.” You may then react bynot pushing yourself to the point of falling. Ifthe pro really is untrustworthy, the voice islegitimate. But too often, the voice derivesfrom a more complex agenda. The detailsvary, but you may recognize this unhelpfulmental game. You react to the voice by pla-cing more pro, thus using up so much energythat you give yourself an excuse for notclimbing. You slump onto your gear,

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claiming (to yourself or your partner) thatyou got pumped because the pro was sostrenuous to place. In fact, you had solid proat your knee, but you were listening to a ha-bitual inner dialogue. You really did trustyour pro, but your Ego wanted to hide anembarrassing fear—the unjustified fear ofhaving to risk an obviously safe fall. Placingunnecessary gear allowed you to get toopumped to move past the pro you hadplaced, thus eliminating a real leader fall.Your effort, however, was sabotaged.

A second form of limiting self-talk hap-pens after the climb. It seeks to fossilize yourrecent behavior into a permanent aspect ofyour self. We touched on this earlier whenwe discussed identifying ourselves with ourperformance. After taking a long time to leada pitch, it may be accurate to say, “I climbedslowly.” It is a great leap, however, and not alogical one, to say, “I am a slow climber.” Asobjective observers, we may analyze our

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climbing performance and conclude, “I gavein, gave up, and let go.” It is incorrect andself-limiting, however, to turn this into anabsolute, and say, “I give up when it getshard.” Yet this is a mistake we often make. Awarrior takes responsibility for each time hegives up. To talk as if giving up was a per-manent personality trait is simply a powerleak.

Inner dialogue tends to be self-limiting. Ifyou can’t silence it, then you will be a slave toit, doomed to act out those self-limitingthoughts. You will have difficulty learning,since your inner dialogue reinforces yourprevious state of unconsciousness. Your per-ception stays fixed in its original position,unaware of any options. When you diminishinner dialogue you become silent, and pos-sibilities open up. Switching off that nagginginner voice takes time and practice, and we’llreturn to it later. The first step in the process

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is simply to become conscious of yourlimiting self-talk.

The third power leak is reacting—emo-tionally and rigidly—to an unwanted event.You react when you receive an outcome dif-ferent than what you wanted or expected.Let’s say you didn’t want to fall off a climb,but you did. You react by becoming angryand kicking the rock. Why? Chances are, youdon’t know why you’re upset. You are react-ing unconsciously to a scenario of self-worthset up by an external Ego orientation. TheEgo surrounds itself with external rules suchas “falling is failing,” or “5.10 should beeasy.” If your Ego is in control of the situ-ation, you will react when these externals arethreatened. The Ego’s security and identity isthreatened, so you become defensive andreact.

The key to stopping reacting behavior isawareness. You can practice awareness onthe rock or at home. Personally, I have a

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greater tendency to react, to get offended ordefensive, when I’m feeling weak, agitated,anxious, or powerless. One day when I camehome from work feeling agitated, I remindedmyself that I would have a tendency to reactrigidly, possibly lashing out with harshwords. Sure enough, when I entered myhome, my children were loud, hanging allover me, wanting to play, and asking ques-tions. Knowing that I was prone to reacting, Iwas prepared. I was able to breathe, relax,and watch myself in a detached way. I playeda short time with my children and then toldthem I needed time alone. I had prevented apower-draining reaction and felt good aboutthe encounter, even though I was feelingagitated and in need of quiet.

The fourth power leak is hoping and wish-ing behavior. Hoping and wishing are pass-ive states. If you hope a situation will turnout the way you want, you’re passively wait-ing for external influences to determine the

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outcome. You aren’t thinking actively aboutwhat you need to do to achieve what youwant. “I hope I redpoint this climb” is worsethan passive. It has a negative effect. By in-dulging in passive mental processes thatdon’t help create the outcome you want, youare actively leaking away power that couldotherwise be applied to the challenge athand.

Wishing is also passive and leaks awaypower. “I wish this hold was more positive”has no action quality to it. By wishing, youtry to decrease your discomfort by escapinginto a fantasy. This is a dreadful waste ofpower. Not only do you have power going in-to passive behavior, but you also cloud real-ity, impairing your ability to problem-solve.Remember that learning is the warrior’sgoal. The holds are what they are. You needto think actively so that deliberate, effectiveactions follow. Instead of wasting power bywishing the hold was more positive, use that

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power to determine how to use the hold inthe best way possible.

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Stressful, high-standard traditional climbing, as

found on this route in Eldorado Canyon, Colorado,

provides many opportunities for growth. Photo:

Jeff Achey

Becoming the Observer

To become conscious, you need to separateyourself from the experiences of your life.Become the observer of these experiencesand a critic of your responses. You are stalk-ing personal power, and the first step is tobecome aware of how you respond to life’scircumstances. Too often, we react automat-ically, in accordance with powerful, self-lim-iting habits that are resistant to change. Wewould like to be able to snap our fingers andhave all self-limiting habits disappear, butwe’re not wired that way. We need to becomeconscious, and then proceed with patience,intelligence, and stealth.

One way to deal with negative self-talk issimply to delay. I experienced the power of

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delaying quite vividly in 1996 when I teamedup with a friend, Glenn Ritter, to climb thefamous and difficult Astroman route inYosemite Valley. As we climbed through theinitial pitches I wasn’t feeling very confident.Each pitch tested me, and I experienced acontinuous stream of negative self-talk: Icouldn’t finish the climb, the Harding Slotpitch would be too hard, this long and sus-tained climb was too big a challenge, the ex-posure was too great, etc. By the end of thefourth pitch I wanted to go down. Instead ofacting on my negative thoughts, however, Isimply watched them from the Witness posi-tion. I didn’t really do anything, like fight thethoughts or chastise myself for lack of bold-ness. I simply listened quietly to the negativeself-talk but delayed acting it out. After thefifth pitch I began to feel more confident.The limiting self-talk dissipated. I noticedthat I was climbing well, and had been allday. I stayed receptive to the situation,

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continued climbing, and completed a fant-astic and very challenging route. Best of all, Ilearned something.

Delaying is especially helpful when dealingwith habits. Imagine that you are halfway upa strenuous sport route, climbing with somedifficulty and not very smoothly. You findyourself getting progressively more pumped.Forty feet up you make it to a bolt, feelingvery uncomfortable in the effort. You clip inand now that you can relax a bit, at this is-land of safety, the self-limiting talk begins.“Take!” The word wants to jump out of yourmouth. Your arms hurt and a shrill voice istelling you that you need to escape the dis-comfort—now! Do you?

You don’t. In fact, you have a great oppor-tunity. A habit is formed by associating onething, such as your arms feeling too pumpedto continue, with another thing, such asyelling “Take!” If you break the automatic

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association, then you begin destroying thehabit.

Don’t do anything. Don’t react to theinsistent, comfort-seeking self-talk. Instead,simply observe yourself. Listen to the self-talk. Listen to your conscious mind squirmin the discomfort of being pumped, but don’tact. Be the Witness. If you really arepumped, you won’t be able to continue theobservation session for long. It doesn’t mat-ter. A few seconds is enough for you to beginbreaking the chain of association. You haveproven to yourself that you don’t have to say“take” when you’re stressed out and pumped.It’s not an automatic response. You have op-tions, and delaying gives you time to con-sider them.

Delay is the first step. The next is to disso-ciate from your habitual response. In disso-ciating, you separate yourself from your per-formance. Here you are working against yourhabitual self-image as a person who gets

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pumped and then yells, “Take!” Instead, callattention to yourself as an autonomous per-son, capable of making new choices. Callyourself by name, and give a different com-mand not derived from your habitual re-sponse to discomfort. Faced with the abovescenario, I might say, “Okay Arno, eventhough you think you’re too pumped, justclimb into this next section anyway, since thefall won’t be that long.” If you can dothis—delay your response and replace a habitwith a fresh action—then you’ve accom-plished a powerful feat.

Another classic scenario for habitual reac-tion occurs after a fall. You might habituallyreact in one of several ways. Maybe you getupset and frightened by the feeling of the falland react by giving up and going down to theground before examining your options.Maybe you’re self-critical and react by sayingsomething that turns your performance intoan absolute, such as, “I’m worthless at this

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kind of climbing!” Or maybe you react withanger and charge back up without spendingany time analyzing your fall or consideringwhat you might do to change your approach.

Next time you fall, observe your reaction.Your goal is simply to develop awareness, tocatch yourself when you react, and to stopthat reaction.

Becoming Conscious is a process that im-proves awareness, develops an empoweringself-image, increases self-confidence, andbuilds personal power. You accomplish thisnot by striving directly for an empoweringself-image or self-confidence, as goals, butsimply by shifting attention inward. Yourgoal is to gain awareness—to learn—and thusto gain access to deeper and more powerfulsources of motivation. The 1000-headeddragon of the Ego has a thousand self-limit-ing ways of reacting to stress and protectingitself, and many of these ways have becomehabitual and unconscious. Thus, the Ego is

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your constant foe but also your teacher. Asyou gain understanding, you will be able tocollect more personal power by diverting at-tention away from power sinks, such as self-importance, and plugging power leaks, suchas wishing or reacting.

Once we cease to be defined by our pastperformances and achievements, we begin tosee ourselves less rigidly, and as full of po-tential. Our newly liberated power is ready tobe put to use. The next day climbing wemight see a complete change in the way weare able to use our minds and bodies on therock. No matter how our performance turnsout, we have the chance to experience pro-found learning from the fresh materialprovided by our efforts. All that’s required isthat we pay attention. The action word forBecoming Conscious is Observe. Use thisword to remind yourself of the elements inthis chapter.

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Chapter 2

Life is Subtle

In Becoming Conscious, you unraveled thedevices of the Ego, channeling attentionaway from power sinks and plugging powerleaks. That process frees atten-tion—power—that previously was unavail-able to apply to your climbing. In the Life isSubtle process, you collect and center thatattention.

Climbing is full of subtleties, and we con-stantly overlook them. Take, for example,balance and poise. Intellectually, we under-stand that these are important elements oftechnique, yet we constantly botch the sub-tleties. Here’s a typical scenario: A climberarrives, fairly pumped, at a clipping stanceon a sport climb. He is ten feet out from hislast bolt and very anxious to get clipped in.He’s tense, over-gripping, and out of bal-ance. Gritting his teeth, close to falling, he fi-nally makes the clip—and instantly relaxes.Immediately he finds another good handholdwithin reach. A sloping foothold he mistrus-ted suddenly feels very adequate. He shiftsbody position slightly and finds he can standat the clipping stance almost effortlessly. Be-fore he clipped the bolt, he felt he couldpump out and pitch off at any instant. Afterclipping, he was at ease. The stance was thesame, but his use of it was quite different.

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Does this sound familiar? It is ironic thatwe are least likely to demonstrate poise inthe situations that demand it the most. Ourclimber most desperately wanted to be bal-anced and poised when he was ten feet aboveprotection, not when he was safely protectedby the bolt. Yet, his attention strayed to thepossible fall and to his anxiety over that fall.He did not notice the subtleties in the rockthat would have allowed him to be com-pletely comfortable before clipping. All hecould see was his goal: clipping the bolt. Hedid not notice the subtle flaws in his tech-nique that were rapidly draining his strengthand throwing his body out of balance.

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Pay attention to subtle rock features such as small

pinch grips and out of the way footholds. They will

help you turn a struggle into a dance of balance and

efficiency. Photo: Jim Thornburg

A friend of mine experienced the import-ance of subtleties during the first free ascentof a very difficult climb called Fiddler on theRoof in Fremont Canyon, Wyoming. Thecrux of the route involves climbing a ten-foothorizontal roof. Steve Petro, a very strongclimber, had worked out the sequence ofmoves in two halves. The first half involvedfive feet of upside-down finger jamming, andthe second involved long moves between as-sorted flakes and hand jams. Steve hadworked the route for many months, andthough he found the moves very difficult, hewas consistently able to climb either half ofthe roof. But despite strong efforts, hecouldn’t link the two halves of his sequenceinto an all-free ascent. Even when he felt

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strong going into the second section, thelinkage thwarted him—again and again.

Frustrated, Steve finally gave up his claimon the project and offered the first ascent toTodd Skinner, who was traveling throughtown. The pair went to the route and Toddsuggested that Steve give it another go. Stevegot on the route and, again, could climb bothhalves separately but couldn’t link them.

Todd went up and worked the moves outthe roof. Then he came down and gave Stevea subtle suggestion. Todd, a very precisetechnician, had noticed something whileSteve was climbing. Steve kept body tensionthrough each half of the climb, but when hetransitioned between the two halves of hissequence, his hips sagged down slightly.Todd felt that if Steve would suck in his hipsduring the transition he would be able to linkthe sequences. Steve took Todd’s suggestion,and on his next effort linked the two halvesand made the free ascent. Fiddler on the

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Roof is rated hard 5.13, but we really don’tknow how hard it is because no one has re-peated it. Todd couldn’t do it, nor could oth-er climbers who gave it their best efforts. Thedifference between the free ascent andcountless efforts involved a three-inch shiftin the position of the hips.

Petro’s subtle hip shift was manifested byhis body, yet its root was in his mind. Bybreaking up the climb into sections, a usefultactic, Steve was able to focus on and refinetwo more manageable sequences of moves.Steve’s body, intuitively, knew how to keepthe hips tight to the rock when moving fromjam to jam. The transition between thehalves, however, formed a psychologicalbreak, a place where Steve had not appliedhis attention. As his mind jumped from thefirst sequence to the second, the flow waslost, hips sagged, and that brief loss of atten-tion was enough to sabotage the ascent.

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There are two points here. First, littlethings matter. The attention you pay to thechance of a fall, rather than to maintainingpoise, drains large amounts of energy. Theway you perceive a climb, the body memoriesyou develop as you work a sequence, thewords you choose when you speak to your-self—everything you do, no matter howsubtle, has an impact. The Life is Subtle pro-cess is about learning to notice the littlethings and using attention to perform themimpeccably.

The second point is that the body and themind are a single, interrelated unit. The bodyhas characteristics that we normally think ofas belonging to the mind. Your body has“memories,” which sports physiologists callschemas. (Schemas are referred to as en-grams in Europe, but schema is the acceptedterm for American physiologists.) Schemasallow you to “remember” the complex com-bination of muscle activity and balance

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involved in riding a bicycle. Schemas existpartly in your brain and partly in the nervesand fibers of your muscles. Steve Petro de-veloped specific schemas for the two halvesof his roof climb, but he didn’t develop an ef-ficient body memory for the mental gapbetween the halves. We could say thatSteve’s hips sagged down through that men-tal gap. Just as there is no clear separationbetween brain and nerves, there is nonebetween body and mind. The whole thingworks as a unit, the bodymind.

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Steve Petro on his route Fiddler on the Roof Fre-

mont Canyon, Wyoming. Photo: John Barstow

Poise

A key element of creating a supportive,high-performance bodymind is poise. Poisecan be broken down into three components:body, including your posture and facial ex-pression; breathing, which serves to integ-rate the bodymind; and mind, which in-cludes internal behavior such as, how youspeak to yourself.

Physical Posture—the Body

Dan Millman, in his audiotape programEveryday Enlightenment, says proper pos-ture is a way of “blending with gravity.” Youwant to position your body so you’re in har-mony with your environment. Poor posturewastes power. It takes extra energy and at-tention to hold the body when it’s out of

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balance. If the body isn’t balanced perfectlyalong the spine, then muscles are using en-ergy to hold it. Proper posture uses minimalenergy to hold the body upright. Posture hasmental effects, too. When you stand withproper posture, you appear more confident.This is no mere appearance. The more youexplore the workings of the bodymind, themore you realize that appearances count.Proper posture actually gives you a sense ofconfidence. Body language sends messagesnot just outward to others, but inward, toyou.

Proper posture says you own the space youoccupy, no more and no less. You aren’tcowering and apologizing for the spaceyou’re using, nor are you jutting out aggress-ively into space you don’t need. You ownyour space not because you’re better thanothers, but because you see yourself on equalfooting with others. You say, “Right now Ioccupy this space and it is mine. I have a

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right to be here, in this space.” This kind ofmindset keeps the Ego in check, and it’s justthe kind of mindset you want when enteringinto a climbing challenge.

Proper posture, incidentally, opens yourchest cavity and enhances the quality of yourbreathing. It places you in a position of alert-ness and readiness for action. Use properposture and poise while standing and climb-ing. Stand in balance, straighten the back,bring the hips in and shoulders back, openthe chest. Do you feel it? This body position-ing brings with it a sense of confidence. Stopusing poor climbing posture, such as bodypositions that have a cowering or cocky feelto them. Find a balance. The subtleties ofposture will determine what kind of bodyyou take into the risk process.

Your face is another important componentof poise. Your face is both a passive indicatorof how you feel about the state of affairs inthe body-mind and an active control center

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for the bodymind. If you have facial expres-sions of doubt, then the bodymind is doubt-ing. Adopt a look of confidence, and a senseof confidence builds in the bodymind.

Many climbers grimace during strenuousparts of a climb. Grimacing is a stereotypicalresponse to pain or discomfort, and it ismore than just a response. It can magnify orcreate these feelings. Climbers often grimaceduring exertion, but exertion need not bepainful or uncomfortable. If you grimaceduring exertion, you cast a mood over youreffort that triggers specific reactions in thebodymind. Grimacing is defensive, a form ofrecoil. When you grimace you contract theskin around your eyes, reducing your peri-pheral vision. Grimacing also sends an ana-logous message to the mind; it creates tunnelvision, limiting what you can mentally “see,”such as creative new possibilities. A grim-acing face creates a mindset that is ready totough it out in the trenches or to escape, not

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one ready to openly and creatively embracethe challenge.

Instead of allowing your face to grimace,deliberately keep the face relaxed with a“soft-eyes” focus. Eyes should be comfort-ably open, held softly, not squinting or star-ing. Your attention should be on the wholefield of view rather than on specific points inthat field. Don’t focus on your hands, yourfeet, or one portion of the rock. Rather,spread out attention and look at color, depth,shadows, and the interrelationships betweenobjects.

A discussion of soft-eyes focus appears inCastaneda’s book Tales of Power. Don Juanstates that, when used properly, the eyes candetect an enormous number of features in-cluding details that are too fleeting for nor-mal vision. The eyes pick out subtle detailsthat would be missed if they were focusedtoo narrowly on one feature at a time. Also,says don Juan, by not focusing on specific

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things in your field of view and by paying at-tention to everything, you encourage a quiet,receptive mind, rather than one preoccupiedwith the distracting internal chatter aboutthe particular things being perceived.

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Your face not only expresses your state of mind – it

can create it. Even during this extremely difficult

move, the climber does not grimace, but instead

keeps a focused, determined, and optimistic ex-

pression. His face says he plans to complete the

move, and his body will tend to obey. Photos: Matt

Burbach

In the preparation phase, soft-eyes focusgives you relaxed facial poise and helps yougather as much information as possible. Justas our habitual thought patterns can get inthe way of our seeing a situation in a recept-ive way, so too, our habitual ways of physic-ally looking can make us blind to many fea-tures of the world. In the action phase, soft-eyes focus will help minimize the involve-ment of the conscious mind, thereby dimin-ishing the internal dialogue that tends totake over when you’re under stress.

Integration of the Bodym-ind—Breathing

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Breathing connects the body and mind. Itis the only bodily function that can be totallyvoluntary or totally involuntary—totally con-scious or totally unconscious. As a result,breathing works in two directions. Your un-conscious breathing expresses the state ofyour bodymind. Conscious breathing influ-ences that state. Breathing, therefore, is apowerful tool that you can use to gain controlin stressful situations.

When you are stressed, your breathing hasan automatic tendency to become shallowand erratic. You may even hold your breath,which further stresses the bodymind system.Stress tends to produce poor breathing, andpoor breathing increases stress. It’s a feed-back loop that can ruin your composure andhinder your performance. Deep, regularbreathing, on the other hand, can reducestress.

Pay attention to your breathing as you pre-pare yourself to enter a climbing risk. Is it

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shallow, rapid, noisy, or irregular? If so,make a conscious effort to breathe moredeeply, slowly, quietly, and continuously.

Proper breathing may take some practice.Take a minute to notice the subtleties of howyou breathe. Simply relax and breathe nor-mally. Put one hand on your chest and oneon your belly. Does the chest or the belly ex-pand as you breathe? Where is the breath?The next time you are on a climb, see if youhold your breath. Holding the breath is acommon problem among climbers.

As you become more aware of your breath-ing, you can begin to influence it. Typicallystressful breathing takes place high in thechest. When you’re relaxed, the diaphragmshould move down when you inhale, pushingthe belly out slightly. This is called bellybreathing. Belly breathing automaticallyslows down the breathing cycle because theinhale/exhale process takes longer. Bellybreathe continuously and give equal

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attention to the inhale and the exhale. Prop-er breathing immediately sends the messageto the subconscious that all is well, and thatyou are in control.

Proper breathing:

• Dissipates fear, stress, and anxiety.• Brings your attention back into your bodyand the situation facing you.• Oxygenates the blood, reducing lactic acidand carbon dioxide.• Keeps primary blood flow going to themuscles, rather than shunting it to the in-ternal organs.• Integrates you—connects the body, the con-scious mind, and the subconscious mind.

Two exercises will help you gain betterawareness of your breathing:

• Complete Exhalation. People generallybreathe too shallowly. The purpose of this

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exercise is to bring the breath deeper into thebelly. Take a deep breath and then exhale.Without inhaling, exhale even more, untilyou cannot exhale any more air. The inhala-tion will then happen automatically, and thebreath will expand into the belly. Doing thisexercise several times will create a morecomplete breath.

• Deliberate Breathing. As you climb, simplyfocus on breathing continuously. With eachbreath force the air out with your abdominalmuscles. This causes the inhalation to beautomatic and the breath cycle to be longerand deeper. I also like to hear the exhalationby blowing the air out of my mouth. Doingthis indicates to me that I am breathingcontinuously.

Mental Posture—the Mind

In the Becoming Conscious process wediscussed the ploys of the Ego, how we can

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stalk it and understand its power over us. Wediscussed the comparative, externally ori-ented value system that lies at the root of theEgo’s power, and proposed an alternative,internal system that values learning andgrowth. In the Life is Subtle process, we re-fine this internal value system and begin toapply it. Doing this reclaims the powerwasted by the Ego.

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Grace under pressure. Even mid-crux you can take

time to assess and breathe. Photo: Jim Thornburg

Why do you seek out a challenging climb?Climbing achievements matter little in thegrand scheme of things. They don’t createworld peace, send your children through col-lege, or even make you a “better” person. Thelearning that can take place in the process ofyour climbing achievements is what matters.Climbing can challenge you to the core,which is valuable and allows you to learnabout yourself and expand your possibilities.You dig deep on a climb, gain self-know-ledge, and apply that self-knowledge—thatpower—to any situation. If a climb you ex-pected to be difficult proves to be easy anddoesn’t challenge you, then it loses most ofits benefit. Remember the importance offeeling challenged. Once in the thick ofthings on a climb, we quickly forget why weare there.

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In addition to being mindful of your mo-tivation for climbing challenging routes, it’salso important to give yourself room to learn.This involves keeping an open mind aboutyour abilities and your perceptions of the dif-ficulties you’re facing. You may think ofyourself as “a 5.9 climber.” On the surfacethis sounds like a simple description, but toooften it is a hindrance and a rigid belief.Many “5.9 climbers” I’ve worked withquickly find they are capable of doing 5.10climbs simply by letting go of their firm be-lief that these climbs are too hard for them.

Learning and growing is a process ofmodifying your beliefs. If you’re too attachedto your beliefs, you won’t be willing to modi-fy them. When you identify yourself withyour beliefs you become attached to them.Without realizing it, you become defensivewhen they are threatened. You feel person-ally threatened. In Becoming Conscious, weintroduced the idea that your beliefs are not

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you. Be mindful of that. Don’t let uncon-scious feelings of self-preservation make youcling to limiting beliefs.

Efficient learning requires an open mind.To be open-minded means you don’t cast outnew information before evaluating it, and ifit’s useful, making an honest attempt to in-corporate it into your present way of think-ing. But beware! Few people actually admitto being or feeling close-minded. The Egodoesn’t allow that. We trick ourselves intothinking we are objective and open, when infact we may be judgmental and closed. Onceagain, the mind is full of subtle tricks. Wemonitor our open-mindedness and our mo-tivation when we pay attention to the con-tent of our self-talk.

Our thoughts take the form of words. Wespeak to ourselves, from one part of our con-scious mind to another. If this internal dia-logue wasn’t so common, we might think itquite odd; different parts inside us are

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discussing and debating issues. Such internaldialogue involves, by definition, a lack of in-tegration of our entire bodymind. In times ofconcerted action, we will seek to turn off thisdialogue debating mechanism completely.When we’re assessing a risk or preparing foraction, however, we can make use of this dia-logue by taking conscious control of itscontent.

In his book The Fourth Dimension, PaulCho states that the speech center in the brainrules over the nerves. Your nerves influenceyour body and physical actions. For thisreason, limiting self-talk can waste vastamounts of attention and power. If youspeak in self-limiting ways, your actions willbe limited. If you speak in empowering ways,however, your actions will be empowered.There are four specific methods you can usewhen speaking to influence your actions.These methods create deliberate speech.

