Right Movement

I imagine over time a climber develops an intimate relationship with her body. Much in the same way a yogi or gymnast would.  There are a multitude of different positions she needs to assume to ascend.  The creative use of hands, from stacking fingers to generate pulling power to jamming your first into a crack and camming your wrist for stability.  We learn that fingertips and toetips are enough to finish.  In that way the holds that seem so small to the untrained eye seem much more enormous to a climber.  

I am not a high level climber by any means.  But I spend alot of time in the gym and outdoors watching how other climbers move.  Movement in climbing takes me back to some of my own spiritual practices.  In Buddhism, there is a teaching calling the Eightfold Path.  It includes some guidance on how we should conduct ourselves in life.  From Right Speech to Right Intention, it goes on.  When it comes to climbing you can add Right Movement. 

Right Movement is providing precisely the movement that is needed in that moment to achieve success.  No more, no less.  Some of climbers we see on television are masters of providing just enough.  Elite climbers have an acute body knowledge of momentum and how much to apply.  Momentum is key when we think of Right Movement because it’s the dynamic properties of climbing that separate beginners from the next level. 

In the gym I often see women and men of slight build find greater success in finding the right movement.  In general, men possess strength and the ability to generate more power than women.  This results in the old adage:  if you got it, use it.  This can result in expending more energy than is necessary to complete your movements.  Sure you may complete the route, but you didn’t do it with Right Movement.  I guess it’s just another way to talk about efficiency.

Within Right Movement lives The Zone.  You know the one.  Where everything flows.  Where things come easy.  Every movement on your climb is there for you.  Your body positioning is impeccable.  Almost as if, in those rare moments, you are completely wired to succeed. 

It’s not to say Right Movement will lead you down that path with consistency.  But it’s something to think about.  Not too much, not too little.  The Middle Way of climbing.  There’s a certain beauty that comes with quality, efficient movement.  An awareness of your terrain.  Understanding that you know what this route needs and you give it.  I see climbers overpower routes all the time and watching them climb it looks exactly like that.  A fight.  A struggle.  Right Movement is a dance not a fight.  It flows like water.  It being you.

No Mind

 

 

“In Zen terminology, “mindlessness” does not mean insensitivity or ignorance.  It means that the mind is stable and does not get stirred up by the situations and circumstances one encounters; it means the mind does not grasp anything, it is clear in all situations, unimpeded and undefiled, not dwelling on anything, even nondefilement.”

– Classics of Buddhism and Zen

I will confess to not fully understanding many of the concepts of Zen.  The ‘no mind’ is a somewhat absurd idea to many in the western world.  Much of what we believe has it’s foundation in the Aristotlian realm of the scientific method and the analysis of the substantial.

Our prejudice has colored much of how we approach the unknowable and the unnameable.  Our ability to talk about it, to analyze it, to see it, feel it, and touch it is part of what makes it real to us.  Training the western mind to not grasp, to not analyze, and to not think is counter to everything we have learned.

Yet, if you spend a little time with this idea you come around to understanding it’s primary point.  You and I wouldn’t have even started climbing if, on some level, we hadn’t acknowledged one of the principle things it provides us.  Climbing allows us to slice away preoccupation, compulsive thought, and overanalysis of all the minute details and stresses of our daily lives.

In my experience, when I climb I have an efficiency of thought.  The only things passing through my mind are the things that should.  What is occurring right here, in the now?  I am behaving instinctively, like an animal.  A human animal.  When I am climbing GOOD, I am not investing myself in any result.  I’m  not overanalyzing my pro placements.  I’m not overly concerned about falling.  The power that thinking has over each minute and second is dwindling and the power of my feeling is receding to the background.

It is as if thought is merely serving it’s purpose and isn’t an entity in itself.  It is not there.  You are not there.  The only thing that seems to exist is THE PROCESS and your job is to simply stay out of it’s way.

The legendary Zen master Takuan Sōhō said:

The mind must always be in the state of ‘flowing,’ for when it stops anywhere that means the flow is interrupted and it is this interruption that is injurious to the well-being of the mind. In the case of the swordsman, it means death. When the swordsman stands against his opponent, he is not to think of the opponent, nor of himself, nor of his enemy’s sword movements. He just stands there with his sword which, forgetful of all technique, is ready only to follow the dictates of the subconscious. The man has effaced himself as the wielder of the sword. When he strikes, it is not the man but the sword in the hand of the man’s subconscious that strikes.

