My friends (who don’t have a dog) keep telling me about Cesar Millan, the “Dog Whisperer,” and how cool his show is to watch. One of the elements he teaches, I guess (I’ve never seen the show, so I’m just taking their word for it), is exuding calm, assertive energy. I like this—so much so, in fact, that it’s become a new mantra for me to repeat before I step onto my project. I say aloud, with a giggle, “Calm, assertive energy,” and off I go. But even though it seems silly, it helps for real. Because the biggest issue I have with this route right now is believing in myself and believing that I can do “the move,” instead of stepping into it with hesitation and trepidation in my heart.

In fact, I think lack of belief in myself continues to be one of the biggest issues that hurts me in climbing. My confidence remains shaky and uncertain about half of the time, despite outward appearances to the contrary. I work on this, strive to believe and make decisive movements and decisions, but I do still struggle to always manifest the self-assurance that I wish I had continuously. I’m not sure where this comes from, this self-doubt and lack of faith in my body’s ability to do what my mind wants it to do, and I know that not believing in my body sabotages my performance at times.

Baby steps, though, and not being frustrated or impatient, are the keys to correcting this weakness. I have faith that I will persevere eventually and develop the full confidence I want to have. And already, I’ve made progress, by expanding my mental space to allow for every day of climbing to unfold as it will, whether I send a route or don’t. At long last, I really do understand and embrace the idea of, “Focus on the process, the results will come in time,” a mantra from Thinking Body, Dancing Mind, by Chungliang Al-Huang and Jerry Lynch. It really is all about the process, and I am, finally, beyond okay with that—I embrace it as the reality of my climbing world.

After that insane heat wave last week, it’s only supposed to be 60 degrees or so today—crazy. Yesterday was perfect, cooler temps, and I enjoyed two-hanging my project twice. Progress! It’s always amazing to me how much harder a route feels when you actually start stringing huge portions of it together. I felt totally exhausted after this effort, to the point that when I lowered down after my third burn (second true burn, since the first burn was my usual flail-fest warm-up burn) to try “the move” over and over again, hoping to drill it in, I instead discovered that I could no longer even lift up my left leg to high step. The route is full of wicked left-leg high steps and press outs, and my leg was simply done.

I had a great revelation/mental transition yesterday, though. I suddenly thought, “Now, why have I put myself down for making an effort to get so good at this one style of climbing? What’s wrong with that?” And it really didn’t make any sense, when I thought about it. Lots of people get really accomplished at a particular style. Just because the style that I’m best at isn’t the trendiest or most popular style, or one that even exists in many places, doesn’t mean that it’s invalid or silly.

In fact, I realized, I should embrace the heinous and difficult crimpy technical face climb everywhere I go, if there’s one available, while still enjoying my education on the steeper stuff. It doesn’t change my goals or desires, but rather, puts me mentally in a more self-accepting state of being. And why shouldn’t it? If that’s my area of particular climbing talent, so be it. I’ll probably always be best at this sort of obscure, tweaky, painful style, because it comes naturally to me in a way that other styles don’t.

Freedom. More freedom, with every little leap forward. I found myself feeling uplifted and excited, knowing that I now have permission from within to climb on such terrain when it exists…it’s almost like a separate activity for me when I climb on this stuff, since it’s so familiar and engrained when compared to the steeper angles and bigger holds. I love it, and I’ll look for it, but this revelation will also help me have more fun flailing on the more normal climbing terrain, for some reason. Because I won’t expect the same results, and I’ll understand better that I’m just learning, the way that almost everyone else who comes here is just learning my obscure favorite style of climbing. Having no expectations makes for happier climbing days, always.

Ah, The Dhammapada, dancing through my mind every morning like a refreshing breeze of sanity and strength. I first read this translation by Glenn Wallis at the Red River Gorge last fall, and then decided to revisit it again now. Here, now, it feels even more refreshing and applicable, as my mind resonates with the simple messages of ancient yet still pertinent truths contained in these verses first taught by the Buddha so many eons ago. Who can argue with: “Look not at the faults of others/nor at what they leave undone/but only at your own deeds/and deeds unachieved.”? Or “A rock of single solid mass/cannot be moved by the wind/so are the skilled unshaken/by praise and blame.”?

I found myself contemplating the latter verse last night, without provocation from reading the verses—it came into my mind on its own, recalled from a previous day’s reading, after my day of mostly thwarted climbing, like a little arrow piercing my psyche, trying to capture my attention for analysis. I find self progression fascinating, especially when it coincides with some outside, external source of information and wisdom like this. What I realized was that it was unimportant to me that any praise be heaped upon me for achieving anything that I’m trying to climb at the moment, because my desire to climb this route (any route) comes from within, and I know when I’m making progress or doing well or making gains (or the opposite). Likewise, if people think what I’m climbing is silly, that’s fine, too. Either way.

Not that it matters if folks praise me or not; if they do, that’s fine, but I don’t need it, nor does it change or alter my internal experience as a being any longer. Because I know what I’m doing and what I am and why I’m doing it. And it is not about impressing other people or wanting or needing recognition…it’s about accomplishing a personal goal and pushing my own being to its limits as a whole being. It’s a freedom, a letting go, a knowledge that what I do on the rock stems solely from my own desire to achieve for my own sake, to prove to myself that I can do something, to push my own body to its limits.

The thing is, I’m realizing, that I’ve become really detached from outcomes and external stuff in climbing, both having to do with me and with others. I’m happy for other people when they achieve their goals, but then again, I don’t put much stake in numbers on climbs anymore, because if the climb isn’t a challenge for a person, the number has no meaning to me. But if it’s a 5.9, and it challenges a person’s limits, that’s impressive to me. Because climbing is all about personal challenges, and climbing hard grades means nothing unless they are challenging to a particular individual.