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Warrior posture: hips in, weight over the feet, face

relaxed, mind focused on actions to take, not the

difficulties faced. Photo: Andrew Kornylak

To speak deliberately:

• Express a possibility attitude.• Use power words that are active, notpassive.• Direct your words in an efficient direction.• Speak in questions.

First, express a possibility attitude. Theself-talk that occurs in your head will containclues about the attitude you have uncon-sciously adopted. Talking to yourself con-sciously can also create a different attitude.If you say, for example, “My arms are tooshort for that reach,” you’ve essentially de-clared the move impossible. Without adoubt, this attitude will result in you feelingthe move to be impossible. However, if yourattitude is, “This is possible,” your bodymind

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orients itself positively to the situation, see-ing it as a challenge to be mastered. If youconsciously say, “What could I do to makethat reach?” you’ve implied the move is pos-sible and have given yourself options. Makesure your self-talk embodies an attitude ofpossibility. By expressing an attitude of pos-sibility, you retain your power to act in thesituation.

Second, use power words. Use words thatretain power and keep you active.

Here’s one example of how a performancequestion and the resulting answers can begreatly influenced by the words you use inframing it. Listed below are a student’s an-swers from a written exercise involving thewords problem, challenge, and opportunity.

Question 1: “What is your biggest problemin improving your performance?” Answer:“My biggest problem is being afraid offalling.”

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Here, the student’s fear of falling is not re-lated to any action. The answer orients thestudent passively, stuck in an unconsciousattitude of avoidance of falling.

Question 2: “What is your biggest chal-lenge in improving your performance?” An-swer: “My biggest challenge is figuring outhow to deal with falling.”

This is more helpful. Figuring out how todeal with falling is more action-oriented andhas an element of seeking to engage the fearand to work through it.

Question 3: “What is your biggest oppor-tunity in improving your performance?” An-swer: “My biggest opportunity is to practicefalling so I won’t be afraid of it and can enjoyclimbing more.”

Now the student has a plan. She has indic-ated a specific action she can take, and shealso stated a strong motivating reason to en-gage her fear—to enjoy climbing more.

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Third, speak actively, in a direction wherepositive results can occur. Passive orreversed self-talk is common. A simple ex-ample is, “Don’t forget your keys.” Here, youtell yourself not to do something that youdon’t want to do in the first place. Subcon-sciously, this is confusing and inefficient. Itsaps attention. You introduce the idea of for-getting your keys, and then direct yourself toprevent this from happening. It’s more directto say, “Remember your keys.” The word “re-member” moves you directly toward whatyou want to happen. “Don’t fall” is similar instructure to “Don’t forget your keys.” It isbetter to say to yourself, “Stay in balance,” or“Keep moving.” If you’re focused on movingand staying in balance, there is little mentalspace for worrying about falling or actuallyfalling. Your attention is on doing somethingempowering, not on avoiding somethinglimiting.

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Fourth, when facing an obstacle, speak toyourself in questions rather than statements.Statements leave you no options. They areeither true or false. If you are in the midst ofa climbing challenge, you don’t know if yourstatement is true or false. Stating, “This fallis too dangerous,” leaves you passive. You’renot assessing how dangerous the fall reallyis, and what you might do to mitigate thedanger. Questions, on the other hand, offernew information to consider and sends a de-mand to your subconscious to supply op-tions. An alternative way might be to ask,“How dangerous is a fall?” and “How can Imake a fall safer?” These questions keep youinvolved in the problem-solving process.

Power Words

Some words simply don’t work for thewarrior. We tend to use words habitually,without thinking about what they mean. In-ternally, however, we know what they mean,

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and we unconsciously respond to the words.Some words are unnecessarily passive. Otherwords are “loaded” in one way or another.Many words we use are habitual “figures ofspeech” that may have hidden meaning. Ac-tions follow the words we use. To act deliber-ately, we must speak deliberately. Doing thishelps retain and utilize power impeccably.

Words to stop using include success andfailure. Success and failure label your per-formance in a way that devalues the learningprocess. When you climb you produce an ef-fort. That effort has an outcome. Rather thanlabel the outcome as success or failure, focuson your actions, on what helped and whatyou might change next time.

Good and bad are loaded words. Typically,they represent oversimplified judgmentsbased on unconscious values. An easy ex-ample is “good” or “bad” weather. Rain maybe “bad” to a climber who wants to go climb-ing but to the local farmer, it may be “good.”

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Is rain good or bad? Obviously it’s neither.Rain is simply rain. When describing wetweather, stick to the facts and describe therain. If it’s you who fell from the sky, don’tcall it a “bad” performance. Simply describethe performance.

Another word that a warrior doesn’t use isworry. Worry is a passive form of fear,which comes from an old Anglo-Saxon wordmeaning “to choke or struggle.” You don’twant to choke or struggle. So don’t worry. Beactively concerned. Better yet, be curious.

People typically use the phrase “take care”or “be careful.” These focus on being guardedand cautious instead of staying receptive tothe situation. Being cautious is passive. Ifthere is danger in the situation, you need toactively pay attention to enhance your abilityto respond. A warrior isn’t careful; he is ob-servant and he pays attention. In his bookPsycho Cybernetics, Maxwell Maltz sumsthis thought up with, “Don’t be too careful.”

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People often say, “I have to,” when refer-ring to a task they dislike. “I have to workfull time,” implies that you have absolutelyno choice. In fact, you choose to work. Work-ing produces income for things you’ve de-cided are important, such as food or yourchildren’s college tuition. You could alsochoose to quit work and accept the con-sequences. The point is, it’s your choice.You’re in charge. By using the habitualphrase, however, you create a fictional realitywhere nothing is your fault. You pretend tobe the passive victim of circumstances thatconveniently excuse you from responsibility.You might turn down an invitation to dinnerby saying, “I have to study.” In fact, youchoose to study, but you don’t want to saythat because you feel it will hurt the host’sfeelings. The deception can become quitecomplicated. After a weak performance on aclimb, you might say in disgust, “I have tostart training!” What does this mean? It

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doesn’t mean very much, really. You’re pre-tending to scold yourself. It’s a dishonestway to obscure the situation, to twist thewords and shirk responsibility. It’s a way toavoid saying, “I choose to start training.”

A warrior doesn’t use the word try. StevePetro likes to say, “Trying is lying.” Try hasan element of vagueness that gives you anexcuse. It implies that you might not make it,and if you don’t it really won’t be your fault.“Trying” means that you’re unconsciously fo-cusing on unknown factors that might pre-vent you from reaching your goal.

When you speak in this vague way youplace a verbal limit on your power. You will-ingly give away power to a mysterioussomething outside of your control. In fact,there will be numerous ways to improve youreffort that were overlooked. That is the chal-lenge: to notice these subtle details and actinstantaneously with power, not simply to

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try. Do not hold yourself to the habitual oldstandard of mental effort.

Instead of saying he’ll try, a warrior stateshe’ll do it. His intention is to give his best ef-fort, but he doesn’t put a limit on that effort.He knows he’s not perfect and he may notmake it. The difference is he knows it’s nothelpful to emphasize this possibility with apower-draining word like try. For him, doingthe climb essentially means engaging theprocess; the outcome is less important.When people say try, they are thinking of theoutcome instead of the process of learning. Awarrior doesn’t try because he’s focusing onhis effort, and effort is something applied,not tried.

Center Yourself

The Becoming Conscious process helpsyou be aware of the many sources of powerwithin you, and the many ways you wastethat power. Life is Subtle is about taking that

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self-knowledge and consciously shaping yourbodymind into a more efficient, powerfulunit. The way we stand, the expression onour faces, how we breathe, and how we talkto ourselves—all these contain subtle oppor-tunities to gather or waste power. The littlethings are immensely important. Dan Mill-man councils us that “every act is a deliber-ate act of will. Even when tying yourshoes—tie them impeccably.”

When faced with a climbing challenge, col-lect and center all available attention withinyou. Guide your self-talk into channels ofpower. Take a deep breath, exhale strongly,and shake your face to get rid of any grimace.Push your hips in close to the rock and bringyour shoulders back. The action word for theLife is Subtle process is Center. This wordwill remind you of the essence of this chapterand help you focus attention as a warrior.

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Chapter 3

Accepting Responsibility

The third warrior process is Accepting Re-sponsibility. So far, you have plugged powersinks and power leaks in order to retain at-tention. You have collected and centeredyour attention within you to make it avail-able for the climbing challenge. In AcceptingResponsibility, you will use your atten-tion—your power—to cut through delusionsand misconceptions in the situation facing

you, replacing them with useful facts and anempowered approach. You will use your de-veloping warrior mind to become aware ofpitfalls that can sabotage your performanceand to direct your attention actively on whatwill enhance it.

There are strong influences in our societythat discourage us from accepting responsib-ility. We expect every intersection in town tohave a stop sign and every trail hazard on aski run to be marked. Our courts are full oflawsuits that seek to blame wet floors or hotcoffee for causing injuries that are clearly theresult of our own inattention. We have madeit the job of our government to enact laws re-quiring us to wear seatbelts. All of thesethings fuel our habitual tendency to blameothers for our own mistakes. Slowly butsurely, we develop the unconscious convic-tion that our own safety is someone else’s re-sponsibility. Climbing, by its nature, tends to

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counteract this socializing influence, butmost of us continue to bear its mark.

Ego, too, plays a role in our shirking of re-sponsibility. The Ego is constantly equatingour self-worth with our achievements andperformances. We have an innate need tofeel good about ourselves. When our Ego isin charge, we tend to protect ourselves bytransferring responsibility for a poor per-formance to someone or something else. TheEgo is shrewd and will try to appear object-ive and rational when it blames, but its logicserves a single goal: boosting an externallyderived self-image. This defensive tactic sapsour power to respond effectively tochallenges.

The Ego is careful not to reveal its machin-ations too easily. It knows how to pick itsbattles. Thus, most of us accept responsibil-ity for things we have obviously broughtupon ourselves, especially if these thingsdon’t seriously threaten the Ego. If we drink

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too much one night, we probably can acceptresponsibility for the hangover the nextmorning (although even then we might try toblame it on the cheap wine). If we drop andbreak a plate, most of us can accept respons-ibility for the blunder. If, however, the causeof the event is less direct, the situation morecomplicated, or the event more personallythreatening, then we often fall into someform of non-acceptance behavior.

Suppose you severely sprain an anklewhile playing basketball on your lunch breakat work. It’s right at the beginning of thespring climbing season, and you had beentraining hard for an upcoming climbing trip.Now, you’ll be on crutches for six weeks. Thisfeels like a terrible stroke of bad luck, a realinjustice. You spend hours at a time wishingthat the injury hadn’t happened. You blame“stupid ball sports” for causing the injury.You even secretly blame your co-workers forpersuading you to play basketball. You mope

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around, brood, and feel sorry for yourself.Throughout this process, you are drainingaway power.

You would be better served by an activemindset, where you claim control over asmuch of the situation as possible. You choseto play basketball, and you got injured.Those are the facts. Wishing that you weren’tinjured doesn’t help. Blaming the unevenbasketball court or your co-workers simplydrains away attention that you might other-wise direct toward a tangible benefit, such asanalyzing mistakes in your lay-up technique,or choice of footwear, and seeking out an ag-gressive rehab program.

Even if your injury is more serious and thecause further out of your control, a positionof choice and power is still available to you.Maybe you were blindsided by a drunkdriver. Choosing not to accept responsibilityfor your situation keeps your attention fo-cused on blaming and wishing, rendering

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you passive and impotent. Your attention isspent on things that can’t be changed, mak-ing that attention unavailable to workthrough your rehabilitation. The well-knownclimbers Eric Weihenmayer, who is blind,and Mark Wellman, who is paraplegic, areexcellent counter-examples to the passive,blaming, wishing mindset. They have chosento see their “misfortunes” as challengeswhich allow them to gain a fantastic sense oflearning and accomplishment. They havegained far more in personal power than theyever lost through their physical setbacks.

Many years ago when I lived in Wyomingand climbed frequently in Fremont Canyon, Ihad an interesting experience concerning thepower of accepting a situation as it is. StevePetro and I were working on making thesecond ascent of a crack route called Morn-ing Sickness. The first ascent had beensnatched away from us locals by Mark Wil-ford and Skip Guerin, two talented climbers

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who had visited from Colorado in 1983.Steve and I were eager to do the second as-cent to see if we could match the skills of thevisitors.

The route was quite difficult and startedabout ten feet above the water of the NorthPlatte River. It began with a five-foot roofand then continued vertically to the top. Sur-mounting the roof required a reach past theroof to a shallow jam. I could just barelymake the reach, and moving on from thererepeatedly thwarted me. Steve, being twoinches shorter than me, had even moretrouble reaching the jam. In fact, he keptcomplaining about being too short to makethe reach. We worked on the route on severalvisits, and each time Steve would complainabout being too short.

Finally I got sick of his excuses, and moreout of annoyance than warrior wisdom, I toldhim to quit complaining and accept how tallhe was. I told him he wasn’t going to grow

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any taller and the roof wasn’t going to getany shorter. The next time we went to theroute, we both made it. Years later he toldme I had really shocked him by what I hadsaid. My remarks woke him up to hisshirking-responsibility behavior and allowedhim to accept the situation as it was. Whenhe quit wasting attention on complainingand focused directly on the challenge, hiswhole approach changed. He quickly figuredout exactly what rock features were availableto work with and applied himself fully to us-ing those as best he could—which was all ittook.

Top-level performances occur when thissort of reality check is in effect. Sometimesour climbing seems effortless and we climbwith great focus; other times we maystruggle and whine. We finally get mad atourselves, drop our excuses, and improveour focus in that reactive sort of way. The an-ger that comes with that approach, however,

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is extra baggage. The art is to maintain acalm and empowered attitude when a chal-lenge requires time and/or effort. Lynn Hillsummed up her attitude nicely in her videoabout her first free ascent of The Nose of ElCapitan and the prolonged and intense train-ing program she was engaged in. She madeseveral epic attempts on the route, each ofwhich was very costly in time and effort:“Throughout the months of preparation, Ipracticed an attitude of acceptance. No mat-ter what the situation, I made an effort to re-main patient and relaxed each step of theway.”

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Climbing in front of a crowd can give you insight in-

to your inner motivations. Are you afraid? Driven

to impress others? Analyze your feelings and learn

to climb for yourself, alone or in the spotlight!

Photo: Andrew Kornylak

Shirking and Accepting

The two worst enemies of Accepting Re-sponsibility are detachment from reality andpassive thinking. Wishing behavior (“I wishthese holds were bigger,” “I wish I wastaller”) embodies both. We dream up an al-ternative reality of bigger holds and longerarms, and channel our attention into thatfantasy. The attention going into the fantasyis unavailable for doing anything active, suchas figuring out how best to use the holds thatexist. Hoping is as passive as wishing, withthe difference being that instead of conjuringour own fantasy world, we channel attentioninto waiting for a favorable world to be cre-ated for us. When we say, “I hope I make it

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up this climb,” we embark on the effort pass-ively. We delude ourselves that some extern-al power, rather than the pure quality of oureffort, will determine the outcome. We waitfor lucky breaks instead of working skillfullytoward our goal.

The most passive of all delusions is victimthinking. We pretend that so much misfor-tune has befallen us that we can no longer beheld responsible for taking charge of ourlives and improving our situations. The vic-tim mentality can be so obvious that it ap-pears comical to an outside observer. We canall probably think of examples of our own orfriends’ “poor me” behavior. This mentalityalso can be subtle. For example, some tradclimbers I know harbor murky excuses thatrelate to why they haven’t excelled at sportclimbing. They resist pushing themselves tothe point of falling. When questioned, theymay finally admit, in so many words: “I’m atrad climber who was taught that ‘the leader

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must not fall,’ so there’s no way I can be ex-pected to get comfortable taking falls.” Infact, this is a ploy of the Ego claiming to be avictim, when in fact, it is merely clinging to acomfortable but limiting old habit. Certainlythere are situations, such as very runout tradroutes, where a fall will cause injury. I’m notreferring to routes like this. Making ablanket statement, however, that a leadermust not fall limits us and causes us to staystuck in an old habit.

The trad climber may further obscure hissport-climbing and falling issues with moralovertones. In fact, the whole concept of ac-cepting responsibility is often morallycharged. The warrior, however, does notthink of accepting responsibility as a moralissue. The warrior’s concerns are pragmatic,and “right” and “wrong” are inappropriateconcepts for the job. By not accepting themaximum amount of responsibility we re-duce our ability to respond and therefore our

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power. Learning how to respond to toughchallenges in a way that increases power isone of a warrior’s most important tasks.

Describing Objectively

An important component of the AcceptingResponsibility process is gathering objectiveinformation. Objectivity, however, can besurprisingly elusive. Our expectations causeus to lose our objectivity.

The ultimate model of objective inquiry isscientific research. The scientist, a trainedobserver, carefully examines factual data,formulates ideas, and conducts experimentsto rigorously test those ideas. What could bemore objective? Even in the “hardest” sci-ences, however, expectations and associ-ations seem to influence the results. In theearly research of quantum physics, for ex-ample, scientists attempted to determinewhether light was essentially made up ofparticles or of waves. Some scientists

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designed experiments to detect wave-likecharacteristics, such as interference, whileother experiments were designed withparticle behavior in mind. Each kind of ex-periment found what it set out to find. Lighteventually proved to be a more mysteriousentity that possessed both wave and particlecharacteristics, but this outcome at firsthadn’t been considered possible. Even in sci-ence, then, the expectations associated withan inquiry can undermine pure objectivity.

In our own inquiries, objectivity is evenmore slippery. We often unconsciously lie toourselves. In his book The Gift of Fear, Gav-in de Becker relates a relevant story aboutexpectation and self-deceit. A man was homealone and heard a noise downstairs. He wentto check it out, telling himself, as many of usmight, that he was “making sure everythingwas okay.”

“Making sure everything was okay,”however, was not an objective description. In

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fact, it distorted the task. The man heard anoise and his intuition linked that noise todanger. Being honest with himself about thatdanger, however, would have been too fright-ening. He obscured the danger by pretendingthat he was going downstairs simply to verifysafety.

The man’s unconscious attempt to controlhis fear gave him an expectation that in-terfered with his ability to perceive the situ-ation as it really was. Instead of conductinghis search with the expectation of findingdanger, the man searched with the expecta-tion of finding nothing. This interfered withhis ability to take proper precautions anddeal wisely with what he discovered—anintruder!

Fear is one cause of poor objectivity, butself-deception can derive from sources otherthan fear. Justification is another scheme forlying to yourself.

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An example might be a person pilferingpostage stamps from his company. This is anapparently insignificant act, but it’s thestructure of the justification, not the mag-nitude of the offense, that makes it interest-ing to analyze. The stamp-pilferer holds theview that stealing is wrong. Since he holdsthat view, he can’t admit to himself that he isactually stealing the stamps. He says to him-self he is underpaid and the company oweshim at least a few inexpensive stamps. Or, hesays to himself that his personal correspond-ence in some way benefits the company.

Most of us participate in some sort of justi-fication scheme like this to excuse ourselvesfrom the rigors of our supposed beliefs. Theaverage person is quite creative with thelittle justifications he can think up to deceivehimself that his actions are not out of linewith his purported beliefs. If we confrontourselves point blank with our words and ac-tions, however, we know that we are lying.

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Scrupulous honesty is required to realizethis. Removing small lies from our day-to-day life cleanses the whole system. If youstop lying to yourself about postage stamps,you stop lying to yourself about climbing,why you aren’t stretching, or why you turnedthe lead over to your partner. You come togrips with reality, and reality is a more ef-fective teacher than illusion.

Tricking yourself is similar to lying, butyou do it consciously. I’ve heard and readabout climbers advocating that you trickyourself into believing you can do something.Even if this tactic achieves some short-termbenefit, it’s a fool’s approach.

If you are on a runout route, preparing todo the crux, and tell yourself, “There is a boltright at my face,” your are intentionally cre-ating a make-believe situation. You mightmanage to reduce your stress level, but trick-ing yourself is the surest way to get yourselfinto risks that aren’t appropriate, nor

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ultimately valuable. The Rock Warrior’s goalisn’t to get up a certain climb by hook orcrook. It’s to gain personal power. He gainsthat power by taking forays into the un-known with the conscious intention of takinga risk—an appropriate risk that will allowhim to learn but won’t hurt or kill him. In-stead of tricking yourself by creating a false,non-threatening situation, you should be giv-ing your full attention to the real situation.Where is the last pro? Where is the next pro?How far is the potential fall? How muchpower do I have left? Why am I feeling hesit-ant or fearful? These questions enable you tolearn from the situation and lead to greaterunderstanding, growth, and power. That’sthe goal, not climbing the crux. You want tounderstand the risk—the reality of the situ-ation—as clearly as possible. Tricking your-self works against that process.

Past experience is another source of self-deception. People constantly cloud their

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perceptions by looking through associations,metaphors, and memories, rather than de-scribing things in the moment. Climbers dothis all the time. When you look at a crackclimb, are you filtering your perceptionthrough past experiences, or are you simplyobserving objectively? Let’s examine thethree forms of non-objectivity that can comefrom relying too much on past experience.

Association is linking together things inyour brain. If you think of one thing, youthink of the other. For example, you may as-sociate crack climbing with pain. Does acrack climb look painful? How cansomething look painful? If you see a crackclimb as painful, you are associating. Otherclimbers could look at the crack withoutthinking of pain and ascend the crackwithout experiencing pain. You have appar-ently had painful crack-climbing experi-ences, and you now associate cracks withpain. Separate the two components of those

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experiences and you can begin the process oflearning how to climb cracks painlessly.

A second form of non-objectivity is meta-phor. It is a process of abstraction, repres-enting something to yourself in an abstractway. For example, if you see a crack as awound, then you are thinking of the crackmetaphorically. Thinking this way, you willautomatically carry over the emotions youassociate with wounds that don’t belong tocracks in rock. There may be negative con-notations attached to wounds, making cracksmetaphorically repulsive to you.

Memories also can taint your objectivity.New things can remind you of a similar thingyou experienced in the past. A certain crackclimb—perhaps all crack climbs—might re-mind you of a climb called Keyhole at theShawangunks, on which you struggled des-perately during your first year of climbing.The memory of Keyhole colors your

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perception of all cracks, and you presentlyavoid crack climbs.

If you look and describe objectively, acrack is a feature on the rock face with defin-ite contours, steeper here and less steepthere, wider here and narrower there. It willadmit various parts of the body and will takeclimbing protection such as nuts or cams.These characteristics have nothing to do withassociations you have about crack climbingin general, nor with crack metaphors ormemories of specific cracks in your past. Be-ing aware of associations, metaphors, andmemories can help you describe situationsmore objectively, and loosen the self-limitingaspects of past experience.

Responsible Climbing

Clearing your mind of the past and thesubtle habits of deception helps you lookwith fresh eyes towards gathering useful in-formation, to help you climb. Let’s move on

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to gathering that information, to discerningthe true nature of the challenge facing you.

Climbers suffer from a variety of flaws intheir problem-solving ability. We often over-react to an unexpected challenge before weeven know for sure what the challenge en-tails. We tend to wish a situation was differ-ent, rather than focusing on what we can dogiven the facts.

In order to accept responsibility for takinga risk, we need to know what we’re acceptingresponsibility for. Too often in climbing weare under the power of phantom fear, avague, nagging fear of unknown origin.There may be no real substance to such fear.Conversely, the fear may indicate realdanger. However, the fear is of limited pro-tective value unless we can identify the spe-cific danger that’s causing the fear. Often,phantom fear is simply a general fear of theunknown, of the world outside our comfortzone.

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Phantom fear makes risk-taking an effort.This is beneficial, to a point, because withoutsome resistance to risk-taking, we might besoloing 5.13s and killing ourselves. Withouttaking some risk, however, we can neverlearn anything, never expand our comfortzone and make progress. To take appropriaterisks, and to take them well, we need toweaken phantom fear.

By its nature, phantom fear can’t be in-vestigated directly. It’s a phantom. Phantomfear creeps in when your information about arisk is too vague, and it grows as you focuson it. You can reduce phantom fear by im-proving your understanding of a risk and bydescribing your climbing situation object-ively. Be vigilant with the words you use inyour description. If you say, “This section ofthe route has good holds, but it lookspumpy,” you aren’t being objective. “Good”is a value judgment about the holds. What doyou mean by good? If your goal is to be

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challenged by the climb, good might meanthe holds are small, sloping, and strenuousto use—but you probably mean the opposite.By saying “good,” you color reality with ill-considered wishes and intentions.

Stick to the facts. A more objective de-scription would be, “The holds look flat, fourfingers wide, and about finger-pad deep.”Remember, precise wording and radical ob-jectivity are important. You are involved in atwo-fold search for information. Some of theinformation you’re seeking involves the rock.Just as important, you want to uncover whatmight be in your mind making you hesitant,inefficient, or unprepared.

Analyzing the Challenge—Risk Assessment

Analyze means to break down into parts.Taken as a whole, a climbing challenge canbe overwhelming. Broken down, it becomesmore manageable. When you actually launchinto a climb, you’ll immerse yourself in the

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experience as a whole. When you’re prepar-ing for a challenge, you can break it down in-to parts. There are three parts to the climb-ing situation: the route, the fall consequence,and the climber. First, there’s the route, theentire route or the section you’re facing, pos-sible holds, and protection points. It’s im-portant to identify what it is about the routethat will challenge you. Second, there’s thefall consequence, the falls you could takefrom different points on the climb. Third,there’s the climber (you), the skills and abil-ities you bring to the climb, specifically thoseskills and abilities that will help you dealwith the challenge of the route. In the Ac-cepting Responsibility process, we focus onclarifying these elements of the climbingchallenge. We’re interested in dispelling illu-sions and gathering all the useful facts. Inthe next chapter, Giving, we’ll focus on usingthis information efficiently.