Unless you train your mind then this process will only happen randomly.  You will marvel over that day you had at the crags where you were almost skywalking up every route and it all came so damn easy.  You will even try to think of what things happened that day that led to this peak climbing experience.  You may even try to recreate those circumstances in the hopes that you will strike ‘climbing gold’ again.  This is the western way of thinking.

But if you are open minded and your complete devotion is to doing anything that will make you a better climber, then you have to be ruthless.  Dispose of anything and everything which is not helping you evolve.  Mete out old ways of coping that may have helped you when you were a child, but have no place in today.  For many of us, it’s ego-reduction.

I used to defend all of the excessive time I spent mulling over pro placements because of my ‘attention to detail’.  But it was an argument based on fear.  Truthfully my pro placements only got worse the more time I fiddled and adjusted them.  I was holding onto the limited.

There are a million ways to defend our way of grasping to mind.  We HAVE to think about quality pro placements.  We HAVE to judge our risk factor.  We HAVE to be thinking creatures to ensure we climb safely and responsible.

You’ll be surprised how many of those things are accomplished without even thinking.  With no mind.

The Road To Zen

It’s funny where your mind goes to after a full day of nice, hard climbing.  For 12 hours straight I had that intense focus that you need whenever you are doing something that requires everything from you.  Thousands of thoughts hit me as I led, followed, belayed, and rappelled, always making sure I was staying within my abilities.

It takes alot out of you.  I got home last night and couldn’t focus on much of anything.  Sore and tired,  I sat down on the couch and just completely zoned into outer space.

I knew the weekend was a good one.  It was one of the few times I had the pleasure of climbing with a guy who climbs a few grades harder than myself.  This is not to say I climb hard stuff, just that I don’t climb with alot of people who climb harder stuff.

It was the first time I had climbed multipitch with Jim, the aforementioned hard climber.  Along with us was Seton.  I had never climbed with him before but heard good things.  Essentially a whole new crew climbing together for the first time.

We went near the town of Darrington to a place called 3 O’Clock Rock.  I chose this place because I needed to work on my slab technique and 3 O’Clock is known for quality multipitch slab routes.

There’s alot of reasons to hate slab climbing.  First and foremost, if you slip, you’re legs and arms are getting scraped to hell.  Second, there’s usually nothing for your hands to grab onto.  Third, you feel like an awkward duck.

It’s all foot technique.  It’s all a matter of placing the feet on the rock precisely, shifting your balance in a controlled manner, and keeping the weight above your feet.  Slab isn’t normally what climbers enjoy.  So that’s why we HAVE to train it.

We pull up to the trailhead in our car.  I ask “what shall we start on first?” clearly assuming we would do a nice warmup cush route.  Jim comes back, “How about the easy one?  Silent Running!”  Ah no warmup today, Silent Running it is.

It was a great 5.10a/b slab route heading straight up the steep, sun-drenched face of 3 O’Clock Rock.  Climbing is always much slower with three people, but we handled it well.  Jim was always quick to lead the harder pitches, which brought a certain confidence to our day.  I didn’t want to take complete advantage however, so I led a couple of 5.8+ routes.

On my second lead, I found myself having to make a couple of hard moves.  I stepped up, tried to figure out the sequence, stepped back down again.  Did this till I felt like a gerbil running in a hamster wheel.  Voices tarted fluttering into my head, all the self doubt.  Jim yelled up some wisecrack about the stupidity of thinking when you’re climbing.  Fuck it!  Up I went, 5 feet above my last piece of pro, 10 feet, 15 feet…pheww, I made it to the next bolt and clipped in.  Then I backhanded the streaming sweat from my forehead.

Jim led the bold optional 7th pitch.  It is a 5.10a/b mixture of steep slab and tricky overhangs that you have to step over and onto.  Jim grunted upward and whistled a few bars of a Stevie Wonder tune as he reached the anchor.

I’m always trying to learn some new things from other climbers.  From Jim, I think I learned that I need to talk to the rock more while i’m climbing.  Jim implored the rock with “wheres the hold at?!” numerous times.  I think this form of self talk is actually quite useful.  It kept him focused on what he needed to do to continue upward on those hard stretches.