The other curious thing about yesterday stemmed from the decision I made to stop climbing and go home early. It was hot and humid and my skin was so fragile that I was scared to climb on the little holds, though I did manage to put in a half-pitch effort and perhaps sort out a little more beta. Then, this storm moved in, alternating between rain and thunder and lightning, none of which are conducive to climbing. I already felt tired and lethargic from the days of heat (and maybe from mowing the lawn in the middle of the day on Monday, which was probably a silly decision). After the storm finally disappeared, about two hours later, I tried to get on my project, but I almost instantly decided to just bail—it felt slick as snot and still hot to me, plus my skin just protested.

There was a time when I would’ve forced the issue and insisted to my tired body and weak skin that I continue to climb, but I instead called it off. I could feel that I was exhausted, just from nights of not enough sleep—I notice that tears are much closer to the surface when I’m tired, like a little kid who cries because she hasn’t had her nap. But knowing that this is what’s going on allows for so much more control and inner strength for me—logical me can say to emotional me, “Hey, you feel like crying because you’re simply just exhausted, and you should go home and go to bed early and get a good night of sleep. You’ll feel better in the morning.”

And so, that’s exactly what I did—I put myself to bed at 9:30, and got up at 8 this morning. And, I do feel better. Of course.

Sticking the Crux of my Project (photo by Dan Moncur)

I woke up feeling antsy and ready to climb, having had basically three days off, so long as you don’t count my first “day off,” on which I hiked up to the crag and climbed two pitches of 5.10. In any case, I couldn’t seem to focus on writing work at all, knowing that the weather forecast called for rather cooler temps—only 80 in town—which means that I’d be walking the fine line between wanting sun and shade up at the crag, where it’s about 15 degrees cooler. Having made plans with a couple camping up there, I decided to drive up and try to find them early.

No motion was detectable in their van, so I drove down to hang with some other friends camped just down the road for a bit. I passed the van on the flip side, and still, they weren’t up…at this point, it was about 10:30. So I decided to go and check the creek crossing for some of the higher crags, only to discover that not only is the creek way too high and violent to contemplate this yet, but also, the logs that used to form the makeshift bridge have washed away. Hmm. Something will have to be done about this once the water goes down.

Back at the parking lot, I caught a couple of kids from Cody just heading up to the crags and summarily invited myself to climb with them until my partners showed up. This actually worked out perfectly; I got all warmed up just in time for my partners’ arrival at the planned start time. I had my daily warm-up burn on the project, feeling stronger than ever, and before I knew it, it was truth time—time for my first redpoint burn of the day.

I climbed up through the crux, my fingers a bit chilled, causing me to yell with effort on a few moves. Rested up on the one good jug rest, and then headed up the arête, feeling strong and warm now. Got up to the final rest before my falling point on the previous three days, feeling stronger than ever. Shook out there, and then moved on. I focused on really closing the crimp grip on the two critical holds, and easily pulled through to my previous high point. Shook briefly again there, and then pulled up beyond it, to the pinch above. Grabbed the pocket, and for some reason took the time to clip the draw I’d planned on blowing off clipping, then continued, cranking my left foot up almost to my face, and rocking up to grab the pocket that indicated the “no-fall” point on the route.

Then, it happened again.

“F#$* you, you motherf#(@er!” I shouted. “I own YOU now. Woo-hoo!”

What the heck? This is some strange and seemingly primal psychological response I have been having more and more regularly after sending a hard climb, to curse the climb as if it were a living foe I’ve been fighting and have finally vanquished. I instantly burst out laughing after my outburst, of course, because that sh#$ is funny, even if it’s you. I felt flooded with that insane release of tension, that expansive consciousness that comes with success like this, when the mind, so pushed into one track, is suddenly released from that focus and open to all new possibilities yet again.

After this, I belayed my partner and watched a young kid from Cody systematically onsight two 12ds, a portent of things yet to come from him, as he’s just starting route climbing and hasn’t spent much time on a rope. He’s a living example of why having a high power threshold defeats all other causes in climbing—he just has so much power to burn that none of the moves on routes of this grade are even really pushing him into using that power, so he doesn’t get pumped out. And even if he’s not reading sequences perfectly yet or climbing technically correctly every time, his power overrides those areas, allowing him to “get away” with more movement errors and still succeed. Pretty cool to see, and I look forward to watching him flourish as a roped climber as well as a double-digit boulderer.

I then returned home last night to contemplate today’s adventures, feeling much more mentally calm and joyous than I have been. I want to retain this open-minded feeling of freedom and bliss no matter whether I’ve just sent a route or not, though. I don’t think it’s necessary to have an external performance influence my mental state so positively; I think it’s possible that I could feel this expansive and free all of the time, if I can only capture and cultivate the sensation, fostering it along with a sense of detachment from performance.

Today, I start the process yet again, on a route I’ve been on before and one-hung last year, wanting to return to it and defeat a move that’s been a thorn in my side for four years now. I’ve sent two routes that include this move, and now, this is the final one (link-up city, yes). The point of this endeavor for me isn’t the grade, though. It’s dominating and crushing a move that’s crushed me repeatedly. I’d be satisfied with hitting it one in five or even one in 10 times, instead of one in 20 or 30. Plus, the top bit of this route features insanely good climbing that I can’t access from the straight-up version, since that boulder problem start is way beyond me at the moment (maybe forever). Onward!