The First Part—the Route

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First, assess the route. Determine what itis about the route that will challenge you.Doing this will identify which skills and abil-ities are most important to assess in the thirdpart of your assessment, the climber part.The details of how you analyze a section orroute will vary with the kind of challengeyou’ve chosen. If your goal is to on-sight asport route, you will analyze as much of theroute as you can see from the ground, gath-ering information you can use in your effort.You’ll look for key rest holds where you willhave a chance to regroup, or sections that arepossible cruxes. Once you begin, you may bepretty much on the run. One long assess-ment opportunity may be all you get. On asparsely protected, multi-pitch traditionalroute, in contrast, where protection is a ma-jor issue, you will be able to see less of theclimb before you begin and may climb moreslowly and deliberately, and assess in sec-tions. You might look up at the lead ahead

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and find the next island of safety where youare fairly confident you will find solid protec-tion. You might back off if the route aboveproves too demanding or dangerous. Let’sexamine the more complex trad-climbing ex-ample in more detail.

You have climbed thirty feet from a belayledge and you encounter a smooth wall. Youcan see a horizontal crack ten feet abovewhere you are pretty sure you’ll be able tofind large holds and place gear, but the wallleading there appears dauntingly blank.

It’s not blank, however. The holds and fea-tures are simply more subtle. As you assessthe rock features up to the crack, you seesharp horizontal edges, there and there,smaller holds, there and here, and possiblesidepull holds, here and here. After a fewminutes of such inspection your “blank” wallis covered in holds. None is larger than half-inch, and some are much smaller, but all arepotentially usable. You’re not envisioning

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sequences at this point (although in practice,as you become more proficient, the Accept-ing Responsibility and Giving processes mayblend somewhat). Your goal is simply to des-troy the illusion that the wall above you is“blank.” By doing this you’ve made major in-roads into the unknown, diminishingphantom fears.

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Be comfortable at your stance and assess the situ-

ation. Photo: Jeff Achey

Next, assess the gear possibilities. Youhave a solid cam just below your feet, butyou’d like to place a nice high piece righthere. There is no placement, however, andthe wall up to the horizontal looks crackless.No, halfway up is a thin seam that may takegear. There appear to be holds nearby thatmay be large enough to allow you to stop andplace a piece. Gear placements include a verylikely opportunity for a piece in ten feet, aquestionable piece before that, and a solidcam below your feet.

OK, you’ve assessed the route. In practice,you may spend more time doing this, per-haps climbing up and down to feel holds andcheck out possible body positions. For thesake of brevity, however, and to keep our fo-cus on the essence of the Accepting Respons-ibility process, let’s move on to the rest of theassessment process.

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The Second Part—the FallConsequence

Second, assess the fall consequence. Yourgoal, again, is to see clearly what you’re fa-cing and not be overwhelmed or deceived bythe challenge. “If I fall here,” you say, “then Iwill go about eight feet onto that solid camjust below my feet. If I place my feet wheremy hands are now, then I’ll be able to see if Ican place something in the seam. If I can’tmake the placement and fall, then I’ll go justabout twenty feet with rope stretch but stillland ten feet above the ledge. If I don’t getgear in the seam and fall on the very lastmove reaching for the horizontal crack, thenI could hit the ledge.”

This assessment does not imply that youactually are willing to take any of these falls.That decision-making process will comelater, in the Choices process. Your sole focusnow is to assess the situation clearly and ob-jectively, to take responsibility for what

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you’re facing and not deceive yourself, hidefrom the facts, or overlook any usefulinformation.

By now you have ample amounts of am-munition against phantom fear. The daunt-ing unknown has been replaced by a very de-tailed idea of the challenge facing you. Per-haps you are more scared than ever. The de-mands are significant—a classic bodymindclimbing challenge. Most climbers, however,find themselves significantly calmed by clari-fying exactly what they are facing. Know-ledge is power, so the saying goes, and theunknown is scarier because you have nopower over it. Knowing exactly what you’refacing is much safer than forging aheadblindly.

One experience that taught me not to ig-nore the fall consequence occurred in 1979when I was climbing with my friend SteveAnderson at Stone Mountain in North Caro-lina. Stone Mountain is known for its very

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pure, very low-angle friction climbs, and itsvery long runouts. I’d climbed on Stone ayear before, doing some of the harder routeswithout falling. After that experience I adop-ted the attitude of simply focusing on theclimbing, giving little attention to the fallconsequences. If you’re confident or cocky asI was, this “go-for-it” approach comes fairlyeasy at Stone because you can climb quitequickly on the low-angle slabs without givingmuch thought to specific moves. The low-angle rock also minimizes the feeling of ex-posure. This approach had allowed me toclimb several hard pitches until I found my-self off route without an escape on a climbcalled Mercury’s Lead.

I had climbed past two bolts and foundmyself about 100 feet up and fifty feet abovemy last bolt. I could see the next bolt, onlyten feet up and to my left. Unknowingly, Ihad climbed along some edges that took meup and right away from the usual line of the

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route. The route was rated 5.9 but I’dclimbed up a series of edges that felt morelike 5.10. Now, I was poised on small footand handholds, realizing I’d climbed into apredicament. I made a few attempts to climbleft to the bolt, but the moves seemed toothin. I downclimbed a move or two, but themoves I’d made to reach that point felt tootenuous to reverse.

I was faced with a harsh realization: Iwould have to commit to the move or fall off.For the first time on the lead, I assessed thefall consequence. I would probably hit thetree-covered ledge where Steve was standing100 feet below. I realized I’d climbed into avery dangerous situation without much fore-thought. I hadn’t assessed the fall con-sequences at all. I hesitated for close to forty-five minutes, shaking out one leg at a timeand procrastinating.

Finally I went for the moves. The edgeswere thin and rounded, my balance was off, I

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was overgripping the small handholds—andthen I was off.

Soon I was skidding down the rock on myback. I noticed Steve pulling in slack. It wasas if time slowed down, and he had plenty oftime to pull in sufficient rope to keep me offthe ledge. I was speeding faster and fasterdown the rock, but the rope came taut beforeI hit anything. I survived the fall with onlysome scratches on my elbow.

Had I assessed the consequences of a fall, Icould have decided if the risk was acceptable,rather than having to simply accept the con-sequences once I found myself in trouble. Icould have consulted with Steve and workedout a belay plan. I could have prepared my-self by figuring out the best way to slide. For-tunately, Steve was attentive and respondedinstinctively by pulling in that ten feet ofslack that saved my life.

In fact, unbeknownst to us, my terrifyingnear-miss was quite unnecessary. The more

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experienced Stone Mountain climbers hadexcellent contingency plans they used whenputting up these routes. Belayers would re-main unanchored so they could run down oracross walls or ledges to take in many yardsof rope to shorten the leader’s fall. The slid-ing leader would stay centered over the ballsof his feet and maintain balance by “patting”the wall as he slid to avoid scraping the skinoff his hands.

I didn’t learn these techniques until later,but right away I learned simply not thinkingabout the fall consequence is not a wisestrategy. Falling is part of the climbing pro-cess and can happen on any route. The les-son became even more valuable when I real-ized the danger of the fall itself could havebeen greatly reduced with creative fore-thought and/or practice.

The Third Part—the Climber

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Third, assess the climber, the skills andabilities you bring to the climb. Potentiallydangerous situations are in some ways thesimplest. You can determine the risk, assessit, and take responsibility for your choice.Accepting responsibility is more difficultwhen it involves the murky workings of theEgo, rather than real concern for life andlimb.

One of the Ego’s “1000 heads” arises whenyou examine your performance after the fact.Backing off a climb is a classic example.When you back down, even when you aresure you are making the appropriate choice,you may later begin to doubt yourself. YourEgo is still attached to the external reward ofclaiming a hard ascent. Even though youknew in your heart that you were showing re-spect for the gift of life by backing downfrom an overly dangerous, inappropriaterisk, your Ego may not be convinced. It’sscheming, and wants a trophy climb to feed

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its inexhaustible appetite for glory, usingyour shame to obtain it. The Ego, however,has only as much power as you give it. Byconsciously acknowledging this second-guessing as a product of the Ego, you alreadydrain it of force. To finish the job, simplylook that dragon head in the eye and slice itoff.

Don’t waste attention on wishing youcould have performed better with “shoulda-coulda-woulda” behavior. Once you’ve had aperformance, it’s over. You can’t change it.Dodging the facts hinders real learning. Yourperformance, whatever it was, was the best itcould have been at the time. Accept it. Phys-ical strength, your technical skill, your abilityto focus your mind, your level of motivation,and many other factors all contribute to per-formance. Saying, “I could have made it ifonly I had really gone for it,” is similar tosaying, “I could have made it if I was a betterclimber.” Knowing how to commit to the

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climbing, jamming a difficult crack, beingcomfortable on small footholds—these are allskills which take training to refine, just asbuilding strength does. You’re facing thefacts more clearly when you say, “I think thatmoment of hesitation shut down my com-mitment.” Instead of wasting attention onregret or “could have” thinking, accept fullresponsibility for your performance, analyzeand learn from your experience, and lay thegroundwork for a stronger effort next time.

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Being a rock warrior is a solitary face-off with the

“thousand-headed dragon” of the Ego. Chris

Sharma dragonslaying in Tenere. Photo: Jim

Thornburg

The goal when assessing the climber is tosee the skills and abilities as they are,without blowing them out of proportion, be-ing overwhelmed by the lack of them, or al-lowing them to predetermine how you’ll per-form. Different types of climbs will requiredifferent types of skills and abilities. For ex-ample, sport climbs at Rifle Mountain Parkin Colorado will require endurance and face-climbing techniques, whereas trad climbs atDevils Tower in Wyoming will require en-durance and crack-climbing skills. Find outwhat skills will be required and assess themobjectively. For now, we simply want toclearly observe the skills and abilities thatwill impact our performance. Later, in theGiving process, we’ll focus on how to utilizethose skills to create the best performance.

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The last step of assessing is fully acceptingwhat you’ve found. Don’t lapse into wishingyou’d found larger holds, more pro, saferfalls, or stronger arms. Accept what you’vefound so you can collect the necessary in-formation in order to see the situation asclearly as possible.

We began this chapter by noting somecommon obstacles to objectivity: association,metaphor, and memory. Then, we detailed asimple objective risk assessment, noting sev-eral places where our objectivity might besuspect, and devoted some attention to theelement of falling. Last, we noted how theEgo might come back after the fact and cloudthe assessment we made while in the risksituation. Let’s now elaborate in more gener-al terms on the art of honesty and acceptingresponsibility.

Radical Honesty

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You cannot act effectively upon a lie. If youare not honest with yourself, your attentionwill be wrapped up and weakened by decep-tion. The facts you might use to deal withchallenges won’t be reliable. We lie toourselves as a way of shirking responsibilityfor acts or outcomes that make our Egos un-comfortable. We do this in several ways.

Earlier, we mentioned wishing, hoping,and victim thinking, typical mindsets thatkeep us from accepting a situation as it isand taking responsibility for dealing with it.Now let’s examine specific ways we shirk re-sponsibility: blaming, denial, excuses, pre-tending, and justifying.

By blaming, you transfer responsibility tosomeone or something, thereby absolvingyourself from acting to change the outcome.For example, during a redpoint effort youpull for slack to clip a bolt, but the belayerdoesn’t give slack quickly enough. In the

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process of clipping the rope, you fall. Youblame the belayer.

You can choose to hold your belayer re-sponsible for the outcome, but how muchdoes that help? What was your part in thebelayer holding the rope too tight? Did youinstruct him on how to belay you? Perhapsyou even noticed he was keeping the rope abit too tight. You wanted the rope tight be-cause you were fearful, and then you hoped itwould pull freely when you needed it. Maybeyou even saw the problem coming but knewyou were pumping out and wanted the ex-cuse of getting tight-roped on the clip. Evenif you instructed the belayer to keep the ropeloose, and he was totally responsible forholding it too tight, what is the best way torespond? Will you focus your attention onblaming the belayer, or save that power to dosomething to improve the situation?

Denial is another way to shirk responsibil-ity and lose power. For example, you go for a

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redpoint effort and don’t redpoint. Then yousay, “I was just practicing.” This is denial be-havior. You’re not being honest about yourintention. You say you were practicing when,in fact, you were having trouble fully goingfor it. You’re ready to redpoint, but you’restalling. Why? You don’t know, and denialisn’t helping you find out. In fact, you have amotivation issue, which is no different than astrength issue or a technique issue. Denial iskeeping you from approaching your motiva-tion issue with the same straightforwardproblem-solving tactics you’d apply to figur-ing out a sequence of moves. Don’t indulgein denial behavior, which only creates illu-sions and reduces your ability to see how toimprove.

Excuses behavior also causes us to shirkresponsibility. You may say, “My forearmsare too weak.” That may be partly true, butwhat else contributed to your arms gettingpumped so quickly? What about your

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breathing, your balance, how you pacedyourself, how much you were overgripping,or how much pro you placed? It is very com-mon to use the excuse of weak forearms as areason for falling. There are many, manyreasons, however, why your forearms mighthave become so tired in the first place. In-herent weakness is probably not the mostsignificant one. Regardless, that excusesimply diverts attention from applying skillsto conserve forearm strength and climb theroute.

You might pretend that climbing well isn’timportant to you. If you state, “I don’t careabout climbing well,” you’re probably pre-tending. You pretend in order to dull the dis-appointment of a substandard performance.You’re coddling your Ego. You aren’t beingtruthful. Pretending that climbing well isn’timportant makes it more difficult to climbwell.

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Like pretending, justifying behavior is away of coddling the Ego: “I couldn’t do it, butno one else could do any better if they werein my shape.” The Ego is running the showhere using its typical ploy of comparing yourperformance to others—as if that had any-thing to do with learning or personal power.You’ve justified your external performancewhile conveniently sidestepping the real is-sues, such as why you are out of shape, howwell you climbed given your level of fitness,and what you could learn from the experi-ence as a whole. You focused your attentionon justifying your performance instead oflearning from it and figuring out how to im-prove. What a waste of power!

These behaviors not only drain attentionaway from the effort, but they direct that at-tention into negative work. They create illu-sions, making it more difficult or even im-possible to analyze what really happened inthe experience and to learn from it.

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Face Reality

The action word for the third warrior pro-cess is Accept. This word will remind you ofwhat Accepting Responsibility encompasses:clearly grasping the reality of a challengingsituation by collecting objective informationand dealing with that information honestly.This accepting process will help us under-stand the ways we often delude ourselvesand choose a passive role instead of takingcharge of our destiny. By accepting respons-ibility for as many factors as possible wemaximize our field of influence and minim-ize the power lost to factors beyond our con-trol. By accepting things as they are and dis-covering exactly how they are, we gainpower. We stop wishing holds were better,stop hoping to miraculously make it up aclimb, stop blaming poor performances onweak forearms, inattentive belayers, or glob-al warming. We accept responsibility in or-der to claim power.

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As we accept these responsibilities, wegrow to accept a great truth: life is difficult.Once we fully accept difficulty as natural andnormal, we cease to be offended or dauntedwhen we encounter a struggle or a test. Wecan embrace these tests as opportunities.Difficult experiences are the way we learn,and they also are the way we can appreciateease. We understand brightness by its con-trast to dimness, happiness by its relation-ship to sadness. By embracing this duality ofexperience, we allow ourselves to find peacewithin our difficulties rather than wastingour power on trying to escape them. We shiftto a position of power by focusing on seeds ofopportunity within difficulty and stayingcurious, by exploring reality instead of avoid-ing it.

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Chapter 4

Giving

The Accepting Responsibility process ex-amined reality. We discussed being honestabout our role in events in order to claimpower, and how to recognize traps set by theEgo tempting us to shirk responsibility. Wediscussed the art of gathering objective in-formation in order to dispel phantom fear.The warrior process of Giving uses dis-covered facts, and the acceptance of them, to

actively create a powerful attitude for enter-ing the challenge. The Giving process helpsus focus on what we have to give to the effortrather than on the difficulty of the challenge.Giving is our last preparation step before be-ginning the transition into action.

Our society encourages an achievementorientation, but is less effective at encour-aging the effort that leads to achievement.We love “get-rich-quick” schemes. We playthe lottery. We indulge in dieting schemesthat promise we will lose weight while sleep-ing or by simply drinking a chocolate shake.Perhaps human beings are inherently lazy,but these pervasive influences in our societyconjure up a false reality in which results canbe achieved with no effort on our part. Manyof us grow up believing we are “owed a liv-ing,” that it is society’s obligation to offer usa satisfying way to make a living rather thanour own responsibility to invent one.

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In general, we are socialized to have a re-ceiving mindset. Driven toward the imagin-ary American Dream, we are not encouragedto be appreciative and grateful for what wedo have. We’re conditioned to think we willbe happy when we obtain: that new car, thatpromotion, our lottery check. The same men-tality appears in our climbing. We think wewill really enjoy climbing when we getsomething: stronger forearms, more freetime, the redpoint on our project.

With a receiving mindset we slip intothinking we have a right to be happy, and weare somehow entitled to what will make ushappy. We may work diligently, but in ourminds we are waiting—waiting to receivewhat we think we deserve. The real worlddoesn’t work that way. We don’t have a rightto be happy. Nor will any specific outcomeautomatically make us happy. What we dopossess, that no one gave us or can takeaway, is an ability to learn and grow. Taking

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advantage of this ability, however, always re-quires real effort. We have to give something.The more we give, the more we will re-ceive—regardless of the specific outcome. Itis the combination of giving and learningthat brings happiness. This is the essence ofthe warrior Giving process.

The Giving mindset is rooted in an attitudeof being grateful for what we already have.We can’t manifest the giving spirit if we feelslighted. If we have not currently attainedour goals, that is fine. We should not,however, interpret that to mean we have re-ceived less than our “entitlement.” The war-rior rejects the very concept of entitlement.Entitlement thinking is passive. It sets us upto wait. If we feel we are entitled, we are lessinclined to make a strenuous effort toachieve an outcome. Entitlement thinkingalso implies that we have more wisdom thanwe actually do. Do we really know what out-come would be most beneficial in the long

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run? Would we ever learn anything if we al-ways received the outcome we thought wedeserved? Personally, when I think aboutwhat I’ve learned in life, I am grateful notonly for the comfort, but the setbacks andchallenges that have made me who I am.

Even though we’ve been discussing philo-sophy at length, the Rock Warrior’s Way isnot about building up an edifice of abstractideas. It is about developing a practicalframe of mind that works for improving per-formance. The essential point I’m making isthat if we lapse into a receiving mentality, asmight be our habit in life, then performancesuffers. We become passive and separatedfrom the real situation. We focus on thingswe don’t have or that don’t even exist. Thetraps may be obvious when we consider thelure of shiny cars, diet drinks, or lottery tick-ets. However, the mentality spills over intoour climbing and affects the way we think

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about the strength in our arms, the holds weuse, or the gear we’d like to place.

Things we don’t have can’t help us solvethe challenge before us. Thoughts of unlim-ited forearm strength, bigger holds, or an ex-tra protection bolt can only cloud reality,drain away attention, and make our progressmore difficult. Instead of regretting what wedon’t have, we can focus our attention onfeeling grateful for what we do have. Thismakes us feel empowered. If we are glad tohave this tiny edge on which to place a toe,glad for that cam ten feet below us, glad,even, that the rock in front of us is demand-ing rather than easy, then we feel rich. Feel-ing rich, we are ready to give—to give ourbest. This frame of mind wields power.

Expectation

It’s important to go into a climbing chal-lenge with confidence. Overconfidence,however, shows a misunderstanding of, and

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disrespect for, the challenge. You are in-volved in a subtle dance with expectations.With rigid expectations about how you willperform, you don’t leave room for the pro-cess to unfold or for learning to take place.With no expectations, you may not holdyourself to the highest standard. It’s tootempting to take the easy way out if theclimbing becomes uncomfortably strenuous.The key is to place your expectations not on aspecific outcome, but on an attitude of pos-sibility, effort, and learning.

Expect that it is possible to do a climb, notthat you will. When you expect to get up aclimb, you’re engaged in a form of entitle-ment thinking. It is one thing to feel you arecapable of doing a climb—that’s helpful. It’sanother thing entirely to assume your abilityguarantees a certain outcome. The momentyou have the thought, “I expect to make it upthis climb,” you project yourself into the fu-ture when the effort is over. This drains

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attention from the effort itself, reducing youreffectiveness. Your effort is what’s import-ant. It is your act of giving. Without giving,learning or growth is not possible. The exer-cise becomes rote and motivation drops. Asyou enter a climbing challenge, make sureyou expect to make an effort.

If you give yourself fully to the challenge,you can expect to learn something. Embracethat expectation. A learning expectationkeeps motivation high because you will re-ceive what you want from each step of theprocess, regardless of how hard the route isor how far you make it. With an expectationof learning you’re focused on gathering newinformation. Your attention stays focused inthe moment, increasing your effectiveness.

Routes near your limit offer the greatestopportunity for learning, but they becomerecipes for frustration if you have a results-based expectation. You expect to be able toclimb them, having climbed this level before,

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yet this expectation drains critical attention.Since routes at your limit require all of yourattention, skill, decisiveness, and commit-ment, anything less than 100-percent atten-tion will likely cause a fall and frustrationwhen your expectation is not met. Frustra-tion quickly saps your motivation, sinceyou’re not getting what you want. When mo-tivation drops so does commitment. Withoutcommitment, you lose the ability to producea maximum effort. You enter a downwardperformance spiral.

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Expect to be challenged, and to learn. Photo: Jim

Thornburg

Frustration is a sign that your attentionhas faltered. You sought out a challengingobjective, but you’re forgetting why. Insteadof diving into the rich learning process sucha climb offers, you want the challenge tocome down to your level. You’re disgusted,and you want it given to you. “I should beable to climb this route,” you say. That’s enti-tlement thinking. You’re not even thinkingabout how to sharpen your skills to the levelthe climb requires, which was the wholepoint in the first place. Your attention hasdrifted toward receiving and is further tiedup in “poor me” behavior. You wantsomething for nothing!

If you find yourself becoming frustrated,take it as a symptom that you are out ofalignment with your goals. If you really wantan easy success, find an easier climb. If youwant a real challenge, you’ve found it. If the

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Ego is asking for a trophy to use in its extern-ally oriented game of self-worth, look theEgo dragon in the eye and draw your sword.Then pay attention, give your best, and enjoythe ride.

Focus

The action word for the Giving process isFocus. In Accepting Responsibility, youused your full attention to develop a clear,detailed, and objective idea of the situation.Now your goal is to focus attention onto en-gaging the situation, onto the challengingtask at hand. Mentally, you will move towardthe situation.

In the Accepting Responsibility process weobjectively assessed the three parts of thesituation: the route, the fall consequence,and the climber. Doing this gave us tangibleand accurate information. When we assessedthe climber we identified certain skills andabilities that would impact the performance.

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Our previous level of mastery in those skillsis an objective quality, not so different fromhold size or rock angle. Our application ofthose skills in a new situation, however, ispurely subjective, and that is our focus inGiving. In the Accepting Responsibility pro-cess we assessed our abilities so we could getan idea of the “toolbox” from which we coulddraw to engage the new challenge, and notlet ourselves become overwhelmed byphantom fears about the apparent diffi-culties. Now, in the Giving process, we’ll fo-cus on how to utilize those tools, our existingskills and abilities, to create the very bestperformance. If we focus our attention andgive our all to the effort, even if we don’tmake it up our route we’ll expand our com-fort zone and increase our skills. That’s thegoal. The Giving process, however, can besabotaged if we fall into a receiving mindset.

Receiving

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By saying, “I want to get this redpoint,”you aren’t focusing on the impending chal-lenge. You’re adopting a receiving mindsetthat separates you from the task at hand anddiverts attention from the quality of your ef-fort. Put aside thoughts of the outcome andfocus on the grand effort about to take place.Honor it. By asking, “What can I give to thiseffort?” you position yourself for engagingthe challenge.

Focusing well is an art. Many of us have atendency to focus on what we don’thave—skills we don’t possess. Wayne Dyer,who has written many books on self-actualiz-ation, calls this tendency deficiency motiva-tion. It’s the old water-glass concept. Youthink your glass is half empty, forgetting it’salso half full.

With deficiency motivation, you create amental image of repairing a “bad” situation.Think of a skill like thin-hands crack climb-ing. A deficiency-motivated person says, “I

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don’t know how to squeeze my hand to get itto hold in thin cracks.” Rather than fallinginto deficiency motivation, you can focus onactively improving the existing situation.Think of building upon skills you alreadyhave. For example, “I do know how tosqueeze my hand to jam in hand-size cracks.Let me modify that process for thinnercracks.” You automatically start thinkinghow you use your thumb against your palm,press with your fingers, etc. You’ve framedthe task in such a way that you havesomething tangible to work with and buildupon.