I had the chance to show Seton the simul-rappel.  It was his first time, but I think I convinced him of it’s time-saving advantage when you are able to rappel down bomber anchors.  He offered the ‘lower-down’ method as an alternative to rappeling down.  It is a good option when there is alot of vegetation and features below you which could snag your rope and make a general mess of a normal rappel.

We rappeled down and surmised we had a few extra hours to do a route to the left of Silent Running called Total Soul (5.10b).  It had two difficult, bolted 10b pitches toward the top and was the only route that leads all the way to the summit.  We didn’t have enough time to do the entire route, but wanted to do the first few pitches before packing the day in.

The first two pitches were short according to the TOPO and Jim thought he could combine them with a 60 meter rope.  It turns out he came up short.  As Seton belayed, we saw the rope dwindle to nothing as Jim reached, interesting enough, the crux of the pitch.  I yelled up for him to put his personal anchor into the nearest bolt as Seton took him off belay and prepared to simulclimb up to a higher point.

Since we had two ropes I put Seton on belay from below.  Simulclimbing commenced and I was happy to see Seton get to the first bolt and clip in quickly.  A follower falling on a simulclimb can spell disaster for the lead up above.  Soon it was my turn to climb.  The first pitch of Total Soul was really fun!  A little dirty at the bottom, but very interesting and varied up above.  In a sea of slab rock, I actually found some decent holds for my hands.

We soon found ourselves climbing the 5.9+ third pitch of Total Soul.  It had a couple of runout bolts on it, and crack spaces here and there to place a couple pieces of pro.  It was exciting!  Not a pitch I was prepared to lead, so Jim did the honors.  It followed up a prominent white dyke which provided many useful foot or hand options to augment the steep slab features.

I think we came out quite lucky.  How often do you end your climbing day with the best pitch of climbing?  Not always, but that’s how our day ended.  The third pitch of Total Soul.  Go out there and try it, but bring a confident 5.9/10a leader with you.

On the drive home, I could feel my mind calm with an exhausted, exhilaration from the hard day.  I couldn’t differentiate one pitch from the next in my head.  The entire day just melded together into a series of moves, a series of questions I asked myself.  “Are you going to make this next move?”  Yes.  Hundreds of times I asked this question.  In all the little moments of doubt it came to me.  Each time I answered it.

A wave of deep satisfaction came over me as I sunk into passenger seat and fell asleep on the ride home.  I woke up to Nine Inch Nails on the radio, Jim’s attempt at keeping himself awake for the drive home.  Seton sat in the back seat staring off into the sunset.

We didn’t talk much the rest of the way.  I guess we didn’t need to.  We made our statement out there on the rock.  Now we were all Zen.

Fulfilling A Dream of Arches

This picture with a red line on it might not mean much to you. For me, it’s the culmination of a summer of training and years of dreaming. I’m going to climb it in October. It’s called the Royal Arches route. It’s in Yosemite Valley. I remember the first time I went to Yosemite , with it’s immense granite walls and domes. I looked for this route because a friend mentioned it to me. The base of it sits right below the Old Inn.

I went back to Yosemite last year. A frend and I hiked to the base of the Royal Arches. I looked up at it, I just wanted to go up it

The Route (5.7 A0)

NOW! I even almost talked my friend into climbing the first few hundred feet of it. But I knew if I did that I wouldn’t want to turn back. I would want to go all the way.

So I guess it’s lucky I didn’t even start it. I’m a firm believer that when you truly make a choice, a decision to commit yourself to something, you go all the way. I tell you, I have made alot of so-called decisions in life and I didn’t go all the way. I guess in some sense they weren’t really decisions because I wasn’t really committed.

I have been climbing alot. Been away from home and my beautiful wife more than I would like to. I’m just glad she understands what something as seemingly meaningless as climbing up a rock wall can mean to somebody. It is meaningless. It’s how the climbing makes me feel. Those beautiful moments which can stretch from seconds to minutes to hours if we are lucky. Those moments of pure, crystalline peace with oneself.

Sometimes it seems as if my life is ruled by short term rewards. There is no satisfaction that is quite the same as building yourself slowly up until you reach a point in life where you feel deep inside that I am worthy of this. It takes alot of work, persistence, and self-insight to get there.

I have a few more months until I get to reach for the opportunity that I have worked diligently to get. I never meant to get all sentimental. I just pulled out this picture, started painting the red line you see right up the granite face, and thought to myself how lucky I really am to have a goal in sight like this.

I believe I can do it. I can’t wait to try.