Other examples of deficiency thinking in-clude focusing on the unknown (“I can’t seewhat’s up there”), or on impossibilities (“Ican’t do this move”). Let me describe an ex-perience I had a few years ago where shiftingmy focus from impossibility to possibilitymade all the difference. It was on a climbcalled Steepopolis at a sandstone cliff called

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the Tennessee Wall near Chattanooga, Ten-nessee. Steepopolis is a trad route, rated5.12a, a bit runout, and takes thin wires andsmall TCUs for protection. It’s not a straight-forward climb because it doesn’t have thetypical, obvious T-Wall horizontal hand-holds. I climbed up about forty feet to wherethe crux began, continued into the crux, andfell.

The piece I had below the crux wasbomber, so I wasn’t in danger. The cruxwasn’t obvious, however, and the next pro-tection placements were difficult to see. Ilooked up and said to myself, “I don’t seewhere I can get any pro,” and, “I don’t seehow to climb this crux.” I gave a few half-hearted efforts, but each time I ended uphanging on the piece below the crux. I wasstuck for thirty minutes in my passive, im-possibility mindset.

Finally I woke up and realized what I wasdoing. I said, “Arno, you teach this stuff.

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How about focusing on possibilities?” Ilooked up and said, “If there is a possibilityfor pro, where would it be?” I saw a smallseam which looked like I could possibly getsomething in it. Then I asked, “What se-quence could work, if anything could work toclimb this crux?” I noticed some side pulls,so I decided these could possibly work toclimb through the crux. I began working withthe side pulls and climbed to the seam. Ifound a rest, placed a small wired chock, andcontinued up the route.

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The author on steep terrain at the Tennessee Wall.

Photo: Jeff Achey

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My initial focus had been on what I didn’tsee and what I couldn’t do. As soon as I shif-ted to a position of power where I focused onpossibilities, I was able to climb the sectionthat had stumped me. When I was stalledout, I had been talking to myself in state-ments. After I made the power shift, I begantalking to myself in questions. These ques-tions helped me to retrieve my attentionfrom being tied up in passivity and use it act-ively to figure out what I could see and whatI could do. After that, the doing fell quicklyinto place.

In Accepting Responsibility, you focusedon objectively describing the route’s holdsand the climber’s skills. In Giving, you usethis objective knowledge to create a plan ofaction. There is something about the routethat will challenge you. Identify it and focuson what skills you’ll use to rise to the chal-lenge. Those skills include ones you havenow and the improvements you might make

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on them, as well as new skills. Rising to thechallenge also includes maintaining a possib-ility mindset, which creates possible solu-tions to the challenge. You don’t see afoothold that’s “too slanted to stand on.” Yousee a foothold that could work well with asidepull handhold.

This possibility-focused thinking, appliedto your effort and abilities, creates the givingattitude. You can’t give what you don’t have.You can’t give your lack of perfect jammingtechnique. You can only give the techniqueyou have, plus your effort to improve. Givinghelps you tap into the familiar skills and abil-ities you typically climb with, and new pos-sibilities you discover.

Room to Believe

The Giving mindset is focused on the how,the process: how to protect, how to jam, howto pace yourself. It isn’t about climbingcracks smoothly. It’s about learning to climb

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cracks smoothly. It’s not about being power-ful. It’s about learning to become powerful. Ifyou keep your focus on giving effort andlearning, then you’ll continue to improveskills like climbing cracks, placing pro, andbecoming powerful. These skills aren’t endresults. They are in a constant process ofimproving.Remember, the warrior’s goal is power. Sim-ply having the skills doesn’t increase person-al power. Power increases through the pro-cess of enriching those skills, which you doby throwing yourself into situations whereyou dip into the treasure chest of theunknown.

Radical Thinking

A sport like climbing progresses throughpossibility thinkers. Generally, standards areinched up by adding small developments towhat already has been achieved. We stand onthe shoulders of what others have shown to

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be possible. Once in a while, however, a JohnGill or Reinhold Messner appears who radic-ally changes our concept of what is possible.

In the 1960s, John Gill did boulder prob-lems that were far beyond the normal diffi-culty of the day. Soon after he began climb-ing, Gill found that his inclinations differedfrom those of the mainstream climbersaround him. He wasn’t interested in Him-alayan peaks or Yosemite walls and didn’tfeel they had any connection to what he en-joyed, which was climbing very difficultmoves on small rocks. Gill took an activitythat was considered practice, a meresideshow to real roped climbing, applied hisfull focus to it, and declared it a worthy activ-ity in itself.

Reinhold Messner brought an entirely newoutlook to climbing the world’s highestmountains. Himalayan climbing had becomea complex exercise in logistics and tacticswith ascents often requiring months.

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Messner, however, preferred the freedom ofthe climbing style used in his native Alps. Tomake the first “alpine-style” climb of an8000-meter peak, Messner simply appliedenough confidence and fitness to make hispreferred climbing style work on a much lar-ger scale. Messner quickly decided manymainstream climbing perceptions were notsupported by satisfactory evidence. WhenMessner and his partner Peter Habeler an-nounced their goal of climbing Everestwithout bottled oxygen, the “experts” de-clared the feat impossible, saying oxygendeprivation would cause severe brain dam-age. The pair demonstrated otherwise. Now,many mountaineers have climbed Everestwithout bottled oxygen.

Gill and Messner raised world standards,but the important lesson is not how theirfeats compared to others. Their advance-ments came through radical, creative think-ing, casting off the shackles of what they

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were being told. Each of us has such shackleswhich can be cast off. When we think in newways, we foster creativity. What our oldselves called impossible, our new selves mayclaim can be done. We see new options, po-tentials, and possibilities. Just as nothingstandard-setting can be done with a mental-ity of “that’s the way it’s always been done,”so will we be held back by clinging to thementality of “that’s the way I’ve always doneit.” We may never set world boulderingstandards or sprint up Himalayan giants, butwe can experience our own revelations ofwhat is possible if we are willing to thinkradically.

Impossibility thinking is based on rigidopinions, and it’s focused on negative abilit-ies. Possibility thinking is based on optionsand it’s focused on positive abilities. It’s im-portant to see possibility within yourself, tobelieve you have the potential to meet bigchallenges. Your habits form imaginary

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walls, but outside these walls, there is roomto believe. It’s easy to fall into impossibilitythinking. Since it shrinks the world, suchthinking can make us feel secure. Securityshould be our base camp, however, not thefield in which we play out the adventure ofour lives. Observe yourself, be alert for stalethinking, keep focusing on learning, andyou’ll surprise yourself by what is possible.

Think in possibilities, not just little possib-ilities but big ones. Give yourself room to be-lieve. You’re more capable today than youwere last year and will be more capable nextyear than you are today. Believe in that fu-ture potential. Be radical. A warrior is a lead-er, not a follower. Remember, however, it’seach person’s responsibility to take the ap-propriate amount of risk. Each individualmust find that fine line between life anddeath, no-injury and injury. This will be acontinual process. You push yourself furtherand further into possibilities and the

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unknown, and return with more personalpower to risk again another day.

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Chapter 5

Choices

In all endeavors there is a moment oftruth. Preparation time is over but the actionhas not yet begun. The gun goes off for thesprint; the curtain comes up for the danceperformance; the person you’ve been collect-ing the nerve to call picks up the phone andsays, “Hello?” Your mindset in the followingseconds has a huge impact on the course ofevents.

Climbing is full of these moments, and theclimber is particularly active in orchestratingthem. A skier or kayaker is almost thrown in-to his challenges by the force of gravity, butthe climber is offered a more extended peri-od of choice. Climbing gives us more oppor-tunity to either rush or procrastinate. Unlikea paddler in a surging river, the climber on arock face can step up … and then step backdown. The static medium of rock places fullresponsibility on us for timing our choicesand following through. We can waste vastamounts of power through tentative, ambi-valent, incomplete choice-making or bysecond-guessing a well-made and well-timedchoice.

The Risk of the Comfort Zone

People, climbers included, naturally tendto seek security and comfort. Within the fa-miliar context of our “dangerous” and “ad-venturous” sport, we still resist extending

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ourselves into insecure and uncomfortablesituations. We have trouble leaving that largehandhold or that bombproof cam, eventhough no learning is taking place there. It’simportant to reaffirm our commitment tolearning and remind ourselves that we reallydo want to make “risky” choices.

Paradoxically, taking risks actually in-creases our safety and comfort. Suddendanger lurks everywhere—losing our jobs,being struck by a car, contracting a mortalillness. A cowering, protective approach tolife doesn’t reduce the peril. It only serves tomake us slaves to fear and victims of con-stant anxiety.

The safety, comfort, and security we cravearen’t objective states. They are subjectivefeelings that come through increasing ourunderstanding of our world and our capabil-ities. In short, we gain comfort and securityby expanding our comfort zones, and we ex-pand our comfort zones by venturing into

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the risk zone. We make ourselves uncomfort-able and insecure for a short time in order tolearn what we’re capable of. We can’t directlyattain comfort and security; we must strivefor them indirectly.

The Right Choice?

Choices are not right or wrong, good orbad. Life would be a bit boring if it was sosimple. You never know the full, long-termramifications of a choice. Conscious choicesare more like tests of our knowledge, provid-ing opportunities for concrete lessons on theever-wandering path of knowledge.

Let’s say you’ve been climbing for a coupleof years, and you’re now moderately profi-cient at arranging protection and under-standing protection systems. How did youget to that state? Were you making “bad”choices as a beginner when you chose fivedifferent nuts before finding one that best fitthe crack? No, you were simply learning

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about how nuts work in a very effectiveway—experimentation. That’s an easy ex-ample of “bad” or “wrong” choices beingsimply part of the learning process. Let’slook at a less obvious example, a choice we’dbe more likely to call “bad,” one with seriousconsequences. Suppose you’re a more ad-vanced climber and you know how to quicklyplace solid gear. You’re at your local crag,pushing yourself on a short route, and youdecide it’s safe to risk a fall on a crux move.You blow the move, fall, and swing unexpec-tedly into an obstacle, badly spraining yourankle. You’re taken totally by surprise. Theobstacle was well out to the side of your gearand nowhere near where you were climbing.Your climbing day is over. Two other climb-ing parties are involved in your rescue.Worst of all, it will be weeks until you canclimb again, by which time you will have lostthat fitness edge you worked so hard to gain.

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You certainly aren’t rejoicing in yourchoice to go for that move … but was it a“bad” choice? You learned a lesson about falldynamics in a way you will remember. A yearlater, you find yourself in a similar situationfacing what you once considered a safe fall.This time you’re 2000 feet up on a remoteclimb in Alaska. Because of your “bad”choice a year earlier, you realize that aswinging fall here could slam you into anearby dihedral. You rearrange the protec-tion to create a longer, scarier, but safer,straight-down fall. Despite a strong effortyou fall off and land unhurt. You go up again,make it through the section, and continue onthe climb. Your “bad” choice a year earliervery likely just saved you from taking a dan-gerous, swinging fall and involving you andyour partner in an epic, multi-day self-rescue.

A small mistake one day prevented a bigmistake on another day. “Bad” choices often

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teach you something and become more valu-able than the “good” choices. The warriorknows this and foregoes the “good” and“bad” designations altogether. A warrior isinvolved in the process of discovery, in thegreat adventure, and what he seeks is know-ledge. Good and bad are misleading con-cepts, which imply we know more than weactually do. There are many lessons to learn,and we’re never sure ahead of time exactlywhat lesson we’re learning. The warriorwants to preserve his life and continue onthe journey, but he also knows he must takerisks in order to explore life.

If “right” and “wrong,” “good” and “bad,”can’t guide us, how can we choose? If fallingoff and spraining an ankle might be “better”in the long run than avoiding that fall,shouldn’t we just throw ourselves into exper-ience and hope for the best? If we can’t knowbeforehand, why should we bother putting so

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much thought and energy into assessing riskand making conscious choices?

If you go to Italy but don’t understand anyItalian, you won’t learn as much about Itali-an life and culture as you would if you spokethe language. The same applies with risksand yourself. If you don’t understand thecomponents of the risk you’re facing, yourlearning will be commensurately limited.Avoiding “good” and “bad” doesn’t mean youshould adopt an attitude of total relativismor ambivalence. The problem, rather, is thatthose particular words have baggage. Theyare constructions of the Ego. We tend to usethose words based on whether an eventmade or will make us comfortable. The Egois impatient. We’re too likely to attach“good” and “bad” to the immediate impact ofevents. We forget that “good” may set us on acollision course with misfortune and that“bad” may be a saving grace. By judgingevents in such a black-and-white manner, we

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dishonor and dismiss the subtleties and rich-ness of experience.

There is, however, a guidance system forthe warrior in lieu of good/bad, right/wrong.The warrior calls it the heart. To follow thepath with heart is to follow a kind of verypersonal “good,” one that is more open,humble, and attentive to the deeper work-ings of the universe where we ultimatelydraw our strength and energy. “Good” and“bad” appear to us when we’re responding toEgo-based, external motivation. The pathwith heart appears to us when we are infusedwith a love-based, internal motivation. Lov-ing what you do, being in touch with whatyou truly value, will help you make choices inany area. A path with heart is essential whenmaking choices about risk. A possibly dan-gerous choice should not be made carelessly.It must be aligned with a person’s innermostpredilections, stripped of the dangerous andsuperficial trappings of the Ego and self-

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delusion. Love-based motivation creates asituation without regret. When you make achoice, you choose to live life the way youmost want to live it. Only when you’re func-tioning in such a mode can you summon thenear-magical power of 100-percentcommitment.

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The difference between flailing uselessly and mov-

ing up the rock often comes down to commitment.

This climber’s body is poised and in balance, ex-

ecuting the mind’s commands, her self-talk quietly

positive, eyes focused on the task. Photo: Jim

Thornburg

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Falls — such as this one at Lookout Mountain, Ten-

nessee – are part of climbing, and the best way to

develop your aerial skills is to practice. Photo:

Jonathan Hollada

Investigating Falling

Falling, perhaps because of its dynamicand counterintuitive nature, seems to be astronghold of phantom fear and deservessome extra focus in our discussion of choice-making.

Our goal is to create a clear set of choicesthat will yield simple, yes/no answers aboutwhat we are willing to risk. Most climberswill decide that some falls are safe enough totake, while others are too risky. In Choices,our focus is on putting our money where ourmouth is, fully accepting a fall that we saywe’re willing to accept.

In practice, such acceptance is no easy featfor some climbers. People who begin climb-ing in a gym and on sport climbs often

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become accustomed to taking lead falls. Theylearned how to fall safely when they werestill relative beginners. People who learn toclimb on traditional crags, however, are gen-erally more conservative about taking leadfalls. They first needed to learn how to placesolid gear, and they also climbed on lower-angled terrain where falls are more danger-ous. The habit of resisting falling tends tolinger, even when you know how to place sol-id gear and climb on steeper rock. Fear offalling is very common, even among sportclimbers, and it is not caused by simple fearof injury. Falling involves a feeling of losingcontrol. One moment, you are firmly at-tached to the rock, doing everything possibleto maintain that attachment, and the nextmoment you are free-falling through the air.

When no significant danger exists, fear offalling is another manifestation of phantomfear. The Choices process addresses totallyaccepting the possible outcomes of your

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effort. One possible outcome is that you willfall. You don’t want to simply push this pos-sibility out of your mind, since this will cre-ate an unconscious attention leak, perhaps alarge one. You want to fully accept the fallingoutcome.

One example of fear of falling, and how tomanage it, took place on the first free ascentof the Salathé Wall on El Capitan in 1988.This was the hardest, longest, free climb yetdone in the world, and the climbers werevery skilled and experienced. On the Head-wall pitches, over 2000 feet off the groundand fiercely exposed, Todd Skinner and PaulPiana were truly challenged. The difficulty ofthe climbing was so close to their limit thatany bit of lost attention was enough to shutthem down. They bivouacked on the wall fordays while working on the Headwall cracks.During this time they noticed they were dis-tracted by fear of falling, especially first thingin the morning. That’s not hard to imagine,

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considering their position. To deal with thisleak of attention they began each day by pur-posely taking progressively longer falls: fif-teen feet, twenty-five feet, and finally fortyfeet. After this practice session the jitterswere gone. They fully accepted the fall con-sequence and could focus all their attentionforward into the climbing process.

HAVE A SAFE FLIGHT

Falling is an important tool forthe climber, but I do not mean toimply that it isn’t dangerous. Even ashort fall can hurt you. Falling in-volves an unavoidable loss of con-trol where many factors come intoplay. If your belayer is inattentiveor inept, he can drop you or causeyou to slam into an obstacle. If youhaven’t been paying attention toyour rope system, your rope may

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run over a sharp edge that could cutit in a fall.

When assessing the fall con-sequence, consider not just the dis-tance from protection, but also howthe climbing lines up with the pro,the angle of the rock, and the posi-tion of the pro relative to over-hangs. If you are to the side of yourprotection you will swing duringyour fall, possibly hitting anobstacle unexpectedly in your path.Jumping in the direction of yourlast pro will reduce the swing andthe possibility of hitting obstacles.If the route is overhanging, someextra slack in your belay rope mayhelp you avoid hitting the rock asyou swing inward. If your protec-tion is placed under a roof that youthen climb over, you have created asituation where a fall will tend to

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slap you back against the wall be-low. In this case the belayer canfeed slack to lessen the impactagainst the wall. For detailed fallingpractice see the Exercises.

How do you accept a fall? Realize that fall-ing is a natural part of the climbing process.Modern ropes and gear provide great free-dom to push your limits in climbing withouttaking undue risk. To take advantage of thisfreedom you need to become familiar withfalling. If you haven’t fallen regularly thenyou will tend to resist it. Also, falling safelytakes some practice. You can hurt yourselfeven on very short falls if you wrap the ropearound your leg, hit a small ledge, or swingsideways into an obstacle. You need to learnhow to respond to these hazards if you wantto fall safely. I suggest making falling a partof your warm-up each time you climb. Thisway you embrace it, develop some

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proficiency at it, and see it as a tool and askill you can comfortably apply to solve aclimbing challenge. If you don’t develop thisproficiency and familiarity, you will leak at-tention into fear of falling and have less tofocus forward into climbing.

Commit to What?

Deciding to take a risk—what does thismean? What, exactly, is the form of your de-cision? It is crucial to choose an appropriategoal to commit to and to know exactly whatthat goal is. Otherwise, you may define yourchoice too rigidly, eliminating useful options,or too vaguely, opening yourself up to fearand second-guessing.

Climbing involves constant testing and ex-ploring. In earlier chapters we discussed indetail how to gather information on a route.In this chapter we’re focusing on the processof moving into action. You’ve sketched outthe risk you’re going to take, and now you

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want to take it in the most powerful way pos-sible. On a runout trad climb, that risk maybe a very small part of the total climbingchallenge, perhaps only a single move up to ahold or possible gear placement. To climbthrough a single runout, you might makeseveral separate risk decisions. Even a sportredpoint will often break down into smallerrisk events and decision points. For each de-cision point, however, no matter what type ofclimb, there are only two possible outcomes:you climb through the risk or you fall. In or-der to take the risk most effectively you mustabsolutely accept either outcome. If you can’tdo that you need to redefine the risk or backoff.

After exploring and experimenting, decideupon a specific opening sequence for the firstmoves that separate you from the unknown.That’s your initial focus, just those moves,and you’ll go for them 100-percent. Beyondthose few moves, your information is

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incomplete. Your plan must be more flexible,but you don’t want to confuse flexibility withvagueness. Your plan needs to be as clear aspossible so you will be able to commit 100--percent. Above your opening gambit youmay have in mind several specific possibilit-ies you’ve worked out in advance, or you maysimply decide to see what holds appear andclimb the moves on intuition. Your mindsetis flexible yet firm; you will climb through tothe end of the risk or fall off in the process ofthat effort. The end of the risk may be the topof a climb, the next bolt, or a point you’veworked out in advance where you can reas-sess the climbing possibilities and fallingconsequences. The key is to decide ahead oftime, eliminating the temptation to second-guess. This mindset will send you into theunknown with an optimized combination ofintuition, decisiveness, physical effort, andmental relaxation in an open and full-hearted engagement of the difficulties.

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A risk need not involve physical danger.The mind can feel threatened by many differ-ent things, potential bodily injury being onlyone of them. When facing a difficult red-point, you engage a different kind of risk,and the unknown you’re setting off into is ofa more abstract type. You know exactly whatyou want to do physically—the moves, therests, etc. So why are you feeling anxious?The key to completing the climb may not befiguring out a hard move or mastering thefear of a scary fall. It may be finding that elu-sive combination of will, strength, precision,motivation, and relaxation that must cometogether to see you to the anchors. The wayyou begin the climb, and your commitmentmindset, play a large role in determininghow easily you’re able to keep the consciousmind from leaking attention into distrac-tions, such as your desire to make the red-point or anxiety about blowing a low-per-centage crux move.

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The best performances involve maximum,efficient effort with the body and no effortwith the conscious mind—a state of relaxedconcentration. Your conscious mind shouldfeel satisfied that it has prepared you for therisk. Feeling confident of what is ahead, theconscious mind can back off and allow intu-itive processes to take over. This allows in-formation to flow easily from your subcon-scious into the performance. We’ll talk moreabout how to stay “in the flow” during therisk in later chapters. For now, let’s return tothe moment of truth.

Entering the Risk Zone

Andrew Jackson said it well: “Take time todeliberate, but when the time for action ar-rives, stop thinking and go in.” Preparationis over. It’s time to be decisive.

We often hesitate to fully face a risk, andthis is quite apparent as we approach thosemoments of truth. Instead of embracing the

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excitement of the moment, we often engagein inept ploys to blot it out. Some climbershave a habit of edging into a risk withoutconsciously committing to it, and suddenlyfind themselves in over their heads. This istheir trick for pushing themselves to dosomething they’re too fearful to do with fullawareness. They then have to “sink or swim,”and in essence, have avoided the choice-making act altogether. Another trick is torush into a risk before the reality has hadtime to register. Doing this avoids the anxi-ety produced by the decision-making processinstead of confronting it directly.

Neither of these approaches is an effectivestrategy for creative risk-taking. Attention isdistracted, minimizing the empowering as-pects of the experience while maximizing theactual danger. In contrast, the warrior’schoice-making involves impeccable use ofattention.

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The Choices process is about directingyour full attention in a specific direction,either into the risk or toward a definitive es-cape from the risk. Remember, not takingthe risk is an essential option. Choosing notto take certain risks is part of the path toknowledge and power. Simply assessing arisk and working toward preparing for it arevaluable learning activities. The Rock Warri-or’s Way is definitely not a method for push-ing yourself into foolish risks. It is a methodfor cutting through the mental clutter, gath-ering your attention, discerning exactly whatthe risk is, deciding if the risk is appropriatefor you, and then fully committing your re-sources to your choice. You decide the ap-propriateness of a risk by comparing the newsituation to situations you’ve already faced.You weigh the fall consequences against yourexperience with responding to such con-sequences. Everything—the moves, the re-serve strength you have left, the fall

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consequences, your level of motivation—ison the table. With this clarity you make yourchoice.

The Rock Warrior preparation pro-cesses—Becoming Conscious, Life is Subtle,Accepting Responsibility, and Giving—lay asound foundation for marshalling mental re-sources and assessing a risk. If we’ve pre-pared well we have as much information aspossible about what we’re facing. The pre-paration processes also collect and focus at-tention, making it powerful enough to punchthrough our natural resistance barrier thatdefines the edge of our comfort zone. Now,should we choose to take the risk, our task isto direct our full attention into it. We’ve col-lected all the power available. More powercan only be gained by stepping off into theunknown.

Unbending intent

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Directing attention into a choice involvesmore than simply shifting focus. It should bea dramatic, cathartic event. Attention fo-cused in the direction of a choice is a new en-tity: intention. A warrior’s intention is apowerful force. He intends to do something,intends to take action—not casually but withall his being. Don Juan called the moment ofdecision the warrior’s gate of intention, andthe mental state of a warrior, once he passesthrough this gate, one of unbending intent.

Unbending intent means 100-percentcommitment into the risk zone, total engage-ment of the challenge presented by the route.There may be flexibility in the specific choiceof moves, as intuition dictates, but the will tomove forward is fierce and unbending. TheChoices process is the art of decisiveness.The word decisive derives from the Latin de-cidere, literally, “to cut off.” You cut offwhat’s no longer necessary: the unchosenoptions, the uncertainty and dispute. You cut

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off all possibility of hesitating, doubting, andwondering. The immediate future becomesvery simple. You commit completely to asingle course of action.

Total commitment is more than just say-ing you’ll do something and then doing it.Powerful things transpire when you fullycommit. W. H. Murray can help us realizemore of what is happening in this processwith his passage on commitment in the bookScottish Himalayan Expedition, which endswith a couplet from Wolfgang von Göethe:

“Until one is committed there is hesitancy,the chance to draw back, always ineffective-ness. Concerning all acts of initiative (andcreation), there is one elementary truth, theignorance of which kills countless ideas andsplendid plans: that the moment one defin-itely commits oneself, then Providencemoves too. All sorts of things occur to helpone that would never otherwise have oc-curred. A whole stream of events issues from

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the decision, raising in one’s favor all man-ner of unforeseen incidents and meetingsand material assistance, which no man couldhave dreamt would have come his way.Whatever you can do, or dream you can, be-gin it. Boldness has genius, power, and ma-gic in it.”

As you keep your attention 100-percentdirected into the risk, you’ll obtain assistancefrom unseen forces to help carry you throughthe risk. What unseen forces? The unseenforces are the unlimited potential of yoursubconscious. Have you ever surprised your-self while climbing? Climbed something youdidn’t think you could? Most climbers haveexperienced this. That surprise happenswhen the conscious mind is transcended andthe subconscious is allowed to manifest someof its unseen forces.

The Bullet and the Laser Beam

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We can visually represent our life and ac-tions with two graphics that I call the Bulletand the Laser Beam. They give visual struc-ture to our concepts of the comfort and riskzones and provide a model for understand-ing the warrior processes.

There are several components of the Bul-let. The entire diagram (plus the area beyondthe paper) represents your potential. Thearea inside the inner circle represents thepart of your potential that is your presentcomfort zone: what you know, the realm ofyour ordinary world, what is comfortable.Everything within this circle is potential youhave already realized. An example might beyour ability to lead 5.10 sport climbs. You’veexperienced many 5.10 sport climbs and arecomfortable climbing them. You aren’tscared, but rather can focus on and enjoy theclimbing experience.

The ring-like area between the inner andouter circles is the risk zone. What lies in the

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risk zone is unknown to you. This zone is ateacher—you might also think of it as thelearning zone. It represents experiences youhaven’t gone through, or experiences thatmake you uncomfortable. Everything in therisk zone is potential you haven’t yet real-ized. Let’s say you are comfortable on 5.10sport climbs but have little experience ontrad climbs. On 5.9 or 5.10 trad climbs youwill have a tendency to be scared, have diffi-culty focusing, or have difficulty enjoying theclimbing experience because there are as-pects of trad climbing you haven’t experi-enced, such as placing pro. These experi-ences are in your risk zone.

Figure 5.1: The Bullet

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The inner circle that defines the risk zonerepresents the resistance barrier between thecomfort zone and the risk zone. You feel thisbarrier during a challenging experience. Youfeel resistance to leaving the comfort zoneand venturing into the risk zone. The outercircle of the risk zone represents the outeredge of a particular risk. Beyond this liesrealms of the unknown that are not

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accessible during the particular risk you’remodeling.

The final components of the Bullet are the“force arrows,” those originating inside thecomfort zone and going out into the riskzone and the others going in the oppositedirection. There is a force pushing you out ofyour comfort zone. You can call this force de-sire, but I call it the love force. It is your de-sire to engage life, to take on challenges, totake risks. The love force creates situationswhere you learn more about yourself.

The inward-pointing arrows represent theforce that keeps you in your comfort zone.This force derives from fear. I call it thephantom-fears force. This force restrains youand keeps you inside your comfort zone. Itmakes you resist the unknown. This forceisn’t “bad.” It is quite necessary, becausewithout it you would be soloing 5.13s andkilling yourself. To take appropriate risks,however, you need to weaken this force so

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you can expand your comfort zone. Youweaken the force by eliminating or reducingphantom fears. You accomplish this by fo-cusing attention on the love force rather thanthe phantom-fears force.

By engaging a risk you seek to expand theinner circle—your comfort zone—toward theouter circle. After having taken the risk, youwill have expanded your comfort zone to in-clude some of what was previously part ofthe unknown.

The Laser Beam

The Laser Beam adds the seven Rock War-rior processes to the Bullet graphic. A lasercollects light and concentrates it into a beamthat has more power than unfocused, disor-ganized, ordinary light. The warrior “laser”collects and concentrates attention. Whenyou focus your attention like a warrior, youconcentrate it like a laser beam concentrates

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light, producing an intention with concen-trated power analagous to a laser.

The preparation phase takes place in yourcomfort zone: attention is collected,centered, directed, and focused so that it canbecome powerful enough to punch throughthe resistance barrier of the inner circle.Punching through the inner circle is thegraphic representation of the transitionphase, the Choices process. Your attention isnow like a focused laser beam, burstingthrough the inner circle into the adventure ofthe unknown. The last two warrior pro-cesses, subjects of Chapters 6 and 7, keep the“attention beam” from dispersing (losing itsfocus) during the action phase of the risk.

Figure 5.2: The Laser Beam

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Love and Commitment

We touched earlier on an important key todecisiveness and commitment: motivation.When a challenge is large, you need to be intouch with heartfelt motivating forces in or-der to embrace the task at hand.

In 1978 I was traveling around the Weston a climbing trip with my brother Mark. Ihad an experience that shows how love-based motivation can energize you and helpyou commit. The commitment was of aslightly different type than we’ve discussed

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in previous examples. It was the more drawnout kind of commitment you need to head uponto a big wall, but the role played by motiv-ation is the same as on a shorter climb.

We had climbed many classic routes onthe trip and our last goal was to climb theDiamond on Longs Peak in Colorado. Wehad climbed for a while in the Boulder areaand, feeling confident, we decided to go up toLongs. We packed everything we neededwith the intention of camping below the wall,climbing the face in one day, and walking outon our third day. We chose to do D7, one ofthe shortest and easiest lines on the wall, in amixed aid/free fashion. During our walk up,we felt confident and excited about climbingsuch a great alpine face—until we saw it. Theface was huge, much bigger than anythingwe’d done before. The desolate alpine cirque,beautiful as it was, made the wall even moreintimidating. After a few minutes of imagin-ing ourselves on the wall, with plenty of

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negative self-talk going on, we escaped backto Boulder. We decided we would climb inEldorado Canyon for the rest of our trip.

The Diamond and the east face of Longs Peak, Col-

orado. Photo: Jeff Achey

After the first day of climbing in Eldoradoour thoughts drifted back to the Diamond.

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The beauty of the face and the fact that wehad chickened out without giving it a true ef-fort spurred us to go back. The next day wehiked up and camped below the wall. Theface was just as intimidating, but we passedthe afternoon by scoping out the approach,the route, and the walk-off. We decided toget up early the next day so we’d have plentyof time to climb, but woke up at 6 AM—notexactly an alpine start. Despite our late startwe decided to go for it, although we both hadin our minds that we might not fully commit.By 9 AM we were on Broadway, the largeledge below the Diamond proper.

On Broadway I felt suddenly fueled bywhat I love about climbing: the setting, theexposure, a steep wall, and a degree of un-known. The alpine beauty of the place, whichhad been daunting, was now inspiring. Welooked down on our camp and felt we hadalready embarked on a great adventure, eventhough we could still easily escape without

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facing the actual Diamond. Thus inspired, webegan climbing and completed pitch afterpitch without incident. We arrived at the topafter nine hours on the wall, having made agreat leap into the unknown and come outon the other side.

By identifying with our fear of the un-known we had shut down the possibility ofclimbing the Diamond. We had allowedourselves to be overwhelmed. Without com-ing to grips with the route, how could weknow if we were capable of climbing such awall? Yet how could we come to grips withthe route if we didn’t believe we were cap-able? All big challenges have this element ofambiguity. By tapping into what we lovedabout climbing we were fueled to engage theroute and let the experience show us if wecould do it or not.

The key factor was that desire to engage.We didn’t know whether or not we couldclimb the wall. We did know that we could

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engage it. When you engage the risk, you fo-cus your attention on the process, not on theoutcome. You focus on moving up, but youkeep the channels open. You set an intentionyou can believe in: to engage the risk. Don’tset an intention of “making it up the climb,”since you don’t know for sure if you can. In-stead, accept the two possible out-comes—making it up or not making itup—and focus on joining with the risk.Blending the new information coming fromthe risk with what you observed in the pre-paration phase and what you bring fromyour previous experience creates new learn-ing. In the case of the Diamond, the new in-formation was that being up in a wild, ex-posed place that previously intimidated uswas energizing. The exposed position was anunexpected source of power, just the extrapower we needed to climb the great wall thathad been our goal.

The Moment of Truth—a Snapshot

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So far in this chapter we’ve examined thepreparation side of the “gate.” We discussedhow the sport of climbing has decision pointsthat are particularly poignant, and how com-fort and safety are paradoxical terms. Wediscussed how to find a foundation forchoice-making in a very unpredictable world.We discussed the two possible outcomes andthe need to become familiar with falling. Weanalyzed intention and the kind of commit-ment needed when facing a risk. Now we’llturn to the dynamics of the crucial momentand the beginning of powerful action.

You often hear of the fight-or-flight re-sponse to moments of danger or risk. This isnot part of the Rock Warrior’s Way. If youassess a risk and choose not to take it, you donot flee. You disengage, consciously and incontrol, without panic. If you choose to takethe risk, you do not fight. You engage andembrace. I sometimes hear climbers say,“Fear energizes me to climb. It motivates me

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and helps me climb.” These statements be-tray a shallow power base. They show, first ofall, that the climber lacked motivation. Theclimber overcomes his low motivation bycreating fear. He falls into a destination-ori-ented mindset to escape the fear, fighting to-ward the end of the climb. Lethargy, fear,and a struggle to “get it over with” are notaligned with the true warrior goal: learning.Physiologically, the fight-or-flight responseis accompanied by surges of adrenaline,which lead to the use of excessive force andquick consumption of energy. These are notcharacteristics of efficient climbing.

If you’re using fear to motivate and ener-gize you, you’re showing a symptom of amore significant problem which is probablyaffecting your entire ability to enjoy climbingand improve: being out of touch with yourlove of climbing. Instead of jarring yourselfwith fear, tap into your love. On the Dia-mond, I found that the remote wall put me in

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touch with deep motivation, enabling me toovercome my aversion to discomfort and theunknown. Finding your true motivators canhelp you overcome obstacles between youand your inner desire to learn and explore.

You’re almost ready. Now, form your un-bending intention. The action word for theChoices process is Commit. Create a cleardistinction between the time of weighingyour options and the decisive moment ofchoice, between preparation and action. Thetransition must be abrupt and definitive.Create a moment of truth, a sharp breakingpoint. Every fiber in your being must knowthat you aren’t preparing anymore; you aregoing into action.

Until now your conscious mind has beeninvolved in extensive internal dialogue, as-sessing, exploring, and gaining focus. Youhave accumulated all the intellectual know-ledge possible about the unknown realm youwant to experience. You accept the two

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outcomes, making it or falling. Don’t go be-fore you are ready, but when you go—go!Now you set out in quest of experientialknowledge.

As you make the break, the consciousmind will shut down all its chatter. Subcon-scious and intuitive processes take over.Once you begin moving, the conscious mindbecomes a silent and observant passengercarried along on the wings of power.

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Chapter 6

Listening

When you commit to action you are in aplace of opportunity and exhilaration. Thecalculations are over. You are fully living themoment and fully giving of yourself. The dif-ficult climbing facing you is not an obstacleor an emergency, but rather an intenselearning event. Your goal is to participateopenly in the challenge and not become dis-tracted by a desire to control the creative

chaos of the situation. Our natural aversionto discomfort will tend to call up “comfortthoughts” from the conscious mind. Thesethoughts lure our attention away from thechallenge to an imagined comfort zone at theend of the effort or into wishing and otherescape behavior. It’s important to dispellthese thoughts and stay in a receptive state,blending new information with what youalready know.

When you’re in action the body takes overfrom the conscious mind as the key actor.You’re acting out the risk, not thinking aboutit. Like a dancer, you stop thinking andsimply move. When you pause, or a sense ofdiscomfort overtakes your involvement inmovement, the conscious mind will attemptto reassert itself. Your goal is to minimizethis interference. Since your goal is to notthink—even about not thinking—you’ll quietthe conscious mind through body-orientedmethods: continuous breathing, continuous

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climbing, and soft-eyes focus. You can reflecton this process as you read about it here, butduring the action your focus will be to disen-gage the conscious mind from thinking.

You have committed to action with un-bending intent, yet climbing allows manychances to hesitate and rethink. You’re in theprocess of smoothly on-sighting a difficultsport climb and you reach a big handhold.Suddenly you want to cling to the sense ofcontrol you have at your stance. You lingeron your island of comfort and a brief, helpfulrest drags out into hesitation. You find your-self trying to control the situation ratherthan trusting in the process. Your intent be-gins to bend.

Experimenting with moves and planningout a sequence gives you control over aclimbing situation. That’s helpful. Allowingcontrolling behavior to take over when it’snot contributing to knowledge is not helpful.I experienced this in 1978 while climbing

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Hollywood and Vine on Devils Tower,Wyoming. The route follows a thin 5.10 crackon the southeast face. The grade of the climbwas very challenging for me at the time.News that a climber named Henry Barberhad recently soloed the route seemed to in-terfere with my ability to open up to theroute. Maybe I was vaguely imagining myselfup there unroped as Henry had been, and Iwas half afraid of falling to the ground.Maybe I felt inept because I was finding theclimbing difficult while someone else hadbeen so comfortable he didn’t even need arope. In any case, I was holding on harderthan necessary as I climbed to where thecrack thinned to a seam. I continued up afew feet on delicate face moves but felt out ofbalance and tense. I didn’t want to go for itwithout knowing what holds were there,even though the fall was safe. I made a half-hearted effort on the next move and fell.

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Even though I hadn’t given a strong effort,I told myself that I wasn’t able to do theclimb. The fall relaxed me a bit and I likedthe feeling of being supported by the ropeand equipment, so I began aiding the crack.As I aided up I saw some edges—which Iwould have discovered had I made a strongeffort the first time—and realized I could dothe moves. I decided to go back down. Nexttime up I climbed the thin seam section freewithout taking another fall.

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Devils Tower, Wyoming. Photo: Jeff Achey

First time up I was intent on controllingthe situation instead of trusting in the pro-cess. I was resisting falling, overgripping,and hesitating. These behaviors held me

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back from giving myself fully to the effortand paying attention to the possibilities ofthe route. The second time up, with somenew information, I trusted in the process. Byfalling once I accepted the fall that hadbothered me earlier. By relaxing my grip,staying in balance, and climbing continu-ously, I stayed receptive throughout the pro-cess and made it through.

Why couldn’t I simply have trusted in theprocess the first time? Somehow I developeda weak and distracted frame of mind early onthe climb. Climbing through a challengingsection of rock can resemble conversation. Inconversation many people stop listening towhat’s being said. Their attention becomesfocused on why they agree or disagree withsome early remark. They plan ahead to whatthey’ll say next, even though their remarkwill probably be out of context at that time.They end up channeling their energy into de-fending their old set of beliefs instead of

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being open to the possibility of learningsomething new from the speaker.

The same thing can happen in climbing.Suppose you happen to climb a section inef-ficiently, such as I did on the lower part ofHollywood and Vine. You tend to hold on tothe sensation of that action. You expand itinto more climbing inefficiency by draggingit from the past into the present, comprom-ising your attention on the task at hand anderoding your confidence. Or, you might en-counter a troublesome move and decide thata higher move, too, will give you trouble. In-stead of facing the challenge openly and op-timistically, you form an expectation oftrouble.

You may not realize it, but these distrac-tions are heads of the insidious Ego dragon.We immediately recognize the Ego’s role inour conversation example: the person is pre-occupied with his own ideas and isn’t listen-ing to others. He is self-centered and out of

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tune with the flow of conversation. He triesto control the conversation because hisagenda is set by the Ego, which doesn’t careabout new ideas or learning. It’s looking forapproval, and it wants to show either the su-periority of its own habitual ideas, or theability to dictate the conversation. It’s thesame in climbing when you become rigid.You’re preoccupied with preconceived no-tions and with your actions. You’re defensiverather than curious. You want a sense of con-trol, even if the only way to attain it is byclinging to a mediocre level of performance.You’re looking for an escape from the dis-comfort of the effort and you aren’tListening.

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If the route follows some bizarre feature that your

conscious mind has no idea how to climb, listen to

the rock. Notice the subtleties. Avoid tunnel vision.

Leave the comfort zone of your limited repertoire

of techniques and learn. Photo: Jim Thornburg

If you find yourself clinging to a large holdor to the sensation of an inefficient move, re-member that this is part of the Ego’s agenda.Draw your sword and slice off the dragon’shead. By slaying the Ego you become free tostay receptive and to listen to what’s happen-ing in the moment. By listening, you suspendyour limiting perceptions and old beliefs.Habitual perceptions and beliefs will takeyou to your previous levels of perform-ance—and no further. If you want to exceedyour old boundaries you need to create a newand expanded understanding. Not only mustyou enter the risk zone on the rock, you mustenter it in your mind. Just as you leave thecomfortable stance and launch out ontosteep, smooth, unknown stone, so must you

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let go of those comfortable notions thatdefine what you think you can do. The riskzone is the learning zone. As Albert Einsteinsaid, “No problem is solved with the samelevel of consciousness that created it.” TheEgo won’t bring you to a new level. You mustlisten to the unknown.

Listening

“Listening” is a metaphor for the mindsetyou’re striving for as you climb. Listening isnot something you do just with your ears,but rather is an entire way of staying recept-ive. When you’re too focused on a rigid, spe-cific plan in your climbing you’ll tend tosquint your eyes and create a sense of con-centration in your forehead and temples.When you open up a bit and adopt an atti-tude of receptivity, your face relaxes, creat-ing a soft-eyes focus, the role of your eyes be-comes less overpowering, and the focus ofsensation moves back toward your ears.

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Receptivity is the basic attitude of listening,which is very different from seeing. We cansee only in the direction we look, but we canhear from all directions at the same time.When we listen, we’re paying attention toour whole environment.

We tend to overlook or not recognize anunexpected discovery when we’re narrowlyfocused. Being too selective compromisesour receptivity and therefore our learning.For example, while climbing into a crux, youmove over a roof by pulling on edges. As youmove up you find the wall above also has ahidden finger crack. An unreceptive climberwill tend to dismiss this unexpected discov-ery and stick with his original plan of faceclimbing and looking for edges to grab. A re-ceptive, “listening” climber will use the unex-pected crack as a clue to modify his approachfrom face climbing to crack techniques.

Specific expectations in general are antag-onistic to a listening mindset. In the Choices

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process we talked about setting an intentionand introduced the concept of unbending in-tent. Unbending intent might seem opposedto a mindset of listening, but it’s not. The be-ginning of your action may involve predeter-mined moves you are certain of, but afterthose moves, your intention must be able toaccommodate new information. Your inten-tion isn’t to put one hand here and one footthere. It’s to continue climbing through therisk or to fall. In other words, you make a100-percent commitment to effort and ac-tion, not to some specific set of techniques ormoves.

With your intention set on the outcomeyou tend to map out your course in advanceand develop rigid expectations about themoves you’ll do. These expectations ruinyour ability to climb spontaneously. Whenthe situation changes, you must revise yourplan. It takes precious time to withdraw youroriginal plan and redirect your intention to a

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new plan. Your new plan, of course, involvesnew expectations. As you continue climbinginto the unknown and the situation changesagain, you repeat the process. This constantwithdrawing and reapplying of intentionmakes your climbing choppy and rigid,rather than fluid and spontaneous. Being un-attached to any specific expectation, in con-trast, places you in a receptive state that al-lows you to pay attention and listen to therock. Your intention stays in the moment.When the situation changes, you don’t needto waste time redirecting your intention. Youremain focused through the entire effort.

Dihedral climbing is an appropriate ex-ample of the importance of listening. You setoff up the dihedral with the rigid intention oflay-backing. You climb the dihedral for awhile but the crack becomes too small foryour fingers. You continue laybacking on fin-gertip holds until your original approach be-comes so inefficient and strenuous that

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you’re forced to stop. Just before you pumpout and fall you reconsider your plan. Youlook around, see holds on the face, and beginstemming. Pleased with yourself, you stemup, but soon you’re climbing with the samerigid mindset as before. You continue stem-ming but suddenly notice that for over abody length now, the crack has been wideenough for hand jams. So, better late thannever, you switch to jamming. A bit higher,the crack pinches down with you still in jam-ming mode. You make an all-out effort tojam strenuously through a thin-hands sec-tion and barely make it to easier climbing.

Figure 6.1: Listening Climbing

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ABOVE: Rigid climbing technique on a climbwith varied demands. BELOW: Varied tech-nique flowing spontaneously on a variedclimb.

Obviously, this ascent involves a lot ofwasted energy. You set rigid expectationsconcerning what you would do on each sec-tion of the dihedral. Initially, if you had setone expectation—to learn and trust your-self—then you would have created a recept-ive frame of mind that would allow you toclimb spontaneously with a natural mix oftechniques. Your continuing question wouldhave been, “What does this dihedral offer toallow me to climb it?” You would have

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stemmed earlier and avoided the strenuousfingertip layback moves, moved smoothly in-to hand jamming as soon as the crackopened up, and laybacked easily through thethin-hands section where you almost fell.

An open expectation can also apply to yoursense of difficulty. If you expect a climb tofeel difficult, you may become locked intothat feeling. You may overlook options be-cause you’ve already decided that a maxim-um effort will be required. Remind yourselfto remain open to holds or techniques thatmight conflict with your preconceived notionof difficulty.

You can open up your attitude concerningdifficulty itself because difficulty is a state ofmind. What feels difficult for one climbermight feel easy for another. This perceptionoften has more to do with attitude than phys-ical strength. As you begin climbing into acrux, your intent should not be only to moveupward but to loosen your rigid perception

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of the “difficulties.” The word difficult is de-rived from a negation of the French word fa-cile, meaning easy. It’s a negative construc-tion—“not easy”—with a negative emphasis.It’s comparable to saying “not ugly” to meanbeautiful. Rather than seeing a crux as a “dif-ficult” place lacking easy passage, see it as achallenging place offering the opportunityfor learning. This more open mindset can bevery powerful and help you enter enthusiast-ically into the effort. A sense of embracingopportunities and opening up to possibilitiesis an important tool for transcending per-ceived barriers.

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Is this climber thinking about how to use this hold

to move up, or is he afraid it’s too small? His

thoughts will make all the difference. Photo:

Andrew Kornylak

Within your unbending intent to climb in-to the challenge, you’ll keep an open, attent-ive mind. Remember, your level of receptiv-ity determines your speed of learning. If theconscious mind begins to engage in thinking,direct your attention to your breath, whichhelps put the conscious mind in neutral. Seeand feel the holds and moves as they are,without perceiving them as good or bad, easyor hard.

Intuition

In modern culture, intuition is a vague andoften derided faculty. The analytical, left-brain part of the mind tends to ignore ornegate intuitive knowledge. To the warrior,however, intuition is specific and crucial. It

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is his connection to hidden information andunrealized potential. If you block the intuit-ive flow, you block out very importantinformation.

Intuition is not logical. We can’t analyzehow or why we intuitively know something,yet most of us have had experiences thatconvince us intuition is real. Don’t confusetrue intuition with inner dialogue. Intuitioncomes from your subconscious and tends tomanifest as very clear and specific feelingsabout doing something. Inner dialoguemanifests itself as more ambiguous andthought-intensive messages, typically relatedto the concerns of the Ego.

Recently I returned home from a Sundayclimbing outing and had an encounter withintuition. I was putting my climbing gear inthe garage and had the apparently randomthought to put the child seat in the truck. Ikeep the child seat for my son, Ian, in thegarage with my climbing gear. Immediately,

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my left-brain logic dismissed the thought. Ishouldn’t need the child seat until Tuesday,when I take Ian to daycare. I didn’t put theseat in the truck, but I noticed this mentaltransaction between my intuition and logicand told myself I would pay attention andsee if there was a need for the seat. As soonas I walked into the house, my wife, Jane,asked me if I’d pick up Mexican takeout. Ianimmediately asked if he could come along. Iput the child seat in the truck and went withIan for the Mexican takeout.

Somehow I received non-logical, intuitiveinformation about the unfolding situation atmy house after climbing. There are variousways to attempt to explain this rather mys-terious phenomenon. Developing situations,such as my wife’s desire for Mexican food,may manifest some sort of energy that is si-lently communicated to the subconsciousmind. It is not important or possible for us tocompletely explain intuition. It is important

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to realize that it works when given thechance. Intuition, being outside our logicalframework of ideas, is free from the agendasand preconceived definitions that limit us.Intuition is a precious point of access to theunknown, which is the ultimate source of allnew knowledge and power.

Develop your receptivity to intuition.When you receive an apparently randomthought, don’t simply discard it. Stay curiousand follow it. See where it leads. Intuitionwhispers to you between your consciousthoughts. Listen to those subtle thoughts andfeelings just below the level of yourconsciousness.

The following methods will help you improvereceptivity to intuition while climbing:

• Observe yourself. By separating and ob-serving yourself from the Witness positionyou will recognize intuitive messages morereadily.

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• Breathe continuously. Breathing continu-ously helps dissipate anxiety and also keepsyou in the moment. When you’re in the mo-ment, intuitive information can flow moreeasily.

• Be open and curious. If you’re closed andclinging to fixed beliefs, you don’t allow in-formation to flow into your awareness. InThe Gift of Fear, Gavin de Becker tells usthat “curiosity is the way you answer whenintuition whispers.”

• Find your center of gravity and keep it inbalance. The average person’s center of grav-ity is about one inch below the navel. Keepthat center in line with the arm you’rehanging from, the foot you’re standing on, orpoised equally between your various pointsof contact. When you are out of balance, yourattention is distracted by the need to dealwith that unbalanced state. When your

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center of gravity is balanced, attention isavailable to notice subtle intuitive messages.

• Be nonjudgmental. A judgmental attitudeignores or discredits intuitive information,making it difficult to recognize. Gavin deBecker suggests that a dog’s keen sense of in-tuition is partly due to its inability to judge.You can produce a nonjudgmental state byfocusing on options and possibilities insteadof opinions and evaluations.

• If you speak to yourself, speak in questions.When you ask a question, in a sense, yousend a demand to your subconscious to sup-ply an answer. It answers through yourintuition.

• Finally, follow your eyes. Intuition operatesthrough your eyes to direct your movements.In The Power of Silence, don Juan states thatintent is summoned with the eyes, and inThe Fire from Within, he relates that your

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eyes are the keys to entering into the un-known. Your body naturally wants to be inbalance. Your intuition, through your eyes,will direct your movements to find a bal-anced position. Your body has knowledge.Pay attention to how your eyes direct yourmovements and trust them. (The level of bal-ance and efficiency of this direction may de-pend on your level of climbing knowledgeand experience.)

Deepak Chopra, the author of many bookson understanding your essence and contact-ing your spiritual self, calls intuition“heightened awareness.” It is always truth.You never have false intuitions. Falsenesscan only occur during interpretation of intu-itive messages, as you relate to them from aperspective of phantom fear, wishing, or lim-ited beliefs.

We often think of normal perception as be-ing very objective compared to intuition. It’snot. We don’t simply see or hear, passively

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and objectively. Rather, perception is thecomplex mental act of organizing sensory in-formation through the lens of past experi-ence. We hear a loud bang and we hear agunshot, a car backfiring, or a screen doorslamming. Which one we hear depends notso much on the sound as on our mindset andour context. In other words, we create alarge portion of the perception. Three differ-ent climbers see a certain rock feature andvariously perceive: a strenuous laybackcrack, a delicate stemming problem, a dan-gerous, unbolted trad route. These three per-ceptions are tainted by past difficulties,fears, expectations, and beliefs. All are limit-ing. The reality of the rock contains a fargreater range of possibilities.

The point is that our perception can’t becompletely trusted, yet we must rely on it forinformation. The warrior seeks a heightenedform of perception. He disciplines his mindso that his ordinary perceptions are more in

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line with a love of life and thirst for learning,and less inhibited or tainted by past experi-ences and fear.

To access the truth and its possibilities weneed to stop tainting it with preconceivednotions and phantom fears that hold us pris-oner in our comfort zones. The world is whatit is. The truth is out there and accessiblethrough an open-minded approach and intu-ition. We need to develop our intuition sothat its whispers are familiar and frequent.

Being in Control vs. Being Controlling

In climbing, being out of control can bedangerous. It’s not a desired state for generalclimbing. There is a difference, however,between being in control and being con-trolling. Being in control is the state whereyou work efficiently and process yourselfthrough the risk. You show mastery overyour mind and body. Being controllingmeans that you try to control things that

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can’t be controlled. You try to create comfortin the risk zone by clinging excessively to theelements of security within the risk.

Be aware of controlling aspects when youclimb through a risk. Signs of being con-trolling include climbing slowly, climbing toostatically, resisting or dreading falling evenwhen it’s safe to fall, overgripping, holdingyour breath, grabbing pro, down climbingexcessively, and placing more pro thanneeded. These behaviors waste energy andattention and reel you back into the comfortzone when you need to be moving forwardinto the climbing process. The Preparationand Choices processes allow you to create asituation where you can fully give yourself tothe risk. Rather than clinging and backpedal-ing, enjoy the freedom your warrior prepara-tion allows.

Trust

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You move up a smooth, committing face toa possible protection crack. Upon arrivingyou find the crack is less useful than itlooked from below. Don’t fight the facts. Gowith them. Relish each new revelation. Thisis your incomplete, intellectual knowledge ofthe risk being corrected through experience.You are now in the process of achieving yourhighest goal—learning. Accept the situationas it is. Trust the process.

Trust bridges the gap between your abilityto assess the risk beforehand and your abilityto rise to the actual challenge the riskpresents. Keep a possibility mindset. Staywith your intent. Don’t, however, confusepossibility with hopefulness. You aren’t hop-ing for any specific outcome. Your goal islearning, and that’s being achieved. Simplytrust in the process. You’ll climb through orfall, and either outcome will providelearning.

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When you are in the chaos of the risk zone,the conscious mind often will revolt. It isoutside of its realm, the comfort zone, and ifengaged in the thinking process, the con-scious mind will create thoughts of comfort.When you are in the risk zone, your con-scious mind will generate various thoughtsto convince you that you can’t continueclimbing. These thoughts are pure deception.The conscious mind is a liar when it is en-gaged in thinking while in the risk zone. Atrusting mindset keeps the conscious minddisengaged from thinking.

Observe your thoughts from the Witnessposition. Don’t be drawn in by them. Whencomfort thoughts arise, let the thoughts goand stay with your intention. You’ll accom-plish this not by arguing or reasoning withthe conscious mind, which takes you evenfurther off task, but rather by doingsomething with your body. Breathe, con-sciously and continuously. Shifting your

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focus from the intruding thoughts to yourbreathing makes a bridge back to the body,to the flow of action and movement. Keepmoving. Don’t wait for perfection. Use theholds you grab. Listen to Saint Nike: “Just doit.” Climbing continuously makes it difficultfor the conscious mind to keep up, to reas-sess the situation, or create fear. Continuousclimbing creates momentum that over-whelms thoughts. The conscious mind givesup and disengages from trying to control theaction. By disengaging the conscious mindand positioning it as the passive observer,you allow intuitive information to flow fromyour subconscious into your climbingexperience.

In my old home area of Fremont Canyon Ihad two experiences that exemplified theconscious mind sabotaging my climbing ef-forts. In the early 1980s I was working on anew route called Sword of Damocles. Theroute is 300 feet long with the crux on the

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third pitch, a six-foot roof split by a thin-hand crack. The wall above the roof openedup to hand size and then wider. After severalefforts, my partner, Steve Petro, led the pitchfree. Then it was my turn to climb. I gaveseveral efforts that resulted in falling. Eachtime I’d go back down to rest and give it an-other go. The thin crack in the roof was verystrenuous and the crack above was a littletoo wide for solid hand jams.

Each time I gained the crack above theroof, I’d think I was too pumped to trust myjams and would fall. Instead of staying fo-cused and giving my best effort, I wouldrebel against the discomfort and insecurity ofthe climbing. My conscious mind stepped inand told me I could not do the moves. WhileI was sitting on the ledge between efforts, Icouldn’t think of any alternate way to do themoves. When I reached the insecure sectionI’d stall out, struggle, and give up.

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Steve was becoming pretty bored by nowat the belay, and I was becoming exhausted.On my last effort, I decided I would dowhatever was necessary to make it work. Iwas as pumped as ever as I began climbingthe crack above the roof as I’d done earlier,with widely cupped, straight-in hand jams.The insecure jams began to slip out, but Ikept climbing. Intuitively, I leaned my bodyinto a position where I was laybackingslightly off the jams. My hands still felt insec-ure in the wide jams but the change of posi-tion was enough to keep them from slippingout of the crack. That was enough to keep mefrom falling and I finished the pitch free.Once I shut off the “quitting” thoughts gen-erated by my conscious mind, continuousclimbing and intuition provided a way toclimb the crux.

Not long after Sword of Damocles, I wasworking on a short crack climb called Super-man. My brother, Mark, and I had worked

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on freeing it several times and continuallywere shut down at a section of overhangingcrack with wide finger jams. At the time Ihad little experience on this size crack, andeach time I got to the crux, the jams felt tootenuous. My conscious mind, confrontedwith this unknown type of jam, was sure myfingers wouldn’t hold. In essence, my con-scious mind lied to me by telling me the jamsweren’t secure enough to pull up on. In fact,my conscious mind did not know whetherthe jams were secure enough or not. All itknew was pulling on those jams was outsideits comfort zone.

On the day I redpointed the route, Iclimbed up to the crux and, for no apparentreason, pulled on the tenuous finger jamsand was able to make a move up, then anoth-er, and another. After three or four moves, Iwas through the crux and continued to thetop.

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I didn’t know the mechanics of why thejams held, but they did. I gained new know-ledge of what kind of jam could hold andused this knowledge on many later climbs. Ionly gained this knowledge, however, bycontinuing to climb when my consciousmind told me I couldn’t.

Once you commit, your mindset becomesone of action. You disengage the consciousmind. You allow the free blending of inform-ation you’ve gained in the preparation phasewith new information you gain as you climb.Let intuition guide your exploration of theunknown, because your conscious mindcannot.

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Trusting the process on an overhang at the Shawan-

gunks, New York. Photo: Jeff Achey

Remember, your highest goal is learning,and only in action does true, experientiallearning occur. This is what you climb for. Inorder to transcend a risk, you need to learnsomething, and you’ll only be able to learn bystaying open and receptive. In your prepara-tion for the risk, you’ve meticulously set spe-cific parameters to avoid serious injury andsafeguard your life. You’ve decided that therisk is appropriate and that you want to takeit. Your art now is to participate in the risk inthe most empowering way possible. You’vecommitted. Disengage the conscious mindand trust in the process. Remind yourself ofthis with the action word for the Listeningprocess: Trust.

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Chapter 7

The Journey

The preparation phase of the Rock Warri-or’s Way focuses on understanding how ourconscious minds work. We play little trickson ourselves that drain power and inhibitour performance. Fears, real and imagined,can negatively influence our behavior understress. Recognizing fear and the variouskinds of fear-based motivation allows us todevelop a more love-based foundation for

action. Love-based motivation moves usfrom an avoidance orientation toward alearning and seeking orientation, which fo-cuses our attention more sharply on the taskat hand. The whole process of meeting risksand challenges becomes not only more effi-cient, but more enjoyable and rewarding.This increases our motivation and willing-ness to put ourselves in challenging situ-ations. Thus, the Rock Warrior’s Way placesus in a positive feedback loop, a path thatcontinuously increases the personal powerwe have available when entering into risksand challenges.

In the transition phase we focused on cre-ating a 100-percent commitment to action.The preparation phase helped us to do this,since through it we have a much better ideaof exactly what the risk is. We’ve examinedthe risk scrupulously, made plans that limitthe danger, and resolved questions about ourintent in risking. We also developed specific

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psychological strategies for fully committingto the process.

Now, in the action phase, we keepourselves mentally in the action, in the mostempowering frame of mind possible, despiteour natural tendency to seek escape. TheListening process concentrated on openingup the subconscious and intuitive informa-tion systems and limiting the role of the con-scious mind. The final process, the Journey,focuses on keeping attention in the momentto find comfort and meaning in the risk.

When we are in the chaos of a risk, our at-tention has a tendency to seek an escape. Itwants to leap ahead to a place of comfort,such as the top of the climb, the next protec-tion, or the next rest. We need to learn tokeep our attention focused in the presentchaos, where it can work for us.

The Rat Race

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Early in our lives we are taught to be com-petitive and value achievement and results.We are encouraged to “make something ofourselves” or to “get ahead.” The emphasis ison a future destination, for which we willsacrifice the satisfaction of the present. Iron-ically, once we arrive at a destination—land-ing that sought-after job, climbing that 5.12grade—we find it’s not a final destination atall. We aren’t satisfied to stay there. We mayeven look back nostalgically to the passionwe possessed when we considered that des-tination a magical promised land, before werealized it was simply the end of a journey.Inevitably we begin a new journey, and anew one after that. In fact, our entire livesare spent journeying.

The warrior is the ultimate realist. Heknows that life is a journey, and rather thanrushing blindly toward the next destination,he appreciates the journey itself and con-sciously lives within it.

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The destination mentality is the way of lifein normal society, and we tend to adopt it bydefault in situations of acute stress and dis-comfort. When we come to an uncomfortableclimbing situation, a strenuous offwidthcrack climb for example, we immediatelylook up to determine where the effort willend. Seeing only ten feet until we can rest,we may feel energized, completely capable ofmoving up. If we see fifty feet of effort,however, we’re demoralized and can’t sum-mon the will to move up that same ten feet.That ten feet of climbing is the same in thesecond situation, but we are different. Ourattention has moved out of the challenge andinto the future. If we could remain focusedon climbing—the journey—then we wouldn’tsabotage our effort with anxiety about thedistance to a destination. Often, that ten feetof effort will lead to new knowledge that wewon’t discover if we give in to discomfort.

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Discomfort is one stimulus for destinationthinking, and chaos is another. We are so-cialized to avoid chaos. Schools condition usto work in a highly structured environmentand break down learning into tasks to beperformed in an organized way, one by one.The ability to organize is an important skill,but sometimes an experience can’t be organ-ized and broken down. Committing to a cruxsection of unknown rock is an example. Wemust take it as a whole and deal with it.

How often have you said, “Once I get thisproblem figured out, then I can really getdown to business?” Here, you’re postponingwhat you want to accomplish until you cancreate a serene, ideal environment. Typically,that perfection never materializes. The chaoscontinues, and it paralyzes you. Why notsimply get down to business, chaos or not?

In a risk situation in climbing, you con-stantly enter the unknown. So much new in-formation comes in that it’s impossible to

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complete one task before beginning another.Most of us don’t have skills to deal well withsuch chaos. When our normal, step-by-stepmode doesn’t work, we tend to panic orrebel. When we encounter chaos, we try toget rid of it rather than go with it. The warri-or knows that’s not possible, and seeks tofind internal harmony in the midst of chaos.

Purposely seeking out risks allows us topractice dealing with chaos, but often our re-action is to mentally “leave the scene.” Wepassively wish for the chaos to simplify andresolve itself. In fact, when we stay relaxedand stop wishing and hoping behavior, wemaximize our effectiveness to function amidchaos. The key is to accept the chaotic natureof the experience and give it our full atten-tion. We accomplish this acceptance with ajourney mindset.

The destination mindset is also respons-ible for “failure” and “success” anxieties.Success and failure are in quotation marks

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here because a warrior doesn’t use theseterms. He doesn’t see the result of his effortas success or failure. Making it up a climbmay be his provisional goal, but the highergoal is learning. The warrior does not knowwhat end result will yield more learning.

Perhaps, you dread “failing” on climbs,specifically the repeated “failure” when red-pointing at your limit. You desperately wantto avoid the anger you feel when you fall, theguilt you feel for your lack of commitment ortraining, or regrets you harbor about eatingtoo much the night before. These feelingsdrain the joy from your efforts. You reach thepoint where all you want is to finish theclimb so you can stop those feelings offailure.

Alternately, you may experience successanxiety. This mindset isn’t negative like fail-ure anxiety, but it still distracts precious at-tention away from the moment. When youget past a crux and “success” is in sight, you

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become protective of your effort up to thatpoint, as if somehow it could be lost. You be-come detached from the process and at-tached to the reward you expect if you finishthe whole climb. “Don’t blow it,” you say toyourself.

At this point, you’re no longer interestedin the act of climbing; you just want to haveclimbed the route. You get to the crux, orpast the crux, and anxiety sets in, a fear oflosing the success you’ve imagined is nearlyyours. Obviously your attention is not work-ing to your advantage here. You are focusednegatively on not losing an ascent you havenot yet even finished.

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It’s a long ride, so enjoy it. Savoring every foot of

Rock Lobster, Indian Creek, Utah. Photo: Jeff

Achey

In both success and failure anxiety, youlose focus. By over-valuing the outcome andunder-valuing the process, you focus on thedestination. Once you do this, climbing ispointless. You close yourself off to thepresent moment and you do not learn. Yousimply want your body to catch up with yourmind, which is already in the comfort zone atthe top of the climb or back on the groundbasking in glory.

One of the most obvious symptoms of des-tination thinking is nervousness before andduring a redpoint effort. You’re very motiv-ated to have done the climb, and the thoughtof the effort and uncertainty separating youfrom your goal stresses you out. Someclimbers also experience a strange loss ofmotivation once they’ve worked out themoves on a climb and made a few redpoint

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efforts. This too is caused by the destinationmentality. The climb is “as good as done.”You “know” you can do it. Yet the real chal-lenge and gut-level learning still waits. Witha “good as done” attitude, the actual per-formance becomes an obligation rather thana chance to enter the risk zone and hunt forpower. Thus, motivation wanes.

Success and failure do not exist in thepresent, only effort and action exist. Youreach for a hold, step out over an overhang,surge up into a hand jam, and fall freethrough the air. These exist in the present.Success and failure are later constructions,phantoms created by the Ego. The Ego hasno use for learning and it does not like chaos.It wants a trophy list of destinations withwhich to validate itself. The Ego will try toescape from the chaos of the risk zone to acomfortable destination even though it sab-otages your effort by doing so.

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Paul Piana, an expert climber with manyfirst ascents to his credit, related a story thatshows the power of a journey mindset. In1996 he had been working on redpointing aproject climb, Atomic Cow, at Wild Iris, asport-climbing area near his home inLander, Wyoming. One day at the crag anout-of-town friend showed up. “I told himabout a really nice 5.13 that I had been work-ing on that had really nice moves on it,” Paultold me. “I hadn’t been able to redpoint it butwanted to show him the moves. I got on itwithout any expectations other than to showhim how sweet the moves were.” To Paul’sgreat surprise, he floated through the movesand made the redpoint. With his focus on thegreat moves rather than the red-point, hefound just the “relaxed concentration” heneeded to maximize his performance. By notthinking of his destination, he reached it.

A student of mine, Jeff Jenkins, had a sim-ilar experience while climbing in the Obed

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River area of northeastern Tennessee. Hehad been working on a well-known 5.12called Tierrany, a very steep route thatclimbs out multiple tiered roofs. He hadmade several redpoint efforts over severaldays and returned on the last day before heand his partner were moving on to anotherclimbing area. “I had pretty much acceptedthe fact that Tierrany wasn’t going to go thatday,” related Jeff, “but I wanted to take onemore lap just to see whether I had finallyfigured out the crux.” Jeff had accepted thatthe redpoint could wait for another trip andhad become more interested in simply test-ing his knowledge of the route. As a con-sequence, his attention was completely onthe climbing rather than on success or fail-ure. He went up the route in a very relaxed,curious frame of mind. “Lo and behold, nextthing I knew I was through the crux andshaking out before pushing to the anchors!”exclaimed Jeff. A minute later he finished

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the redpoint, one of his most satisfying todate.

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The author practices “relaxed concentration” on

his route Volunteer Wall, Whitesides, North Caro-

lina. Photo: Jeff Achey

Destination thinking causes a disjointedmindset that hinders performance. Thephysical body always operates in the present,but the conscious, thinking mind alwaysdwells in the past or the future. You cannothave a thought about the present moment; inthe time it takes to form the thought, the mo-ment is already gone. When you are in therisk you need direct, immediate perception,not the lagging commentary of the consciousmind thinking about what is happening.When the conscious mind is engaged inthinking, a gap is created between your bodyand your mind. Fear enters through that gap,and attention leaks out.

In the Journey mindset, in contrast, thereis no room for fear. Failure does not exist inthe present, nor does the intellectual baggagethat comes with it. Success, too, is irrelevant.

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The Journey mindset rests on learning andexpanding personal power and doesn’t relyon the subordinate goal of making it up aspecific climb. You may really want to do acertain climb. That’s natural. The Rock War-rior’s Way, however, teaches that too muchattachment to such goals isn’t effective inachieving them. Learning and personalpower are the actual goals. If our efforts arefirmly directed toward those deeper goals,then we’re able to reach our climbing goalsmore effectively.

The Journey mindset is love-based andready to engage the risk. It’s not rooted in es-cape or avoidance as destination thinking is.When you love the challenge, you freely giveyour attention to it. You are in tune with theflow of the experience. You aren’t fighting it,avoiding it, or wanting to end it.

Journey thinking also increases your post-climb rewards. If your attention isn’t in thepresent during the experience, you won’t

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remember the experience very well. The de-tails are vague. You can’t remember the tex-ture of the rock or the sensation of suddenlyintuiting elusive moves and flowing intothem. Your attention had already moved on,ghost-like, to dwell in a hollow fantasy ofyour future success. You were only partiallypresent at the scene of the climb. You wereclimbing in order to be finished climbing.Now that you are finished climbing, it is as ifyou never really climbed.

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Forget the top. Just be there. Photo: Jeff Achey

One of the first times I was conscious ofreally enjoying the journey occurred inYosemite Valley. In 1984 I climbed El Capit-an for the first time. Steve Petro and I hadjust spent four days climbing Zodiac. Wewere worn out after the climb and now facedthe job of dragging all our gear and ourselvesdown to the valley floor. Walking down theshoulder of El Cap to the East Ledges anddoing the rappels with heavy haul sacks andropes biting into our shoulders and hips, ourattention wandered to the future, that soon-to-be-experienced time when we’d be down,showered, and relaxing.

As I walked the last mile or so, I had a con-scious realization that this experience, sorich and rewarding, was almost over. Itwould then drift into memory and slowlyfade away. I realized then I wanted to feel allthe pain, discomfort, and everything that washappening at the moment. I wanted to feel it

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fully without trying to escape it. The experi-ence would be over all too soon, and Iwanted to feel it in its entirety.

Thinking of a future destination, when I’dbe pain-free and comfortable, didn’t changethe fact that I was currently in pain. By feel-ing the discomfort and the weariness, my fullattention remained in the moment. I still re-member the experience vividly, even the des-cent. By staying in the discomfort of the mo-ment, my experience was much richer, and Ican actually relate that I enjoyed thatsuffering.

Many climbers have had experiences likethis at the end of long, drawn-out challenges.They realize they’ve been on a great adven-ture which is almost over. The art of the war-rior Journey process is to stay in this mind-set even during a five-minute challenge.

Grace Under Pressure and Playing for Keeps

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The Journey mindset focuses attention inthe present. To climb at our greatest poten-tial we need all our attention focused on theclimbing. We can’t squander it on the future.This is easier said than done. The risk zone isuncomfortable, and we are in the habit of es-caping discomfort. What we say in the heatof the moment, such as, “If I could just get tothat hold …” betrays the mindset: our atten-tion is slipping out of the journey toward adestination.

Stop the tendency to let your attentionmove from one comfort zone to the next.Such an approach will make your effortjerky, halting, and wasteful of energy. In-stead, be fluid and flexible. Climb continu-ously, with unbending intent, leaving notime to latch onto fear and doubt.

Discomfort, a sense of chaos, fight-or-flight responses—these characterize a typicalclimber’s experience in the risk zone. Thewarrior’s task is to enter the risk so

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knowingly and so fully that he can embracethe stressful conditions and not fight them.In the risk zone you will naturally experiencea tension between opposites: between thedesire to rest and the desire to exercise yourpower; between the desire to emerge at thetop of the challenge and the desire to betested. Hold the tension. Find comfort in thechaos. Break the habit of wanting to escape ademanding situation as quickly as possible.Adopt an attitude of appreciation toward thechallenge and the learning. Set goals that in-volve the journey and the effort rather thanthe destination and the redpoint. The goalshouldn’t be to redpoint a climb but to stayfocused on the effort so that a redpoint as-cent will manifest. You’ll find that yourclimbing makes a lot more sense. And it’smore fun.

The truth that his time on earth is limitedhelps the warrior appreciate the moment.The warrior lets death be his advisor. This

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may sound ominous, but it helps you takelife seriously. It is simply a no-nonsense re-minder that each moment matters. In theface of our mortality, externally derived val-ues and the petty ways of the Ego seem ri-diculous. Being mindful that we will inevit-ably die, we don’t cling to petty destinations.Everything external will one day be takenfrom us, so, in a sense, we have nothing tolose. Death advises us to always use attentionon what is important: learning and growth.

Death, however, does not advise us to bereckless. Our time on earth is precious. Wedon’t want to foolishly squander any portionof it. There is no practice run. If we’re facinga challenge we believe in, then we’ll give it100-percent attention. The warrior strives toundertake each act as if it is his last battle onearth.

The Journey process is the Rock Warrior’sway of keeping attention in the present mo-ment and being comfortable there,

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regardless of how stressful and chaotic thesituation. His comfort comes from being intouch with his deepest values: learning fromexperiences, loving life, and increasing hispersonal power. Physically, he deals with thechaos of challenging climbing by using creat-ive rests, holding on loosely, pacing, stayingin balance, and expressing joy in giving ef-fort. These things focus attention on findingcomfort in the risk. If his attention wandersup the climb toward a destination, then hereminds himself of his intention to act, not tothink about having acted. He resolutelybrings his attention back to the task at hand.If he’s at a loss for what to do, he does notlapse into a sense of impasse. He focuses onpossibilities, giving himself the performancecue, “What now?” This is a direct questionasked of his intuitive channels, which thenhome in on the opportunities in thesituation.

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Although it’s helpful to break down experi-ence into preparation, transition, and action,the Rock Warrior’s path is really more holist-ic. Each task of preparation is part of the lar-ger Journey. We may not prepare for actionperfectly every time, but we acknowledgethis as part of the warrior’s path. We ruth-lessly examine our motivation from the Wit-ness position. We keep our attention on theprocess and learn from our experiences. Wedon’t lie to ourselves about our efforts andour performances, nor do we punishourselves. As we understand ourselves bet-ter, our power increases. Our mindset whenwe climb is no longer like a disobedient dog,always blundering into trouble and thencowering in guilt or fear of punishment. Itbecomes an instrument of power. The actionword for the Journey process is Attention.Apply attention now, in the moment, inevery step of the journey.

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Conclusion

Peter Croft, Mark Wilford, and JohnBachar are three of the most masterfulclimbers I know when it comes to risky ordangerous climbing. Recently I asked themwhy they are able to deal with fear while somany other climbers are not. You know whatthey told me? Basically, they said they didn’tknow why, or they hadn’t thought about itvery much. When I heard that, I was glad Ihad written this book. I’ve thought about thisquestion often, and tested my answers on therock. Mental training need not be intangibleand vague; it can be very simple,

understandable, and practical. The RockWarrior’s Way philosophy is very pragmatic.

Whether Croft, Wilford, or Bachar know itor not, the thing that most helps them dealwith fear is that they deeply love what theydo. This is the foundation of the Rock Warri-or’s Way: love-based motivation. If you arestrong in your love-based motivation you arealready practicing the warrior processeswhether or not you’re conscious of it. Whenyou love something, attention is automatic-ally focused in the moment because there isno other place you’d rather be.

Springing directly from a love of what youdo and a focus on the present is an alignmentwith learning. All living things, you included,are created, grow, and then die. Since youalready have been created and aren’t deadyet, you are most in harmony when you alignyourself with the positive process inbetween—growth. You live in a dynamicworld. If you are settling in to a rigid comfort

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zone, then you are dying—slowly, but still dy-ing. To stay vibrant you need to engage lifeand take risks, not for the conquest of someelusive mountaintop or redpoint, but in or-der to learn and grow.

Value learning. It nourishes our growth.Learning is solving problem after problem,acting on one opportunity after another. Youdemonstrate that you value learning by keep-ing attention on those problems and oppor-tunities. When you feel distracted orstressed, ask, “Is my attention focused onsolving this problem?” or, “What is the op-portunity for learning in this situation?” Ifattention isn’t focused on solving the prob-lem or acting on the opportunity, stop leak-ing that attention and use it impeccably todeal with whatever is at hand.

Just because the principle is simpledoesn’t mean it’s easy to accomlish. We areall rife with limiting habits and ineffectivebeliefs. The Rock Warrior’s Way isn’t a

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destination that you struggle to attain. It’shere, now. It is the struggle itself. This booklays out seven processes that help guide youon your path. To follow the Rock Warrior’sWay means to decide to walk the path. Then,simply be observant and pay attention.

A warrior prepares for the risks he knowshe’ll be encountering. He uses attention tocollect information about the risk, changingas much as possible of the unknown to theknown. He knows that the Ego will try tosabotage his effort. He separates to the Wit-ness position with sword in hand and slicesoff any dragon head the Ego raises. He cen-ters himself so he is present for the upcom-ing challenge. He assesses the consequencesand focuses on possibilities in the situation.Then he makes a decision, to take the risk ornot. He transitions from preparation to ac-tion. If he decides to take the risk, he cuts offall possibilities of re-deciding, hesitating, ordoubting and commits wholeheartedly to the

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effort. He sets an intention to take action andcommits 100-percent to that intention. Oncehe’s launched into the action phase, heknows he isn’t in Kansas anymore. He’s in anew realm, complete with unknown ele-ments, unrealized potential, and magic. Heexpects to have doubts and fears arise in hisconsciousness. He dismisses these and stayswith his intention to act.

As you walk the path, stay aligned withgrowth and learning. You are in a paradoxic-al situation because you will tend to bedrawn to comfort, security, and “successes.”But these cannot be attained directly. Onlyby focusing your attention into the momentand on the process, not on the outcome, canyou arrive at the place you desire.

It’s a very personal journey. It’s your jour-ney. You will find yourself at odds with theways of the masses, whose lives are focusedon striving for comfort and security. TheWarrior’s Way is a lonely journey and

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doesn’t wait for respect or approval fromothers.

Reading this book will automatically im-prove your awareness. That’s an importantfirst step. It’s the preparation phase. Ponderwhat you’ve read. Process it. Now, you facethe transition phase. You face the choice.Will you move forward into the challenge, orretreat to your comfort zone? Reach deepdown within you and pull out the courage towalk the warrior’s path. Decide to apply itwholeheartedly on the rocks.

Remember also, the Rock Warrior’s Way isa way of balance and harmony and there is alife purpose behind it. The important thingswe want, redpoints included, are simplystepping-stones to living a more peaceful life.We want to be at peace with ourselves and beable to maintain that peace in the face of ad-versity. The ability to do that is the highestexpression of the warrior’s power.

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Accept the journey. Be at peace in it.Watch it. When you can be at one with thedifficulty and the chaos, then you transcendit. You simply walk your path, being observ-ant, paying attention, learning and growingin your understanding of who you are andwhat is possible for you. Approached in thewarrior’s way, the rock will teach you.

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Photo: Jeff Achey

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Exercises

Introduction

1. Setting an Intention

Whatever you choose to practice, set an in-tention. In the climbing exercises below, seta conscious intention prior to leaving theground. Your partner can help. Ask your be-layer not to yell vague encouragement, such

as, “Go for it!” or, “You can do it!” but ratherto remind you of your specific intention.

By setting a specific intention you’llsharpen your focus and reduce the chance offalling into your habitual way of climbing.Setting an intention helps you stay on taskfor what you want to practice.

2. Visualization

Have you ever had a route that you reallywanted to do and couldn’t get out of yourmind? When you went to sleep at night yousaw yourself going through the moves?That’s visualization. Visualization is a long-standing staple of mental training, used byathletes from Olympians to tennis amateurs.Essentially, it’s nothing more than closingyour eyes and mentally going through theactivity you want to do, in the way you wantto do it. Even if you don’t consciously “visu-alize,” you still have images in your brainthat will strongly influence your

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performance. Most of these will be uncon-scious. They may include images of you be-coming helplessly pumped or falling off thecrux move. These images tend to bring aboutthe reality. Likewise, images of you climbingeffortlessly, in perfect balance, and of power-ing smoothly through crux moves, can createthat reality. Your body responds to com-mands from the mind. By deliberately practi-cing visualization you choreograph the per-formance you want and ingrain it, not only inyour mental realm but also in your physicalbody. In your mind’s eye, see yourself goingthrough the moves flawlessly and precisely,as you want to do on the rock. Make the vis-ion as realistic as possible, including tyinginto the rope, the sounds and smells of theenvironment, and the texture of the rock.These details will help the visualizationmatch the actual event and “kick in” as youbegin to climb.

Chapter 1, Becoming Conscious

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1. Meditation

Meditation takes many forms. For ourpurposes, meditation means keeping your at-tention on your breathing and witnessingwhen thoughts carry your attention awayfrom the breath. Your attention may go tosounds you hear or things you need to dolater.

Meditation helps you identify the Witnessposition. You are not your thoughts; you arethe observer of your thoughts. The Witness isthe position from which you notice thoughtscarrying your attention to other things inyour environment. By identifying the Wit-ness you give yourself a position of powerfrom which to observe your thoughts. Then,you can consciously choose whether or not toact on any given thought.

2. STOP

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This exercise comes from GeorgeGurdjieff, the Russian author on warriorship.It’s a simple exercise: you say “STOP!” whenyou catch yourself in a habit.

If you can stop the habit, you prove thatyou have conscious control of your behavior;if you can’t stop, you are unconscious andfunctioning on “automatic,” a slave to thehabit. For example, if you habitually becomedefensive when corrected by someone, say,“STOP!” Can you stop defending yourself?

The purpose of the exercise is to checkyour consciousness of habits, and help breakthem. By saying “STOP!” you give yourself amoment of consciousness to stop acting outthe habit.

3. Delay and Dissociate

Setup: Choose a route that is outside yourcomfort zone. If you’ve done lead climbingthen it’s best to do this exercise on lead.Climb to the point where you think falling is

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inevitable. Habitual thoughts will arise, suchas to down-climb or to grab a draw. At themoment of truth, you’ll … wait.

Set the intention: to delay acting out ahabit. Recognize before you start up theroute that as you get stressed, “comfort”thoughts will come up. Perhaps you’re in thehabit of telling yourself that you must grab adraw, say “Take,” or in some other way es-cape the discomfort of the effort. Welcomethese thoughts. When they arise, simplydelay acting on them. Don’t down-climb,don’t grab a draw, don’t do anything. Simplyhold on to the holds and stay where you are.

Next, begin “dissociating” from your ha-bitual flow of actions. By delaying, you’vebroken the one-two momentum of the habit.Then, further break down the habit by talk-ing about it and making it conscious. Talk toyourself. Call yourself by name: “Okay Arno,you just thought about grabbing the draw.You may still grab it, but for now you’ll

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delay.” While you delay you can make amove up or down or reposition your body.Delay or do anything that is different thanwhat you habitually do. Once you’ve brokenthe chain of actions that form a habit, youcan finish the exercise with any non-habitualaction. Do something that feels a little bold.Say, “Give me two feet of slack!” rather than“Take!”—then jump off. Or, keep climbingand go for the next rest. Purposely slap for auseless hold and force a fall. It doesn’t mat-ter what you do, as long as it’s non-habitual.

Delaying and dissociating help you moveto the Witness position. From the Witnessposition you are able to break the habitualcycle of reacting to limiting thoughts.

4. Foreign Affairs

Setup: Put yourself in a climbing situationthat you normally avoid or have never con-sidered. The situation should make you ex-tremely uncomfortable—it should feel

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foreign. For example, get on a climb anddon’t take your chalk bag. Or, climb in shoesthat are too large. If you are a “strength”climber, get on a delicate slab climb.

Your goal is to produce an emotional reac-tion to the stressful situation. See if you re-act—by becoming frustrated, angry, or blam-ing something such as weak forearms. Thesetype reactions indicate unconsciousness.

Set the intention: to observe these limitingbehaviors.

This exercise helps you subdue your Egoand gain self-knowledge. Your Ego thrives bygetting on routes where you have a signific-ant chance of reaching the top. Observewhen you get frustrated, angry, or react—allmanifestations of the Ego not getting what itwants. Once you observe these limiting reac-tions and leaks of attention, you can plugthem by stopping that behavior.

5. Self Stalking

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Videotape yourself on a route at your limit.Climb as you normally do without changinganything. Then watch the video, noting yourtechnique, body language, etc. Then, watch itagain, this time recalling the inner dialogueyou had at each point during the climb. Wasyour self-talk limiting or empowering? Canyou see any effects that your self-talk had onyour climbing?

Watching yourself on video is a great wayto separate yourself from your performance.You are able to see your performance moreobjectively because you are seeing it as oth-ers would, separate from the subjective feel-ings of effort.

Chapter 2, Life is Subtle

1. Place/Push

Setup: Choose a route that is easy for you,either toprope or lead.

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Set the intention: to climb by pushing withboth legs. As you climb this way, push yourhips up and in, close to the rock. Place/Pushimproves your consciousness of using yourbody to climb efficiently. It also creates amore positive posture, a more balanced style,and generates confidence.

2. Rock Meditation

This exercise is great to include in yourwarm-up.

Setup: Choose a route that is easy for you,either toprope or lead.

Set the intention: to climb slowly and payattention to how you are climbing. Use pre-cise footwork, climb and breathe continu-ously, push with both legs, and focus onbalance.

By climbing efficiently and fluidly on easi-er routes you’ll set a tone for the day that willcontinue through your later efforts on harderroutes.

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3. P-C-O

This is a written exercise. Answer each ofthese similar-sounding questions, in the or-der given:

What is the biggest problem you have withimproving your climbing performance?

A:_________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________.

What is the biggest challenge you havewith improving your climbing performance?

A:___________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________.

What is the biggest opportunity you havewith improving your climbing performance?

A:___________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________.

These questions are the same except for asingle change: the words problem/challenge/opportunity. Your answers, however, may berevealing. When you see “improving yourclimbing performance” as a problem, your

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answer will show an avoidance orientationand you’ll state the situation passively—forexample, “I’m afraid of falling.”

If you replace problem with challengewhen framing the question, your answer willnecessarily imply action: “My biggest chal-lenge is to overcome my fear of falling.” Eventhough you’re talking about the same situ-ation, your thought process is more love-based and you’ve got the beginnings of aplan.

Finally, if you replace challenge with op-portunity, your answer becomes even moreaction-oriented and love-based. For ex-ample: “I have the chance to go out, practicesome falls, and get over my falling fears.” Byusing opportunity in the question, you gen-erate an answer that helps you engage thesituation and actively improve your perform-ance. This is where you want to be. This islove-based motivation. You can use this

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three-part experiment for any performance-related question.

4. Deliberate Breathing

Setup: Choose a route that is easy for you,either toprope or lead.

Set the intention: to breathe deliberately.As you climb, simply focus on breathing con-tinuously. With each breath, force the air outwith your abdominal muscles and blow itaudibly out of your mouth. By doing this youhear and feel that you are breathing continu-ously and not holding your breath. Your in-halation will become automatic and thebreath cycle longer and deeper.

Breathing continuously and deliberatelyhelps you stay in the process and reducesfears and anxieties.

5. Soft-Eyes Focus

Soft-eyes will make you more receptiveand attentive to your surroundings.

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Setup: Choose a route that is easy for you,either toprope or lead. As you climb, don’tfocus on any one hold, feature, or body part.You will see everything in your peripheralvision as well as what’s right in front of you.

Set the intention: To spread out your visu-al attention so that it covers the whole fieldof view.

Normal vision focuses attention on a smallpart of your surroundings. Your consciousmind is isolating parts of the environmentand homing in on them. By not focusing onany one thing in your field of view youspread out your attention. Soft-eyes focusgives equal value to all things, enabling youto obtain more complete information fromthe situation. Information can be picked upby your subconscious and incorporated intoyour climbing effort.

6. Left/Right Breathing

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You may have heard of left-brain, right-brain research. Studies have shown that thetwo hemispheres of your cerebral cortex spe-cialize in different kinds of jobs. The leftbrain is more analytical, logical, detail-ori-ented, sequential, and thinks in terms of ob-jects. The right brain is more intuitive, creat-ive, imaginative, and thinks in terms of rela-tionships. Figuring out sequences and restswhile working a route is a typical left-braindominated activity. “Going with the flow”during an on-sight is more right-brained.The right brain is responsible for your con-nection to what, in this book, I’ve called thesubconscious mind.

During the day your brain alternates dom-inance between left and right hemispheresand this dominance manifests itself in yourbreathing. Approximately every two hoursthe dominance switches. When the rightbrain is dominant, you breathe primarilythrough your left nostril because the right

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brain operates the left side of the body, andvice versa.

The Left/Right Breathing exercise helpsyou intentionally balance the hemispheres ofyour brain. First, inhale through your rightnostril while holding your left nostril closed.Exhale through your left nostril while hold-ing your right nostril closed. Repeat threetimes, and then switch sides.

Chapter 3, Accepting Responsibility

1. Describing Objectively

This exercise involves describing a climb-ing situation as if you were a scientist.Described objectively, a route will sound thesame regardless of who describes it becausean objective description has nothing to dowith ability. This means the descriptionwon’t include subjective words such as good,bad, hard, easy, reachy, pumpy, etc. Haveyour belayer also describe the route and see

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if your descriptions are similar. Then look forsubjective elements in your description andeliminate them. Your goal is to gather in-formation about the situation in order to seeit as clearly as possible, without subjectivityor illusions.

You can do this exercise for various partsof a climbing situation, including:

A) The route. Describe the angle, type ofrock, size of edges, spacing of protection, fea-tures, etc.

B) Your performance. Once you’veclimbed, describe your balance, your breath-ing, how well you stayed with your intention,etc.

2. Shirking Observation

As you become more familiar with theRock Warrior’s Way approach to risk-taking,you’ll gain awareness of self-limiting andself-empowering talk. To refine this aware-ness, notice how self-limiting talk occurs at

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the climbing areas you frequent. Listen toother climbers. Do they become frustrated,angry, say they suck, make excuses aboutweak forearms, etc.? Observing otherclimbers’ self-limiting talk helps you elimin-ate similar habits in yourself.

Chapter 4, Giving

1. Giving a Skill

Setup: Choose a challenging route toclimb. Then, identify specifically what willchallenge you. Identify what strength, skill,talent, or experience you have that will helpyou deal with the specific challenge on theroute.

Set the intention: to give the skill you’veidentified as you climb the route. Stay fo-cused on giving that skill to the effort.

After the climb, reflect on how you felt andhow you performed. Did you stay with yourintention? Did you stay focused and discover

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that the climb was possible or not as difficultas previously thought?

2. Metaphor Focus

This exercise helps identify how you rep-resent potentially stressful climbing situ-ations to yourself. I’ve modified this exercisefrom a similar exercise that Anthony Rob-bins teaches. It begins with a free associ-ation, analyzes the results, and then exploresa possible new association.

Three climbing situations that typicallycause stress are falling, leading trad, andclimbing at one’s limit. (You can substituteanother situation if you have one that causesyou more stress.) The Metaphor Focus exer-cise creates metaphors for these situations.

Begin with the statement, “Falling is …”and then fill in the blank with a word orwords that come to mind. When you think offalling, what words come into your head? Apossible metaphor might be: “death,” or

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“failure,” or “flying.” The words you chooseare how you metaphorically represent fallingto yourself.

Let’s say you choose “death.” The secondpart of the exercise asks, “If falling is death,then what does that mean to me?” The lastpart of the exercise creates a new metaphor.Here’s a template for the exercise:

Fallingis____________________________________.

Leading tradis________________________________.

Climbing at my limitis___________________________.

Now, using the metaphor that you’ve de-termined above, answer these questions:

If falling is_________, then what doesthat mean to me?

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A:_______________________________.

If leading trad is________, then whatdoes that mean to me?

A:_______________________________.

If climbing at my limit is_________,then what does that mean to me?

A:_______________________________.

Now, change your metaphors to moreempowering ones. What metaphor would bemore empowering than the one you used?Clue: use a word or words that focus onlearning.

Fallingis____________________________________.

Leading tradis________________________________.

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Climbing at my limitis___________________________.

This exercise builds awareness of how yourepresent stressful situations to yourself. Ifyou represent them as something to avoid,then you will resist engaging them. If youconsciously create an empowering metaphor,you will tend to respond in an empoweredway.

3. Imaging the Process

I’ve noticed that climbers who naturallyperform strongly—close to their poten-tial—tend to image the process of a climbrather than the result. They see challenges asbeing within their ability because they seethem made up of processes that are withintheir ability. For example, a climber wants toclimb a 5.11 finger crack that is at his limit.He doesn’t image the destination of doing anon-sight or redpoint, but rather images thecomponents that will lead to an on-sight or

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redpoint. He images placing pro, doing fin-ger jams, pacing himself, climbing effi-ciently, etc.—all things he knows how to do.Therefore he images himself rising to thechallenge and using his abilities.

Find a route that will be challenging foryou. Look for the components that will be re-quired to climb the route. Image your abilityto apply yourself to these components. Afterpracticing this exercise on several routes, youwill find that you are aware of many moreroutes that are possible for you. You’ve prob-ably been walking past these routes yearafter year, thinking they were beyond yourability.

Chapter 5, Choices

1. The Lunge

This exercise helps develop your ability tocommit. The exercise is simple: instead ofclimbing statically, you’ll practice lunging or

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leaping for holds. Lunges are particularlycommitting moves, since if you miss the holdyou’re lunging for, or don’t grab it well, thenyou will fall. You can’t just reach up and feelaround—you need to commit. That’s thepoint of the exercise.

You can do the exercise on the rock, onboulders, on toprope, or even on lead, butpracticing lunging is easiest in a climbinggym. You have many choices of holds, closeto the ground, and you can safely fall ontothe padded floor.

Setup: First, find an opportunity for alunge. The classic lunge involves a very long,dynamic reach past a holdless section, butyou can invent a fine lunge simply by ignor-ing intermediate holds. It’s possible to lungeon almost any reachy move, even one thatyou could also do statically, but for this exer-cise it’s better to find a move that you canonly do by lunging, using starting holds thatare hard to hold onto if you miss your target.

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Your goal is to invent a move that requires afeeling of 100-percent commitment to ac-complish. This way you won’t be able to“cheat.” You’ll only make the move if youfully commit to flying, and if you miss you’llfall. (Note: After only a little practice you’llfind you need to invent longer lunges foryourself in order to demand that feeling of100-percent commitment. You’re learning apowerful climbing skill, which you can useon the rock, but that’s not the main purposeof this exercise!)

Set the intention: to commit 100-percentto the lunge. Focus your attention on creat-ing an explosive, confident, 100-percenteffort.

To increase the commitment required,lunge with both hands at the same time. Do atwo-handed lunge on a vertical wall, startingin a crouched position and using largefootholds. The leg power you can generatethis way allows huge lunges, even if your

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upper-body strength is limited. Another vari-ation involves lunging with both hands at thesame time, to two different target holds.(Tip: use “soft-eyes focus” when doing thisvariation.)

When you lunge, you must commit to themove in order to make it through. If you aretentative, you’ll fall. Lunging builds confid-ence and gives you a concrete, one-move ex-ample of what 100-percent commitmentfeels like.

2. Appropriate Risk Assessment

This is a variation of Describing Object-ively (Chapter 3 Exercises). Risk assessmentis a craft requiring clear thinking and thor-oughness. When facing an intimidating crux,many climbers simply ask themselves, “WillI fall or not?” Answering this question givesyou no information, and in fact sets you upto use a haphazard guess to guide your

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actions. This exercise gives you an outline formore appropriate risk assessment.

Setup: Find a route on which you will haveto risk a fall. Ideally, find a route where youcan pause restfully below the potential fallsection, so you can go through the exercisewithout rushing or getting pumped.

Your goal is to decide whether or not a riskis appropriate for you. Do this by assessingthe fall consequences and comparing theseto your experience with similar con-sequences. Remember that you don’t assessthe consequences by figuring out whether ornot you will fall. Rather, you understand thata fall is always possible and you weigh thefall consequences against your experiencewith responding to such consequences. Setthe intention: to assess the risk thoroughlyand objectively.

A) Assess the fall consequence. Ask thesequestions: “How far is the pro spaced? Is theclimbing in line with the pro? Where will I

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end up if I do take a fall? How far will the fallbe? Are there any ledges? Is the route over-hanging or slabby? Will the fall be straightdown or will I pendulum?”

B) Assess your experience with falls of thetype you are considering. Ask, “How muchexperience do I have with this kind of fallconsequence?” Compare the potential fallwith other falls you’ve taken. Is it similar?What, exactly, are the differences? Are thesedifferences incremental or great? Can youmentally bridge the gap between falls you’vetaken and the fall you’re assessing, and canyou envision how to take the fall with a reas-onable margin of safety? How did you re-spond to falls in the past? How will yourplanned response to this fall differ from yourpast responses to similar falls?

C) Decide whether or not to take the risk.Remember, the point of this exercise is notnecessarily to take the risk, but to practice

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the assessment method and make an appro-priate choice. If the type of fall you’re consid-ering is far beyond your experience, then therisk is probably not appropriate for you. Finda route with a more familiar fall consequenceor do some intentional falling practice (seenext exercise) and gain experience beforetaking on the risk.

By systematically assessing consequencesand your experience, you will commit torisks that are more appropriate for you andminimize the chances of injury.

3. Falling Practice

Practicing falling helps take the falling ex-perience out of the unknown and makes itpart of the normal climbing process. Warn-ing: falling can be dangerous! Chooseyour fall zones wisely, and practice in small,gradual steps. Make sure you accept respons-ibility for how you choose to practice.

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The fall-practice zone should not have anyprotruding ledges and should have goodbolts or several pieces of trad pro for protec-tion. The failure of any single piece shouldnot result in an unacceptably dangerous fall.In the beginning of your practice, choose afall zone that is slightly overhanging to helpreduce possibility of injury. Then, as yougain experience, you can practice other fall-ing situations, such as those on vertical rockor with slightly swinging falls. Have plenty ofrope in the system—at least thirty feet ofrope between you and your belayer—to ab-sorb the fall force. The rope will stretch dur-ing your practice session, so, after a few falls,hang on a piece of pro and let the rope regainits shape and length.

Maintain proper form as you practice fall-ing. Proper form includes keeping arms andlegs slightly bent, with arms out in front atchest height so you can respond to the im-pact. Don’t grab the rope. Step off gently

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rather than jumping out and back, which cancause you to slam into the wall. Breathe con-tinuously and stay relaxed.

Recommended sample of graduated fallingpractice:

A) Toprope. Begin falling practice on top-rope. First, climb up a ways, then simply letgo and hang on the rope. Swing to the leftand to the right, shuffling or even runningback and forth across the rock. Become com-fortable with being unattached to the rockand trusting the system. Next, with a clearzone beneath you, ask for a few feet of slackand jump. Repeat with a little more slack.Pay attention to your form as you practice.

B) Lead falls. Begin this step by taking fallsright at your protection point. This is like atoprope fall; you’ll only fall as much as therope stretches. After you are comfortablewith this, climb up one move and take a fall.

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Continue in small increments, one or twomoves up at a time. Practice several times ateach increment until you’re comfortable in-creasing the fall distance. Becoming comfort-able with falls of twenty feet will prepare youquite well for the fall consequence on mostsport climbs. Remember, however, that prac-ticing falling can be dangerous. Choose yourfall zone wisely!

C) Diagonal falls. Not all routes arestraight, and neither are the falls that canresult from them. Once you gain some fallingsavvy you may want to gain experience withfalls that include a swing or pendulum.

If you have some control over your fall,you can reduce dangerous swings by the wayyou detach from the rock. To practice thistechnique, climb diagonally away from yourprotection point for a few feet, and thenjump off in the direction of your last piece ofpro. Notice how the jump anticipates the dir-ection you would swing when the rope comes

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taut and reduces or eliminates your pendu-lum across the wall. Notice how your traject-ory changes with various jump tactics anddistances from your protection point.

Note: By practicing falling you help separ-ate real concerns from phantom fear and im-prove your understanding of the con-sequences. You learn how to fall properly,thus minimizing, but not eliminating, thechance of injury on a “routine” fall.

Any fall can hurt you, but there are someroutes with potential falls that will cause in-jury or death. On these routes it’s importantto NOT push yourself past the point of no re-turn and thereby take a fall. This may seemobvious but I feel it’s important to emphasizeit. A fall can happen at any time. Don’t goon “R” (runout) or “X” (ground-fall poten-tial) routes thinking that a fall can’t happen.Don’t fool yourself thinking that just becauseit’s not a good idea to fall that you won’t fall.Holds could break, you can slip, or you could

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pump out. Learning about falling includeslearning how to recognize when falling willcause injury or death. Decide beforehand ifyou’re entering a risk that you are willing totake, and pay attention. Know when it’s timeto back down and get off the route.

Chapter 6, Listening

1. Liar, Liar

Many climbers “decide” to fall when theyare convinced by their conscious mind thatthey can’t continue climbing. Basically, theydon’t give 100-percent; they give up. Wetend to give up when our discomfort be-comes “too much to bear.” Seeking comfort,our conscious minds lie to us, and decide forus to fall.

Setup: Find a route that will be challen-ging for you, either an unknown route at orabove your maximum current on-sightgrade, or a redpoint project you are working

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on. It’s best to do this exercise on lead ratherthan on toprope. Make sure the route has fallconsequences that you have some experiencewith; you will very likely be falling so youwant to minimize the chance of injury.

Set the intention: Instead of “deciding” tofall, intend to climb until you fall. In otherwords, if your conscious mind is convincedthat you are about to fall, continue climbinganyway. Do the next move instead of “decid-ing” to fall. Focus all your attention on thatnext move—and the one after that if you findyourself still on the rock—and don’t let yourattention be distracted by the lies of yourconscious mind.

As you enter the risk zone, a crux of somesort, expect your conscious mind to create“comfort” thoughts. Examples include: “I’mtoo pumped to continue,” “The hold is toosmall for me to pull on,” “The fall is tooscary,” “I need to grab the draw,” or “I hadbetter down-climb and rest on the bolt.”

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Recognize that these thoughts are not truerepresentations of whether or not you cancontinue climbing. When you are in the riskzone, acting out the risk, the conscious mindis a liar. It will try to pull you back into itsrealm: the comfort zone. Recognize“comfort” thoughts and remind yourself ofyour intention: to commit forward into theclimbing.

By making the next move anyway you staywith your intention to climb and thereforemake your intention more unbending. Doingthis will help you break through the mentalbarriers of the conscious mind.

2. Continuous Climbing

This is an intuitive climbing exercise. Bysetting your intention on constantly movingyour arms and legs, you’ll be forced to re-spond to intuitive signals and disengagefrom conscious thinking.

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Setup: Choose a route that is easy for you.Climb on toprope, to keep your task assimple as possible.

Set the intention: to climb with continuousmovement without stopping to rest or think.Climbing rapidly will help you minimize con-scious thought, but keep your focus on con-tinuous movement rather than speed. Whenyou can do this exercise on easy routes, moveon to harder routes until you are able toclimb continuously near or at your limit.

You can do many variations of this basicexercise.

A) In the gym, find an area that has nu-merous holds and climb continuously andrapidly within a ten- or fifteen-foot circle.Moving one limb at a time, begin climbingup, down, sideways, and around in smallcircles.

B) Do the exercise while leading sportclimbs. Move continuously, whether climb-ing, placing draws, or clipping the rope.

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Integrate your movements, perhaps placing adraw with one hand, climbing up a move,and then clipping the rope with the otherhand.

C) Do the exercise on trad leads that areeasy for you. Incorporate the movements ofplacing protection into your continuousmovement. Integrate the climbing movesand the placing of protection moves, for ex-ample holding on with your right hand to re-move a piece of gear from your rack andplace it, then moving up to a higher lefthandhold to slip a runner off your rightshoulder. Continuous movement doesn’tmean you should mindlessly “plug andchug.” If a protection piece doesn’t fit well,remove it and place a quality piece. Simplyconcentrate on making motions continuouslyrather than stalling out and thinking toomuch. Once you master this skill on easyroutes, move on to harder trad leads, making

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sure you safeguard your effort by focusing at-tention on setting quality placements.

3. The Eyes Have It

This exercise is a spin-off of ContinuousClimbing and is designed to increase yourawareness of your body’s intuitive knowledgeof how to move without your conscious in-volvement. It helps show that the consciousmind doesn’t have to think everythingthrough in order for you to climb well.

Setup: Pick a route that is easy for you, oneon which you can move freely without toomuch effort or thought about sequences.Climbing on toprope works well for this ex-ercise because it allows you to move continu-ously. As you begin climbing, separate your-self from your climbing effort and observeyourself from the Witness position. Observehow your eyes automatically direct themovements of your arms and legs. Keep yourawareness separate from the climbing and

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observe how your eyes are directing yourmovements. You will automatically look inthe direction where a hand or foot needs tomove to maintain balance.

Nature moves toward being in harmonyand balance. Your intuition, through youreyes, directs you toward harmony. Trust inthis process. Trust that your body knowshow to move without you having to con-sciously tell it how to move.

There is nothing unusual about your eyeslooking in a direction to maintain balance.It’s becoming conscious of this fact thatawakens your power.

Set the intention: to separate from the ef-fort, move to the Witness position, and ob-serve how your eyes direct your movements.

A sharpened version of this exercise iscalled No Second Guessing. Follow youreyes and use the first hold you grab or putyour foot on. If the hold isn’t as large or aspositive as you expected, use it anyway.

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Many times the first hold is the most effect-ive one, even if it doesn’t offer the mostsecurity.

4. Observing Controlling Behavior

This exercise is similar to the observing ex-ercise in the Accepting Responsibility pro-cess. As you become more familiar with theRock Warrior’s Way approach you’ll gainawareness of controlling behavior. Your Egowill try to conceal your own controlling be-havior from you, but it has no problem al-lowing you to see it in others. Observe thebehaviors in others, and then use whatyou’ve observed to help identify the same be-haviors in yourself.

When you go climbing, observe how otherclimbers climb. Do they fall into controllingbehaviors such as stopping, holding theirbreath, resisting falling, over-gripping,down-climbing, or grabbing a draw? Does ithelp their effort?

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Controlling behaviors prevent you fromcommitting 100-percent forward and climb-ing continuously. Observing other climbers’controlling behaviors will help you see themin yourself and strengthen your resolve toeliminate them.

Chapter 7, The Journey

1. Comfortable Chaos

The essence of the Journey process is to bepresent with the chaos of the risk situationwithout trying to escape it. This exercise an-ticipates and simplifies the chaos, allowingyou to find a feeling of comfort in it.

Setup: Find a route that will challenge youin a specific way. Determine what it is aboutthe route that will challenge you. Be specific.Example: On a smooth, less-than-verticalroute, you’ll be challenged by feeling insec-ure because the holds are small and you maypop off at any moment. Or, on an

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overhanging jug route you’ll be challenged bythe pump factor. Ask friends or otherclimbers to direct you toward the kind ofchallenge you want to work on, but don’t ob-tain specific, move-by-move information.You want to know what kind of chaos to pre-pare for, yet retain a strong sense of the un-known as you begin.

Next, anticipate what you can do to findcomfort in the risk. Example: On the smooth,less-than-vertical route you can focus onstaying in balance, making crisp and decisivestep-ups, taking short steps, trusting smallholds, and pushing with both legs. On theoverhanging jug route you can focus onhanging straight-armed between moves,holding on loosely by relaxing your grip,climbing dynamically, using heel-hooks,doing drop-knees, or any other arm-savingleg techniques, and climbing deliberatelybetween the rests. Regardless of what specif-ic techniques you decide will aid your effort,

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focus on those skills that will create a degreeof comfort in the chaos of the risk zone.

Set the intention: to use known techniquesto find comfort in the chaos. After the effort,see how well you stayed with your intention.Did your attention stay on employing yourskills, or did it stray to thoughts of escapingthe risk?

2. Directed Climbing

Here, a partner helps create climbingchaos by choosing moves for you. In this ex-ercise, it’s almost impossible to adopt a des-tination focus because you never know whereyou’ll be directed next.

Setup: This exercise is best done in a boul-dering cave at a climbing gym. Find a sectionof wall where you can stay on for a dozenmoves or more while becoming increasinglypumped. You’ll need a partner, and a pointersuch as a broomstick. Get on the wall, andhave your partner point to the next handhold

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for you to grab or foothold to step on. Letyour partner direct you to climb up, to stop,to climb down, go sideways, or climb in anymanner that will keep you uncertain of whatwill happen next. Your partner should beable to notice when you are getting pumpedso he can direct you to a rest or to largerhandholds to recover. Then he can direct youto climb again. Continue the exercise untilyou fall off. When someone else directs yourclimbing, the destination is taken away. Youhave no choice but to focus on the journey,be in the moment, and find efficient ways tomove.

Set the intention: to listen to who is direct-ing your climbing and to climb efficiently.

Putting It All Together The Rock Warrior’sWay Approach

When you put all of your warrior skills to-gether, you create a style for taking risks. A“risk” in climbing is a single-effort event that

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may be an entire climb, but often is only partof a climb. It’s effective to envision a risk asthe distance you need to climb before you’llget a chance for a new preparation phase.For a sustained sport-climbing redpoint, thismay be the entire climb. On a sport climbingon-sight, the risk may be to climb to the nextbolt or to a rest. A trad-climbing risk mightbe the distance from your current stance tothe next rest. Find routes that will challengeyou and that have a certain level ofunknown.

Set the intention: to apply the completeRock Warrior’s Way approach, as outlinedbelow.

Preparation Phase

1. Observe leaks of attention. From theWitness position observe if you are leakingattention into phantom fear or what otherswill think of your performance, etc.

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2. Center yourself by doing a strong exhal-ation, shaking your face to remove any grim-ace, checking your posture by bringing yourhips in close to the rock, and then breathingcalmly. Talk to yourself by saying, “Calmdown, breathe, shake out, regain,” etc.

3. Accept the consequences. Discover thedetails about the risk you’re facing. Look upto see where the risk will end—the next proor rest. Where will you end up if you fall? Inthis stage, dispel all illusions and accept thesituation as it is. This is not the time to say“yes” to the risk. Simply accept exactly whatit is that you’re considering, both the effortand the fall consequence.

4. Focus on possibilities and what you cando to climb through the risk. For on-sight-ing: Think of general possibilities, such asthe types of holds and sequences. For red-points: You already know the sequence, socreate an image that the climbing is possiblefor you.

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Transition Phase

5. Commit to taking the risk or not. Thereare only two possible outcomes: you climbthrough or you fall. You assessed the fallconsequence in step three, which means youno longer wish the consequence to be differ-ent or less severe. In Choices, you weigh thefall consequence against your experience ofresponding to those consequences. Now, de-cide whether or not to take the risk. If youcan accept both outcomes, and you choose totake the risk, then you are ready to transitionto the action phase. Set the intention: tocommit forward to climbing. Don’t go beforeyou are ready, but when you go, go!

Action Phase

6. Trust in the process by climbing andbreathing continuously. By climbing this wayyou maintain your momentum. You are inthe risk now, focusing forward 100-percent.

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Your conscious mind, however, will try topull you back into the comfort zone. Expectyour conscious mind to create “comfort”thoughts and realize they are not true repres-entations of your ability. Remind yourself tostay with your intention to commit forwardto climbing.

7. Keep attention in the moment by look-ing for comfort in the risk rather than atsome destination. Don’t let your attentionstray to the top of the climb, to the next rest,or to your last pro. You’ll either get there oryou won’t. Find comfort in the chaos by stay-ing balanced, relaxing your grip, and pacingyourself well. Relish the journey.

PREPARATION PHASE1. Observe yourself from the Wit-ness position.2. Center yourself with a strong ex-halation, shake your face, positionbody positively, and talk to yourself.

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3. Look up for the next pro place-ment. Look down to check out thefall consequence. “Where will I endup should I fall before I reach thenext pro/rest?”4. Look up for possibilities forclimbing the risk.

TRANSITION PHASE5. Be decisive. When you go, go! Setan intention to commit forward toclimbing.

ACTION PHASE6. Climb and breathe continuously.7. Look for comfort in the risk.

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The warrior’s path is seldom easy, but it’s always

interesting. Photo: Jeff Achey

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Glossary

5.8, 5.10, 5.13, etc.: The numbers of anopen-ended difficulty-rating system for rockclimbing, ranging from 5.0 (easiest) to 5.15(most difficult). Originally, ratings were in-tended to follow a decimal system, but whenroutes more difficult than 5.9 were done, thedecimal concept was modified and grades of5.10 and 5.11 were added. The prefix “5”refers to “5th class” climbing; the system alsoincludes classes 1, 2, 3, and 4, indicating pro-gressively more rugged and exposedscrambling.

Bolt: A permanent protection point consist-ing of a steel stud set into a small hole drilledin the rock and fitted with a hanger forclipping.

Bouldering: Free climbing without a rope,generally on boulders but also in a climbinggym or along the base of a larger cliff, closeenough to the ground so that a fall is notlikely to result in injury.

Cam: Common term for a spring-loadedrock-climbing protection device. Examplesinclude Friends, Camalots, TCUs.

Chock: A rock-climbing protection deviceconsisting of a wedge-, hex-, or otherwise-shaped piece of metal, slung with a cord orthin cable, that can be slotted into a widen-ing or irregularity in a fissure in the rock.The various sizes of chocks fit cracks fromapproximately 1/8 inch to four inches. Othernames for chocks include nuts, stoppers,hexes, wedges, wires (for small, cabledchocks).

Crux: The most difficult part of a climbingroute.

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Dihedral: A section of cliff where twoplanes of rock meet at an angle, forming afeature similar in appearance to the corner ofa room. Dihedrals may also be acute or ob-tuse, overhanging or low-angle.

Free climbing: Climbing a section of rockwithout physical aid from ropes or climbinggear. The rope and gear may be used for pro-tection, but not for progress or resting. Thereare many sub-categories of free climbing, in-cluding bouldering, free soloing, toproping,on-sighting, and redpointing.

Free soloing: Free climbing without a rope,high enough off the ground so that a fallwould result in very serious injury or death.

Jamming: A technique for climbing cracksthat involves wedging various body parts in-to the fissure.

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Layback: A crack-climbing technique oftenused in corner-cracks (dihedrals). Theclimber grasps the edge of the crack, leansback, and moves upward by “walking” thefeet up the opposing wall and advancing thehands up the crack.

Nut: A rock-climbing protection device; seeChock.

On-sighting: Ascending a route on yourfirst effort. You climb from the bottom to thetop, placing or clipping protection as you go.You see it and climb it, first go—no fore-knowledge of moves or holds, no falls, noworking the route.

Pro: Short for protection. Examples includebolts and quickdraws for sport routes; cams,wedges, slings, etc. for trad routes.

Redpoint: Leading a climb from the bottomto the top, placing pro (and/or clipping fixed

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pro) as you go, without hanging or pulling onany protection. Redpointing usually refers toan ascent that is relatively difficult for theclimber, and thus not accomplished “on-sight.” Climbers may work a route, hangingand resting on pro to figure out moves, thendo a redpoint effort. Very challenging red-points may take days and even years of effortto accomplish.

Runout: The distance between protectionpoints, especially when it is long. Also, theact of climbing between said points.

Slab: A smooth, low-angle rock face usuallyclimbed using very small holds and friction.

Sport climbing: Climbing on routes thatare protected only by bolts. Sport routes gen-erally employ closely spaced bolts to protectface climbing on steep slabs or vertical tooverhanging faces.

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Take: A rope command used by the climberto request that the belay rope be held tightand his weight held by the belayer.

TCU: Acronym for “three-cam unit.” Gener-ally used to indicate any very small Cam, re-gardless of the number of cams the devicehas. TCUs fit cracks from approximately 1/4to 3/4 inches wide.

Trad climbing: Short for traditional climb-ing. This type of climbing generally follows“lines of weakness” in the rock, such ascracks or flakes, into which one placeschocks or camming devices for protection.Trad routes often involve face climbing, andmay or may not employ protection bolts,which will usually be more widely spacedthan on sport routes. Some trad routes (forexample, most crack routes) have plenty ofavailable protection while others may re-quire long runouts between protectionpoints.

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Reading List

Books

Blanton, W. Brad, Radical Honesty, New York, NY: Dell

Publishing, 1994. Honesty is the cornerstone of the Accept-

ing Responsibility process. Dr. Blanton digs deep into scru-

pulous honesty.

Castaneda, Carlos, Tales of Power, New York, NY: Simon

and Schuster, 1974. I’ve found all the Castaneda books fas-

cinating and profound. This and the following two titles are

richly filled with don Juan’s teachings.

Castaneda, Carlos, The Fire from Within, New York, NY: Si-

mon and Schuster, 1985.

Castaneda, Carlos, The Power of Silence, New York, NY: Si-

mon and Schuster, 1987.

Cho, Paul Yonggi, The Fourth Dimension, South Plainfield,

NJ: Bridge Publishing, 1979. To go beyond our three-

dimensional world we need to develop and refine the way

we interact with that world. Dr. Cho gives insights into do-

ing this.

de Becker, Gavin, The Gift of Fear, New York, NY: Little

Brown & Co, 1997. de Becker shows how intuition is our

“gift” and why it’s so important to pay attention to it when

we experience fear.

Fields, Rick, The Code of the Warrior, New York, NY:

HarperCollins Publishers, 1991. I’ve found this book helpful

because it gives a history of sorts on the evolution of the

warrior.

Gallwey, W. Timothy, The Inner Game of Tennis, New York,

NY: Random House, 1974. I’ve found the inner disciplines

and strategies of tennis related by Mr. Gallwey to be very

applicable to climbing.

Hawkins, David, Power vs. Force, Carlsbad, CA: Hay

House, 1995. This book gives tangible evidence of the link

between our thoughts and our physical power.

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Hyams, Joe, Zen in the Martial Arts, New York, NY: Ban-

tam Books, 1979. The martial arts are a metaphor for living

life on purpose and with more awareness. Combine that

with Zen and we achieve a better understanding for flowing

with the challenges of life and climbing.

Jampolsky, Gerald G., Love is Letting Go of Fear, New

York, NY: Bantam Books, 1970. Build on love, don’t tear

down fear. This book helps us understand how fear-based

motivation can diminish as we develop our focus on what

we love.

Kabat-Zinn, Jon, Wherever You Go There You Are, New

York, NY: Hyperion, 1994. The Journey process keeps our

attention in the moment. This book helps us understand the

importance of paying attention to what is happening NOW.

Little, John, The Warrior Within: Bruce Lee, Chicago, IL:

Contemporary Books, 1996. Bruce Lee is one of the all-time

masters of martial art, meaning that he went well beyond

the physical disciple of his art. The mental insights and Zen

connections brought out in this book are very helpful.

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Lynch, Jerry & Chungliang Al Huang, Thinking Body, Dan-

cing Mind, New York, NY: Bantam Books, 1992. Expecta-

tion, focusing, visualizing, fear, intuition—you name the

mental discipline and this book addresses it. With a little of

everything, this book gives a broad understanding of mental

training.

Mares, Théun, Return of the Warriors, Cape Town, South

Africa: Lionheart Publishing, 1995. Don Juan’s teachings in

the Castaneda books can be a bit difficult to assimilate and

understand. This book presents the Toltec knowledge that

don Juan teaches in a very straightforward and understand-

able way.

Millman, Dan, Way of the Peaceful Warrior, Tiburon, CA:

H.J. Kramer, 1984. This is one of the cornerstone books of

the warriorship literature. It gives insights into all the warri-

or processes and is fun to read.

Murphy, Michael, The Future of the Body, New York, NY:

G.P. Putnam’s Sons, 1992. To grow mentally we need to ex-

pand our perceptions. This book provides a wealth of in-

formation on various techniques and disciplines that help

us do so.

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Murphy, Shane, The Achievement Zone, New York, NY: The

Berkeley Publishing Co, 1996. We can learn a lot from sport

psychologists and how they help Olympians perform their

best. This book does just that.

Musashi, Miyamoto, The Book of Five Rings, Boston, MA:

Shambhala Publications, 1993. The samurai is the legendary

Japanese warrior who faced death daily. To do this effect-

ively he had to let go of his fear of dying and focus on fight-

ing well. This is a landmark book for the samurai mindset.

Osho, Courage: The Joy of Living Dangerously, New York,

NY: St. Martin’s Press, 1999. The comfort zone is great, but

we cannot be fully alive by staying there. This book gives re-

markable insights into developing courage to enter the risk

zone.

Peale, Norman Vincent, The Power of Positive Thinking,

NY: Balantine Books, 1952. This is an important book for

understanding the power that resides within us. It will help

improve awareness of how to tap that power.

Peck, M. Scott, The Road Less Traveled, New York, NY: Si-

mon and Schuster, 1978. All paths begin at a fork in the

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road. We must decide not to walk the path of the ordinary

person in order to begin walking the warrior path. This is a

great book for beginning that process.

Sanchez, Victor, The Teachings of don Carlos, Santa Fe,

NM: Bear and Company Publishing, 1995. This book gives

practical applications to the Toltec teachings in the

Castaneda books. I’ve found it very practical and useful

when applied to climbing.

Spencer, Robert L., The Craft of the Warrior, Berkeley, CA:

Frog Ltd, 1993. There are countless writers on warriorship.

Mr. Spencer compiles many of them in this book and ties

the warrior principles together in a very helpful way. A must

read.

Tolle, Eckhart, The Power of Now, Novato, CA: New World

Library, 1999. The Journey process involves keeping our at-

tention on the task at hand. This book shows the power of

being focused in the NOW and gives insights into how to do

it.

Trungpa, Chögyam, Shambhala: The Sacred Path of the

Warrior, Boston, MA: Shambhala Publications, 1984. The

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Shambhala knowledge from Tibet can help us see the un-

derlying goodness of how the world works. This knowledge

helps us accept situations as they are, rather than resist

them, so we can deal with them powerfully.

Watts, Alan, The Way of Zen, New York: Pantheon, 1957.

Zen helps us see situations from new perspectives, and

helps us live in the present moment. Dr. Watts is an import-

ant author for introducing Zen to the West.

Wolinsky, Stephen, The Tao of Chaos, Bearsville, NY:

Bramble Books, 1994. Focus on fear and we attract more

fear. Quantum Psychology takes us to the building blocks of

our mental framework and helps us understand how our

mindset creates this unwanted attraction.

Audiotape Programs

Chopra, Deepak, The Higher Self, Niles, IL: Nightingale

Conant, 1992. To improve awareness we need to diminish

the Ego, or better yet, develop the awareness of our higher

self. This program can help.

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Dossey, Larry, The Power of Prayer, Niles, IL: Nightingale

Conant, 1994.

Our thoughts have power. This program is a provocative

study of scientific experiments on the power of our

thoughts.

Dyer, Wayne, Freedom Through Higher Awareness, Niles,

IL: Nightingale Conant, 1994. Transcend the Ego and we

improve our awareness and our power. With more power

we have more freedom to choose our actions. This program

is a must.

Levey, Joel & Michelle, The Focused Mind State, Niles, IL:

Nightingale Conant, 1993. Based on the Trojan Warrior Pro-

ject for the U.S. Army, this program addresses the need to

have a focused mind and how to develop it.

Lewis, Dennis, Breathing as a Metaphor for Living,

Boulder, CO: Sounds True, 1998. How you breathe gives in-

sights into how you live life or how you climb. This program

is a powerful guide to better breathing and awareness.

Pulos, Lee, The Power of Visualization, Niles, IL: Nightin-

gale Conant, 1993. Visualization is an important tool for

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developing mental skills. This program goes into the details

of this process.

Viscott, David, Taking Risks, Niles, IL: Nightingale Conant,

1991. Understanding fear and the need to take risks devel-

ops our mental skills. This program addresses these issues

and more.

Walther, George, Power Talking Skills, Boulder, CO: Career

Track, 1991. How we speak to others and ourselves determ-

ines the actions we take. This program helps develop a more

deliberate way of communicating.

Weil, Andrew, Breathing, Boulder, CO: Sounds True, 1999.

This program covers important background information on

breathing and gives specific exercises that can help improve

the quality of our breath.

Wolinsky, Stephen, Waking from the Trance, Boulder, CO:

Sounds True, 2002. One of the most important tasks for a

warrior is becoming more aware. This program addresses

how we are socialized into a trance and helps us to wake

from that trance.

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About the Author

Arno Ilgner was introduced to climbing in1973 and has been actively involved sincethen, climbing in areas across the US andCanada, and in France and Korea. Some ofhis significant first ascents include the 1100--foot east face of Cloud Peak in the Big HornMountains of Wyoming, the team free ascentof Glass Menagerie on the north face ofLooking Glass Rock in North Carolina, andnumerous headwall routes on WhitesidesMountain, also in North Carolina.

Arno has developed his Rock Warrior’sWay mental training method over the courseof ten years, working with hundreds of stu-dents. He also teaches courses on movementthat help climbers improve their balance andcreate more energy-efficient performances.He lives with his family in Tennessee andconducts courses mainly in the Southeast,but also travels to other areas of the countryto teach clinics and make presentations.Climbers have attended his courses from as

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far away as Canada, California, Florida, andNew York. Recently he has been workingwith young competition climbers.

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